Uh, oops.

I've got two things to apologize for today. One, I wrote an entry on Christmas Eve and then haven't added a thing since. That wasn't very good. I didn't have anything to say over that period of time. Nothing notweworthy happened, and I had no interesting stories to tell. It was a quiet, reflective time that I needed even if I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped. The least I could have done is post a joke or something that. I apologize. That was bad manners on my part.

The second thing I should apologize for is, no entry yesterday. I was back at work, and thus I should have been back into the routine of making a daily entry. I just forgot. Which is no excuse but it is a reason. Again, I didn't have anything to say which is probably why nothing gotten written. Yesterday was a slow day.

Which brings us to today. Thus far today is not going well. I had an atrocious night of sleep last night. That was the worst night's sleep I can remember having in a very long time. Reason? Well, I think I kind of know why. I had no computer last night. I left it in Saskatoon, at Greg's house, for this weekend's gaming extravaganza. I thought I could go for one night without a computer. I may have been in error on that. It would appear I can not go a night without a computer. Last night was quite horrible and this morning has, thus far, been uncomfortable. I've been having bowel problems all morning. I have a problem and this is going to need to be addressed, sooner rather than later.

Thanks for listening people. Its still early so I will take the opportunity to wish everyone a great coming year. Personally I'm looking for improvements over a lousy 2002. Until later!

Toodles.

It's Christmas eve folks! The wait is finally over. In a few short hours we'll all be awake, and opening the presents we've dreamed about for weeks. I know I'm looking forward to it and I'm sure you are too!

But more importantly, for me, I get to take a well needed break. I will be away from my desk in the office, and away from having to think about all the difficulties that have been plaguing me. The rest already feels good. About 2 hours ago I finally felt the tension begin to seep out of my body. It felt good.

I don't know how many entries I'll make during my vacation. I'll try to jot down anything worthwhile, like interesting dreams and such. Have a good Christmas vacation.

Toodles!

It seems everyone went to the Fox & Hounds for wings tonight. Everyone that is but me. I don't know how to feel about that. I suppose I made my choice when I agreed to work out here in Watson. Its nights like this though that I really question the decision. Yes, I can go back to Saskatoon on the weekend and hang out with my family, and friends, but I'm missing out on the little things. I can't go for wings on a Monday night. I miss cheap night at the movies. I'm not there for weekday gigs at Sask. Place. I suppose maybe I should try to not dwell on the negative so much. For some reason my mind always seems to want to go down that darker road.

On the up side I sold a digital camera this morning. It was pretty easy, my boss just came into my office and said, I want to buy a digital camera. Its hard to mess up a sale like that. :-)

Toodles!

I must not be sleeping well. I had another vivid dream last night that I could still remember when I woke up. That says to me that I'm sleeping fairly close to consciousness. I went to bed at a reasonable hour, 11:15, and stayed there until 7:52. I'm having a lot of trouble getting up in the morning. Even more than usual. I can't decide if its just because of the time of year, and no hint of sunlight when I need to get up, or if its something more sinister I'm hoping its just seasonal.

I was going to tell you all about my dream. It was a fairly vivid dream, with a good, cohesive story to it. It was like a movie. I wish there was a way to capture dreams and replay them for others as movies. If someone could invent that they would make a fortune. Maybe I should bend all of my considerable talents towards developing this invention. Or maybe I should just play more video games.

I was going to describe the dream for you. Of course that was 2-1/2 hours ago when it was still real fresh in my mind. I've forgotten all of the really important stuff that pinned the dream together and is necessary for it to make sense to all of you. The random images that I can pull from mind, still make sense to me, but I don't have enough of my dream in my head anymore to describe it to you. If I did, I'd be making up new stuff to fill in the gaps and that doesn't really suit the purpose I intended.

