The results are in! Out little Brittany won a one year contract with the Atlanta Film and Fashion Board for being "Best Child Talent" during the talent search finals. And we've got the DVD of the entire show for your viewing pleasure. Congratulations to Brittany. And now that she's got her own modeling career started, I'll be setting up her very own blog sometime very soon. Stay posted for the address.

We just got back from Brittany's modeling finals. There was a photo shoot, a talent show, and a fashion show. We got video of the latter two, and I've got it up on Google Video. Everything went great except Brittany forgot her dance routine. :) Here's the video:

What a weekend! Or should I say, what an expensive weekend!

For starters, there was the party. It wasn't as big as last year's party, but there was still plenty of booze, and way too much BBQ. If you couldn't make it this year, maybe you can make it to the next one. We'll try to announce it a little more in advance this time. Don't yet know when it will be, because we're trying to get to Panama for Christmas this year. But if we're here, we'll probably host another New Year's party. If it's anything like last year, it should be a good time for all.

After spending Sunday recovering from the party, we spent Sunday shopping for outfits for Brittany's modeling finals next Sunday. We found most of what we needed, but there's more shopping coming this week.

That brings me to the most exiting news of the weekend. WE WON THE LOTTERY! Now before all my long lost cousins and new best friends start climbing out of the woodwork, it wasn't the jackpot. But we did win $300. Not even enough to pay for all the clothes we bought, but at least it paid for the party.

I've written enough now. My stylus hand is starting to cramp up.

OUT

Here I sit on the bus for the second time in as many days. For those of you who haven't yet heard, I've started a new contract. Well, I guess you could call it a contract. I got screwed into a W2 contract, which is almost as bad as a full time job. The taxes are every bit as high. The only saving grace is that I'm paid for the work I do, unlike those poor fools on salary stuck working 50, 60, or 80 hour weeks and not making a penny more than the slacker sitting next to them who makes no extra effort.

So the pay sucks, but the commute is worse. In order to arrive in time for my 8:30 daily status call, Brittany and I have to leave the house by 6:30, so that I can drop her off at school and still have time to drive 20 minutes to catch the bus at 7:00 to get to the train station by 8:00 to get to the office by 8:15. The return trip is just as bad.

So why am I putting myself through all of this? Two reasons. First, I need the money. My last gig had slowed to the point where I wasn't making enough to live on. Second, it'll look real good on my resume. I'm going to be doing performance analysis and capacity planning for a bank with 27000+ servers. It's huge! It's a great stepping stone on a career track towards becoming a Systems Architect large companies pay top dollar to have come in and plan a new system.

Anyway, my train is arriving, so off I go!

Brittany got the chance to audition for some modeling scouts. And she was chosen as a finalist! Here's the video of her audition.