Clocks are ticking . . .

While there are several bloggers keeping an eye on news reports waiting for the Great Phillies Fire Sale of 2006 (separate links), this isn't the only clock ticking the Philadelphia area. The United States Olympic Committee has a news conference scheduled for tomorrow afternoon to pare down the list of five candidate host cities (Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco are in competition with Philadelphia) vying for the 2016 Summer Olympics. It is also expected that the USOC will detail what the next steps in the process are for the potential host cities that remain. I'm not sure yet where I come down on this. I think that I would like the city to host the Olympics, but on the other hand I don't have the utmost confidence in the city's leaders to pull it off without a hitch and thus the uncertainty. I'm leaning toward supporting the bid, though. Any thoughts? Finally, my own personal clock is ticking. I'm at eleven days and counting to be exact. (I'll ballpark it at midnight of Friday night/Saturday morning on August 4/5.) At that time, I'm taking a glorious nine days of vacation from both jobs. Nine straight days of no work and hopefully plenty of rest and relaxation. To say I'm looking forward to it is an incredible understatement. I haven't had a real vacation in years, and that was when I was just working one job. I've been working two jobs -- one full-time and the other around 30-35 hours a week -- for going on eight months now and it's starting to catch up with me. The job search is on full tilt and hopefully this will bear fruit soon so I'll be able to cut my work week down dramatically. Until then, though, Relaxation City is what I'm looking forward to.