Wow, It Is Cold Here

Whew! I had to wear long sleeves and a jacket today. Sure, I could have worn a shirt, too, but the long sleeves keep my arms warm. OK, fine. I do have on a shirt. Anyway, it was right at freezing when I left the house this morning. That is just wrong for PHX. It should top out at 60F later today.

Have you been reading about this mess with US classified documents and wikileaks.com? Yeah, I do have an opinion. No, college roomie, the names used in the comic strip are fictional. Only the situations are real.
Will I be able to sing at Chorale practice tonight? I wonder that, too. We shall see. And we have a concert Sunday. Where? I wonder that, too. We shall see.

I overslept today and had to drive through normal rush hour traffic. How do they do it? Sure, I do face it on my return afternoon commute, but today, it will be both morning and evening.

Have y'all ever heard of quibids.com? It looks interesting. They have one-cent and two-cent auctions. That's right. The bidding can only progress to the next penny or two at a time. And you have to buy the right to bid at sixty cents each. So a MacBook Pro sold for around $69 yesterday. That means there were over 6,900 bids, at sixty cents each, so the company made over $4100 for a $1600 computer. That is a genius business model, right?

Since I am running late, I already need to prepare for the 8:30am meeting. I'll try to get up when the alarm goes off tomorrow, OK? Since I am late today, you can sleep in a bit, too. I'll meet you here tomorrow with coffee for both of us.

A New Week Dawns

Well, it is not quite dawn here yet, but I have reason to suspect is will occur at some point. Whew, it is cold here in the PHX area. We will not even reach 60F today or tomorrow. I had to wear a jacket.

I had to wear one on Saturday night when we made our annual trek to ZooLights at the Phoenix Zoo. I think this was one of the best in many years. They are using the new, bright LED lights on the trees. The dancing lights section has a new addition of two rectangular light sections to add to the synchronized tree lights. And the weather was pleasantly nippy (well, I don't think the zoo arranged that). You should go if you can. Buy the discounted tickets from Fry's before you go.

We have begun to work on getting our house decorated for Christmas. Kathie is farther along than I am. I do have the tree sections laying in the living room, but not yet connected. She has stored away the Thanksgiving stuff and laid out a number of decorations in the den and kitchen. Have any of you finished your decorating yet?

This cold I have is quite stubborn. I will not go away, especially a nagging cough that always gets worse at bedtime. Don't you hate that? I imagine your spouse hates it even more.

Did you travel over the weekend? We stayed put, but I know some of you were at least on the road, and some may have flown. Luckily for you, the threatened slowdown to protest the new security measures did not pan out. Still, even the threat of avoiding the backscatter machines was enough to drive today's CoV.

The East Valley Chorale has its first Christmas concert this coming Sunday. No orchestra for this one, but these are always a little more exciting than regular concerts during the year. No, I do not know where it is. I hope my voice is ready. In fact, I hope I can at least sing during practice tomorrow night.

We are scouring our photos for a good Christmas card. Nothing yet, but stay tuned. I almost said you should wait with bated breath, but that always stinks.

Look, we can deny it all we want, but our employers expect some output for the pay they provide. So, let's give them a good day's effort and chat more in the morning. Stay warm and drop by again. See you.

It's "All Turkey All the Time" Tomorrow

There are so many things I am thankful for. And yet, I seem to get caught up with all the problems (or at least perceived problems) that I face. I have a God who loves me. Yes, me personally. A loving wife, great kids (all three of them including my daughter-in-love), beautiful healthy granddaughters, a job (no mean feat in this economy), a church I enjoy attending, the Chorale (so I can still be involved in a choir). There are just too many things to list here. It reminds me of a song a college roommate and his sister used to sing (a Henry Mancini song sung by The Carpenters):

Sometimes, not often enough, we reflect upon the good things
And those thoughts always center around those we love.
And I think of all the people who mean so much to me
And for so many years have made me so very happy.
And I count the times I have forgotten to say
Thank You
And just how much I love them.

