This afternoon I handed over a deposit cheque to a real estate agency for AU$30,000 -- looks like we're really buying our own apartment! Wow. I really am a grown up now, huh?

I just wanted to share this with everyone who sent letters and expressed support on the board while we were losing Alex. It'll be gone soon, but I'm saving a copy. Column about Alex.

I'm going to the CAB conference this weekend. Be back Sunday afternoon.

I sold my short story "The Yeti's Birthday Party" to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, the magazine edited by Kelly Link and her husband Gavin Grant. Woo-hoo!

I'm going to a convention in Las Vegas this upcoming Tuesday through Thursday, March 18-20th. Anyone interested for some chatting just drop me a line at my profile email...

I'll be going dark this week, as I'll be travelling to Chicago on a business trip. It sounds like we're going to have post-work meals and activities planned for us to the point that I won't have any free time for visiting area Buffistas, but maybe next time.

I'm going to skip the Buffistas until my mood improves-right now all I can think about is the utter criminal folly of the war we are embarking on (regardless of the military outcome) and that doesn't make me a very amusing cyber companion. I'll see you all again at some point.

I could use some jobma vibes right now. This needs some 'splaining: go back to 2000, and I was working in my firm's Melbourne office in their life insurance consulting practice. It's not a big office, doesn't see much variety in the work done, and - after all - it's life insurance. So I was bored, frustrated, and generally unhappy. That's when my current position, a two-to-three year posting to my firm's Asset Simulation Unit was advertised, and one tortuous, demoralising selection process later (during which I at one stage agreed to be posted to Europe or somewhere else in America when I finished) I got the job and we moved over here.

Now we've been here for approaching 27 months, and we're wondering what happens next. Certain recent events have convinced us that we just can't afford to be overseas for another three years. But of course, it's not that simple. What I've been doing here is investment stuff, not life insurance (which, BTW, I enjoy much more, and believe I'm better at it too - though I remain crap at actually picking investments), but my firm has a limited number of locations with a decent asset consulting practice. This does not include Australia. And even if it did, we've recently had two people return to Australia from our asset consulting practice in the US, and another one's coming home from London next year, so there still wouldn't be a position for me.

There would be a position for me in London, if not for the whole Not Australia issue. (If we were five years younger, this would be a much different story.) There could still be a position for me in Australia, but it would be back doing the same soul-sucking work that was driving me berko before we transferred here (and even then it's not certain). Finally, I could start looking for a job with a different firm. But right now (I'm told, by the recruitment firm I contacted) the jobs market in financial services is at its lowest for six years, so the odds on finding a suitable job in investment modelling are slim. Applying from a different continent just makes it that much more difficult too. (Plus, if I leave the firm before the end of this year, I'm up for part of our moving costs, and I'll also lose all my long service leave.)

All looking bleak. Pretty much resigned myself to hooking back up to the soulsuck. But there may be another option on the cards: there's this Australian firm that sells software for actuarial modelling. It's been doing very well over the last few years - they've expanded to open offices in the US and UK, and have picked up a number of big-name clients.

So my firm bought them. Suddenly a new option opens up. What I'm doing here is not, in parts, that different from what they're doing. (In fact, their product has an add-on that is supposed to address the same problems that the software I'm looking after does, though ours is more sophisticated of course.) And then there's the actuarial bit too. It has it all - I'd use my actuarial experience, investment experience, and financial software modelling experience. It's a growing firm too. And though it would still, strictly, be a different firm, it's part of the same economic interest, which will make a lot of the negotiations and administrative details surrounding the move back so much easier to work with. Plus, it will actually be using my experience here in such a way as to benefit my employer, who after all did pay to get me over here. (The fact that I was going back on my undertaking to go elsewhere doesn't sit well with me.)

First, however, they have to offer me a position. They've been in touch and I sent them my resume on Friday. I'm hopeful; I really do have a lot of relevant experience, they'll have plenty of time to work out the staffing details and the connection between my firm and them can only help. But I would appreciate any jobma vibes people would care o toss out there.

PS: there's one part of this opportunity that I find less than ideal; it would not be in Melbourne, but in Sydney. Oh, the hardship.

the freedom fries song

words daniel music my DH