Waiting in Airport while MD left me on earlier flight.

Awful picture, but I am München right now with Mary Dawn.
She mistakenly booked me on a DIFFERNT flight from Frankfurt to München. So I had 2 hours to spend while wait. I played around with the internet kiosk and took this "wonderful" photo. :)

New Bridge in Front of the house were we got flooded out.

Because of the flood, that droves us from our miners' shack in Telluride, the town in putting a new bridge/covert.  The shack is on the left of the hole.

Here is the article in the Daily Planet.  

http://www.telluridenews.com/homepage/x1635426880

Durango Silverton Railway Crossword Puzzle , anyone?

Mary Dawn and I created this Durango Silverton Crossword puzzle for her family reunion. We are all going to ride the train together. There is a couple of family related questions, but for the most part it is generic. Email me if you want the answers.

So, it appears that I don't need to apply for a EIN for my new LLC that I am creating

So, in my transition, I am setting up a LLC. (name will be posted later this week). But since I am the only employee in the LLC. The following applies.

http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq-kw67.html

I recently formed a limited liability company (LLC). The LLC has no employees. Do I need a separate Federal Tax ID number for the LLC?
No, you will not need a separate Federal Tax ID number for the LLC if you are the sole owner of the LLC and the LLC has no employees. If you are the sole owner of the LLC and the LLC has employees, you will need to get a separate Federal Tax ID number, if you choose to have the LLC report and pay employment taxes with respect to employees of the LLC. If you are not the sole owner of the LLC, you will need a separate Federal Tax ID number for the LLC. See Notice 99-6, 1999-1 CB 321.

Not sure any one really cares about this, but you never know.  

I made the press. Article after interview with AP reporter

I was searching on the web for something else when I found an article by CATHERINE TSAI. AP Business Writer regarding my interview on filing for unemployment.

http://www.examiner.com/a-1539722~Colorado_unemployment_hits_5_2_percent_in_July.html

I was quoted by saying
"Telluride has appetizers that start at $10," he said. "The standard of living in Telluride is just expensive. That's the cost of paradise."

I did say that, but really appetizers start higher, that was price for a side salad. :)

One thing for sure, one needs to watch what one says, in an interview. Really did not want to make public my salary (or lack of), but that was Harris, for you.

My Birkman First Look Report Summary

So, part of the Severance package, is a one month services from www.right-from-home.com. I just finished a webinar on the Birkman First Look assessment. No great surprises here, but a few.
The following is my summary page.

HyperSpider : October of 2002 was the last update

I had not updated my contracting website www.hyperspider.com since October 2002. Now with the new transition, I decided that I would still use this business name, and I clean up some of the obvious stuff on the site.

Even after 6 years, it still looks decent, albeit a bit "old school". But straight hand coded HTML is like a old car. You don't need any fancy tools to fiddle with it.

Resume is now updated....

Yep, my resume is now updated.  Click here to download it in Word format.

Let the search begin.

Why I moved to Telluride in the first place.

I presented to Harris (formerly known as Encoda) back in May of 2004 a "Project Telluride" document, explaining why I wanted to work remote out of Telluride.

I ran across this document, and during this time of transition, it was interesting to reflect back on this time.

At the end of the document I state:

Bottom Line: I am a mountain man at heart, stuck in a computer programmer’s body and mind. “The call of the mountains”, has reached a point where it can no longer be ignored.

After 4+ years, this statement is still true.

Telluride 4th of July Parade Photos

Photos from the Telluride 4th of July Parade. I was the Alpen Schatz photographer. They got first place for there category in the parade.

Click here to open up in Flickr.

Unemployment += 1;

For the first time in my life, I filed for Unemployment. Interesting process. Snippet of the application below.

"I understand I must register for work and actively seek work in order to be paid on this claim, unless I am job attached or union attached. I understand I am required to keep a detailed record of my job contacts, including dates of contacts, names and addresses of employers, names and titles of persons contacted, phone numbers of employers contacted, type of work sought, how job contact was made, whether an application was taken, and the results of these contacts.(Your Unemployment Insurance Handbook includes a log for recording these job contacts.) I am aware that my work search contacts are subject to verification. I further understand I may be denied payment for any period for which I cannot provide this detailed record of my work search. NOTE: Colorado residents must make five contacts per week seeking work. Non-residents are required to make three contacts per week seeking work."

Hopefully, I don't have to be on this for long. But I guess the many decades of paying into Unemployment Insurance, I should be able to get back a little bit from it.

Song/Video from Tim McGraw about Telluride on YouTube

So, I was looking at some new technology called TimeTube

Which let me to this song by Tim McGraw about Telluride. Not bad (for Country)


I went ahead and bought it for 99 cents off of iTunes.

Subscribe To This Blog Via Email

So, I am finally putting on a email subscription to this blog. It is super easy to set up, all you need to do is sign up using the subscription entry box on the right (in the side bar). Or click Subscribe to Mike's Blog by Email

I subscribe to my friend Don blog at http://don-denver.blogspot.com/. Each post that he does goes directly into my inbox.

You can always unsubscribe from this service too.

Harris, Inc has downsize. I have been affected.

Ok, so the people that follow my twitter (on the right), have noticed that my company Harris, Inc has downsized.

I was told about this decision right after I got back from my Budapest trip. This did not come as too much of a surprise. We were told all teams were going to be affected. When I was requested to go out to Budapest, I suspected it was to train my self out of job. In the past, my performance at Harris, Inc. as sheltered me from such downsizings, however, the culture has changed regarding remote employees (which I was). To my knowledge most (if not all) of the remote employees got it.

People ask me, so now what? What are your plans? This is usually my response:

"Change is not always bad. The world is wide open now. It is kind of exciting, a bit scary, but a big part of me really does like new adventures."

So, this all went down on Monday. On Tuesday, I received all the paper work via overnight FedEx. Today, I sent my laptops and paperwork, and my expense report to Harris.

I have SOOOOOOO many projects, that I want to do. No rest for me.

Then off to Germany, later in the month with Mary Dawn. She is doing some buying for her store Alpen Schatz and doing research for her Alpen Tours. I will be her personal assistant.

Once I start a new job, I won't have any vacation, so need to get that out of the way AND it was paid for it from Harris.

Thanks to all, that have given me support.

Come back soon to this blog, lots of Budapest stuff to blog about and some of my new plans might start trickling out.

-Michael

ps. If you are looking for some .NET, Cocoa, Web work, send me an email. mmowery@hyperspider.com <- Shameless plug....