Diary of a Network Geek

Because, this is totally why I got into computers.

Yeah, right, sure it is.
Look, these new ads by Intel highlighting the “rockstars” of the geek world are great.  They’re cute.  They’re funny.  But they work because this is so NOT how our society works.  Geniuses who invent things that change the way many of us live are mostly not appreciated in their time.  They don’t have trading cards.  They aren’t the subject of comic books.  They don’t get their faces on boxes of breakfast cereal.
But, isn’t that wrong?  I mean, shouldn’t that be what we reward?  Not the super-jocks who can throw a ball or run the bases or whatever, but the geniuses who actually change the world?

Maybe I live in a dream land, but, well, that’s how I wish it was.

I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m a nut for space exploration.

I’m still torn between a trip to Mars or a base on the Moon as our next step into space, but anything that moves us in that direction is great.  Recently, six volunteers entered an isolation chamber in Russia to study the long-term effects of living in close quarters in preparation for a trip to Mars.  I think this is cool for several reasons.  First, of course, the advancement of science.  Second, it means we may be getting closer to an actual trip to Mars.  And, third, because of all the potential science-fiction stories and movies that will result.

I’m thinking about running a contest.

I’ve been thinking about running a contest to promote another site I’ve been working on.  Now, before anyone get’s too excited, this is something that I’m just speculating on right now and wouldn’t even start for months, if I do it at all.  For whatever reason, I’ve been a little nostalgic for the old, Internet “boom” days.  Those heady days when the Internet bubble hadn’t quite burst and receptionists might be paper millionaires.  It was that culture that launched many of the websites that we all love today, like Amazon.com, along with so, so many that never made it.  There are still some remnants from those days, like ThinkGeek.com, who sold us all crazy t-shirts and junk for our desks, a way to spend those ridiculous salaries so many geeks were making at the time.  I should note, however, I was not one of those making the giant salary.  I was just a “working-class” geek who ground out networks like some kind of piece-worker who lusted after so much of that material culture.  I especially loved the imported vinyl toys that were around then and have since passed into a kind of obscure subculture that still lives on the web.  (You can find examples of what it’s become at KidRobot.com)  So, the idea I had for the contest has been influenced by all that.  Also, I’ve always been fascinated by pictures of other people’s desks and bags.  I love to see the contents of their life as bounded by the confines of an office or the bag they carry.  Of course, there’s a trick writers use to help define their characters by what they carry in their bag, or luggage.  Obviously, the idea that what one carries on a daily basis in some way defines who they are.  I know I’m not the only one, too.  There’s a Flickr group dedicated to “what’s in your bag” that I find endlessly entertaining.

So, it’s with that in mind that I started thinking about the contest.  I had in mind to put together six or twelve bags, filled with junk, as if they belonged to a designer or geek who’s life one might covet.  Perhaps someone I wanted to be once, or wish to be in the future.  Maybe just what strikes me as an interesting character or someone I would like to meet.  I’d like to include some sort of branded merchandise, whether it’s the bag or pens or something else, I’m not sure.  Ah, but that does put me in mind of another theme from that era that seems to have changed some; schwag.  This was the stuff that was passed out at the trade shows that seemed to happen every week, advertising new companies and new services and even reminding us of the old companies.  There were companies back in the day that only seemed to exist long enough to produce a month or two worth of schwag and then slip silently beneath the waves.  (In fact, I suspect I have a few t-shirts from some of them!)  At one point, there was so much schwag floating around that there was a company who did nothing but package and ship schwag to subscribers, called ValleySchwag!  They don’t exist any more, but a new company has replaced them called Startup Schwag.  In any case, a lot of us who were in IT during that time have fond memories of running about collecting the “best” schwag at conferences and trade shows, so, I’d love to include some of that sort of junk in my contest give-aways, too.

At heart, I’m a marketer.  I have a degree in Marketing and, perhaps more importantly, I grew up with an inveterate salesman.  He was always talking about sales and marketing and how integrated that all is in business at every level and, somehow, that became supersaturated into my personality.  I’m always thinking about promotion and advertising.  People always talk about getting people to read their blog or look at their photographs or whatever, but they almost never do things to make that happen.  It’s not rocket science.  All you have to do is give people something they want, something they need.  Word will travel.  Honest.  So, that’s my intention with this contest.  I’m not entirely sure how to get everything squared away, but by the time I’m ready to launch it, I will.  Until then, though, what would you all like to see in the bags?  Keep in mind that I won’t include electronics like laptops or iPods, or weapons, or cash or anything that equates to cash like gift cards.  Most importantly, no “adult” products, like porn or condoms or anything crazy like that.  (Well, okay, maybe condoms because that strikes me as funny.)

