I really ought to take notes when  I know I won't have the time to update. I've been wanting to write, but my schedule got busy in a hurry this weekend. I also wanted to write, after I finished the James portion of my site. I spent about 5 days on it, and I'm nearly finished with it. I still need to redo the opening pages, and recreate the logo. The interior of the James portion of the site, pleases me. I finally came up with a background that is, dare I say, attractive? And, I don't think that it detracts from what I'm trying to display. I actually experimented with some art-deco looking designs that I created in Photo Draw. Although they were  pleasing to the eyes, they didn't fit thematically with James, and were a bit distracting with the tables that I use to organize pictures and data. This is the first time this weekend that I've touched the site at all. I was planning on working on some of the other things that are out of date, but better opportunities greeted me, so I embraced them.

    Car update: I think I'll get it tomorrow. I can honestly say, I am not pleased with the customer service at "Chantilly Auto Body." They have had my car for a week, and have not called me once. I had to make all the calls, to find out what the status was. I wish they would have let me know that this was going to take longer than the estimate called for. I just hope that they do good work. I will keep you and the internet posted on what I found out. This way, if someone does a search, they'll find this, and know that someone wasn't exactly happy.

    BTW, my dog's a barker. *Sigh* With his propensity to speak (runs in the family) I can't just leave him outside to talk to neighbor's on the next block. Which causes me to do a lot of running up and down the stairs to shut him up, if I let him outside to do his business, and I want to work on something. Tonight is a good example, I had to break away from this, to spare my neighbors.

    Friday was a sad day at work. My co-worker's position was eliminated. He has been a wonderful mentor / tutor for me. He has always been helpful in clarifying things and giving me the history behind why one thing is done a certain way. He was also fantastic when it came to bouncing ideas off of him. It often saved me the embarrassment of presenting them elsewhere, before seeing if I missed something obvious. All in all, I think he has treated me better than I've treated him, mostly because he goes out of his way to be accommodating. Which is saying something. It made working on Friday somewhat difficult. Actually, that's not true, I got a lot done on Friday. What it did was made the day joyless. It was hard to grasp that it had happened. Now I think I know how my co-workers at my last job felt. When I was among the group who were not going to be retained, those who kept their jobs, acted like it was a funeral. We called it "Survivor's Guilt". It seemed that they were more torn up about us leaving, then we were. In some ways, it's worse being the survivor, because you don't know if you'll be next. At least, when the decision is made for you, and you've been eliminated, you can accept your fate and move on. As a survivor, you don't really know what to do. I felt guilty on Friday, because I had a hard time, not focusing my thoughts on me. I also had some empathy for my boss. Strange as that may sound. The empathy comes from having been there before. Having had to tell someone that they wouldn't be employed anymore, and not wanting to be the bad guy. Still, I do have more empathy for my co-worker, but I'm not upset at my boss. Instinctually, I would want to dislike the guy, but I know it's just business.

    Shortly after discovering that my cube mate wouldn't be showing up anymore, I received a call from my sister-in-law asking me if I was ready to take the kids for the night. I can't remember setting a date for a sleep over, but I was more than happy to have them visit. I rented Toy Story and Toy Story 2, and bought a bunch of their favorite foods. We had a good time, eating hotdogs and chips. The morning was the best though. I woke up at 6. Thanks Fritz! and cleaned up the kitchen before starting the bacon, for a bacon, egg and cinnamon roll breakfast. Yum! After breakfast, we watched Star Wars, the original movie. After that, my brother came over to hang out, and he brought his lawn mower. He no longer needs it, because he has very little lawn to mow. So, I was able to finally mow my lawn for the first time. But, not without doing some land mine disposal. I tell you, some of that stuff hides real well! Fritz was in heaven with all the attention paid to him. The kids brought him outside and played with him, while I mowed my lawn.

    The only other thing on my mind lately is the Middle East, and the problem with Israel and the Palestinians. I really want to talk about this one, but it's getting late, and I could fill pages on all that I've learned in the past week about the subject. It will have to wait to another day, as I want to cap this.

    I'm writing for the attention that it might bring me. There, I admitted it! Actually, that's probably true for tonight. I could use some kind ears, just to hash out some of the changes that are happening in my work life. As of this moment, I'm doing fine, but when I woke up this morning, I was not interested in going to work. You see, work has changed, and it won't be the same as before. At the moment, it's a little scary. Or, more accurately put, uncomfortable. Who would have thought that one person's departure would throw the lot of us, into a quasi-tizzy. Most immediate and obvious is the loss of immortality that one feels exists when everything is sailing on. That's huge, but it's the subtleties that really get me. The changing dynamics and a rush of work, make the loss feel greater, at least for now. There has also been some talk of removing the cubical next to me to make a hallway. Which would then alter my relative calm that I currently enjoy. No one likes it when their work area is tampered with, and I don't like the foot traffic that I would inevitably get if they make that change.

