Work's been extremely nutty these days. We are working to get most of our responsibilities transferred to the mother ship before we are left behind. Now I know what the descent module on the Apollo missions felt like.

I am having way too much fun with my digital video camera, my G3 and iMovie! I can't wait to be an unemployed bum!

Hear, hear, Jane.

Faith, in terms of belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence, is a good thing to have.

I have faith that all of this paranoia about terrorist attacks will pass. Although more people are likely to be killed, I also have faith that my family and friends will be spared. I can't spend my whole life in fear. There is a difference between taking precautions and being irrationally overprotective. I've heard that some people in our corporate office refuse to drink anything but bottled water and they are opening mail using gloves. At that point, I think the terrorists have won.

Blogaversary Party

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It's been a year of writing and I'm still OK. If fact, I'm better than you can imagine. Blogging has really helped me vent, remember, pass on wisdom, and distract myself from other craziness that I've experienced in the past year. I've enjoyed it so much that I want to have a drink in celebration and I've decided that you, gentle reader, should be here with me to enjoy it.

I appreciate that you've been reading and sharing my observations of my life. Some of you I know through e-mails (or personal contact) regarding blog entries. Some of you I know through links to and from my blogs. As we have shared little bits of each other, I thought it would be nice to get together and meet, face to face.

The anonymity of the web may prove this to be a bad idea, but I'm going to give it a try. If you are interested in stopping by in person or by phone (we'll see if I can get a webcam rigged up for the event) AND you plan to be in Calgary on November 3rd after 7 pm, you gotta let me know. Include:

• how many people you are bringing
  
• what you prefer to drink
  
• how you plan to attend (in person, via phone or web browser)
  
• if you're really a nutcase that plans to physically attack me for something I've alluded to or you've imagined in one of my posts

I'll send you the address (or phone number or IP address) and make sure to put a beverage of your choice in the fridge. You can look forward to talking with others who read or keep blogs, too.

I'm interested to see who turns up.

As my time at eyewire draws to a close (77 working days by my count), I feel compelled to start planning more seriously for my future. I've got an idea for a business, and I am investigating its (it's?) feasability. I guess I'm more of a planner than I originally thought. The business is service-based, 'cause service is something I know. If the numbers work out (meaning it would eventually make money), I might fill you in with the details.

Some trends in junk mail are good. I would have been some kind of angry if I had just sent in the application from the first offer and then had the second (or third!) land on my doorstep.

I wish I had more time to blog and tinker with my site and my equipment and and and and ....

(Annie Lennox and Alanis Morrisette are taking turns crooning to me right now)

It's about time for a party and you're all invited.

How does November 3rd sound?

Details to follow. Soon.

Two different parts of me are struggling with how to deal with my youngest daughter. The uptight, conservative, orderly part of me wants her to keep her room tidy, not make messes, damage walls and furniture in our house, leave half-finished projects everywhere, stay up late coloring, reading and dressing her Barbies. Another part of me recognizes that she has a creative energy that would be a tragedy to have stifled, and I should smother her in hugs for being such an interesting child.

I need to remember that the clutter in her room is only a problem to me. She is perfectly fine with it.

It's looking more and more like I will really be the last one at the office, throwing out coffee cups and sheets of paper.

Will that ever be a crummy job.

Lots to be thankful for these days.

Fun Things to Tell a Temp (from Dilbert's List of the Day):

The boss just had breast augmentation surgery and is very proud of them. Be sure and compliment her.

Quick Updates:

The temperature changes in this office are one of the things I WON’T miss.

I talked to a recently laid-off ex-eyewirite and they noted that they were still just as busy, but now they weren’t being paid. I could see myself easily falling into that same trap.

I am bewildered by the air of importance that people that wear suits seem to put forward. Nobody’s job could be that critical.

I’m really tired and grumpy today, so don’t come looking for anything. I’d rather be anyplace else.

Part of my misspent youth included some vandalism. When I was in university in Edmonton, I rode by a big temporary roadside sign every day. One fall morning they were advertising ADVENT CALENDARS for $3.99.

When I rode home late that night, I couldn't resist shuffling a few letters. For the next 24 hours, Colonial Meats sold CADAVERS for $3.99.

That kept me amused for the rest of the term.

If it gets any hotter around here, I'm gonna have to strip down to my skivvies.

To IP or not to IP; that is the question ...

I am toying with the idea of getting a static IP address at my home office.

Don't I have enough complication in my life? I could end up spending 12 hours a day just tweaking my HOME system! There's definitely no money in that - I know I can't afford myself.

Just think of the possibilities, though ...

• my own web server, with almost unlimited gigabytes of downlaodable goodies for the five or six people that visit nuther.com
  
• my own mail server to build, maintain, patch, prop up, virus scan, clean out and occasionally rebuild
  
• my own DNS server, 'cuz heaven knows I wouldn't trust a professional ISP to provide a service THAT important
  
• new, increased monthly expenses from our local telco for my wife to get excited about
  
• never mind the extra power consumption, the noise of whirring fans, floor and shelf space to be taken up, etc.

What could be better?

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By the way, my home office is now permanently tri-platform. I am running Linux RedHat 5.2, Windows 98 (soon to become Windows 2000 Professional when I get 4 spare hours) and Mac OS 9.2.1 running on a recently acquired G3. I forgot how bonehead-friendly Macs are - it only took two hours of next-next-next-next-reboot's until I had things the way I wanted them. I still need to get printer sharing set up on the Linux box (disguising itself as a file and print server, no less). If tinkering is a sin, I'm going straight to hell.

