Let the fun begin

Today was the first day of life at work without Mr. Complaint. He had the ^&*%&##$%!! to come in to work this morning after being told specifically not to yesterday afternoon. Some people just don't listen. Suffice it to say he was quickly sent on his way. Long commute for him to make for nothing.

When you work in a really small company any change in staff affects everyone. So his absence will affect us all until they hire some more people to replace him. Yesterday we were asked to tell senior management what happened from our perspective and today our comments became official as incident reports were filed. The owner of the company talked to each of us individually about the incident, too. My interview came today - just as I was getting ready to leave for the day at 5 PM. When the owner of the company asks you if you have a minute - the prudent thing to do is say yes, even if you don't.

It was nice to get out at 5 PM today, even if I didn't actually drive out of the parking lot until 5:50 PM. After three consecutive days of working 12 hour shifts, I was tired!! The last because I was fillng in for Mr. Complaint, who couldn't work it for obvious reasons. Good thing tomorrow is a half day, followed by a long weekend!

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10 days until I meet my fiancee at the airport.

The plan worked....IF

Well, the inevitable happened today. My co-worker, Mr. Complaint, got himself fired, sacked, canned, terminated, etc. If that was his plan, it worked perfectly. After the confrontation mentioned in the last entry, I learned today that he stayed until 10:00 PM on Tuesday to clean everything and get it into the clean room for assembly today (Wednesday). I myself was set to leave at 5 PM but stayed until 8 PM to do as much as I could in the cleaning dept. before I needed to go home. Twelve hours is a long enough workday for anyone. Period. Mr. Complaint comes in to work this morning, sets up the machine, and then proceeds headlong into another brief clash with not only the clean room supervisor but some of the senior management as well. This ruckuss included yelling and slamming doors at the wrong people. All this while the owner was entertaining important visitors!

I can tell you, having been in the situation of being the firee on a few occasions and the resulting period of unemployment that followed - I do not envy Mr. Complaint. Not at all. Especially the talk with the missus about WHY you got your stupid self fired in the first place. Been there - done that!
On the other hand, I have no sympathy for him whatsoever. He had it coming and brought the misery on himself because he couldn't keep his lousy mouth shut. Have fun, Mr. Complaint. It was nice knowing you (sort of).

Putting out fires at work

12 days until I meet my fiancee at Logan Airport.

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Sometimes things don't go exactly as you planned. If you are normal, things hardly ever go as planned. Life's biggest challenge is to overcome obstacles and be flexible to adapt to situations as they develop, even if they are not to your liking. Such was the case for me at work today.
I had assumed that I would be working overtime tonight, since I have been doing overtime on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays recently. At our staff meeting this morning, I was told that someone else was going to work the overtime in my place. I didn't have a problem with this, since I have worked many overtime hours recently. A night to get home early would be nice. Maybe I could run some errands or check my post office box before they close for the day.

Oh no. Not going to happen. At 4:30 my boss comes in and says that we don't have enough of a certain material to do the production run tomorrow and that the machine we were going to use needs to be broken down and cleaned - tonight. So that we can use the equipment tomorrow. Now I have mentioned before that cleaning this equipment takes time, and is not something that can be done in 5 minutes or even an hour or two. The machine has to be taken apart. But before you can do that you have to heat it up to loosen a few parts. Then parts of the machine get really hot (~230 degrees C at the nozzle) and after everything is loose you are supposed to let it cool down before you take it out of the machine. Then you take the barrel out and bring it to the workshop where it has to be reheated, etc.

So you can see that the process is long and involved. Not to mention wipe down and reassembly of the whole thing. So without complaint, when my relief came I began the above process. Later to be joined by my co-worker, who complains constantly about everything.

Long story short I was supposed to leave at 5 PM but ended up leaving at 8 PM. Twelve hours is a long enough work day for me. He still wanted to finish up a few things, so I don't know what time he left. He still may be there.