So, if you want to see something in one of the bags, or have suggestions for running a blog contest or any other related comments, leave me a comment.  Also, if you have something that you’d like to include, let me know!  We can probably work something out to let you benefit from the advertising push.  This is, incidentally, a contest I plan to run for about a year, either monthly or bi-monthly, depending.  And, no, it won’t be on this blog, but another project which I don’t want to directly link to this.  Don’t worry, though, if you’re a regular commenter or an old friend or have suggestions about this contest, I’ll be sure to let you know what the project is and when the contest starts.

I’ve always been a survivor.

I usually try to save these soul-searching posts for a weekend, and, as often as not, I’ve been simply deleting them or not even writing them these days.  But, yesterday, I went to see my oncologist to get the results of the CT scan I had last week that I didn’t mention here, either.  I guess it was part of my rationalization and hiding from something that still scares me, to not write about it.  As if somehow not acknowleging it here would make it not matter to me or less frightening.  Of course, that rationalization and avoidance cocktail did nothing to help me sleep for the past week.  Nor, did it make me any less certain that I’ll die alone.

“That moment changes the way you see the world for the rest of your life.”
-Sheryl Crowe, on being diagnosed with cancer.

Cancer changed my life.
Cancer taught me both not to worry quite so much, but, at the same time, to be afraid.  I’m terrified of missing something.  Of not getting to participate in some vital experience that I absolutely need to feel or see or do.  I don’t worry quite so much about my own life and my own needs, but, sadly, that’s often to my detriment.  This entire week while waiting for both the scan and the results I’ve felt as if I’ve been missing something.  As if there were something that I desperately needed to get done, but I was forgetting to do.  I still don’t know what that might be.

One way that things have changed, in part, thanks to my cancer, is how much attention I pay to art and my creative side.  Now, I’ve always loved art, but it always seemed like something that other people did.
When I was in treatment, an acquaintance of mine, Mark Flood, started coming to visit me in the hospital.  We started talking and discovered that we had a lot in common, much to our mutual surprise.  That led to spending more time hanging out, and more time getting to know Mark and his art.  That led to weekly lunches and a rediscovery of my childhood desire to make art.
But, you see, I was told that you couldn’t make a living as an artist.  Or a writer.  I was encouraged to find more lucrative pursuits.  That’s how I ended up with a degree in Marketing and getting into computers professionally.  Both seemed like better career moves at the time.  But, as I spent more and more time becoming a real network geek, I spent less and less time doing anything creative.  And, I made money.  Good money, actually.  But, I wasn’t happy.  Not really, not for long.  These days, I’m mostly happy when I’m chasing one of the photographs I “see” in my head and trying to make it real.  It’s just not enough, anymore, to simply survive.

“[Man] cannot remake himself without suffering.  For he is both the marble and the sculptor.”
– Dr. Alexis Carret

But, thanks to Mark and some other things, I know you can do more than survive as a creative.  I worry that I may be a little late coming to the realization that I’ve been lied to all these years by my family.  For the best of reasons, to be sure, but a lie is still a lie and it tore a small hole in who I was when I didn’t pursue those creative urges back then.  In fact, I can think of several people who we knew when I was growing up who made their living as a creative and did just fine.
But, the process of unmaking who I had become before treatment and creating a life that will let me become the person I want to become is difficult.  Of course, it beats the alternative, which is not changing, staying the same forever, essentially, death.  But it’s not easy unlearning everything your family taught you about life to reinvent yourself and become something new, especially if you want to keep a relationship with that family.  And, all this change, in my perspective, in my priorities, in my very direction and mode of travel, was all brought about by that simple diagnosis of first, an unidentified mass, which later became cancer.

