I am finished with my position at the State of Minnesota. I was there for a one year contract that turned into three. It was a good run, but time. When you are on a location for three years, you can make a lot of friends. I made no enemies. I will miss some of the people there. It took a long time to walk around and say good bye to everyone. I left almost two hours later than I had planned.

It was a good contract. I had pretty good flexibility to look after sick kids, and got 3 years of solid swing experience as well as struts2, mentoring, and teaching 13 lessons in the classroom. See the “Intro to Java” tutorials.

July 1, Canada Day by the way, is the start of a new adventure. Yea in the title is not “Yea, you heard right I’m unemployed and bummed about it.” It is more of a “YEA! WHOO HOO! I’m Unemployed.” I know alot of people are pretty bummed and paniced about being out of work, but I am not right now. The plan is to hang out with the kids this summer, and find work in the fall when Kate starts kindergarten.

There was a time when people were very defined by their jobs. Er… wait, we still are in that time. I really have too much I want to do to be working. I am lucky to have this time without panic because I thought ahead. Three years ago I started putting more money into an account than I “paid” myself monthy in salary. It was specificly to cover times when I didn’t have a contract. Right now, it seemed like a good oportunity to take advantage of this.

Before today, I felt like I had at least two jobs. One I got paid for (Computer Consulting), and one I am trying to get the skills and experience at (photography). And as any Father knows, playing with kids, and maintaining a house also consume a great deal of time and energy. I have no intention of sitting at home watching TV. I still have more things to get done than I have time for, but now I get to choose. It feels great. I will blog tomorrow about what the plans are (photography and otherwise), and explore what unemployed really means.

PS. Happy Canada Day