I'm disappointed I can't describe it for you. It was a really good movie. It was entertaining. It started out much different from how it ended. It began as a bank heist. I, as a character not as me, was helping this guy that looked like Drew Carey, rob a bank that somehow was situated in Central Butte school. The grade nine room specifically. That melted into a dream where me, and now a character played by Jason Lee, were evading the police who didn't really know we'd been responsible for the bank heist, but there was one detective that had strong suspicions and was on us like flies on honey. That went on for awhile and then the dream morphed again and there was another new character, a girl this time. She was kinda of like Tyra Banks, or Beyonce Knowles but not completely. I suppose it was a composite of attractive, exotic women. The detectives that were chasing us weren't regular cops but a group of people huntiing supernaturally talented people, like me, Jason Lee, and the exotic girl (I forget her name). To evade them we went back in time. My character kind of lost his sanity, and started doing all kinds of impossible things (which were possible given his mental abilities) and the girl character was hunting me down to send me back. She turned from an ally to a friend character trying to save the people of this time frame. This part of the dream was really good but I can't nail down any details for you. It was a chase type dream, with all these people out to capture me, and return me to my own time, with me evading them while simultaneously losing more and more of my sanity. In the end I got away.

I apologize for having lost the details. I should have written this dream down earlier. But I got to work and my keyboard wasn't working, so I fussed with that. Then I wanted to finish a set of drawings so that we can go into production on the unit over Christmas and maybe ship the unit out early in the new year. Then I got back to chasing phone calls on the big project I'm doing. All of this combined to put me behind schedule on documenting my dream. Thus I forgot the details. :-( Again, my apologies.

I hope everyone is having a super fantastic day. Toodles!

So I listened to the new Sum 41 album today. All in all I didn't mind it. The music is the type that I like. If I had a complaint after a single listen, I'd say that all the songs sound the same. Which is to be expected, I suppose. I guess songs by the same artist would be the same. That's not really what I noticed though. I had the album playing in the background while I worked. It got to the end and I didn't even realize that the first song had ended. It was like one, great, big long song. I suppose that could be attributed to my focusing on my work but I have trouble with that theory. There is way too much on my mind right now for me to concentrate on anything. Turmoil surrounds me. Which kind of sucks because I don't thrive in turmoil. I actually tend to sink in it, like a stone sinking in quicksand. The Christmas break can not get here too soon for me. I won't go into the whole sordid story in this very public forum because frankly, its not the right venue for that. But I will be so glad when I can get back to Saskatoon, sleep in my familiar room, and forget about everything

Toodles!

Sorry about yesterday. I just didn't get around to typing anything in here. I didn't really have anything to say either, which is part of why there was no entry. Another day of pounding at the project. Then I went home, late, and had to fix a computer. I was only online for a couple of hours and totally forgot about my plan to add a blurb to this blog. You didn't miss anything. I was zoned out yesterday.

Does anyone remember the old cartoons they used to show on CBC and CTV on Saturday mornings? For some reason I have those shows in my head this morning. The theme song from that cheesy 'Wizard of Oz' cartoon is repeating in my head. I could sing the whole thing for you right now.

The World of Oz is a very funny place,
Where everyone makes a funny, funny face.
All the streets are paved with gold,
And no one ever grows old,
In that funny place of the Wizard of Oz!

This is why I can't get ahead in life. I always have stupid, useless stuff rattling around in my head. Its a serious problem. I think I need professional help.

I also think about the Smurfs. Tara and I talk about the Smurfs occasionally. She actually still gets the show on some channel, on her TV. I miss the Smurfs. Now there was a quality program. The early ones. When they started doing time machines and stuff it got stupid and I quit watching. The classic battles between the Smurfs and Gargamel were very entertaining though. I should try and find my stuffed Smurf doll and put him on my desk with my other toys. My desktop is a real toy box. :-)

How about that Frankenstein show that would come on really early? The exact name of that one escapes me right now. It was a live action show, and not a cartoon. It was cheesy as hell but I still got up at 6:00 in the morning to watch it. Am I alone in this?

