I received my performance review yesterday. It's middle-of-the-road news. We rank people in to three buckets here, the stellar 20%, the average 70%, and the ... uh ... endangered 10%.

The good news is that I'm solidly in the 70%. I wasn't near the endangered list, not even close. (You all can say, "I told you so," at this point. Go on. I'll wait. Done? Good.) Of course, that also means I've a long ways to get even into 'upper middle class' as I see it.

I'm getting what amounts to a COLA (cost of living adjustment) raise -- nothing to shout about, but it is a raise. I get some bonus and some stock something-or-the-other, but am not sure if it's a grant or options. When I left my last company, I had some options that were exercisable at $30, I think. The stock was trading at $4 or so.

Getting some social networking in. I'm part of a biking group at work. I'm slow, I know it, and I have a good time making jokes about it. Our group was recognized at a small award ceremony by the local eco-commute council, so I got to meet some new people, one commented that "I was the funny guy on the email list." That's a good feeling.

I'm playing some racquetball, too. The fitness club nearby offers a free membership benefit to our company (let's be serious here... nothing's free, they just are backcharging to the company, and the company is paying it because healthy employees can work harder.) Anyhow, it missed the memo that racquetball was a dying sport... the courts are always jammed.

I'm in two 'ladders' -- informal, barely organized and perpetual competition rankings. Courts are so hard to come by that people are forfeiting. Or playing at unholy hours. I have two games tomorrow*, one at 7:30 AM and one at 5PM.

Speaking of which, I had better leave for home and get some rest*.

* Because I'm still backdating my entries in hopes of having a contiguous run of them. It's really 2130 on Wednesday 22 August right now.