Now my boss has many things on his plate and he told the complainer NOT to complain. If only so he wouldn't have to listen to the same complaints over again. Did the complainer listen? Did the complainer take the hint? If you said noooooo, you would be 100% correct. I sat there, a silent third party to this conversation, rolling my eyes and urging the complainer to shut up! Plans change. Instead of doing what you had wanted to do or thought you were going to do, do what is needed (within reason, of course) and do it without complaint.

On a side note, I saw a reasonably large buck (male deer) tonight outside one of the mirrored windows at work before I left. He was too far away to snap a quick piture with my cell phone camera.

Minor corrections and poor directions

No rhyme intended with this title...

I found out today that some of the flight details regarding the arrival of my fiancee were inaccurate. She is still coming to visit me, but her plane arrives in Boston at 9:32 PM Sunday July 10, not 1:05 PM on Monday July 11. She was trying to get a direct flight from Moscow to Boston, but instead will fly from Moscow to JFK in New York, then take a shuttle to Boston. So she will have to pass through US Customs in New York instead of Boston. That should not be any major difference, just a different stamp in the passport. The only thing I am worried about now is that she must find a way to get from JFK to LaGuardia in order to conect to the NY to Boston flight. No big deal for you and I, but for her it might be. While I know she can write in English fairly well, speaking it may be a little different. Not to mention it's New York. Anything can happen in New York.

I was supposed to take my daughter to another birthday party for another school friend today. Except that I couldn't find the place. The invitation said the party was at Horace Lake. I'm assuming that is in Weare, NH, but I have no idea. The rain address was also in Weare, but I couldn't find that either. So I just took my kids to their grandparents house, as was the plan that my ex-wife and I set up. They live on a lake here in New Hampshire. A very nice lake....in the middle of nowhere.

What great birthday presents I got today

Today is my birthday. I'm 36 and proud of it. My kids got me a new swimsuit and my parents took me out to the Texas Roadhouse for lunch. Wow, what a meal!!! I've got leftovers for tomorrow!

What a great unexpected birthday present I received today! My beautiful Russian fiancee' told me that she has reserved an airline ticket to come and visit me in July. She went to actually purchase the ticket today. She will tell me detailed flight information the next time I talk to her. What she has told me so far is that her flight will depart from Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow on 10 July and that it arrives at Logan International Airport at 13:05 on 11 July. She lives in Yoshkar-Ola, 800 km (497.1 mi.) from Moscow, and must take a train to get there. She says the train ride will take 20 hours. Russian trains must be pretty bad. That train trip is about 7 hours longer than her flight from Moscow to Boston will be! Her trip will begin on 9 July. She will travel for two days just to get here. She will be tired after all of that traveling! In addition, it is very difficult for an Eastern European woman under 40 to get a visa to enter the USA. Apparently many such women have come here and have not left when they were supposed to. I have questioned her about her visa, knowing how difficult is is to get and how fortunate she is to have it. So it will be very special when she arrives. Though I must confess that this all feels like a dream to me right now. It will only feel real when we actually are looking at each other face to face. I must also say that I am becoming more excited every day as the time of her arrival gets closer.

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I got my car inspected on Friday, and it passed!!!! I only needed to buy two tires and two bulbs for the third brake light. This was much better than I expected. I thought they might tell me I needed new brakes, exhaust and tires. The bad part was that today my car wouldn't start. The engine just clicked when I tried to start it. Guess I'll need to call AAA tomorrow. I hope it's a minor fix. Fortunately my parents have a third car that they will let me borrow.

Wildlife at work

I have not entered a post these last few days because I have worked almot 10 extra hours this week and have been too lazy to write anything.

My work is located in a very wooded area, near a pond or reservoir of some kind. It is not unusual to see a deer or three at the edge of the woods. Last fall there were seven wild turkeys hanging around outside the building. Anyway, I digress. The building has many windows in the halls surrounding the clean rooms. These windows are mirrored if you are looking at them from the outside. Yesterday I saw a very large wild turkey checking itself out in one of the mirrored windows close to where the break room is. So I went outside the break room door where we have a picnic table. I wanted to try and get a good picture of the turkey but he was too far away, so I tried to move closer. The turkey sensed I was getting near and went around the corner of the building. So I did the same thing. As I turned the corner I saw the turkey open its wings and fly about 150 yards to the edge of the woods, away from dangerous old me. I had never seen a turkey fly until today. I didn't think turkeys could fly. I thought they were flightless birds. Perhaps they are too big to fly great distances. This turkey's wingspan must have been 10 feet from tip to tip. It really was an experience.