For the sublime to the ridiculous, let's see today's CoV.I almost trashed this one in favor of the one I will publish Monday about the TSA. However, I really wanted a turkey idea for pre-Thanksgiving.

I have heard they will be letting us leave early today. OK, not as early as ZKW will be getting off (see his comment yesterday). And wasn't traffic wonderful this morning?

Dad's computer monitor died yesterday. Between he and I, we are killing off electronic equipment almost as fast as complaints are coming in about enhanced pat-downs.

Have y'all finished Christmas shopping? Have you even started? I don't know what the family will be doing about Black Friday, but I plan to sleep through the 4am sales on Friday.

By the way, today's Clarity of Vision is number 400. Wow. Let me think, if 18 of them were funny, what is that percentage? Well, it doesn't matter. I guess I'll shoot for 500 now. Let me think again, if most of you only read one per month, what percentage is that? Again, it doesn't matter. I've read almost all of them.

Listen, if I am leaving early, I'd best complete today's tasks. And you need to finish your To Do list, also. Take tomorrow off from work. Friday, too, if you think you can. I won't be back until Monday, so no need to stop by my desk. OK, phone call. See you next week.

Turkey Day Minus Two

We are fast approaching the annual overeating and Cowboys watching and family visiting day. All of that, and we still call it Thanksgiving? As I write this, my mind looks back across Thanksgiving memories and family gatherings in North Louisiana. That is exactly the types of memories we tried to build in our kids, and I know that is what Kyle and Lyndsay are doing for their kids. We will all gather this year over at the folks house and do all of the above.

Now, my mind is looking over all the fond memories of work. Nope. That thought was over even before I finished typing the sentence. Not quite as fun. Still, just two more days of work this week.

Since we are staying here in AZ, we do not have to brave the craziness of airports and backscattering and intimate searches. Some do, though. If you do, I hope it goes well for you (and by well, I mean uneventful).

Have any of y'all seen the new Harry Potter? It raked in quite a bit of cash over the weekend (although apparently not record-breaking). Maybe we'll catch a movie this weekend. I'll check with my better half to see what I might want to see.

Did you start watching The Good Guys on Fox after I mentioned it last week or whenever it was. You only have a couple of weeks left, so record it and check it out. I already anticipate missing it.

I am absolutely gobsmacked. (Can I say that in a family-friendly blog?) Denise updated this week. She did! Go check it out. And thanks to the others who also keep WEBNET active.

I was thinking about how to end today's post and I thought about writing "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," but I feared some of you might say disparaging things about my mind already being a waste. Instead, I will say...

Thanks for stopping by today. Since I am working on Wednesday, there will be a new CoV. So, you can take that as an exciting anticipation or a dire warning about trolling through the interweb mindlessly. See you tomorrow.

Giving Thanks for Thanksgiving

We have reached the season of focusing on giving thanks for those things that really matter. For us, we started last night with a Thanksgiving service at church. Isabella sang as part of a children's choir. Kendall was very good, also, throughout the service. We also held an "open mike" giving thanks opportunity. Now, on to Thanksgiving Day itself. This year, it will only be those of us that live here in the Valley of the Sun. I think we are catching ZooLights on Saturday night. I hope it is nice and cool.

I missed a Chorale concert yesterday due to this cold. I still don't have my voice back. Hey, did I hear someone giving thanks for that?

Some of you are probably giving thanks for Clarity of Vision. Right? Anybody? Bueller? Well, I am publishing it anyway.
We had a good time on Friday at St. Mary's Food Bank. The turkey give-away wasn't until Saturday, but there were still hundreds coming through. Many of them thought the give-away was Friday, so they were upset they did not get their turkey. I worked in the soda packing area at first, and then in the vegetable loading area. We did have a good time and it was more team-building than I would have guessed.

Well, it is only a three day week, so I'd best get started so I can still provide five days worth of value. We get Thursday and Friday off this week. Yeah! I'm giving thanks for that.

