This is what I get for writing about writing about hiking the other day. Now I can’t think of anything to blog about. Part of the problem will only make you chuckle if you’ve been in the waiting-for-the-shoe-to-drop world of working in high-tech. This week I learned that one of the three things will happen to me in the next three months:

  1. Best case scenario: 12 percent pay cut but I get to keep my job.
  2. Next-best-case scenario: I get to have a similar job with the same company at a 30 percent pay cut requiring a 60-mile commute (each way) and double the workload.
  3. Worst case scenario: Pink slip and whatever severance they can scrape together.

I know some of you have been through this a dozen times so I won’t ask for your pity (a little would be OK though.) I’m a little preoccupied with how I’m going to maintain my lavish Silicon Valley lifestyle minus those paychecks from the paper mill.

What’s been demotivating me the past couple days is a nagging suspicion that the time I should’ve spent finding a way to make a living when the paper mill millions (of pennies) vanish was consumed maintaining a hiking blog. The other side of the coin is that blogging helped me avoid panic while the ship was sinking.

The water’s coming over the rail now; the fact that some might make it to safety years hence is little consolation to those of us about to be swimming among icebergs.

Five summers ago I was out of shape and 35 pounds overweight. Hiking got me out of that rut, and blogging about hiking has pretty much kept me there (I did gain 10 of those pounds back, but if you ever sample my wife’s chocolate chip cookies you will understand how amazing it is that I don’t weigh 475 pounds).

I realize you’re probably getting fed up with my whining about the demise of paper mills in general and angst over my paper-mill job in particular. Sorry. I feel like I need to have a hiking blog because it gives me an excuse to keep taking walks that ease economy-induced dread.

So, in taking the longest time ever to get to the point: how about some suggestions on where I should hike this weekend?

(UPDATE: Winehike Russ leaped at the opportunity and now we’re planning a Henry Coe hike Sunday morning. How’s that for service?)