I really need to get a voice recorder (digital preferably). I have way too many thoughts in my head in the morning and by the time I can get pen to paper (or more accurately, fingers to keyboard) I have forgotten them. Some may surface later, but by then my creative sting is gone.
I was supposed to get my review yesterday, but my boss did not get to me by the time I left. I realize that I left 15 minutes early (I had an errand to run), but that should not have mattered much. It has been a couple of years since my last formal review. Last year my review was very informal and was conducted in (I am not kidding here folks), the men's toilet by my boss who was standing at the urinal beside me. It lasted all of two minutes and was positive. I never signed anything. Needless to say that he is not my boss this year...he is now a "project lead".
I went to run my errand (but first I stopped home to let out the dogs, feed, and water them). I checked the mail (all junk) and when I got back in to feed the pooches, I dropped the "nice" dog dish and broke it. It was a freebie, but it was also made by a top dinner/glassware manufacture, Pfaltzgraff. I figured my wife would flip, but when she got home later and I told her, she just blew it off. I did however manage to get all the pottery shards cleaned up so the dogs would not hurt themselves.
I went to run my errand (a PC repair for a family at our church) and was happy to see that they were home and ready for me. I ran into many issues (dead phone jack in one room for starters but the PC was not responding. It was running VERY slow (slower than my 650 mhz laptop...and this machine has a 2.8 ghz processor with 512 RAM) and I could not get it to respond. It would dial up but not connect to web sites, even after removing and reinstalling the TCP/IP stack. I noticed a lot of things running at start-up,so I removed the fluff, but after a reboot, they came back...never a good sign. I started a virus scan, but it was taking a long time as well and they appeared to be in hurry so I stopped it. I told them to pull off any of their data they wanted to keep and I would wipe and reload it for them. I left and came home, ate a quick dinner of cheese burritos, choc milk, and a banana then checked e-mail. Law and Order (both CI and SVU) were on last night and I wanted to catch them.
My wife called earlier in the day and told me she had some shopping to do and like most men who are trying to keep their budget under control, I rolled my eyes, fearing the worst. By the time my wife got home (15 minutes before TV time) I found that she got me (and her) V-Day presents, some new workout shoes for her, some new dish cloths/towels, and lunch for her for less than $70. I was pretty impressed. She is a great shopper. This is the second day in a row that she has blown me away with her heart. She is a wonderful person anyway, but she has really outdone herself this time :)
Earlier in the day I received an e-mail from Landshark, a friend of mine who lives in VA. LS and I go back 17 years or so...he was my first boss in NC and has become a very good friend since. He was giving me an update on the "2 Live Jews" (inside joke) and the get together they had recently. I was invited, but it was not near Tejas, so I could not attend. The e-mail conveyed both good news and bad, happiness and sadness. The "2 Live Jews" (Jewish brothers that LS and I both roomed with at one point) have lived lives both similar as well as opposite. "Rob the Slob", while he is divorced, has become very successful and quite wealthy by many people's standards. He owns a home in Maryland as well as in Florida as well as his own airplane.
"Dr Dave" is also divorced. While both brothers suffered financially from the split, DD had the added heartbreak of adding children to an already messy divorce. The details hurt me...deeply. I am not going to post them out of respect for DD's privacy. DD has been one of the people whom I regard quite highly. He kept me stable and sane at at time when I could have easily snapped. I was going through a painful divorce from my high school sweetheart when I met DD. Things in my life were pretty bad and I was contemplating bodily harm to my ex, but DD helped me see that while fantasizing about that was normal, carrying out the act was not. DD, I hope you know how much I appreciate the time you spent with me when we lived in NC. I will not forget that.
Anyhoo...Landshark had asked what was going on in my life so I gave him the Reader's Digest version and pointed to this blog if he wanted to keep up with the minutiae that care to bore the blogosphere with. I also asked him to pass on my contact info to DD so we can chat.
I slept very well last night. I am certain that the new mattress from Ikea (the Sultan Evje) with the three inch memory foam from Serta is the key. While I still have back issues, I am not in nearly as much pain as I was 2-4 months ago. Sleeping with a pillow between my knees also has helped me a great deal.
Well, my work plate is not overly full today. There are few issues on the high severity board that affect us but nothing that worries me...yet. I know that IT is like the Texas weather...it can change in an instant so I never get too comfy with the current situation.
LS told me in one of his e-mails that he paid $300 to have a new HDD put in his PC and the data from his old one put on the new HDD. I have to assume that the $300 included the drive. Now if that is the going rate for a data transfer...I really do need to get in business for myself. I have been kicking around the idea of opening up a PC repair shop for a while now but I have been reluctant to leave corporate America to do so. Since we had layoffs last year and I expect there to be more, I am trying to get myself in line to do this. I planned on marketing myself to the Christian community, hoping that someone who is honest can succeed without scaring customers into spending money they do not need to spend. I am not saying that all Christian businessmen are honest nor I am I saying that all non-Christian businessmen are dishonest. If I go into business as a Christian businessman then I have a higher standard and word of mouth will keep the customers coming. I already offer a very fair rate for honest work. As a matter of fact I am being called more and more to come in and fix things that others have either messed up or cannot fix. I guess that is a feather in my cap.
I will keep praying that whatever God wants me to do in life to provide for my family will make itself known to me so I can do what God wants me to do, not what I want me to do.
Okay, enough rambling, back work.
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