A New Life: 5/10/2009

I hope that everyone is doing OK. Still no new medical news for Nikki, but there has been some other things going on recently. In early April, Nikki was car-jacked by a young “man” that she had known for several weeks. She was taking this guy somewhere, when he suddenly flipped out and started kicking and beating her windshield. When she intervened, he started beating her. She stopped the car and he drug her out, smacked her around, and then took the car, leaving her stranded in a poor neighborhood at 3am. She called the police right away, and they were there in seconds. They took Nikki & chased down her car… not too hard, since the drug-crazed dufus had hit a curb nearby and blown a tire. It took three officers and some strategically-applied force to get this guy into the police car. The police said he was obviously high on something. After wrecking her car, he flew into a rage and broke the driver’s window, kicked out the sunroof and smashed a headlight and the fender around it. Nikki was scraped and bruised, but otherwise OK. The piece of trash is still in jail & Nikki has promised to pursue any charges possible against him. In a tragedy of justice, it cost Nikki over $300 to get her car out of police impound… and she’s the victim! Plus, she has several hundred dollars of damage that she’ll have to pay for… it’s an older car, with only collision insurance coverage.

For myself, I was laid off in January by my employer of fifteen months. It’s my second layoff ever and the second in six years. As a senior-level manager, my type of job always takes a while to find. In this lousy business climate, it’s much, much worse. When I was laid off in 2003, I was vice president of a mid-sized technology company with a comfortable six-figure salary. Since then, the closest I’ve come to my income level back then is still 50% off. That put a real strain on our finances and led to a 2005 bankruptcy. This time around, it could well cost us our home. Oh, well, there are folks out there a lot worse off than I am.

So,,, no new surgeries for Nikki yet, but still plenty of pain to go around. And how has your spring been going? Stay tuned for more when I have it.