March 2010 Pictures Posted

Hello everyone! March has been a whirlwind of activity for the Morgan family.

Haley and Savannah

On March 6, Haley celebrated her ninth birthday in 80′s style! We hosted an 80′s theme birthday party for Haley and her friends, complete with karaoke. All the participants seemed to have a good time–much to the dismay of her papa Larry, who enjoyed a migraine most of the day. The girls shouting through the karaoke machine did nothing to help his poor head. Larry was a great sport though and toughed it out. After a few liters of Coke, we think he was feeling better (the man can put away some Coke!).

Present Opening

The party consisted of about 12 kids, two of which were boys. The kids colored beach balls, sang karaoke, decorated their own ice cream sandwiches and cupcakes, and played outside on the swing set and trampoline. Looking back, it seemed to be a success. The kids brought nice gifts and Haley was quite pleased to be the center of attention.

Trampoline Fun

Spring volleyball started for Haley. Typically, we only have fall volleyball through the Brighton Recreation Center. Volleyball is something that Haley appears to be good at so we wanted to get her more practice than once per year. We signed her up at a recreation center in Commerce City (close to Brighton) that has the spring session available. What they didn’t tell us is that the registration fee did not include any games, so now we are having to pay additional money for each of the tournaments she will be in on Saturdays. Pissed, given our income situation. Oh well, we’re happy to have her involved. Brianna will start her Little Kickers soccer through the Brighton

Karaoke

Recreation Center in early April and she’s been hounding us about when she will get to start. Brianna is likely tired of going to all of her big sister’s events and wants to do some of her own now. Pretty soon, it will be interesting with both kids playing in several sports. Our only trepidation  is that we will likely have to split duties and Liz and I will not be able to watch every game for each girl. Nevertheless, we want to keep them both active in sports.

Haley Birthday Girl

The job situation is pretty much as miserable as NBC Nightly News suggests. This video talks about the unemployment rate dropping, yet another 20,000 workers have recently lost work. Yippee! That would include me now! You gotta love having employers requiring people to work longer, make less, and have the loss of their job hanging over their head daily. There are many complicated factors at work here. The recent closure of my company, Assurity Financial Services, has left a horrible taste in my mouth. Technology is something I have worked at for the last 15 years and really proved to be the basis of my success with Assurity. During my seven year reign as Director of IT, I migrated off the path of a hands on technology worker and into a management role with a professional staff of 11 that commanded over $1MM in annual salary. I handled budgets and contracts in excess of $500K. I grew the technology and internal work flows from a 13 person company to support and make profitable (at the time) a company that spanned the US with over 700 employees. Calvin Hamler and Vanessa Giacoman always had my back and treated me well. They allowed me to be successful and improve areas that needed improving. They took a chance on me and were not disappointed. Unfortunately, the mortgage industry bit the dust and Assurity was not exempt from the bubble bursting. I truly expected to retire with my friends Calvin and Vanessa–they have and will always be my favorite people. Since Assurity retired before I could, I am now left in a very strange area. My technology skills have waned over the last 3 years (in IT time, that’s like a few decades) due to the increased management responsibilities. While proving myself in management areas, I still lack considerable skills that new companies would be interested in (finance, accounting, high level project management, etc.) In addition to those specific skills, I have yet to attain any sort of formal degree at an accredited institution. The lack of this degree appears to be screening me out of a number of jobs I

Decorating Beach Balls

would otherwise be VERY qualified for. After some 65+ job openings I have applied for in the last 30 days and contacting everyone in my LinkedIn network, I have received not ONE call back. The only marginal interest I have received is from people I know who gave my information to some contracting agencies. The dilemma here is that these postions are only for contractor work–4 to 6 week gigs with no assurance of continued employment. Also, they would not yield our family enough to maintain the living style we have enjoyed over the past 7 years (even by downgrading a TON, this will not help the situation). So, it is very likely that we will move back to Fort Collins. Unless something major happens in the next four weeks, we will need to follow this route because we cannot live indefinitely where we’re at. We also need to retain SOME money in order to move and I will need to get everything ready for school. I don’t want to have June arrive and be in the same situation as we are today, nothing is planned, and we’re completely out of cash. We’ve been wanting to do this for a few years now because it is a much nicer place to live, closer to family, there are better schools for the girls, and has Colorado State University (where Ian is registered to attend summer courses in order to complete his bachelors in business). Liz is actively looking for work in Fort Collins and once a job is found making what we need, we will move “home” to begin again. This will be a trying time, but one that we feel is necessary for our family for several reasons. We are hoping to be like phoenix and rise from the ashes in a couple of years. It is sorely clear that a degree is a necessity in order to compete in today’s job competitive market and I am now realizing how much of an idiot I am for not listening to my parents when they told me to finish school 20 years ago. I figure I will be a pretty potent candidate with a bachelors/masters in business coupled with the accomplishments already achieved in my professional career. If I continue to wait on finishing my degree, I will likely be right back in this same positon in a few months so there is no time like the present to get started. Enough of this…on with the story…

Girls Karaoke

One of the real treats for the family this month was our trip to Cancun. Fortunately (depending on how you look at it),  we already had purchased this trip in January–long before knowing of the impending doom of Assurity. The trip was all inclusive so there was not much expense. In fact, we actually made out with $1,800 in free airfare to be used next spring break! You can read all about the trip by checking out the post we made about The Morgan Family’s Spring Break to Cancun 2010.

Casey, Nancy, and David

Well folks, that’s about it for March 2010! Some good, some not so good. Wish us luck on our future endeavors, as I’m sure April and May will be most interesting in our family’s saga.

Until then…Click here to view pictures.