You know what? When I was about 6, I wrote a letter to CKCK TV in Regina, asking them about their cartoon line-up. I'd go to Osler to visit my cousins and they had Bugs Bunny, and back home in Coronach all we got was stupid, crappy cartoons that I didn't enjoy half as much. So I wrote them a letter asking them what was up and why couldn't they get the cool cartoons like they had in Saskatoon. I actually got a reply, which I had for the longest of time. They had a plan for a new cartoon lineup which would be announced soon. Not long after we started getting the Smurfs, and other shows. We never did get Bugs Bunny but at least the cartoons did improve.

Toodles!

There will be no entry today full of frivolity and merriment. I am in the office, in the evening, again. We got our shop drawings back this afternoon, and after a frustrating several hours of reviewing them, I'm back at the process of trying to fix what is wrong. Some points were good, and we were in error. Those have been fixed, for the most part. Some on the other hand were farcical. How do you install a screwplug heater? Hhhhmmmm, I don't know, perhaps you SCREW IT IN!!?!!?!! Its that kind of insanity that is giving me a permanent, stress induced, migraine. It would not hurt my feelings at all if something large and heavy fell on certain people. In fact, I'm saying a silent prayer for it. I am so looking forward to the next GameFest. I will definitely be playing on whatever team lets me kill Russians.

From my office, I remain. Toodles.

Further to yesterday's post, it was Sean that suggested I post the joke. There you go buddy! :-)

I want to write this down before my memory of it degrades any further. I've already lost much of the substance of the dream I had last night so I'll commit what I do remember to the cyber world for posterity.

I went to Toronto for some reason. It had to do with business because I had on business clothes, and I took a laptop. I arrived by plane but the plane ride was not part of the dream. The first thing I remember was being in Toronto, in this very fancy terminal building. It looked more like an expensive bank lobby than an airport terminal. It was a long hallway, with a massive glass panelled canopy overhead. It was cloudy and dull out though, so it wasn't bright inside the building. The floor and walls were all of gleaming marble. Everything shone, and the marble was a kind of creamy/gold color.

The first order of business was securing a ride to wherever I was going. That was the thing though, I didn't know where I was going. I had a bunch of meetings and stuff that I had to attend, but that was for later in the week. I had today free, so I was going to do some of my own stuff. So, I wanted to go watch the Toronto Maple Leafs play. I hailed a cab and said, 'take me to the stadium' because I couldn't remember the name of the hockey arena in Toronto. (I remember now that its the Air Canada Center) So this taxi driver takes me all over the place, down streets, through markets, then stops in front of a building. I get out and wander through this building. Its not the arena I want, because the Toronto Blue Jays are practising behind some mesh in one part, the Toronto Argonauts are practising on the field in the Skydome and the hockey arena is just part of this massive complex. You can wander all the way through this building, but a series of glass panels take you in a corridor to the small amount of seating around the hockey ice. It turns out this is a minor hockey game, which is not what I want. But the exits from the hockey arena part are not to the street but a train platform for a train that never will arrive for me.

Cut to me in a hall of some kind. There are row upon row of tables set out, and hundreds of people are seated at these tables. I don't really take the time to study the crowd at first, but later on I realize that most of the people are middle aged to senior citizens. Why am I here? Kevin is doing the sound for the performances that take place awhile after I arrive at this place. Some guy, who actually sings pretty well, even if its not my type of music, is belting out a song as I flag Kevin down. I chat with him and see if he's free to tour Toronto with me. He can't go, because he has to do the sound for this event, and he's also responsible for the sound at other events in this festival thing that is going on in Toronto. But he can get me a ride to Toronto to see the sights I want to see. It turns out I'm not in Toronto at the moment but I'm actually in Markham, Ontario.

So I get in this taxi cab with a girl. It takes me a couple of minutes to realize its Amanda Marshall. She was performing in the show we just left but had been on before I arrived. She was going back to Toronto anyway so I'm tagging along. I mostly just sit there and listen to her because she talks, a lot. One of the nuggets of information I get out of this conversation is that, she has to drive this taxi cab to make enough money to pay her bills. Apparently being a Canadian artist does not pay as well as it should. Eventually we get back to Toronto and she takes me into this less densely packed area of the city, with lots of hills. We pull up to a hotel, and I get out. I think she came too, but I didn't see her anymore in the dream.