I guess I will give you something for which you will give thanks. That is all I am writing for today. I've already jumped over and answered two emails while I was writing this post. What a multitasker, huh? You can also give thanks that we can meet again tomorrow.

Snuck In Using Firefox

Well, somehow, I cannot login to blogger.com using Internet Exploder, but Firefox let me in with nary a whimper. Nary, I say. So, I am now running late, but fell I owe you a complete post since we missed yesterday's. I did post one this morning to show you yesterday's Clarity of Vision, so scroll on down and check it out after you finish this one. No, you can go look at it now, if you want, and then come back for this post.

Our org is taking off the afternoon to go work at St. Mary's Food Bank in downtown PHX. The company gives everyone one day off per year for charitable work. I guess this counts as half of mine, huh? I don't know what we will be doing, but I did hear on the radio that they are having a turkey drive today, so maybe we'll be eating turkey. No, I meant accepting turkeys from charitable neighbors.

I have had a cold all week (no fever, so it is not flu), and I am better, but still not much of a voice. Hey, I heard someone say I never had much of a voice. That was not nice. Anyway, I hope it is back for the Chorale concert on Sunday.

I had my annual post-op checkup earlier this week and I guess I am still healthy. Well, as healthy as an old dude like me can be.

Someone at work suggested I try a cartoon on how many different work request ticketing systems we have here. Well, here is the result of that suggestion.
Bella called last night and quoted a Bible verse to us. Wow! That was pretty cool. And of course, Kendall had to talk to her Pops. We had a nice little talk, too.

I am not sure what we have planned for the weekend. How about you? Anything special? I heard there were still colors up near Sedona, but I don't know if I want to make that drive.

I don not have any meetings today, maybe because we are out of the office starting just after 12pm. So, don't try to call me at work this afternoon. I will be charitizing downtown. We should be through before Monday, so look for me then, especially since it looks like Firefox will allow me to chat with you a while. Have a good weekend, my friends.

Could Not Get on Blogger Yesterday

Sorry. I could not get on blogger.com yesterday, so I missed posting to y'all. Here is yesterday's Clarity of Vision. Everything else I might have said to you is lost since my brain cannot remember stuff that long. And everything I am going to say today isn't here yet because this is yesterday's post. It is all very logical in my mind. Sorry for your confusion.

You Gotta Have Faith

I had my annual followup with the doctor who operated on my and, Praise the Lord, I am still cancer free. However, they were concerned with another number and asked that I come back in two weeks. So, I went back yesterday and a retest cleared up this concern. So, I do not need to go back until next October. That is great news.

That is not all of the faith messages I have for you today. OK, maybe it is, but I do have one more thing that uses the word "faith."

Another of my calendar entries:
Customer: YOU MADE MY BURGER WRONG! YOU PUT TOMATO ON IT! I AM VERY ALLERGIC TO TOMATO!
Wendy's counter clerk: I am sorry, sir. I'll make another burger for you and give you your money back. What would you like on your burger?
Customer: Just mustard and ketchup.

And the final one for today:
Justin Timberlake: I don't like singers who sing so you can hear them sing.

Today, I have another doctor's appointment. I will have this stinking cold looked at, and have cholesterol and whatever else checked while I am there. One time, I went in and had blood drawn for a test, and the nurse (actually, the Doc's wife) forgot to send mine in. I need to remind her about that today. These tests also mean that I cannot eat anything until after my appointment. Whaa! I'm hungry.

We are going to help at St. Mary's food bank on Friday, so I hope I am feeling stronger by then. After that, we are going to Mi Patio for happy hour. Free food and non-alcoholic drinks. Hey, I've got to pay for my own booze? What a cheap company.

Speaking of companies paying for things, did your cost of insurance go up for next year? Mine is almost doubling the cost per paycheck. And that is for me only. Kathie is covered through her work.

Listen, just ignore all these used tissues piling up in my cubicle. My trash can is full. Hey, nobody is forcing you to stay here, you know. Just go away and come back tomorrow then. Fine. I'm rubber and you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

OK, maybe the theme of yesterday blog exploits was the reverse of that. Now you don't see it, now you do. When I published yesterday's post, I neglected to reset the date and it posted under a date for last week. When my better half asked why there was no post, I researched and found the problem. It is fixed now.

