Tag: cat tree

Rise of the Samwise

A close-up of our cat Sam curled up on top of the cat tree

The internal medicine specialist called yesterday and said all of Sam’s test results looked fantastic, and since he is doing so well on the new fiber-laden food, the plan is to keep him on it and see if that continues. The little fellow’s energy levels never dipped too badly but he is on full song now, tearing into his favorite catnip toy with abandon. This picture of Sam atop the cat tree with catnip sprinkled around him is from October, shortly before his health issues started.

Brothers at the Window

Our cats Sam and Boo look out the window from the top of the cat tree

Sam and Boo sitting side-by-side atop the cat tree, watching out my office window. Taken with perhaps my favorite camera/lens combination ever, the Sony A6500 and the Sony-Zeiss 24mm. There isn’t much room between the edge of the cat tree and the wall, I’m standing with the camera held at Sam’s eye level, I tilted the screen so I could see the image and tapped to set the focus on the fur above his eye. Not a particularly slow shutter speed but I wasn’t in the stablest of camera positions so the image stabilization was appreciated. Really glad I picked up this camera in the spring, it has finally my solved my desire for a small walk-around camera.

21 Years

Our tortoiseshell cat Trixie sits at the top of the cat tree, framed by the arch behind her

After 21 years at the same company, the company I joined out of college, my luck ran out today and I got laid off. Not just me, but my entire engineering group. I’ve worked with some for most or even all of those 21 years, and we made a great team, so it was a heartbreaking day saying goodbye to such a good group of people. I had an inkling it was going to happen the night before when a meeting with the new management suddenly showed up on my calendar at 11:30 at night for the following morning. I was unable to sleep so eventually I apologized to Boo, curled up asleep in my lap, and got up and went downstairs and typed up a quick resume.

I haven’t written a resume in 21 years, but there was a position open in a different group that I thought I was a good fit for, so I brought my laptop to the meeting and the moment they announced we were all losing our jobs I uploaded the resume and applied for the new one. A handful of my friends are equally qualified and equally deserving, I hate that we’ll be in competition when we worked so well together for so long. My wife and I have plenty of savings and I have a decent amount of severance if I don’t get rehired, so I’m very fortunate to have some time to find a new job (although I desperately want to find one in the Portland metro area, it will break my heart if I have to leave).

I’m proud of the work we did, and all things considered even this bad news isn’t nearly as bad as what many people in the world face every day, day after day, and I’m very thankful for those 21 years and the team I got to work with. It’s been an emotional day, particularly since I got little sleep last night (I did end up getting an hour and a half after finishing my resume), goodbyes are never easy, and I’m physically and emotionally spent.

This picture of Trixie has nothing to do with today, but it makes me smile, and I need to smile. We were playing a game of string on a sunny afternoon a couple of weeks ago when I paused to take her picture, framed by the arch behind her, as she patiently waited for me to put down the camera and play with her once more.