I'm back in that marble lobby again, only know its the shopping plaza lobby of the hotel. I meet my parents there, who I didn't expect to be in Toronto at this time. I also run into my aunt and uncle, who I again didn't expect to see in Toronto. My cousins are also there. We all have rooms in this hotel, and our rooms are on the 17th floor. The elevator system is kind of funny. You can only go up to the 15th floor on the first elevator, then you have to get out and switch elevators or take the stairs. I ride the elevator to the 15th floor, then walk up the stairs. But I don't get out on the 17th floor. I end up on the roof, along with all the family I just mentioned.

Somehow being on the roof only puts me three floors above the ground. I really don't understand this. There's a mugging, or some kind of rugby scrum going on, on the roof, and I stand for awhile watching this. Then I jump down from the roof, to ground level again, and drive away in a taxi. I circle the area trying to solve this conundrum of how I could go up 18 floors and be only 3 floors off the ground. The dream ends somewhere around this point, as I never satisfactorily figured out the mystery of the hotel.

My brain can concoct some weird stuff at times. And I didn't even eat anything weird last night! Toodles!

I apologize for no entry yesterday. Same goes for today. The SAME damn project is giving me hives. I'm less than thrilled. I'm too angry to come up with a witty entry. So, at someone's behest, I will post the raunchy joke I read this morning.

A waitress walks up to one of her tables in a New York City restaurant and notices that the three Japanese businessmen seated there are furiously masturbating.
She yells, "What the hell do you guys think you are doing?!"
One of the Japanese men explains, "Can't you see? We are all berry hungry!!!"
"So, how is wacking off in the middle of the restaurant going to help that situation?" asks the waitress.
One of the other Japanese men replies, "The menu say, FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED!!!"

Sorry for no entry yesterday. It was another crazy day. Today hasn't sized up as being a whole lot better. More chasing down answers to questions, getting new product information and specs, getting new pricing, and answering calls. I don't know if I've ever used the phone as much as I have in the past week and a half or so. It seems like every hour I'm either phoning someone, or being phoned by someone. Which is a source of frustration for me because I'm really not fond of using the phone. I've often tried to puzzle out where my dislike for the telephone comes from but I've never developed a satisfactory answer to the question. I usually just end up with a conclusion, 'I don't like phones' and I end up leaving it.

I had a joke for you, finally, from yesterday's batch of email. But then I never got around to doing an entry, and so I've lost the joke. :-( I really have to do a better job of staying on top of things. Disorganization is a major enemy for me right now. My usual method of planning, which is to throw stuff against the wall and go with whatever sticks for the longest, is not really saving the day. I'm losing ground on a lot of stuff I don't want to lose ground on. However, I'm among the world's worst at time management. I fart around way too much and usually end up having to make a herculean effort to right the ship. (See last week's endeavours.) I don't know, maybe now is the point where I make the leap to proper time management. I've considered using Microsoft Outlook as my e-mail program and consequently using the other features of the program. But I'm on so many different computers that this solution is problematic. What I really need is to get a PDA but, being the geek that I am, I want one that is WAY out of my price range. ...sigh... I'll probably just muddle through in my usual way.

As a final parting thought I will suggest to you all that you check out www.bored.com. I thought the virtual fireworks, and the story about the guy cashing one of those junk mail cheques, to be very entertaining.

Toodles!

It's done. I almost can't believe that its really finished. All the drawings have been printed, copied, bound and shipped. There is nothing left for me to do. Hooray!

Its really hitting me now. Like a train with the throttle stuck wide open, fatigue is crashing into me. I'm sitting here at my desk and its all I can do to keep my head up. This is not a good situation. I stayed up until 3:30 last night finishing the shop drawings. Staying up that late isn't the end of the world but I was working that hold time. From 8:00 AM unti 3:00 AM the next day. All work, at a flat out pace. I'm spent. Tomorrow is a day off for this dude. At the rate I'm going even the rest of today might be taken with nap time. :-D

Still no jokes to include here. This is bugging me a little. Oh, the jokes I'm reading are funny enough. They make me smile. But there hasn't been a good one that made me burst out laughing. I'm disappointed in the internet's jokester's. They need to get more on the ball.