Hectic day at the office

The company I work for is small, and when one of the crew is absent in the area in which I work, the effect can certainly be felt. Such was the case today. We were running production on two machines, which required three people to run the machines. Everyone today had to pitch in to get the job done. The ladies who do secondary inspection helped to run the machines, forsaking their own large pile of work. One person was out back cleaning machine parts and the clean room supervisor took a break from his R&D responsibilities to sit at a machine for a bit. As for me, I got one machine up and running this morning and then pitched in doing first piece inspections. After this I went to the other machine for the better part of the day and into the evening. I even did a little but of training for three of the ladies, who mastered their new skill quite easily. Gotta love those 12 hour shifts. Our quality control/inspection person has been out for personal reasons the last few days, which has made things more hectic. That means there is one less person to help cover breaks, because three people must be at the machines while they are running.
One thing I like about this job is the variety of responsibilities. Sure makes the day go by fast. I like to know how to do many things, and I know where I am most effective, so I try to know as much as possible. I like the fact that in most instances the clean room supervisor/R & D guy can put me on a regular production run and not have to worry about it so he can focus on his many other responsibilities.

Well enough about this topic for now. It will be another long workday tomorrow.

Father's Day

Today I made it a point to take my kids to church. We try to go every week but haven't been lately, mainly because I have been lazy. It is easy to find reasons not to go if you have missed a few weeks in a row. Even though they do not like going to church sometimes, I tell them that it is necessary. Two hours once a week will not hurt them. When I was their age I did not like going to church either. But my parents went and made me go with them. Now, being a parent, I can understand why they made me go. I use same reasons for my kids that my parents used on me. Funny how that works.
If you are not a religious person then you will not understand the need for going to church. You may even think it is a waste of time. I won't now go into why I believe the way I do - maybe another time.

Anyway, today was Father's Day here in the USA. My kids got me some small presents. My daughter gave me a small teddy bear with "#1 Dad" written on it. Plus she gave me a pad of paper with a felt cover that she made in school. She made a baseball and bat out of felt and glued it to the larger piece, then glued that to the back of the notebook to make the cover. My son gave me a t-shirt that advertises the Red Sox 2004 World Series Championship on it. Very nice. My kids know what I like and they are very excited to give me presents.
They have told me that they have already bought a present for my birthday, which is this week. I can't wait to see what they got for me. Though presents are nice, I appreciate more the sincerity and enthusiasm with which they give these things to me.

Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there - wherever you may be.

The birthday party

Okay, it's not like I didn't warn you this was coming.

Today we (my kids and I) went to a birthday party for one of my daughter's school friends. First I had to look up directions to the house on mapquest. Standard enough. Then I go to print it and I find out my printer is not printing as it should. So I end up writing out the directions from mapquest on the faded printout i received. Fine. So off we go. From Nashua, it took about an hour to drive to this kid's house. Then, once we got there, I missed the driveway not once, but twice!!

My kids hop out of the car, which was parked in their gravel driveway on a steep hill. I go over to the girls parents and introduce myself. My kids run over and start playing with the other kids. This girl and my kids were at another party for another schoolmate two weeks ago. So my son, who is younger, knew most of my daughters friends. (A side note: my son will be a ladies man. I can see it already and he is only 5!!!)

Anyway, the yard was set up like a carnival. There were games and each kid received a goody bag with tickets in it for each game plus three tickets to the bounce house. The girl's father grilled some hot dogs and there was plenty of pizza. He also passed around the Budweiser, which I politely declined, since I do not drink beer.

The games were easy for the kids to win and they gave away many prizes. They even had the kids take turns beating the heck out of a pinata with a whiffle ball bat. Great fun.

The highlight of the afternoon came towards the end when the birthday girl's three year old brother decided to whip down his pants and pee right there in the middle of the yard with everyone watching. Aaaah what it is to be so young. All of the adults were laughing, except for the parents who looked quite embarrassed, especially the mother.

