This makes a week exactly since my last blog, and more like two since my last substantive update. I was sick last week until Friday, going totally ape whilst staring at the four walls in my rather lonely apartment. Work on Friday was a pure joy; I was freshened and eager, though I sounded like a megaphone stuck in a tin-can when I spoke. Friday was re-org day here on the Software-Development floor of LXK. My old manager, K, whom I respected is gone to her next tour of duty, replaced by the newly-promoted S, another woman. Instead of K’s even-temperedness, we now have S’s volatility. Combine that with her complete ignorance of my product, and we’ll see. I know one thing…I’m sure she won’t be having monthly one-on-one meetings with her subordinates the way that K did. ...

Don’t ask me why, but I find the melodrama of Dr. Bud E. Bryan amazing. Here’s this middle aged-guy who has THREE women after him: Jolene (his wife), Nadine (his psycho ex), and Carrie Anne (the chiseled coed). To beat it all, he has the real details of his life in his column in a CAR MAGAZINE.

Oh the joy of not having a jackhammer headache and a 103 degree fever!

I have the flu. I awoke Sunday feeling achy all over, then woozy as I dressed for church. After a nap, I rose feverish. Bella nursed me throughout the night and I’ve recuperated at home today. Still, my head is pounding, I have a low-grade fever and I’m sleepy all the time…definitely looking forward to getting a flu shot next year.

My taxes are filed. Yay :-) Instead of software, I used TurboTax on the Web, and I was very pleased with the results.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I’m team lead this week. It’s day two, and I’m already wanting to pull my hair out. What I need is someone who’s good on the server to whom I can delegate work. On the client side, I’m covered, but the server is a total disaster. I’m delegating like you wouldn’t believe, and I’m still utterly buried. Honestly, I can’t wait for some of these marketing drones and grandstanding managers to GO THE FRICK HOME so I can do some of the work I should’ve had done last Friday. ...

Mmmm….born in the Year of the Horse Bella was born in the Year of the Sheep

Just finished David Owen’s dense-yet-inspiring biography of Xerography and its inventor, Chester Carlson, entitled Copies in Seconds In his first few chapters, Owen tries to imbue his fascination for the ordinary (to those of Generation X and afterwards) office copier. Frankly, his treatment of the development of copying is boring. I don’t care about scribes, Gutenburg, or Ditto machines. He spends inordinate prose on the distinction between “copying” and “duplication”, and why the idea of ‘copying’ is so important. ...

On NASCAR NASCAR’s brand of homogenized, low-tech racing is back for another season. Fields of 35-45 “athletes” will pilot tube-framed ‘Murican V-8s in 40 races from today through late November. Aside from a handful of visits to road-courses, all these races will be on ovals, ranging from the bullring half-mile of Bristol to the world’s fastest track, the 2.66 mile tri-oval at Talledega. Nascar is at once Good-Ole-Boy, downhome charm and a corporate juggernaut that’s the secondmost lucrative sport behind football. Once confined to circuits in the Southeast, the series ranges from coast to cost, north to south. Whereas the man on the street 30 years ago might equate “car racing” with “Indy 500”, he now thinks “NASCAR”. ...

Went to the farm machinery show today with Dad and Ceeb. I feel kinda crappy tonight. Headache and tingling on my face + sinuses.

Ugh…what a weird, up-and-down day. I’m currently on a very strong DOWN… - Up at 7:00 when Dad calls. He re-confirms we’re going to the Farm Machinery show in Louisville tomorrow. Up - I have to go to work today Down - I take a vacation day. It’s nice outside, and I can go ring shopping and relax. Up - I realize just how dirty my apartment is Down - I clean it up and organize Up - I head out to the ring shop that Scott suggested. Up - While at the ring shop, Dave calls me and tells me they’re sending him to Luxemburg tomorrow and that they need me. Down - The ring shop only sells loose stones, and then gets them set. Up - They’re out of princess cut diamonds Down - As I’m pulling into the parking lot, I get a call from my beloved, and she’s very happy Up - She thinks I bought her two dozen roses. I hadn’t. Down - I get the work done in about an hour, calling Whitney as I leave. Up - She’s mad and disappointed I didn’t send her flowers. I’m disappointed that I didn’t send her flowers. I make an offhand remark. Hilarity ensues. Down…WAY down. ...

On order from Ken Towrey’s in Louisville, 4 Kumho V710 racing slicks: ß

Ahh, the delicious irony: The guy who started the GTO thread on the Car Lounge is going to have to get rid of his GTO

Don’t know whether to label this tragedy or the successful pursuit of a Darwin Award.

on the left is a TUNGSTEN CARBIDE wedding band. On the Right is a titanium band that weighs nothing. Seriously, thing feels like you’re wearing a piece of plastic.

Check out the Valentine’s cake that Whitney made for me:

Just finished Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night. The 217 page novel is about the world of an autistic English teenager named Christopher adept at math and intensely logical but unable to express emotion or understand humor. I found the tale riveting, and the last half of the book from its climax through the falling action of his journey to London to find his mother reinforces how scary modern life is. ...

Currently listening to a book on tape of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, encapsulator of Victorian England, its middle class, and the plight of young, bored women looking to get married. Reading, or rather, listening to this book, I’m reminded why the Romantic Movement of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats was so big: It was vital and alive. The rest of England is dead. These women–LITERALLY!–have nothing to do but sit and plot their marriages. Their families are rich enough to spare them hard labor, so there they are, twittering about to no good use. ...

Just got through with Dashiell Hammett’s famous The Maltese Falcon, the prototypical and oft-imitated detective novel. It’s a quick read, at only 217 pages, with good characters, some murders and a little mystery. Overall, I didn’t like it…long way to go for an elliptical story and characters I didn’t care about.

Blog from within a useless Meeting: We’re finding that one of our divisions is sort of eating the other one, just based upon merit and the overwhelming personality of its President. :-) I still wonder if I shouldn’t have taken a job over there, though I think they outsourced all their programmers years ago.