Toodles!

Today I feel I must rant. And for a change its not about work. I have a new beef and this is something that irritates the HELL out of me! So I'm downloading music. As I'm like to do, I'm trying to get a whole album. Its one of those things where its not an artist that I would in any way ever entertain the notion of buying. The person in question today is Jennifer Love Hewitt. Her music is that bubble gum music that I can listen to, and actually crave from time to time, but wouldn't consider buying. I'll buy a Pearl Jam, Tragically Hip or Metallica CD, but music that I listen to only as a diversion I'm not plunking my $15 down for.

But I digress. Somewhat surprisingly the full roster of songs were hard to find. Granted, Ms. Hewitt is a more popular actress than she is songstress but she's mainstream familiar enough that I thought the songs would be easy to track down. Some yes, but the majority no. The title track, Barenaked, was simple to find and I had lots of choices in bit rate, and available copies. The rest I was usually in the range of 3 to 4 download options and one or maybe two bit rates. And some I had one available copy, with multiple people in the queue already. This is the subject of my ire. Okay, fine, I can deal with being in a queue. If its an obscure song, or something hard to find, I don't mind getting in line and waiting for it. But this is the thing that galls me to the core. You finally get your turn to download and the person has a slow transfer rate. Not a huge deal but you can just guess that this person has a slow rate because they're a bandwidth hog. Fine, so you wait your half an hour or longer to download the song. Then you get to 98 or 99% and the little bastard cuts you off! So you have almost the whole thing but if you want to finish it, you have to get back in the queue and wait again, for maybe hours. That is so irritating! And you can tell they did it on purpose because you do a new search and the only available copy is from the same person. What possesses a person to act like that? That's beyond rude to a place I don't even have a word. It's moments like these when you feel a really strong, powerful urge to choke the life out of another human being. Not because its such a terrible thing to have happen to you, but the act was done with some obvious malice. Some people have no class.

Toodles!

I gotta hurry if I want to get this blog entry in, in time to be considered a Tuesday entry. I'm slowly winning the battle against this project I'm on. We had a casualty in the war today. I'm not going on the road to oversee the pilot test. There's too much for me to do in the office yet for that to happen. It's 11:15 and I'm still in the office trying to straighten out the various threads of this effort. Every step forward I take results in a step backward too. For every problem I solve, I create another new one. I end up not moving forward but sliding sideways endlessly. I can't even begin to guess how many times I've revised this schematic diagram, or how many editions of the spec sheet I've editted. I'd pull out my hair if I had any!

One thing I've noticed that has been lacking in my blog entries is jokes. I guess I'm just not finding a whole lot funny from my repository of daily jokes. I get 200 pieces of spam a day, including joke messages and nothing is blowing my skirt up. What does that say about the staleness of the world joke collection? I will continue my search though. I still love my Jesus/chicken joke. Nail him to a chicken. LMAO!!!

Toodles!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Most of you probably know the reason already. I'm being snowed under by my assignments at work. Its been flat out on projects every day for a week now. I don't even have time to breathe. All areas of my life are suffering. I HOPE with every ounce of my fiber that I'm getting close to the end of this flurry of activity. If things go well tonight maybe I'll be able to take a breath or two over the rest of the week.

While I'm thinking of it, I've got a new pet peeve. What is the deal with convenience stores and their coolers? I've been on the road a lot lately, and I've been stopping in at this little shoppes to get myself a refreshment. A lot of the time its been a search for a caffeine fix to keep my eyes open. But I digress. I'll go into one of these stores, pick my beverage of choice and grab a swish from the bottle. I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this. I like my drinks cold. Perhaps its just me and I'm quirky in this respect. Somehow though I don't think I am. Why the hell is it that you can't get a COLD drink from a convenience store? The damn bottle is always just shy of warm. Its never warm when you buy it but about 5 minutes later it is. That annoys me. Would it be so bloody hard to turn the refrigerator's down a couple of degrees and keep the cold beverages actually cold?

