So Anyways

Hakuna Matata

We're finally seeing The Lion King tonight as part of our "Broadway Across America" season ticket package. We've waited for what seems to be an eternity to see the show, and we've suffered through some pure dreck (in the form of shows like Big and Annie, which are the kind of shows that would drive me into a homicidal rage if I tended toward the violent) so that our season tickets would guarantee us a chance to see TLK. I hope we're not disappointed, although I don't think we will be. I can sit and hum the music to myself and be perfectly content whether the actual stage presentation is good or not. Given what I've seen and heard about the visuals, though, I'm pretty sure they'll hold my attention.

With that being on the agenda for this evening, I've had the song Hakuna Matata bouncing around in my head all day. It's kind of an annoying little ditty, but in a catchy kind of way. And when I hear it, I usually think, yeah - like anyone can really live by that whole "problem free philosphy" thing.

Just about the time I was thinking that, a co-worker who just had a baby and is quitting her job so she can be a full-time mom, came by the office to pick up her things and clear out her cubicle. The look on her face and her general overall happiness just blew me away. She's definitely living Hakuna Matata right now, and it makes me jealous.

This company is a pretty high-stress environment most (OK, all) of the time. The successful people learn to handle the stress in ways that allow them to keep on living life as fully as possible, but it takes its toll even on the most successful.

I never really realize how much work weighs on all of us until I see someone who's been away from it all for awhile and who's had a chance to get their head screwed back on right. It's really refreshing and encouraging to see that yep, there really is life outside these oppressive four walls. The challenge is just to figure out how to get to the point where that elusive life can actually be enjoyed rather than dreamed about.

Today's Word of the Day

Turbidity. Having sediment or foreign particles stirred up or suspended; muddy.

There's just something about that word that makes me laugh. I keep seeing it since the City of Phoenix is sending out updates about our even-crappier-than-normal drinking water several times a day, and our office building has big "Don't Drink the Water!" signs posted at every drinking fountain.

It feels so 24 around here.

Get Off Me

I think my attitude is beginning to show. I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed at work of late and feeling frustrated that no one in a position to help seems to even notice.

During those long-ago, but really really great 2 weeks at the end of last year when I didn't officially have to work, I managed to finally figure out how to access my work computer from my home computer. I breathed a sigh of relief when that happened, because it meant that for those 2 weeks, I could keep tabs on work-related stuff without having to physically come into the office. That was great at the time, but I also knew that my new discovery would come back and bite me in the ass pretty soon.

Sure enough, it has. I think there has been one weekend day this whole month that I haven't spent at least an hour or more doing work. The last two weekends, it's been more like 4 hours a day, Saturday and Sunday. And, I'm even feeling so far behind that I've had to spend a couple hours each weekend night catching up on work e-mail from home - after working a pretty typical 10-hour day already.

I really don't usually mind working hard. It gives me something to complain about, which always makes me happy. Days go by much faster and I don't get bored. But, there comes a point when I start thinking enough is enough.

I think I'm at that point now - the point where work has encroached into my life and stolen practically every available "spare" minute of my time. My allowing that to happen, unfortunately, hasn't resulted in my feeling any more "caught up" than before. In fact, today I feel even more far behind than I've felt in months.

So what's a boy to do? Talking to the boss doesn't help. He's a nice guy and all, and I think he cares about his employee's mental health, but I don't think he has the first concept of how busy we really are or how overwhelmed we are. He offers convenient, management-speak encouragement, but he doesn't offer any alternatives or help with prioritizing the work.

I'm thinking a mental health day, disguised as a fake hacking cough and sniffles, might be in order sometime soon...

I've Got an IKEA

When the IKEA just up the road from us opened back in November, I swore that I wouldn't even think about venturing into it until several months later, after all of the craziness died down. Despite having never been in one before, and being curious what all the fuss was about, that turned out to be a good call, as traffic was snarled on the freeway and all of the area surface streets for weeks after it opened. Police were out directing traffic in the area and it was just a general zoo. I was more than happy to stay away as much as possible, even though I had to deal with the crazy traffic surrounding the store everyday.

