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WEDDED BLISS The Newsletter for Michael and Rochelle's Marriage Volume III, Number 7 -- April 10, 2001 Table of Contents: Michael Rains on Rochelle's Parade Death of a Dot.com What Michael And Rochelle Do All Day Dial M for Murder? Give Michael and Rochelle Career Advice! LA Birthday Party   Michael Rains on Rochelle's Parade! Rochelle took a two month leave of absence from work to do personal projects and to find a new job. She was really looking forward time off by herself. But then two weeks before her last day of work, Michael's dot.com went belly-up. As of Friday, March 2nd, we're both at home, together, 24/7, job free. This is not to say that we're in trouble, or unhappy. Just unemployed. While this does mean that you won't be seeing too many new photos of our extravagant dinners at expensive restaurants, we're working on a whole new photo series of all the fun you can have in San Francisco with no money!! "Squeeze Tex the Cat" is very entertaining -- just wait for the MPEG version with sound! Anyone within driving distance is welcome to invite us over for dinner, and everyone else is welcome to send us care packages of Top Ramen and Mac 'n Cheese. Or send us career advice instead; see below for details.   Death of a Dot.com Less than two weeks before it happened, we were told by our CEO that we had money to last through the end of March, and that additional funding was very likely. Life was good. Then the day before Valentine's Day we learned that things had changed, and the plug was being pulled. That was our last day of work, our last day as a business. We were invited to continue to come into the office, and use the resources available to us (computers, phones, Internet, printers, etc.), but most people stopped coming in that day. Many of us "old-timers" (I had been with the company 14 months, almost the entire life span of the business) continued to come in, to organize and save our work product, job hunt, etc. Still, the office felt like a ghost town. In retrospect, while it's not something I'd have wished for, this is not a completely bad thing. Once I got over the pain of being suddenly unemployed, it's actually been pretty interesting. And the time off is certainly relaxing! What comes next? Who knows. But Rochelle and I can actually pay our mortgage if we both work full time at a Starbucks (as long as one of us is a shift manager ;-), so I can afford time to look for something that fits.   What Michael And Rochelle Do All Day Together 24/7 -- Rochelle, Michael, Cecil, Billie, Basta and Tex, with cameo appearances by Five. It is amazing how quickly life slows down when you don't have to go to a job. Shopping for food and cooking take longer. Personal projects become a time vortex. With no time pressure, even taking a bath can take hours. One day runs into another and then all the sudden a week has gone by. You spend a lot more time petting cats and watching their antics. After a while you start talking to them; sometimes they talk back. We have started drifting to our own schedules -- Rochelle gets up early and has a productive morning, then Michael gets up and we do stuff together. Rochelle goes to bed early, and Michael stays up late and has his productive hours. In general, Rochelle is working on 1) finding a job, 2) her special Crap Reduction and Abatement Project (CRAP), 3) general household organization and improvement, and lots lots more... Michael has been doing a lot of nothing. Oh, there's the computer work, and the general cleaning and organizing. Some reading, and taking a programming class. But mostly a whole lot of nothing. [ At least, that's the way Rochelle categorizes watching all the NCAA basketball games that were on in the weeks after my company died. Every day at 4:00pm, up until the regular season ended, was Basketball Time. If the game wasn't exciting, a nap generally ensued. True bliss. And then it got even better. Two words: March Madness, baby! ] [ Basketball note: I won my office tournament pool with a bracket that was in the 95th percentile. Proud of it. Check it out here: http://tc.espn.go.com/cgi/tcmen/request.dll?ENTRY&EntryIDTo=260355 ] Actually, we both have extensive lists of projects we want to accomplish during our month off. Michael's is over 70 items long, and many of them are multi-day projects. Anyone want to guess what percentage get completed?   Dial M for Murder? Overheard in a recent conversation: R: "Now that you're unemployed, you're worth more to me dead than alive!" M: "Uh, actually, the life insurance through my company expired when it did." M: "But, now that you mention it, YOU are worth more to ME dead than alive." R: "Oops! I accidentally let my life insurance lapse." M: "Hmmm... I'm going to go clean some grease off the ladder..." R: "I'll move the new radio away from the bathtub..."   Give Michael and Rochelle Career Advice! We've both been taking our job searches fairly casually. While we're both working on finding eventual employment, neither of us wants to spoil our unexpected sabbatical with a frantic job search. For that reason, we've greatly appreciated all of the career advice we've gotten from friends so far. Here are the top ten suggestions: 10. Day laborer (Michael's favorite home project phrase is "Can't we pay someone to do this?" Now it'll be him.) 9. McDonald's (We hear all that grease keeps you looking young.) 8. Pet sitters (We do it for free, why not get paid? Hmmm, maybe we shouldn't be thinking along these lines...) 7. Truck driver (Michael gets free training from the Unemployment Office.) 6. Corporate stooge 5. Latte jerk at Starbucks (Shift supervisor starts at $10.50/hr, but we don't think we want the stress or responsibility.) 4. Contract plant killer (Rochelle is such a good amateur, maybe it's time for her to go pro.) 3. Young entrepreneur (Too much competition in our neighborhood, so we'd have to commute.) 2. Ivar's Dancing Clam Girl 1. Housewife (We're both fighting to get to be that.) All noble suggestions, just not necessarily geared toward paying a mortgage in SF. Take some time, be creative, and send us some good advice. You might just make our day! You may need to view our resumes to refine your advice, feel free to check out http://alderete.com/ and http://rochellemccune.com/.   LA Birthday Party Blah, blah, blah. This newsletter is long, late, and we're running out of steam. We took a trip to LA for a friend's birthday party at a Beverly Hills mansion. We also ate out. We took pictures. Party photos, food photos, etc. They're on the web site: http://www.michaelandrochelle.com/photos/chicago/viewer.html?TopicID=la2001 Rated PG, but only 'cause we're not posting half the photos. Everything you've ever heard about LA is true...