-->
First and foremost, let me apologize to my siblings for falling out of contact since our unfortunate reunion at our father's funeral. I miss you all, and I do intend to keep in better touch in the near future. This includes you David & Darlene; just because you're my nephew and wife technically, doesn't mean that you're less like siblings; I was never much of an uncle anyways. :-)
Life has not been very good to me since December, but I can imagine that it could have been a lot worse. Mom gave me Dad's car for Lori, and I drove it all the way back to California, but I've had a hell of a time getting it registered here. I'm not going to go into the details, but I only just managed to get the thing registered this past Thursday.
Between the drama at work, in my friends' lives, and in trying to get another job, I'm just about as stressed out as a man can be. So I'm trying to take charge of one aspect of my life, and get a program that I've worked on off and on for more than 10 years fleshed out in Java, and made available on the 'net. My plan for the time being is to get a free version out and attract a customer base while just asking for donations, then switch to a more fully functional version that is subscription based. We'll see...
I changed positions within my company, and I am starting to really wish I hadn't. There were individuals within my department that really slacked off, and did as little as humanly possible, which put the burden more on my shoulders than their own. The story of my life. No, really, I'm not kidding. Well, one of those individuals is suddenly no longer working at the company. He was officially dismissed as part of a downsizing move, but there are other circumstances that might have played a role as well. First off, he did as little as possible as I mentioned before. Second, he was likely in the midst of a smear campaign against me and a couple of my friends that also work there; we haven't confirmed this, but he's a young cocky kid that thinks he's gods gift period. Those two friends of mine basically have been prompting him to do more work, and prodding management to do something about him, culminating in a major bitch fest a little more than a week ago. I was called in to voice my opinions on the matter because those friends stated I was on the verge of quitting. (Which I am, but I can't afford to quit.) Then there were a couple of major issues that popped up this week involving the kid... Needless to say, he was canned with a lot of prejudice... possibly more than he deserved. For the record, I never wanted the kid fired though I could see management doing so because of his slacking off; the question is whether he really should have been terminated as a result, rather than having some corrective measures being taken. The kicker is that I now fear that two or three other individuals in my department will quit over the situation... Great... lucky fucking me...
Finally, I've been feeling awfully mystical recently. There have been strange incidents that I have yet to be able to explain. A minor phenomenon that has been occurring is that I've become dangerously accurate at predicting which of 5 elevators will first answer the call button in my company's building. I'm currently at about 60-75% accurate; where as I believe I should only be about 20% at most. (There are 6 elevators; 5 of which respond to the normal call button, 1 is a cargo elevator and has its own call button.)
Another thing is related to the kid that got fired. On Friday after my lunch, I was walking back from Fashion Island (in Newport Beach, CA) to the building when this thought popped into my head: "A fool is one that has not realized he's a fool." What I interpreted this to mean is that we are all fools, and unless we realize that we are more foolish than we think. A few steps later, another thought popped into my head: "I am ready for a change." This is the one that really made me think.
Depending on how you divide the sentance, it means two different things. First, "I am ready, for a change" means that I'm not normally ready, but I am now. This was the first interpretation I grasped, and readily agreed with it in light of the second interpretation: I need a change in my life. Neither of these interpretations or thoughts were linked to anything at all until a couple hours after lunch when the kid got canned. It seemed to me as if the universe or God had told me something in advance...
Any ways, that'll do it for tonight... Talk to you soon.
P.S. To all you Themis enthusiasts out there, I will try to get back to work soon; I just haven't had any time to do anything for myself or the project in a while... I turned on my desktop/development machine for the first time in two weeks today, but didn't have the opportunity to do much.