“It isn’t important to come out on top, what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.”
– Bertolt Brecht, Jungle of Cities

After spending almost eight months constantly wreslting with the possiblity of my own death, or, as I like to put it, French-kissing the Grim Reaper, has left me almost entirely unafraid of my own death.  Oh, sure, the pain leading up to it might suck hard, but, when the lights finally go out for me, well, it’s beyond my control.  And, don’t take that to mean that I wouldn’t fight for my life, because I would.  In fact, I think I’d fight harder for it now than I would have ever before, because there are things that I want to do, things I need to acomplish before I finally leave and “shuffle off this mortal coil”.
In fact, you’d think I’d be fearless about everything, but that’s just not been the case.
Mostly, I’m afraid of the things I was afraid of as a kid.  Social situations are especially terrifying.  I get all caught up in appearing right to other people.  Sometimes my ideas are, well, a little different.  Different thinking frightens most folks and, by extension, people who think differently are sometimes frightening.  I sometimes feel the burden of that social pressure to fit in and not make waves.  My working at odd angles to the world makes people occasionally uncomfortable and I don’t like that, so I get hesitant about being open and honest and, sometimes, just being with people.  It’s like regressing back to the Seventh Grade and all the social humiliation that goes along with that.  It’s not a pretty picture in my head.

“Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.”
– Daniel Dafoe, Robinson Crusoe

So, with almost entirely good news from my scan results yesterday, I’m trying to overcome my smaller fears that have begun to rule me.  I’m sure it will be a slow, ponderous process, and likely filled with fear and setbacks and imperfection, but that’s okay.  Hell, that’s just life.  But, in the end, I think I have to change.  I don’t plan on dying any time soon, so change will happen eventually, but it’s time to do more than survive.  I think it’s time I started steering my life more and improving and changing and truly living, not just surviving.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"If I'd known I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself!"
   --George Burns

No, seriously, don’t quit your day job.

Right, so most of you regular network geekophiles know that I’m a mildly repressed, slightly frustrated writer, among other things.  Many have been the day that I sat and dreamed of making a full-time living as a science-fiction or fantasy writer, setting my own schedule, free from the pressures of endless demands for instant service.  Well, it turns out that may not be the best idea.  For one thing, it’s hard to make a living at the fiction writing thing.  Certainly, a down economy is not the best time to roll dice that big.  Also, there’s the question of things like health insurance and retirement savings.  So, while I try to figure out some other creative ways to enrich my professional life, I’ll be thankful that my job really isn’t that bad.

And when I feel like it is, at least I know I’m not alone. So, if you’re feeling oppressed by the Man, know that you’re not the only one and check out some Science Fiction Writer’s Cruddiest Day Jobs.
I don’t know about you, but it gives me hope that, if they could do it with those day jobs, well, maybe I can do it with mine.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"If the minimum wasn't acceptable it wouldn't be called the minimum."

PublicEnemies

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I love movies.

I saw Public Enemies and The Proposal this weekend. The best part of Public Enemies, I’m afraid was the bits of Chicago architecture and the fight that broke out in the theater which required security.

Now, in spite of the critics panning it, I enjoyed The Proposal. Of course, that’s because I am a great, girly, romantic at heart. You see, The Proposal was a romantic comedy and well worth enduring the hawk-like stares of the angry women who could not seem to get their men to go with them to see it. Also, it was quite funny. Not a movie filled with surprises or twists and turns, but very satisfying in that it gave you just what you went in looking to find; namely, romance and comedy.

I saw another romantic comedy that was a little heavier on romance on DVD from Netflix, as well, this weekend called Lucky Seven. That was even sappier than The Proposal. It was about a young woman who’s mother dies when she’s young and gives her a time-line that has her marrying the seventh man with whom she has a long-term relationship. She thinks she’s found her “lucky seven”, but he’s number six, so she quickly finds a replacement six, with whom she promptly falls in love.

Now, you might wonder what these movies all have in common. You might wonder why I find movies, especially romantic comedies when I’m single, appealing. Well, the answer is surprisingly simple and straight-forward. They are all fantasies in which I indulge myself when things are going in ways other than how I’d wish.
Perhaps unrealistically, I think of myself as a mostly practical man. A trait I come by honestly from my parents and their parents before them. It’s not the only trait which seems to run through our family, however. On my mother’s side, my grandfather was quite an accomplished painter and my mother, his daughter, inherited that artistic talent from him. On my father’s side, well, they had the more practical talent of story telling and facility with language. All modesty aside, I do believe I inherited more than a fair portion of that. Though I am in many ways quite shy, I do seem to have my father’s ability to perform in front of a crowd. I know, as he would say, how to work a room. But, I never really followed through on most of those creative talents.