Finally, last weekend, I suggested to Ed that we go check it out on Saturday afternoon. Surely, after being open for 2 months, the crowds wouldn't be out of control. Wrong! As we got close to the store, we noticed the police out again directing traffic, cars parked all up and down every street in the area, and people literally hiking a mile or more from their cars to the store. Taking one look at that mess, we quickly turned around and headed to another, less crowded, home furnishing store just up the street.

By this time, I have to admit, I was really curious what it was about IKEA that could attract that kind of mass hysteria. So, we made another effort last night to check it out.

Late Friday night turned out to be a good time to visit. We actually got to park in the actual store parking lot, and although the crowd inside was huge, it was still manageable. It was a lot more manageable whenever we were walking in the direction indicated by the arrows on the floor, though, than when we tried to go in the reverse direction. I'm sure we broke every rule in the IKEA Shoppers' Handbook when we ventured in the wrong direction, but it felt somehow rebellious and liberating to go against the arrows.

I also determined that my gaydar, which is normally nearly non-existant, works really well in IKEA. Pretty much any male-male couple in that store is gay, I think. Especially the ones checking out the beds.

We managed to get through the whole thing (I think). It took about an hour to do, but at least we survived it. And, we managed to not give IKEA a dime of our money - at least until we decided to splurge on a $1.50 cinnamon bun with coffee combo at their little snack bar thingy.

I still don't get what the big attraction is. Probably a lot of that is because my taste in furniture doesn't really align with the style that IKEA sells. They had some decent stuff, and it seemed reasonably priced, but still...I just can't see why it gets the buzz and the crowds that it does.

As we were walking out and my head was still spinning with the out of control consumerism I had just been exposed to, it was hard not to notice all of the big SUV's parked at the loading area where people were loading up all their flat-boxed purchases. That set my mind to thinking - IKEA is big in Europe. Every time I've ever been to Europe, I've been amazed at the tiny little cars everyone drives. How the hell do Europeans get their IKEA stuff home?

Come Back Casey

I haven't been much of a Phoenix Suns' or NBA fan ever since Sir Charles Barkley left the team in a huff a few years back. I guess I'm the classic bandwagoner - I loved the team back in the day when they were one of the best teams in the league. But when Charles left, the team sucked hard for years and years and I totally lost interest.

They're back this year though and playing an exciting brand of basketball, so I've been getting a little more into them again.

But just when things were really looking good, they lose 5 games in a row and trade away the one guy who always kept my interest, Casey Jacobsen:

Sigh.

Oy

I just finished watching the inauguration and thinking to myself, "I hope we survive the next four years," and what is the first thing I see online afterwards? An article saying that SpongeBob SquarePants is promoting homosexuality. Good old James Dobson thinks that Spongie, Barney, Winnie the Pooh, and Bob the Builder crossed a "moral line" in their new video promoting tolerance of diversity.

It's gonna be a long four years...

Boots and Balls

I have an unhealthy love of anything presidential. Presidential inaugurations rank right up near the top of my list of cool things that I would love to see some day (a state funeral would be even cooler). But, even though I'm interested in this one and have already left instructions with Ed to set the TiVo so that I can see today's festivities after I get home from work, I'm certainly not feeling the level of excitement I would've had we been watching the Bushies pack up and move back to the ranch.

Regardless of who it is that's taking the oath of office, the event itself is fascinating and I can't ever help but feel a bit of pride that the government really does go on and power changes hands (at least sometimes) smoothly and orderly. Overly simplistic and romantic view, I know, but it does inspire me and remind me that we don't live in such a bad place after all.

It's also always interesting to view the inauguration and project my thoughts forward 40 or 50 years trying to imagine how this man will be remembered in the future. Will he be remembered as a great leader? A crook? An incompetent boob?