Just something I thought of this week. Toodles!

Hello world. How's it goin'? I've come to watch your flowers growin'.

I just read a story about genetic engineers trying to create a blue rose. Apparently this is a very hard thing to accomplish. It makes me think about stuff. Which is never a good idea because thinking about things only gets me in trouble. But I've been doing a lot of thinking, about a lot of things, today. My mind is very active today. I have no particular answer as to why.

Anyway, back to the rose. These scientists are trying to create a blue rose. This is difficult because the rose has no gene to allow blue pigment, which should thus make it an impossible attempt. But in strides genetic engineering! As the story went, some geneticists have found a human enzyme that turns stuff blue. They tried it on some bacteria and made it go blue so they figure they might be able to make the rose grow blue too. They have had limited success so far, having only accomplished making some blue spots appear on the stems. But what I can't understand is, why is anyone wasting valuable time on this? And why is it okay to waste time, money and effort on something frivolous like the color of the rose, and yet such an enormous hue and cry is raised when genetic engineering is used to try and improve our food sources. This makes no sense to me. Personally I would rather see genetic engineering create a bigger, juicy apple then make a blue rose. Not that a blue rose wouldn't be pretty. I just question whether there should be people dedicating their careers to this pursuit.

Toodles!

I hate engineers. I hate engineering. This whole god damn profession is populated by nit-picky little assholes who have nothing better to do than call down your very best effort. I think the concept of the professional engineer should be abolished. Rather that appreciate it as a duty to protect the public, the sanctimonious twits use it as a cudgel with which to beat you into submission. I think engineers should be in the business of getting things done. Their daily efforts should be expended towards improving the lives of people. They should be helpful and courteous, not aggressive and confrontational. Unless someone can give me a good reason why I shouldn't just pack it in, go back to Saskatoon, and pump gas or something, I really think I might. I don't need this aggravation. It makes me sick to my stomach, and I feel like vomiting. I give my best effort, I try to act with dilligence and consideration, and I get told (in implied words because an engineer would never come right out and say what he thinks) that I'm a slacker who isn't trying. I stayed up all night Tuesday night creating a drawing for him because I knew he wanted it right away. Do I get a thanks for promptly filling his request? No, I get told I'm not meeting my obligations. I'm well behind schedule on producing the shop drawings. How is that my fault? You pick apart everything I give you. At the rate with which this is being handled, I could have submitted a drawing package the day of the site meeting, and I still wouldn't have made all the changes he wanted by the target date.

This is so damn frustrating! If I'm wrong, or I've made a mistake, I'll fix it, no questions asked. But when I'm trying real hard and someone finds fault with everything I do, that is hard to stomach. It makes me want to quit. I'm serious, I really want to quit. I don't need the ulcer this is giving me. Anyone know of a good job with low stress? Gas jockey, video store clerk, anything?

Toodles. :-(

I'm done. I'm finished. I'm kaput. I'm every metaphor you can think of for a person who is too tired to stay awake anymore. You name a way to be tired, I'm that. I don't really even have the ambition to write this entry but I know that if I leave it for later, it won't get done. I anticipate accomplishing little more than sitting erect and breathing this afternoon.

This relates back to my previous entry about the engineer asking for a simpler drawing. I started it Monday afternoon and after a lot of puzzlement I realized that it wasn't going to be as easy to do as anyone guessed. In fact it was going to be damn hard! And it was hard but even I couldn't predict how tough it truly was. Long story short, I stayed up all night (save a one hour nap around 4:00) finishing this low tech, 2D drawing. All told I probably put 12-14 hours into creating it. I thought it was going well enough yesterday afternoon that I could finish it by the end of the day. How wrong I was! Naively I answered, this afternoon, when the engineer called me to inquire about it. He was way more polite to me than he ever has been in the past but it was pretty evident that he wanted this drawing right away. I like to think I'm a man of my word so when I said I'd have it finished that afternoon, I felt obligated to work on it at home, and get it finished for the morning. I finally got it send off about 10:30. We had to have a staff meeting, and a company picture in between. It was mostly done when I came to the office this morning. I just touched up a few final things, and dimensioned and labelled it. I REALLY hope he appreciates that drawing.