I’ve always wanted to draw, and never really seemed to find the time to work on it enough for anything to come of it. My writing has likewise been replaced by more immediately lucrative pursuits. Paying bills took precedence over “indulging” in my artistic leanings. Photography has been the most artistic thing I’ve done, outside of this blog, in more years than I care to count. And, some days, that seems to go better than others.
But, that latent, dreamy quality of escape that I found once in writing and occasionally still find in photography, comes to a full head in movies. Especially when things are going in ways other than how I might wish. I imagine, I’m not the only one seeking escape in movies these days, what with the economy going the way it has been. I remember the stories my paternal grandmother and my father told me about people going to the movies during the Great Depression. In fact, movies and the long gone Biograph Theater in Chicago figure prominently in Public Enemies, which is the story of John Dillinger. My grandmother was there shortly after he was shot, as it turns out, and provided me with one of the most vivid mental images of my childhood when she described people soaking up his blood with their handkerchiefs to sell later as souvenirs.
I don’t know what drives anyone else to go see movies, but I can tell you that the momentary fantasy and escape is one of the biggest attractions for me. Even a bad movie can provide a few moments of fantastic denial of my personal reality. A minute or two not thinking about I have bills to pay and work to do or how big my empty house is with no one to fill it but me and my dog.

As I do not expect to see many more rapid improvements in the economy, I hope that the rest of this Summer’s movies improve. I suspect I won’t be the only one who needs escape from both the Summer’s heat and the pressures it will bring.
So, how about you, gentle readers? Are there any movies you’re looking forward to for escape this Summer? Are there any favorites you like to use for an escape?

I’ve seen extreme bravery from the least likely of people. Life is about the moments when it has all gone wrong. That’s when we define ourselves.

-Bear Grylls, adventurer and start of the Discovery Channel series Man vs. Wild

I wish I had fewer opportunities to define myself.

I like to blame my melancholy on an existensial crisis brought on by a near brush with death served up thanks to a bit of cancer.  But, the truth is, every moment is an opportunity for everything to go wrong, for redefining ourselves.
I’ll be honest, ladies and gents, for the last loyal few of you who put up with the empty, impersonal posts, life does seem empty, void and without any real meaning.  I do my work well, mostly, and try to be a good friend, though I know I often fall far short of that humble mark.  But, the work is impersonal, and any schmuck could do my job.  The moment that I stop putting in that extra effort, I can and will be replaced.  I’m the kind of guy who you can call while he’s on vacation, who can’t say “no” when an acquaintance needs help with their computer.  But, what difference does that make?  I mean, outside of my utility, what difference do I make?  To anyone?

I’m sure my friends and I would disagree greatly in regards to what my weak points, my character defects, are, but, I’ll tell you, there’s more wrong with me than a simple inferiority complex.  As a dear friend casually pointed out Sunday night, I look to all the wrong people for validation.  Yes, I’m talking about women.  No, not just one, but, well, virtually any woman.  I don’t know why, but it’s not even the few who do tell me that I’m worth more than my simple skills, that I have value beyond my utility.  As someone at work said, if I can’t be handsome at least I can be handy.  But, beyond a few very common skills with a computer, things that anyone with Google could manage, I don’t even have much use in the world.
No, what I hear are the other voices.  I hear the girl from Junior High who laughs at my first fumbling attempts at snickering socialization.  A lesson learned too well.  I hear my ex-wife’s bitter barbs, still working their poison into me.  Worse, I hear the silent voices.  I hear the women who don’t even say anything, who’s voices I imagine saying aloud all the worst things I’ve ever thought about myself.  They’re the worst.  When someone silently turns away, or glares, or doesn’t notice me at all.  The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.

So, there I am, an un-confident shell of a former self I don’t think I ever was, wanting to be different, but no knowing how to go about it.
I’ve a friend who’s a professional artist with whom I have lunch virtually every Monday.  We’ve been talking about art a lot, and photography.  My photography, actually.  His unfortunately accurate assessment of my work is that it lacks passion.  He quite rightly described me as being afraid, afraid of following that passion.  Also, he sussed out that I had in my head some notion of doing the photography “right”, that I was very concerned about doing it that mysterious “right” way.  And, those two things were what was holding me back.  If I could just let go of those things, then the crisis of my internal life would be freed.  Maybe.  And, yes, these two subjects, three subjects really, are all tied together.