Since this was an outdoor party the invitation advised that they would reschedule due to the rain possibility. Sure enough today was cool and overcast. It did actually sprinkle a little bit towards the end of the two hour event.

So when two o'clock came I advised my kids and the parents that we would be leaving. My daughter said goodbye to her friend. The kids grabbed their loot (candy bag and prizes) and we all got in the car. My plan was to pull out of my spot, and turn around at the top of thedriveway which was flat. Except when I tried to move forward, my front tires created a nice little ditch where the gravel used to be. Great. So the guy who was directly behind me backed out of the driveway, allowing me to do the same.

It took a bit longer to get home because we had to stop at Wal-Mart.

All in all I had a fun time. I thought it would be boring. Two hours is plenty of time for a kids party, even one as elaborate as this one was. I know my kids had fun and regretted having to leave when the party was over.

Stupid Blogs and ebay promotion

The other day I was home from work not feeling quite right and part of the day I was flipping through some of the other blogs on this web address. Most of what I saw were ads for the most incredibly stupid crap you could possibly think of. I'm looking for blogs like mine and a few others that are interesting reads, but not these....

So I decided to write a bit about ebay today. Have any of you ever bought or sold anything on ebay? Did you know that I, your humble blogger, am an ebay seller? Of course you didn't, that's why I told you. If you are up for it, check out my listings by looking up my username there, which is john14124. And if you buy something from me and mention that you read this blog then I'll give you a discount of some kind. Currently I have listed some old magazines, some dvd's & vhs tapes and other great stuff. I just added a few more items tonight. I'm trying to add things every day as I have plenty of stuff hanging around my apartment that I don't need or use anymore. Or stuff I've lost interest in pursuing. All high quality stuff, though.

My ebay feedback rating is currently at 226. If you are not familiar with ebay, a feedback score is how you can tell if a seller or buyer is honest. The higher the score the more successful transactions a person has completed, either buying or selling. And you can read all of the comments left for me or anyone. You can even read comments I've left for others. You can even see what other people are buying as each feedback item has an active link to the actual item for 90 days after the auction has ended. But I warn you, once you travel down the (dark?) road to ebaydom - forever - will - it - dominate - your - destiny... (sorry movie quote there - an easy one)

On an unrelated note, unless something spectacular happens, tomorrows post will likely be about the kids' birthday party I must attend on Saturday. That's what you get when you have a budding socialite for a daughter! Seriously though. Even though I do not want to go to this party (two hours drive time total and two party hours), these are the memories that my daughter will keep. That her dad spent time with her at her friends parties. I suppose I should enjoy it while I can, in a few years she won't want me to hang around at her friends parties...

Research Project

I began a little research project today - voluntarily. Now I remember why I hated these lousy things in college. And I've thought about going back to school for a Master's Degree? Who am I kidding. I can't stand doing them. This one is for my own personal enrichment. No due date, which makes it a little bit more acceptable. Could be very interesting results - good or bad. Time will tell.

I hope it passes inspection

In New Hampshire it is required by law to have your vehicle inspected and reregistered once a year. This always happens in the month of your birth, which for me is June. So today I made an appointment to get my vehicle inspected next Friday, June 24th at noon. I hope it will pass. If it doesn't, lets just say I'm in serious trouble. I drive a 1995 green Dodge Caravan, (not by choice - I got the car as a result of the divorce) that just today notched 130,000 miles on the odometer. Quite an accomplishment, yes. Now each time I drive I set a record for most mileage on a car that I've owned. The point is, however, that the vehicle is worth next to nothing and it costs more to repair it than the bloody thing is actually worth.
I can envision the car inspection guy telling me that it needs brakes, tires and who knows what else. And I have $0 to pay for any of it, should these things occur. I also have $0 to put down on a new car as I write and a really crappy credit rating. Meaning that according to my credit report, no creditor in their right mind would help me finance a new vehicle. If I were a creditor and I came looking to me for a loan, I'd refuse myself....
If the beast by some miracle does pass inspection, then I'll have another 12 months to deal with it, or until it dies, whichever comes first.