I admit I have no idea how W will be remembered that far down the road, but at the moment, I can't imagine it will be terribly favorably. The man is a risk taker and I think that will be his legacy. It's too early to know if those risks are going to pay off or if they're going to cause even greater problems in the future (I have theories about that!). He's either going to be remembered as one of the greatest or as one of the worst. I don't think there will be a lot of middle ground about his legacy.

All the hoopla surrounding the inauguration, though, (hoopla = dumb parties costing millions of dollars where the president and first lady show up for one quick dance before dashing off to the next one) is annoying as hell. While the actual inauguration ceremony fascinates me, the balls and parties just bug the hell out of me. W has such a natural swagger, I just can't even think about watching him tonight as he goes from party to party and basks in his own glory. And, I really don't care what kind of dress Laura is wearing. I especially don't care what party girls Jenna and Barbara do, and I certainly don't want to see Papa and Mama Bush gloating in their sons' glory. But, I have a feeling I'll get to see all that and more over the next 24 hours.

There's Hope

After a way-too-short weekend that I spent sitting in front of my computer trying to catch up on work stuff, I started the new week with a pretty poor attitude. Waking up on Monday morning and trying to get motivated to face a new week while feeling like last week never actually ended is a sure way to put me in a bad mood.

But then I had a realization that seemed to work wonders for my disposition. It was as if the clouds parted, the birds started chirping, and there was still a reason to hope.

The realization that had such an effect?  We're guaranteed to have a new president in 4 years and 3 days!

Not that I'm still carrying a grudge from November 2 or anything.

Honest (Gay) Abe?

I'm a geek about history (Ed would say I'm a geek in a lot of ways), and I have a special place in my heart for some of the great presidents we've had. They're all just fascinating to me since they are very much larger than life and they played a huge part in forming the world we live in today. I've got a list of favorites that I'll have to post about sometime, but suffice it to say, my all-time favorite is good ol' Honest Abe Lincoln. It's impossible to say what kind of world we'd be living in today had he not been the leader he was. The challenges he faced were enough to make mere mortals crawl up in a fetal position and whimper.

Now, there's a new book out claiming that Honest Abe was really Gay Abe. I haven't read the book, so I can't make any judgments, but this article in Time explains the guy's theory pretty well. I admit that the fact that Abe slept with men is a pretty convincing reason to think he might've played for both teams, but I just don't know. I just can't see the man who led the country through the worst war in our history spending much time pettin' someone else's puppy, so to speak. But then again, with the wife that he had, who could blame him if he did?

Lost in Lust

I've been thinking it all season, but I haven't said anything about it until now. Lost's Ian Somerhalder is a fine specimen. If I ever am stranded on a tropical island, I want him there with me.

The fact that we learned last night that he's a bit of a perv, lusting after his own (step-) sister doesn't really change my feelings for him. In fact, it's kinda good to know that he's willing to be a little unconventional.

Yeah, I know it's just a TV show, and he's probably straight as an arrow in real life, but a boy can dream, can't he?

We're Next

Arizona is very likely among the next wave of states that will join with all of the others passing constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. The state legislature began its 2005 session yesterday with an even more conservative bunch than before, and several of the conservative leaders have stated publically that one of their major goals this session is to put a gay marriage ban amendment in front of the voters.

Our governor even challenged them to schedule the vote for 2005 instead of waiting until 2006.

Why, I'm not exactly sure. She may not be a Friend of Dorothy, but she's always at least seemed to be friendly to gay causes. She's stated several times in no uncertain terms that she doesn't support the proposed amendment. By pushing for the vote to be held in 2005, I have to wonder if she's only playing politics (as her critics accuse, saying she's trying to keep conservative voters from flocking to the polls in 2006 when she's up for re-election), or if she thinks that somehow the measure is likely to fail anyway and this will get it out of the way sooner instead of later.