Sorry folks but I'm going to have to wrap it up here. My brain has already shut down and thinking is not a process that I'm having any success with. With some luck I'll feel better tomorrow and can write a better entry.

Toodles!

My day has been made. Hell, my whole week has been made, and its only Monday! Christ, this may be the highlight of my career so far. It was one of those moments that just resonate with you, and make you feel good throughout. It reaffirms your believe in yourself and your abilities.

This engineer I've been working with phoned me this afternoon. He'd handed me hat a while back about the lax quality of the shop drawings I'd presented him. I won't go into the details but he poked many, large holes in my submission and to make a long story short, said do it over. Anyway, he phoned me this afternoon and I could hear it in his voice from the first thing he said. He was apologizing to me from the start. I'll paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact text of the conversation. He goes into it and he tells me, I'm sorry but I can't use the drawings you sent me. There's nothing wrong with them. They are very good. They are too good. I don't know how to use them. Can you please redo them in a simpler format?

This just makes me howl. After all the grief I'm going through over my work experience, here I get an engineer coming to me and saying, your work is too good. Can you make it simpler so I can copy and paste it into my drawing? I'm so unfit to be a professional engineer, but the quality of my work surpasses that of one of the people judging me. The irony of that is just too rich.

Suffice it to say, this has made me feel real good. I must have some talent in this engineering field that I've chosen, if the work I'm producing can be deemed 'too good' and requires simplification. A person goes to work every day, and does what they're asked. Its not often that you get praise for your efforts. I'm probably luckier than most because I have a very communicative boss, and he does give me praise often. That is a tremedous help to a guy that's had some trouble with his career. But to have it come from an outside source, and be in the form of 'hat in hand' request, just makes me beam from ear to ear. If anyone needs me, I'll be on cloud nine until further notice.

Toodles!

Today's blog entry has to begin on a sad note. The inspiration for my creating my own blog, has decided to close her blog. As many of you may remember, I mentioned in my first blog entry how I got the idea to have my own, from reading the blog of someone called Azzaelea. It was with much regret that I checked her site this morning to discover her GONE! message. I didn't really know her or anything, or have that much to do with her. It was just a web site that I checked frequently. Still, I'm going to miss her. Good bye and good luck Azzaelea!

I met someone new last night, on the internet. I think when historians look back on the impact of the internet on society, that is going to be the one thing that stands out most. The internet has really changed the way we communicate with each other. They say that pr0n is the number one income producing content on the internet, and I can believe that. I'd bet though that the number one use of the internet is inter-personal communication. It would probably boggle the mind to try and comprehend the amount of email that is sent in a day. My favorite though is instant messaging. There's probably a few hundred million instant messages sent a day too.

Back to my point though, that I met a new girl last night. It was from one of those dating sites. I subscribed to a bunch of them, on a lark, back in July. Tara and I had just broken up and I was hearing that Cupid.com commercial incessantly on the radio. I had to know what all the fuss was about, and from there I just signed up for any that I came across in my 150+ spam emails a day. The one I met this girl on was actually one I'd kind of dismissed as rinky-dink. Turns out though it was where I was getting most of my responses. Maybe I just wrote the best profile on there? Anyway, I got a couple messages from her, and wrote her a response last night. She instant messaged me awhile later and we had a conversation that stretched into the night. It was fun. It was nice to talk to someone new. I hope I get the chance to talk to her again.

Things have been on a general improvement trend over the past couple of weeks for me. Computer sales have finally picked up again, after a long doldrum. I sold some peripherals to people here in Watson. What all have I sold lately? A scanner, and wireless access port, a Flash RAM card for a digital camera, an inkjet printer anda 16 port network switch. Its not a satisfying as a system sale, but Sean might have a line on one of those for me too. Perhaps its too early to get excited but I can't help myself. Everything's coming up Milhouse! :-)

Time to go people. Thanks for listening. Toodles!