Celebrating a year without the NHRA

Please stand and join me in a toast to Colin Hall and the management of the National Horseracing (sic) Authority. A year ago I was called into Colin's office along with the Data Processing Department head, to be told that the project I was working on for 5 years had been cancelled. Never mind the million or more spent so far. It must be fun to waste money like that. I guess since it is money made by gambling, it's somewhat ironic.
As it turned out later the contract that I thought had been agreed to was not agreed to (deliberately in my opinion) so I was paid out 2 months earnings in lieu of notice. I was not paid a cent by the NHRA at the end of February, and it was only the good graces of my current employer that enabled me to pay my bills at the end of February. So the NHRA earns a fat 0 out of 10 rating as an employer.
To the best of my knowledge the "replacement" system has not been implemented a year later, which makes me feel good because the project I was working on would have been rolled out in 2006 anyway.
As it turns out my new contract has been more lucrative and interesting, and both DataMover and the Miami libraries have benefited by my new work. As Winston Churchill once remarked when asked if an event was a blessing in disguise, he quipped that perhaps it was, but the disguise was quite effective. As I write this I am glad that I didn't spend another boring dead-end year at the NHRA, who seem incapable of organising their way out of a paper bag.
I had blogged extensively about my experiences at the NHRA, but their lawyers asked me to remove these entries as part of my payout agreement. I guess they didn't want their sordid behaviour known in public. Shame.