See what happens when my wife heads out of town? No one is around to shoo me off to bed at a decent time.

Tonight, my swim coach moved me into the fast lane. I'm a speedster again!

After watching an excerpt from the new Star Trek prequel, "Enterprise", a coworker had this remark.

"When people go to Mount Rushmore, they don't ask, 'I wonder if that mountain is natural or man-made" they just enjoy looking at it. I am of the same opinion."

Draw your own conclusions to what he was talking about.

I'm doing the CIBC Run for the Cure race today - 5 kilometres, Banana and my sister-in-law at my side. It should be fairly easy as I don't expect either of them to outstrip me. Jenn is out of town, in Los Angeles for a conference, and McMonkey is staying over at Grandma's house for the evening. I should be sleeping, but I couldn't resist the urge to blog a bit.

Last week was a busy week at work as we prepare to move some major systems down to corporate HQ and wash our hands of the support part. By November, we will be only babysitting files on servers and one or two small applications. I have a feeling November will be a real s-l-o-w month in InfoSystemsLand.

I wanna say "I told you so," but modesty and better judgement won't let me.

I'm thinking about running an underground contest at work to come up with a new corporate catch phrase. How about:

• GettyImages - attitude is about all we've got left
  
• GettyImages - do you want fries with that?
  
• GettyImages - would you please hold?
  
• GettyImages - huge, corporate and almost hip

My hostile takeover plans are coming along well, with stock value hovering just five dollars over the trip price.

"That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest."

- Henry David Thoreau

Thanks Jon.

At 2:25 pm today, I was in a meeting when I noticed that my socks didn't match. Even though I was wearing shorts, I was able to go through the whole day without anyone commenting. I wonder how deviant my attire would have to be before someone mentioned it to me. Inside-out shirt? One shoe, one sandal? Underwear outside of my pants? Maybe I should do a little experiment.

Let me tell you, knowing that you have a finite number of days at your office opens a whole realm of possibilities.

When I got home from work today, the whole family walked up to the local pizza joint, picked up a pizza and walked to a picnic table in that park that our house backs onto, then sat and ate the pizza for dinner. It was sunny, we had some good family time and saw many others using the park to walk their dogs, get some exercise and otherwise enjoy this green space we sometimes takes for granted. Being out there reminded me what a lovely, warm time autumn can be. It is as if all of nature is sitting down after a long active summer, putting its feet up and relaxing for a few weeks before it toddles off to bed for the winter.

Once the I put the kids to bed tonight, I went outside to my back yard in just my jeans and a t-shirt and stood in the warm, still air of the late evening for about 10 minutes. What a charmed life I'm leading.

If you want to stroll down Memory Lane (which may be more accurately referred to as Hallucinogenic Lane), have a peek at a compiled and growing list of my dream blog entries.

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I love that when I open my electronic dictionary, it displays the results of the last word I looked up.

Some of the guys I work with are starting to feel anxious about their impending unemployment. I wish that I could reassure them that everything will be OK, but I'm not sure that I feel that way myself. Besides, they are all old enough to deal with (and be aware of) their own situations. I don't own that bucket o' concerns.

They really are a good bunch of guys, each in his own way. I wish them well wherever they land.

I am toying with the idea of doing something big and showy for the EyeWire Farewell Party (disguised as a Christmas Party) that is coming up in November. In the past, I've added my own touches to the Christmas Party, as well as other staff events. I'm not sure if they've always been appropriate (showing clips of movies at monthly company-wide parties, my EyeWire Jeopardy game, my Lets-Make-A-Deal game), but I've enjoyed doing them and felt that they've enriched the atmosphere of the gathering. I haven't decided what my contribution should be yet, or how deeply my humor will bite. Then again, maybe I should just let this moment pass quietly, as the battle to *be* EyeWire (or rather, Getty Calgary) seems to have been won by others.

Some of these "others" that are staying on (supposedly) may be looking for just a standard holiday party with the benchmarks of a formal company function:

• a better than mediocre dinner
  
• four or five hours of stilted, politically correct conversation
  
• sappy, watered-down, middle-of-the-road music that only appeals to 1/4 of the people there and inspires even less of them to dance
  
• a weak state-of-the-union speech given by whomever purports to be at the helm of this rudderless skiff on the fateful evening

I want the last hoorah of our happy group to be more than that. I'm worried that there's not enough of us (or the 'us' spirit) left to do the party justice. We have been bleeding talent and character for some time now. Did I miss the last hoorah? Has Getty so knocked the wind out of us that we can't raise our voices together in a final shout, taunting the BigCo that we were never meant to belong to?

I hope not, but I'm not optimistic at this point.

I was busy today, I'm having pork chops AND I got to set up some equipment. It was a good day.

Saying goodbye to all my friends at our happy brick building is going to be harder than I thought. I just got a taste of it tonight. But if someone has to put everything to bed and clean up after the party, it should be done with dignity. I hope that I'm up to the task.

If someone asked me to do this again (stay on until the very end), I doubt that I would. The amount of money I'm getting as a retention bonus is NOT on par with the heartache that I'm going through.

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Never, ever put entries into your blog when you've had too much to drink.

Using Subversive Humor to Get Fired (part 61):

If you work at a fast food establishment, use a pained expression and gentle, prolonged grunting noises whenever you are dispensing chocolate soft-serve ice cream into a cone or cup.