I hope her motivation is the latter, but even if it is, I'm not sure it's the right call. Arizona sometimes comes across to the rest of the country as less conservative than it really is, but when it comes right down to these kinds of issues, there is no doubt that Arizona is as conservative as any Bible-belt state. With a Mormon church on practically every block, anyone who thinks a gay marriage ban won't pass in this state is delusional.

Now that the amendment is nearly a foregone conclusion, I'm trying to decide what I can do to help turn the tide the other way. I'm afraid not much.

Get a Clue-sky

Since Ed is a very sick boy this weekend, virtually turning Whine and Cheese into Wheeze and Cough, I've been spending even more time standing in line at fast food places the last couple of days. I'm not much of a male nurse, so there's very little I can do to make him feel better, but I'm at least trying to keep him nourished. Not that fast food is nourishment, but it's better than whatever I could manage to come up with on my own.

So anyways, I've been amazed the last couple of days at how popular the fast food places are all of a sudden. Most times, I'm in and out of them in the blink of an eye, but not this weekend. I'm thinking it's a conspiracy against me. Last night, I waited in line for 20 minutes at one place just to place my order, only to be informed by the pre-pubescent teenage boy taking my order that it would be "six to six and a half minutes" before my order was ready, so, if I wanted, I could "just hang out and wait or go for a jog or something..." I told him I'd just wait, thanks, and so I did - for another 15 minutes.

Then today, I went to Schlotzsky's to grab a couple sandwiches to go. Of course, me being me, and it being the "Annoy Todd Weekend," I get to the door and realize there are like 12 people ahead of me. Another 15 minutes of waiting just to place my order. But this time, that delay was helped along by two totally clueless and annoying women two places ahead of me in line. When they finally got to the front, they had no clue what they wanted to order. They proceeded to ask the order boy about each sandwich on the menu. When they asked what the turkey and bacon sandwich had on it, I nearly lost control.

In fact, I actually did lose control, if ever so briefly. I have a bad habit of sighing when I'm annoyed, and I let out quite a hefty sigh at that point, and mumbled "ay ay ay" (another of my trademark annoyance utterances) under my breath. Luckily, the idiot women didn't hear me, but the nice grey haired little old lady in front of me did. She smiled at me and said, "it really shouldn't be this hard, should it?" It really shouldn't have been, but I was embarrassed that I had been caught being a jerk.

The idiot women then explained to the cashier that they had never eaten at Schlotzsky's before, so that's why they had so many questions. I suppose that could explain it, despite that this particular Schlotzsky's has been there in the same location for approximately 15 years and the fact that there are seemingly hundreds of them around town. If they've never eaten at one, it must be because they just moved here from Minot or something. But even if it was their first time, they had had at least 15 minutes of standing in line to make up their mind before they reached that critical order-placing moment. You'd think that you could make a sandwich decision in that amount of time.

The order boy seemed frazzled by the experience almost as much as I was. He seemed quite relieved when I stepped up to the counter and ordered "two regular originals on sourdough to go."

Field of Incompetence

Excuse me while I vent...

Suppose you're a group of 3 filthy rich guys who are looking around for something cool to spend your money on. The local major league baseball team is in financial trouble, so you think to yourself, "Hey, cool. I've always wanted to be a professional sports team owner, and I'm loaded, so why not buy the team?" So, suppose you do go ahead and buy a controlling interest. Seems like a good idea because the team is just one year removed from a magical season that ended with a thrilling come-from-behind Game 7 World Series win. You can't lose, right?

Well, you probably won't lose any money on the deal because professional sports teams seem to be cash generators, despite their constant whining about financial problems and high player salaries. But, if you're not careful, you could show just how incompetent you are, and in the process, alienate an entire city who used to love your team.