Questions...

Just a quick entry today. Some questions for anyone who cares to answer.

Have you ever wanted something so badly or wanted to do something so badly that it was driving you crazy? Did you weigh the consequenses of your actions before you did what you wanted to do, or did you blindly do it anyway and worry about the consequenses later?

I am in this situation now, the details of which I may go into later, depending on the outcome. Depending on how crazy I become or how blind I get...

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On a completely unrelated note, another question that I have always wondered about:

It seems obvious to me that if you know only one language, then that is the language your mind speaks inside your head. If you know multiple languages, in what language does your mind think? Would it be your native language, or can a multilingual person think in whatever language he/she is currently speaking? And if a person is thinking in English, can the mind speak Spanish at the same time?

If anyone who knows more than one language reads this, please post a comment....

Monday the 13th

Let me begin by stating that I am not a superstitious person by any stretch of the imagination. But if I had to pick my personal favorite superstition it would be Monday the 13th. Now you will say that the superstitious day is Friday the 13th, and you would be right. That is the traditional bad luck day. But I say why? Thirteenth or not, that day is still a Friday, which is always good because that means that the weekend is right around the corner.

I say that if you're looking for a bad luck day, then Monday the 13th is your day. Let's face it, Mondays are bad news to begin with. The weekend is done and a long workweek lies ahead. Add in the number 13, which in my opinion has always gotten the raw end of the deal quite unfairly and you've got the potential for disaster.

The only exception would be if any holiday that involved a day off of work fell on a Monday the 13th. Most holidays here in the US are celebrated on a Monday because of that extra day in the weekend thing, even if the actual holiday falls on another day of the week. Then it would be a good day, because you could sleep late or whatever. However I don't think that there any such holidays that would fall on a Monday the 13th. If you can think of one, please let me know. So again we're out of luck with a Monday the 13th.

If you have nothing better to do, you can even look ahead on your calendar to see when Monday the 13th or Friday the 13th will occur. If a month begins on a Wednesday, there will be a Monday the 13th. If a month begins on a Sunday, you'll have a Friday the 13th. Trust me, it works every time. Sadly, I've been afforded many opportunities in my life where I had nothing better to do...

Aside from having to go to work today, my Monday the 13th wasn't that bad. But it's not over yet....

What a difference a day makes

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday evening, after spending the day at my parents house, my kids and I had an opportunity to use the pool here at my apartment for the last hour before the pool closed for the day. My kids are 8 and 5 and are learning to swim. I bought each of them a swim vest or life jacket, whichever you prefer, so I could have both of them in the water with me without them having to hold onto me all of the time. This is not so much a problem for my daughter, the 8 year old. Last summer she became a fish and now jumps right into the water with no hesitation. Yesterday, my son, the 5 year old, would not leave the shallow end stairs, even though he was wearing his vest and despite my assurances to him that I would not let him get hurt.
I didn't think today was quite as hot as it was on Saturday, so it took me longer to get into and used to the pool water. My daughter jumped right in, as I knew she would. My son started out hesitant, but after about 10 minutes discovered that the vest really would prevent him from sinking and began to venture away from the stairs. Maybe he just wanted to follow his sister into the middle of the shallow end, I don't know. Anyway, soon enough he was swimming around the shallow end without fear, a 180 degree turnaround from Saturday, which was great to see. We spent the next 2 and a half hours poolside. My kids only got out of the water long enough to use the bathroom at the pool. I spent the entire time watching them. Sometimes in the water with them, sometimes on the steps near the water's edge, sometimes from a chair near the fence.
I should feel guilty, but I don't. After I got back to the apartment, my kids safely back at their mom's house, one of the first things I did was to throw my swimsuit back on and take a swim in the pool for a few minutes, by myself. And it was very relaxing.