      I got my car back. Yeah! Looks fine. Drives fine. I'm paranoid as all hell when I change lanes now. I need to hit the open road to really enjoy this, this commuter traffic is not fun in a sports car. Although it could be...

    I've hit the big 3000! Yeah, 3000 hits since June of 2000. Half of which are me, so it's not completely accurate, but I do occasionally get friends who visit. One day, I'll advertise this thing on the internet at some U2 site or something like it. For now, I'm content to get mostly just positive feedback, and my friends are good about not slamming me for my poor design in some places. Well, I'm 99.9% done with the James portion of the site. You should check it out, if only to humor me. I like the way it finally turned out. I was able to create a decent background image and used it on every page, in a variety of sizes and colors. I also did some light additions to the U2 section over the past two days. Mostly I just tightened up the tables, and redid Walk On's track listing. Which, finally pleases me enough to leave it alone for awhile. I still have about a half dozen ideas percolating, which will see the light of day sometime soon. I could really use a digital camera. There are at least 10 - 20 items that I have that don't fit on a scanner bed, and they would be interesting additions to the U2 section.

    Whoa, this was supposed to be short, but I'm like a fountain tonight. Ha Ha, I just said that, and ran out of things to say. Typical. Well, night night, Yawn, Yawn.

    It's been hot. Those of you on the east coast know what I'm talking about. A few days ago a town in Virginia was the hottest place in the country at 97°. I haven't turned on the AC as a matter of principle. It's too early to give up, then again, if this lasts much longer, I'll be gladly turning it on soon. I would like to install one of the programmable thermostats, but given my current work ethic in regard to home repairs, who knows when I'll get around to that.

    The pets are fairing Ok overall, I think. It's cooler in the basement, so if they want to be there, they can. Interestingly enough, my cat seems to prefer the heat on the second floor.

    Hmmm, we're getting a bit of lightening outside. Ooh, a rumble of thunder to boot! The nice thing is that the temperature is dropping with the coming storm.

    I'm really sorry that I haven't written sooner, but I got a new toy. I woke up on Saturday morning with an itch to spend money. I looked at my checking account, and I was pleasantly surprised! I had more liquid money than I thought that I had. Or, would have had at this time. So, I figured that the responsible thing to do would be to buy a computer, since it's the next big ticket item on my list. So, I went to Dell to price stuff out, and was reasonably excited by what I was looking to buy. Not ecstatic mind you, it was still going to cost me over a grand, but I was preparing myself for the investment. For a clarity check, I called my brother and asked his opinion. He said it sounded good, but that I might want to wait for a better free upgrade and then he invited me to Costco so that we can drool over the stock they had there. By the time I reached Costco, I knew what I was going to do. Loyal readers, know which toy has occupied my thoughts over the last several months, and on Saturday the hunt was on. At Costco they had a special on the X-Box that included an extra controller and 2 games. The problem for me was that the 2 games were not ones that I wanted. So, I went to Walmart instead and picked up my favorite Skateboarding games there. The X-Box is pretty darn cool! Right now, it's the fastest gaming system out there. It's also the only one with a built in hard drive. Which is great because not only do you NOT have to buy a memory card, but you can also record songs directly to it, and play them in the background instead of the music that comes with the game. This doesn't work for all games, but it does for Tony Hawk 3. So, I've thrown in some of my favorite tunes as background music, and I'm pleased with it. In addition, you can buy a remote control so that you can play DVD's on it. I'll probably get that in the next couple of weeks and see how it performs compared to my current DVD player. If it's comparable, I'll probably lend it to my brother for a while. I'd like to keep it for when I get another TV, but that's a ways off. Needless to say, I'm quite pleased with it and have been trying to make sure I get to bed on time, despite the tendency to want to play all night.

    Speaking of TV, Survivor last night was very cool. It was amusing and intriguing, as the self-professed leader was voted off. He was quite cocky and in the end he was reduced to tears, primarily, I think because he was surprised and didn't prepare himself for it. He thought he had the game in the bag, and that attitude was his downfall. A friend of mine was laughing hysterically in part because he was crying and for what he was saying. It sounded a lot like Stuart Smalley, who coined the phrase "I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And gosh darn it, people like me :-) " My instant reaction, on the other hand, was pity. Yes, it was funny on most levels, but it was also sad. He wrapped his entire ego on whether or not he won the game. His sense of value, or validation of him as an individual reduced to a couple of votes. This may be incidental, but he was a gay nurse from Omaha, Nebraska. I've often debated the idea of whether people are born gay, or whether environment plays a role. We all have preferences and tendencies that we're born with, and we develop passions for things that we see around us. I tend to believe that environment does play a big part. In certain areas of my life, I can be quite emotional, but I'm definitely heterosexual. Had I had a different upbringing, perhaps without a father figure, then would things have been different? I suppose not, because even if I leaned that way, I'm not sure I could stand up to the social pressures of being normal. More likely, I would be married by now, I may not have been as picky as I am. Who knows?