Here's how you'd go about it:

• Take a controlling interest while the team is still loaded with World Series-winning talent, including two of the greatest pitchers to ever play the game.
• Trade away Pitcher #1 (Curt Schilling) to the Boston Red Sox for essentially nothing in return. Claim it has to be done for the financial survival of the team.
• Trade away 6 of the core members of the team that won the World Series for 1 supposed superstar slugger, Richie Sexson. Pay Sexson almost $9 million and sign him to just 1 year.
• Watch the $9-million Man go down with a dislocated shoulder after about the 20th game of the season. Wait for him to recover, and rush him back, probably before he's ready.
• Watch the $9-million Man play about 3 more games, then go down again with another dislocated shoulder. Watch him sit on the bench for the rest of the season. 23 games. $9 million. Fail to sign him to a new contract for the next season.
• Get frustrated as the team, without superstar pitcher #1, without 6 core team members, and without the superstar slugger struggles to win many games.
• Fire the manager who brought the World Series title home in his first year, but who is struggling to win any games with the farm team he's been handed.
• Act surprised and disappointed when the Hall of Famer, Robin Yount, quits his coaching position with the team in protest over the manager's firing.
• Replace the manager, Bob Brenly, with the 3rd Base coach who is a really nice guy, but who doesn't have a minute of major league managing experience under his belt. Expect him to be able to turn around the fortunes of a team that was decimated by bad trades.
• Get annoyed with the founder of the team and local sports icon, Jerry Colangelo, for disagreeing with some of your decisions (because, after all, your decisions have been so spot on so far). Force him out in a power play.
• Replace Mr. Colangelo with a big-time sports agent, Jeff Moorad, who has no experience managing a professional sports team and who is hated by the management of most other teams. Act surprised when MLB refuses to authorize Mr. Moorad to become the team's new CEO.
• Hobble through to the end of the season and promise the fans that the next year will not be a "rebuilding" year, but a "reloading" year. Cuz that sounds so much better.
• Hire a new manager, Wally Backman, but fail to do any kind of background check on the guy. Realize the next day, only after the local newspaper exposes the story, that your new manager has been convicted and/or accused of all kinds of petty crimes, and some not-so-petty ones. Fire his ass 2 days after you hired him.
• As part of the re-loading you promised, spend the entire winter trying to engineer a trade that will send possibly one of the top 5 pitchers ever to play the game, Randy Johnson (who just happened to pitch a perfect game last season), to the Yankees in return for a mediocre pitcher and some cash. (And, start figuring out how you're going to market the team next year without the franchise player.)
• Convince the fans that the trade makes sense because you're going to use it to free up money to sign another superstar slugger, Shawn Green, but then fail to convince Green to accept the trade by offering him only half of his current salary.

That story, as sad as it is, is true and pretty much proves that yeah, you actually could lose if you decided to buy a baseball team but you had no clue what to do with it.

I'm a Genius!

I just took the "What's your TV IQ?" quiz on MSN and scored 9 out of 10 - good enough for a "It's time you turn your TV off" comment. Check it out.

I missed #4.

You Lost Me

Warning: Possible "Lost" spoilers below:

I hate to admit it when I don't get an episode of any of the shows I watch, especially one of the shows that has been consistently good. But, I have to admit, I just didn't get last night's episode of Lost. Maybe I was just distracted or not in the right frame of mind, but this episode didn't seem to live up to the high level of plausibility that it normally does - at least they make it seem plausible most of the time, even though I still have a hard time buying the whole "man-eating polar bear" story line.

What didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me last night was Kate's fascination/determination to recover the contents of the brief case she and Sawyer found under the waterfall. After building up the suspense through the entire episode about what was really locked up in that case, we find out it was a toy airplane! Woo hoo! Like...OK, it apparently belonged to your dead boyfriend, but still...why go to all that trouble for a toy airplane?

I could accept that she wanted to have something of sentimental value (if there can be anything sentimental about killing your boyfriend), but that doesn't really explain why she went to all of the trouble of setting up a bank heist with some apparently new loverboy just so she could get her hands on the key to the lock box that contained the airplane.

