Nice weekend to a rough week

I suppose the week could have been a lot worse, had I been one of the people getting laid off on Monday at my place of employment. I feel for all the people (about 250) who were let go at our site this week. Losing your job this close to the holidays has got to be rough. It is the economy that put the company in the position to lay people off. When you make microchips for stuff (cars, GPS, video games, cell phones, etc) and people aren't buying, we aren't making. I just hope that those laid off are able to find work soon, but in this economy the job market isn't looking the greatest. Since Intel left town, there really isn't much in the way of semiconductor manufacturing in town, either.
The situation at work made for a few distractions during the week. Last night all the photo engineers got together and went for our annual late lunch and "crawl" downtown. I think all of us needed the break from work stress to just relax, hang out, and partake in adult beverages. I left around 10pm - I think others were out much, much later! I had my last scheduled swim lesson today so I didn't want to drown. :-)
It was a cold week weather-wise, and only about 20 degrees today. Driving to Denver for the lesson I was hoping the water would be warm, as swimming isn't something that usually comes to mind when it is that cold out! The water was great and I had a good lesson. I still have quite a few things to work on (a lot of the same things from the other lessons) but I am getting better - that is evident on the video.
Later this afternoon Tim's parents arrived. They will hang out with us until Christmas, then I think we are all driving to South Dakota to visit Traci, Amanda and Tori. We've not visited them in Rapid City so it is time to head up there. Amanda's birthday is a few days after Christmas so we should finally be able to celebrate with her this year.