Networking helps.

The new job doesn't have paid vacation for the first six months, and we were pretty strapped while she was unemployed, so our summer vacation was the ice cream bar vacation, we'd buy Magnum ice cream bars and pretend we were on a vacation.

It was a rough summer, not just unemployment. Our short haired female cat had food security issues and was plumping out, we changed her food, she didn't like it and decided to starve herself to death in a fit of pique.

Feline hepatic lipidosis, look it up.

Of course, sometimes surgically implanting a feeding tube helps, and Rochester does have a few vet hospitals that will gladly take your money.

In this case it didn't, it only prolonged her pique. We got a call late one night that she wasn't doing well. We hurried to the hospital, she was bleeding out, and it was a race between death from bleeding out or euthenasia. In the end, one less cat, and one whopper of a vet bill. Tinkerbelle was probably my second favorite cat, next to Merlin.

In other cat news, the long haired female had dental surgery in the beginning of the year, the male just had dental surgery. We've financed enough in cat medical bills to buy a small, new motorcycle. Most of them are paid off, at least.

It's a good thing Mrs. Ha likes her new job, and is getting okay money. We have those cat bills to pay, and there's a chance she might stick out this job until she's in a her 60's. I would be okay with her putting ten+ years into a job.

The rest of the family is good, fifteen_year_old has been to a few more cons, twenty_year_old finally got an A in college. She's still taking three courses a semester, and passing most of them.

It was an awful hot summer, and my plans to repaint the garage did not come through. I got a side primed, but that was all I could do.

Work travel was much less this year, though. A trip in January to Massachusetts, and the recent trip to Florida. Compared to traveling a quarter of my time in 2015, it's nice.