And, is it really all that smart to take time for a quickie in the back room with loverboy/bankrobber while the heist is underway? If it were me trying to rob a bank of a toy airplane, I'd try to get the business done as quickly as possible and save playtime for later. And I certainly wouldn't kill several people in the process.

I know there are lots of good story lines out there that they can follow - I just hope they let the toy airplane wash out to sea.

Hera Today, Gus Tomorrow

It was truly sad to see my favorite team eliminated from The Amazing Race last night. The father and daughter team, Gus and Hera, were by far the most "real" of the teams this season, with the possible exception of "Team AARP", Don and Mary Jean.

G&H are certainly not flashy, nor are they models or specimens of athletic excellence. They were, though, pretty entertaining. Their running around in the Berlin beer garden, asking the customers if they had seen pictures of black people, was one of my favorite TAR episodes ever. Gus couldn't resist taking a few extra chugs of beer (and judging from his rotund belly, he loves his beer!), and Hera couldn't resist being embarrassed by her dad. And who could help but be at least a little moved by Gus' strong reaction at the "Door of No Return" in Africa, where slaves were loaded on ships for their journey to the new world?

But, alas, TAR doesn't seem to reward the "real" people very often. It seems that you have to be fairly athletic, competitive almost to a fault, and ruthless to have a chance. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed, though, that "Team Psycho", Jonathan and Victoria, will be the next to be eliminated. Not that I have anything against Victoria, but the guy she's married to just has got to be the worst reality "character" I've seen. Watching him slap his wife around when they were beat to the finish line was bad enough, but it got even worse last night when Jonathan kept accusing Victoria of being a "drama queen" as she was violently vomiting spicy soup one spoonful at a time. I know Jonathan is now claiming his behavior was amped up for the cameras and that he's a victim of unfair editing, but I think it's pretty clear, he's one of the biggest jerks ever on reality TV.

Now, we just have to keep Aaron and Hayden in the race. Hayden is more annoying than chalk scraping across a chalkboard, but Aaron is just too cute. They need to stay around so I have something to look at.

It Coulda Been Me

When I was a freshman in college, I lived in paradise for one semester. I worked at a US government satellite tracking station in the Indian Ocean - the Seychelles Islands to be exact.

Looking back on it, I can't freakin' believe I lived there.

I lived in a little shack right on the beach. The roof of the shack was made of coconut husks.

There was no tsunami while I lived there. If there had been, I don't think I would've made it.

This was the view out my front door (OK, I ripped this photo off the web someplace - I lived there before digital photography - but this is essentially the same view):

TiVo ToGo

TiVo is a really cool little box. It was one of those things that I thought was cool from the time I first heard of it, although it took us awhile to finally buy in. Once we did, though, I couldn't believe we had waited so long. As they say, it's changed the way we watch TV, and it feels like it's changed our lifestyle as well - all for the better, despite my usual bitching about having too much TiVo to watch.

Since the last two weeks have been pretty much free of any TV worth watching, it's given us a chance to clean up our list of "Now Showing" shows, so we're just down to a few movies that we can watch whenever. It probably won't be long till we're backed up again with 50 or 60 shows that need to be watched, and then I'll be stressing about when we're going to find time to watch all of them.

As cool as TiVo is, though, I'm not so sure their latest announcement is going to set the world abuzz - they're launching the "TiVo ToGo" service, which allows users to copy recorded shows onto home computers (and from there to DVD's). I just can't see how that's something I'm going to use much - we have a 55" TV. Why would I want to watch anything on a laptop or desktop monitor? Unless, of course, I'm flying on a 15 hour flight to Asia or something, which I don't do all that often.

I guess saving TV shows to a DVD has some appeal, but again, I don't see the point. Just leave it on the TiVo hard drive - there's plenty of space for a ton of shows. I mean, it's kind of cool, but it just doesn't seem to have much practical benefit to me.

Of course, this is coming from the person who, when first introduced to this new thing called the world wide web, thought that would never amount to much.