So, there is the crux of things.
I know at some deep level that I am at a crisis point.  It would be hard for me to picture my life having gone much more wrong than it has.  Forty and divorced and, as much as I love kids, not a one to be found on Father’s Day.  Deeply in debt, with more on the way, thank you again, cancer, you bitch.  It may not be the way that Bear means in his sound bite, but life has gone wrong here, trust me.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I think art could save me.  I think that getting through that semi-mythical block would free my entire life.  But, here’s the thing…  The passion that’s missing from my work, is women.  Complicated, confusing, confounding, captivating women.  Women who mean so much, too much, to the tattered, hollow shell of my ego.  To approach them for inclusion in the work, I have to be indifferent to their constant rejection, but, you know, I’m not.  And, would I have so much energy around these mysterious, magical creatures if I were entirely fearless around them?  Doubtful.

So, what to do, what to do.
Perhaps nothing.  Perhaps a few more therapeutic lunches with my artist friend.  Perhaps, cancer survival aside, this existential crisis point may be a turning point.  If I’m lucky, I’ll find a bit of courage and surprise myself.
If I’m lucky.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"It's better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and resolve all doubt."
   --Abraham Lincoln

I’m going to say this even though someone will no doubt call me a racist in the comments.

Oh, don’t think it won’t happen, because it did once already the last time the job market got tough. Here’s the thing, at times like this, when the entire world’s economy is bad, I think American companies should put American citizens, and legal residents, first, and in that order. Let’s not send jobs overseas just now. And, let’s not import any more foreign guest workers. Look, I know plenty of people who came over on H1B visas and that’s all well and good, but everyone in IT knows that this system gets abused regularly as a way to undercut the local IT people and keep them from earning a living wage. We all know that it happens and I’m sure any tech out there can site multiple sources for it. So, when I see articles about how Indian IT groups are worried about the H1B reforms currently being debated, I can’t help but wonder why they think U.S companies should put their workers’ needs above U.S. workers’ needs. Shouldn’t we take care of our own? I sure remember growing up being taught that we take care of our own neighbors before we worry about people some where far, far away. We make sure that no one we can reach is going hungry before we start looking in other cities, states and countries for people who need our help, too. Things are tough all over, but they’re tough right here. So, let’s take care of that first, then worry about our distant neighbors on the other side of the world.

Does that make sense to anyone else? Or am I wrong here? Should India and China give us work for their countries? Should we do tech support for Mumbai?

And, I’m not just saying this out of some jingoistic, hyper-conservative, knee-jerk reaction to globalism, either.  I promise you.  There are a lot of reasons I’m against this, not just the high level of unemployment.  There are also a lot of abuses of this system.  In fact, there have been so many abuses of the H1B1 system in the high-tech industry that the Federal Government is investigating and prosecuting the case.  So, this whole trend of either importing foreign workers or sending work overseas just doesn’t cut it for me.  First, we need to take care of our own, then reach out to the tired, hungry and poor of other countries.

So, what do you all think?

I’m on vacation.

Yes, vacation.  Of course, for a one man IT department, “on vacation” means something a little different than normal.  I ran in on Saturday, after picking up a rental car, to get a couple things squared away.  I have a “backup” person, but it’s really not his full-time gig, so I tried to make sure that he won’t really have anything to do.  Hopefully, I’ve succeeded.  But, in case I didn’t, I should be in cell-phone range the whole time, and my hotel has high-speed Internet.  Probably won’t take time to post, except the regular, automagic post I already have queued up.  I do worry quite a bit about leaving the network and my usesers untended.  I can think of so many things that can go wrong and, frankly, they’ve become so, so used to me being there to make last minute magic happen that they’ve come to expect it.  Of course, maybe that’s the best reason to take a couple of days off.

Also, I’m not going anywhere that I anticipate being any particular fun or even deeply interesting; Lawton, Oklahoma.  Why?  Because my nephew is graduating from Basic Training as he joins the Army National Guard, full time.  Still, it will be nice to see family and I’m looking at it as a photo opportunity.  Not sure what kind of shots I’ll get from the road, but I’ll certainly take as many of him and the graduation ceremony as possible.  When I’m back, I’ll post a link to Flickr.

So, now, it’s time to grab the last bags, toss thee roll of toilet paper into the car, and head out.  Be good while I’m gone, kids!