An annual rite of summer

Today I helped my dad open the pool at his house, which is an annual rite of summer. It really is tedious work, but he's getting older and I know how much he really appreciates my help, even if he doesn't say anything. Plus my two kids will enjoy swimming in it when we go to visit. They wanted to help us, so I tried to find minor things for them to do so they could feel like they helped out. My two kids are 8 and 5. How helpful could they actually be?
We also had cake for my sister, who last week celebrated her 22nd birthday. I remember my 22nd birthday mainly because I was working for the Salvation Army that summer in Budapest, Hungary. It is the only birthday I've had that I celebrated outside the United States. But that's a story for another day.
The weather here today was hot. Sticky, sweaty, uncomfortably hot. Summer has arrived (though not officially until a week from Tuesday- June 21st). I love it!!! I despise and complain all the way through the winter months, so I can't rightly complain when the weather gets hot. Can't have it both ways, I suppose.

Have you ever worked with a truly annoying person?

Every Friday during the summer I only have to work for four hours, from 7:30-11:30 AM. And it's a good thing too. Today was basically a set up day for next week's production runs. Yesterday I was also doing some prep work for Monday. I was cleaning some of the pieces of one of the machines that I will be using next week.

Well I thought I had cleaned everything well. Cleaned everything to the best of my ability. But my co-worker criticized everything I did. "this is still dirty," he'd say, or "you missed a few spots on this piece", or something like that. He'll even stop what he is doing to examine what I am working on- even to the point of taking whatever it is right out of my hand. How about this one. I'm in the middle of cleaning something and he'll come over to me, see what I'm doing and then ask me if I've finished whatever I'm working on.

Now, for clarification, I don't clean these parts of the machine as often as he does, so probably don't do it as well as he might. But every now and again I'm asked to do some cleaning to give us both a change of pace. Now I don't mind doing this occasionally, because it gives me an opportunity to get away from the machine that I'm running and gives my eyes a break from looking under the microscope at the parts I'm inspecting. But come on, does he really have to criticize everything I do?

My company is ISO certified and what we make is regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, so we have to operate under more strict regulations than a regular manufacturing operation. Everything we do is written out in many procedures, so that theoretically anyone off of the street could come in to my company, pull out a procedure and by following it, do the job successfully. Some of these procedures involve the cleaning of these machine parts. So today, as I'm preparing to put everything together to go back into the machine, he asks me if I'd polished the parts with a pink paste that shines up the metal real nice. I told him I hadn't done that step, since it is not written in the procedure, which I follow closely, because, as I said, cleaning these parts is not my regular job. Technically, I cleaned the parts correctly because I followed the procedures. Now in company meetings that w've had I've pointed out that the cleaning procedures need to be revised and suggested he be the one to do it, since he performs the function most frequently. To add to my frustration, he refuses to do it stating that he has no time, which is a load of c--- since it would take him all of ten minutes to scribble out some changes. Then he gets upset when I miss a step in the cleaning process that to him seems obvious.

Topping it all off, if I dare criticize HIM for doing something wrong, it's always someone else's fault, not his. Now folks, I'm not perfect, and I make my share of mistakes. I'll be the first one to tell you when I've messed up at work. Accountability is everything.

So the question to you readers is this: Do you know/work with someone like this? If you do, how do/did you deal with the situation? Am I over reacting?

How Yahoo Personals indirectly changed my life...

In August, 2003 I became separated from my wife of (at that time) almost 9 years. This came about for a variety of reasons. One of which is the purpose of this entry. And one of the reasons I am now divorced, by the way. (A lesson to you married guys - NEVER post an ad on singles websites looking for other women IF you want to stay married. Conversely if you are looking to get out of a marriage this is a good way to get the ball rolling. Trust me on this one boys...)

Anyway-

On many an occasion I found myself sitting in front of the computer in my parents house where I was living at the time. I logged into Yahoo Personals to check out the ads of women nearby to see if there was anyone interesting enough to write to. I had posted an ad there myself sometime previous, but had not gotten any responses.

So just for the halibut I put in the Yahoo Personals search engine the area where I was living in in NH (while married) with a 100 mile radius and got a number of ads in response to the search. I'm shuffling through these ads, looking at the pictures posted in each ad when I came across one ad in particular. The pictures this woman posted nearly took my breath away, they were so stunning. So I read the ad, which was short and liked what I saw.

