I'm Still Here!

It's been a hectic couple of weeks-- more details in tomorrow's post-- it'll be my one year blog anniversary!

I got my "new" used Ibook yesterday, and between working and school, have been trying to get it set up. It's amazing what you miss. I've been able to post from our family desktop, but I couldn't post my own pictures, and of course, it just wasn't my little laptop.

After I got the Ibook up and running, I wanted to set it up so I could run pictures from my digital camera to my new laptop and put them on my blog. For some reason, Canon did not have the software for this one their site, and when I ran the software from my old laptop (I'll tell later how I did this), it wouldn't read my camera. I had to dig out the original installation cd. This was a good excuse to dig through some drawers and put a bunch of old paperwork into recycling.

While I did this, I had a nice conversation with my stepdaughter. I've felt bad that I've been scarce around here the last couple of weeks because of my schedule. We talked again about friendships, and how they are different with different people, and change over time even with the individuals. Earlier, we'd walked over to the library-- something I try to do with her every week or two. It made me realize how important it is to both my kids to have a certain time or activity that is theirs; to make them breakfast on the weekends; to ride bikes, play catch, play a game or watch a particular television program with them.

Work has been interesting. I finally feel like I'm beginning to know what the hell I'm doing. I like most of the people I work with. They're quite the interesting bunch. Being a waiter is a job that is largely inhabited by people who, like me, are in transition. The flexibility of schedule combined with generally really good money lends itself to that. It's an intense business-- you don't have a lot of room to screw up, which makes the first few weeks pretty rough sometimes. I've been fortunate that there's a bunch of people there who are friendly and helpful, and to them I'm eternally grateful.

There are a couple of people there who I've gotten off to a rough start with, but I think I'm wearing them down for the most part. Like my mother always says, "kill 'em with kindness."

I've been there only three weeks or so, and I've got a bunch of stories (I know-- you shocked. I have stories?). I know you'll also be surprised to find that there have been people I know in there.

Also, I almost waited on the actor Billy Zane a couple of weeks ago. Almost, because David, one of the first "old-timers" there to take me under his wing asked me if he could take him. I wouldn't have recognized him. Like many actors, he's smaller than he looks on screen, and has shaved his head.

The place is going through growing pains. A manager and a sous chef quit this weekend, but the manager came back.

I've been pretty much constantly fighting fatigue. I'm staying up too late in order to write this post, but I realized that I missed posting more than I missed sleep-- and I've been missing sleep. My rides to and from work were a fight with dozing off.

I started class yesterday. It was a lot of fun. First, it was great to feel, unlike the first time I took college science 27 years ago, like I actually had a grasp of the material. And beginning class, I feel, like some people have suggested, like my life is moving forward.


So here I am on the back porch overlooking the "white trash" backyard. Here's a picture from a couple of weeks ago-- it's not nearly as bad now, and it promises to be beautiful by the end of next month. In the meantime, it's a full moon, and I've got an app that will play my Ipod through the laptop (though I have yet to figure out how to transfer my Ipod songs, playlists and all, to my new computer).

As I've mentioned before, I had a bunch of repairs done to my Blazer, and we're taking it up to Minneapolis to see my Kim's family. We're going to go to the Minnesota State Fair, and maybe a Twins game, and celebrating 40th, 50th and 80th birthdays for family members. I'll let you figure out which one is Kim's.

There's a million things I'd like to comment on tonight, including Gonzalez' resignation-- I was on the bus on the way to school yesterday when my father called me. I'll post about that-- I'll briefly say that these people are strange-- the people they throw under the bus hang in there too long, and cause damage. I'm eager to read the books that Bob Woodward will write about this period of history, this war and this administration.