    Softball season is starting on Monday! Yeah! We had two practices in the last week, and I was sore for the next several days. I'm now stretching before all activity, I don't want to feel like that again anytime soon. It's going to  be interesting. We have 23 players on the team, although not all will be full time, I'm sure, and I'm not managing. It's going to be a little bit of an adjustment for me. We have some real quality outfielders, so I don't know exactly where I'll fit in. I actually played some shortstop, which would be interesting, as I haven't really played it since I was 10 or 11. I'm going to try my best to be a team player, and just enjoy the experience, instead of worrying too much about how much or where I play. After all, I'm bound to learn something under someone else's tutelage. That is, if I ever manage again. Who knows?

    Work is getting better. It's still going to busy for quite a while, but that suits me fine. Better than being slow. I had been getting into work early, but lately, I haven't. I'd like to get back to that, so I'm going to try to go bed soon, so that I can get started on all the weekend chores that await me.

    Well, I think that's about it for tonight. I don't have any music playing right now, but I do have a song in my head, so I guess I'll put in on here.      

    So, I'm sitting down, doing the bills, when it occurs to me that I haven't written in a few days. I've actually had a lot on my mind, but little in the way of solutions to those problems. I think, that's because they aren't really definable problems. As Yoda might say, I feel a disturbance in the Force. I honestly don't think it's as cosmic or grand as that, it's just a pervasive sense of discomfort, which I believe started at work, and has moved around into the other parts of my life. My co-worker's departure, definitely upset the apple cart. Each of us in our own way have been affected. I think some for the better. In my case, I've actually been more productive, but I'm also more uneasy. This has definitely tainted how I've dealt with my dog's current bout of rebellion, disobedience, and lack of regard for my carpet. On Saturday and Sunday he pooped on the carpet, and peed in a few different places. I decided that it was time for me to be more strict in regards to his movement, since I don't know how to make him listen to me. So, I tried a number of things, some of which included various rants in English that he didn't understand. I finally confined him to the kitchen, and after about 3 days, he chewed through the gate. It's wooden, so it wasn't all that hard for him. Finally, I gave up and signed him up for Puppy classes and decided that none of my current disciplinary measures would be understood by him. I've begun a softer and more patient approach with him, and I think we're both happier now, and I'm eager for the classes to start. This discomfort that I'm feeling extends to just about everything. My sense of hope at this job has been muted for now. It may be the kick in the butt that I've needed, but sadly, I shouldn't need that. I didn't need it at my last job, so I sometimes wonder if I'm in the wrong place. Mostly, I just weigh everything at work. I weigh the skills that I'm gaining vs. the quality of life vs. the lack of social interaction outside of work. You know, all the things that make work home. Which it isn't. I was truly spoiled at my last company. Before I go into bashing my current job, it's not that bad, it's just that I've had it so good! I also think that my current thoughts on this have gotten worse today, because I talked with my former co-worker, and the prospects on the market for our particular expertise are not strong. Which scares me all the more. I don't think I'm in imminent danger, but the feeling persists anyway. It's kind of like having someone close to you die. If that didn't occur, most of us wouldn't think about death very much. It's a very convenient thing to forget.

     In lighter news, I'm very excited about the new Star Wars film! I've read some opening reviews by Star Wars fans, and it looks to be a much better film than Episode I. Hooray! I've also been warned that it is kind of bleak, and doesn't end in a complete manner. Not unlike The Empire Strikes Back. But, as I grow older, my appreciation for how cool Empire is, has grown. I've got 4 words for you: Less Jar Jar Binks! Spiderman: the movie also looks to be pretty good. I'm looking forward to seeing that one as well.

    On another depressing note, my friend told me today that her "birth" father was arrested. Actually, the charges against him were bad enough to put in the newspaper, and she forwarded me some links. I won't sensationalize it with the details, because the reason I brought it up, wasn't to broadcast it, but instead to ponder a few things. What would you do, if your parent, even an estranged one was arrested? Those are the thoughts that I had today. I tend to surround myself with lawful people, although not always moral, at least they are lawful. Lawful isn't always right either, by the way. In any case, I wonder what I would do. I don't really know, I also have no idea what to say to someone under those circumstances. My tendency is shy away from those type of people. Not my friend, but her father. I wonder if I would shun my own father in those circumstances or if I would believe the best about him, and then defend him whether or not he was guilty. Or at the very least, be there for him, or visit him in prison, particularly if it were a nasty crime. I don't have any answers, but my prayers are with my friend, as I'm sure this is affecting her much more than she lets on.

    Didn't mean to depress you all. Oooh, I just remembered some happy news!!!! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! I got a phone call from a friend last night, which is always a delight, and I got an e-mail from a friend in Albany, who may come down to Virginia to scout for a new residence. It seems that my former company has cut more jobs, which is a shame. Still, it might offer an opportunity to entertain guests, so I'm psyched about that. Well that's it for now.