Too bad I didn't have a subscription to the Personals so that I could write this woman a note. I had to contact this woman but didn't want to spend the money for a membership there. Aaaah but my brother did have one!!! So I logged into the Personals under his name and found out this woman's Yahoo alias. I probably then wrote her a note and sent it off, not expecting any response, as my track record incicated would be the case. I also put this woman's alias on my Yahoo Messenger list, in hope of seeing her online someday, so that we could talk via instant messaging.

Fast forward about a year or so from this date and you arrive at May 2, 2005. The day that changed my life forever. I finally was using Yahoo Messenger at the same time this beautiful, mysterious woman was!!!! So I quickly typed a note into Messenger and got the response I thought I'd get, which was: "Who are you?"

Since I was expecting this response I quickly told her my name and briefly how I knew who she was. We started talking. As my luck would have it, this woman didn't live locally to me, but instead lives in a city called Yoshkar-Ola, Russia. This explains in part why I never saw her online - she is 8 hours ahead of Eastern US time.

Anyway, we started talking on Yahoo Messenger and found a connection. We have been talking frequently since then, and have found ourselves falling in love with each other. Now I know you will say that it is crazy and impossible to fall in love with someone online - how can you get to know someone without meeting them in person? I thought the same thing myself. Nonetheless it can happen, and HAS!!! We have, by mutual agreement, become unofficially engaged!!! This arrangement will become officially official when she comes to visit me in July. And I couldn't be more happy about it!

I also assume you think I am totally crazy. (Which may actually be true to some extent). But I have no other explanation for the fact that I do not sleep well if I do not talk to her for more than a day. I think about her all of the time. As a friend of mine will attest, I commented to him that I thought I was falling in love with this woman, but didn't want to admit it - precisely because we haven't physically met yet.

Miracles do happen, though. The other day we were talking online and she sincerely expressed her feelings for me and asked me if I would honestly do the same - tell her how I felt about her. Man! Was I relieved that she brought the subject up first!!!

I must say that I do not believe in coincidences. Chance can't make things happen, never could - never will. There is only fate and how we deal with it. So there is fate working for my benefit for a change. If she hadn't put that particular city in her Yahoo ad, I never would have met her. My life would be the poorer for it, too.

She is the sweetest woman I have known in a long time and she's very physically attractive to boot. I would be crazy to NOT want to marry her, someday. Just come calling in July and I'll introduce you to her!

Green

"Psst... Hide the valuables & turn out the lights. Someday we might have visitors."

"You mean someone might actually find us here and read what we've written? Oooh that's scary."

"Scary? No, that's the point of this whole blog thing."

"You mean we actually want to have visitors? We want people to read this stuff?"

"Yes. Of course we do. That way we can talk to other people when they leave comments here."

"Oh. I suppose that would be cool. How many visitors are we expecting?"

"Well, that depends on how many people stumble onto this blog. But it will probably take a while for people to find out that we are here."

"So what else do we have to do?"

"Well it would help if what we write is interesting and has mass appeal."

"Massapeal? What in the heck is that?"

"Mass appeal means that what we write needs to be good and will capture people's imaginations. Then they might come back again and again."

"Okay, lets do that. Let's write our posts with style, substance and sincerity."

"That's right. No flash. We'll be low key. Fly under the radar and sneak up on people. When they realize what they've stumbled onto they'll tell others about us."

"We'll be rich!!!"

"Well, no. We won't be rich. There is more to life than money, you know. Especially since they can read here for free."

"Aaawww man, that stinks. I want to be rich... Hey? What happens if people read and don't comment? Then we'll never know that they were here."

"Like I said, it's going to take time to build up an audience, but we'll get there someday. Trust me."

"Well okay, I'll trust you, since you seem to know what you're doing."

"Good, now turn out the lights like I told you. And be quiet."

"Okay."

"Ssshhh, I think I hear someone coming...."

New to this blogging thing

OK, I'm totally new to this blogging thing. Read 'em occasionally, but never before had my own, or the desire to have one. Thanks for the inspiration American Guy.

Also, today my youngest sister C, turns 22 years old. Happy Birthday, C.