(And, yes, while I was typing this, I got a call from the office about someone moving their equipment and not able to connect.  See why I worry?  That’s also, incidentally, why I always travel with at least a partial roll of toilet paper in the car.  You just never know what might happen on the road!)

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you."
   --Dale Carnegie

…No one to choke.

I’ve been living with a lot of stress lately.  It sneaks up on me when I least expect it.  I noticed it this past week when I almost snapped at church while driving one of the vans to pick up women from a local shelter to bring them to church.  Yeah, I know, that totally sounded like a self-serving, self-aggrandizing, self-promotion statement, but that’s what I was doing.  The additional stress of doing that for the first time, not knowing where I was going or what the procedure was combined with driving essentially a small bus, which is the largest vehicle I’ve driven in years and years, in the rain, had me about ready to snap.

But, here’s the thing, I didn’t notice that the stress was building up until it was right on top of me.
Looking back, I can see all the warning signs.  I’ve been eating too much and exercising not enough.  Nor have I been sleeping enough.  Witness the fact that I’m writing this at about 1:00AM after not working out because I fell asleep on the couch after eating a huge bowl of left-over mac-and-cheese-and-Spam.  Don’t judge me, you hypocrites who are all acting shocked because I ate Spam.  You have your comfort foods, too.  Mine just happens to be high-fat, processed meat with delicious hickory flavoring added right in for your convenience.  And, I’ve been eating donuts and candy at work, too.  But, the other signs are worse.  I’ve been clenching my jaw for weeks now, to keep myself from saying the things I don’t want to say out loud, at work and elsewhere.  I don’t want to be the asshole that turns loose with the biting sarcasm at the least provocation.  Well, I don’t want to be that guy again.  Oh, sure, it’s funny, but it doesn’t exactly make me the kind of person who other people want to get close to and be honest with.

Worst of all, I’ve noticed that I’m not getting everything done at work that I want to get done.  My users have come to expect a certain level of service that I’m proud to be able to deliver.  I try to make things run smoothly enough that no one waits for more than a few minutes for anything really important and most things aren’t really important.  But, that has its problems, too.  Now, I think that my users are used to not waiting, so some of them get impatient when they don’t have instant results.  Worse, I’ve made the impossible happen on short notice so many times now that everyone seems to expect that to be the norm.  Apparently, I haven’t made it clear enough that I’m making an exceptional effort to accomplish some of these things on short notice so everyone seems to think I can just produce at that level all the time.  Well, guess what?  I CAN’T! I know, I know, I should take time off, right? Because a little time off will make it better, right?  Well, not so much.  I am, in fact, taking several days next week to go watch my nephew graduate from Basic Training, but I’m so worried about what’s going to go wrong while I’m away that I can’t hardly sleep at all, unless I pass out from exhaustion on the couch, like I did tonight.  And, yes, I know this is getting more and more panicked and ranty sounding, but that’s in part because I feel more and more panicked and stark, raving mad the closer I get to trying to take a couple of days for myself like everyone else in the company does, because I’m so terrifed that nothing will work while I’m away or that the office will call all the damn time while I’m on the road that it will be worse than actually being there and just disappointing my nephew. I mean, if the users can’t wait five minutes for me, how are they going to wait five days?

I try to remind myself that I’m lucky to have a job.  And, I know I am, but sometimes the stress is enough to make my heart explode in my chest.  And, I know they did survive when I was getting treatment for cancer, but there are more of them now and it took weeks to sort out the mess that was the result of me being away so much that year.
There’s nothing much for me to do about it, either.  I try not to hate the person I see myself becoming.  I try not to backslide too badly on my exercise and generally better diet.  I try to pray.  I try to sleep.  I try to just relax.  But, I’ll be honest, gentle readers, I’m just not designed to run this hot anymore.  I used to live at this stress-level all the time, but that was a long time ago.  Besides, I was a real asshole when I lived like that.  And, I really, really don’t want to be that guy again.  But, I’m starting to wonder if that’s not the only way to deal with it, if that guy is the guy who’s designed to work under those conditions.  Maybe.  I hope not.
Or, somehow, conditions will have to change.  Soon.

Well, until then, I guess I’d better try to catch a few hours of sleep before getting up and doing it all again.
I hope your collective weeks are going better than that, my faithful readers.
And, with that, we return you to your regular internet drivel.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"If God is for us, who can be against us?"
   --Romans 8:31 (NIV)