Last Letters Home

Against my better judgment, being that Sunday nights are always depressing enough without any outside influences (especially the last night of a 2-week vacation), we finally watched HBO's Last Letters Home last night.

In case you've never heard of it, this is a documentary that features several families of soldiers who died in Iraq reading the last letters they received from their fallen family members. I knew going into it that it would be tough to watch, but I thought it would be worth it.

Tough to watch is the understatement of the year - we both were complete blathering idiots by the time it was over with tears everywhere - but it was well worth the difficulty. I suspect everyone, especially me, tends to forget sometimes that those casualty numbers we hear actually represent real people with families and hopes and dreams. When we see their names scrolling across the screen, or hear of their deaths, I think it's easy to forget just how much pain their deaths have caused someone somewhere and what a void has been left as a result of their passing.

This film makes it abundantly clear just how big a loss each one of those deaths really represents. The letters the families read were incredibly moving - some poignant and very personal, others short and to the point, but with an overriding sense of foreboding that made it clear just how terrifying the war is for soldiers. They each seemed to know that they would likely not make it back home alive, and they said the kinds of things to their family members that people normally don't say but which are incredibly important to say.

The families also talked about how they learned of the soldiers' deaths and how their lives have changed since. Each story was completely heart wrenching.

I found myself thinking that every American ought to watch this film. No matter whether you support the war or not, it's important to keep in mind just how huge the price is when people start dying in the course of the war. 1,300+ lives lost in Iraq may not sound like much when compared to Vietnam or World War II, but when taken down to a personal level, the loss is incredible.

Ready to Start Again

So it's back to work tomorrow after almost two weeks of time off. I always have a hard time getting psyched back up to start work after time off, especially after an extended break like the one I've just had, but I'm ready to give it a shot.

It's really rare for me to have this long of a break; my "vacations" usually consist of a few long weekends scattered throughout the year. But this time my company shut down for the last two weeks of the year and forced us to take the time off. I didn't appreciate that at the time since it complicated our plans for an extended, real vacation early in 2005, but now that I've had the break, I'm really glad that I had it. I tend to take my job way too seriously and let the stress get to me too much, and the only real cure for that is to get a nice long break. Even though I knew I needed the break before it ever started, I don't think I realized just how badly I needed it until now. I've even managed to sleep through the nights lately without waking up in a cold sweat worrying about this unresolved problem at work or that project that's falling behind. Now the challenge will be to see if I can maintain this level of sanity well into the new year. I'm going to try to take it "one day at a time" - my first goal is to make it until lunchtime tomorrow without feeling my blood pressure spike. If I can do that, maybe I can have a reasonable week, and there'll be a weekend soon so I can relax some more.

Repeat that 50 more times and I'll have survived another year. And repeat the whole thing 20 more times and I'll be done with working for a living!

A Foggy New Year

Happy 2005! We awoke in Phoenix today to heavy fog, something that is rare here in the desert, but which seems somehow appropriate for the first day of a new year.

The visibility is low, kind of like my vision of what the new year holds. I'm not particularly worried about the year ahead - the job situation seems to be as stable as it has been in awhile, finances are OK, and things on the homefront are good. But, you just never know what the future will bring and I'm sure there will be plenty of unanticipated twists and turns in 2005.

Today's fog also makes me a little nervous since we watched the movie, House of Sand and Fog, last night. It's an excellent movie, but for a person with a strong built-in sense of paranoia like me, it's a little disconcerting. The movie illustrates how seemingly innocent and harmless decisions can have devastating effects that lead to more decisions that have even more devastating effects. For a person like me who always tends to see disaster looming at the end of every road, it's a bit of a chiller. I'm just hoping that today's fog doesn't forebode the kinds of disasters that those poor people in foggy San Francisco experienced in that movie.

I just gotta remind myself - it's just a movie. Even I couldn't possibly make such boneheaded decisions. I hope.