No one has ever accused me of having a dizzying intellect. However, that phrase was used in Princess Bride, which leads to today's Clarity of Vision.
Are you having trouble hearing me today? Well, I've got a cold or something so my voice is rather weak. I go to the Doc tomorrow to get it checked out. In fact, I had my first hot beverage of the season yesterday to assuage the discomfort. At least I think I did. No, I mean I did have the drink, but I don't know what assuage means, so maybe it is out of context.

We are going to work in the St. Mary's Food Bank Friday afternoon as a team builder. I like that idea. It is a good investment of our time and brings us together outside of the normal work environment.

With all this coughing (no, it's only me), I need to disinfect my workstation when I finish this post. Plus, I've still got to get ready for the 8:30am call. So, I will leave you with this memorable phrase from Rudy Giuliani. "I took a city that was known for pornography and licked it to a large extent." See you tomorrow.

The Promised Black and White Photo is Here

You know what? I had this photo ready to use on Friday, but I forgot to start from the draft that had the picture until too late. So, here is a shot at Fairyland in Bryce Canyon, UT.Nice hoodoos, huh? That is what the formations are called.

You are probably wondering who do my drawings for me because they are so lifelike? Amazingly enough, they are stock figures within Microsoft Visio. They are not hand drawn! Will wonders never cease? Let's go ahead and take a look at today's comic strip. Almost photo-realistic, isn't it?

We had a great visit with the girls Friday night. Everyone, even me, on our best behavior. Then, on Saturday, we went together to see Megamind and everyone really enjoyed it. Finally, over to Nello's Pizza for dinner. Whew! Sunday was a day of rest.

I think I am trying to catch a cold. It should not be the flu since I had a flu shot. No, it's not because I do not have a fever. Just drainage and a cough. You want to hear more symptoms? I've got them, baby! I've got them.

The holiday season is fast approaching. Have we started with Christmas presents yet? Actually, I don't know. I haven't, but that doesn't mean we haven't. And the temps are cooling off, so it seems winter is near. Our highest temperature of this week is forecast to be only 79F.

Has anyone heard of Yammer? It is a Facebook-like app that the company is rolling out inside of our firewall. Why? I am not sure, since we can already use MS Communicator if we need to reach a particular person. I do see that someone posted that we can see our paychecks online in the new HR app. so this tool does let us have a larger group discussion on things and make org-wide announcements (assuming you are logged into Yammer.

Are you ready to get to work? Yeah, me neither.

Only 2-3 more episodes of The Good Guys. Are y'all watching? I really like it and will be sad when they air the final episode on Dec. 10. Kendall's birthday. Not that it being her birthday affects the TV program at all, nor is that the cause of my sadness. Oh, never mind.

Ready for work yet?

I only have two meetings today. That's good. I am not the leader in either of them. That's also good.

Friday's desktop calendar:
Newlywed Game host Bob Eubanks: How long will your husband say his inseam is?
Woman: Seven inches.

Earlier calendar entry:
Attorney: You said you went to Galveston in 1920, yet your first job you told me about was in 1946. What did you do between 1920 and 1946?
Witness: Well, I didn't go to work as soon as I got there.

Another:
UK Headline: Crematorium Plans Put on Back Burner.

And our final calendar entry for today:
Family Feud Host: Now for the win. Name something associated with Niagara Falls.
Contestant: I hope this is right. Utah. The state of Utah.

No more excuses, guys. We need to get to work. Grab your lunch bags and let's go. We can lollygag again tomorrow.

Getting Closer to Thanksgiving

I am not sure what families will be in town for Thanksgiving. I suspect maybe only those of us that live here. OK, I meant of my family, not in general. And don't call me a turkey for that mis-statement.

I think it was the funny cheerleader, Brittany, in the TV show Glee that made the statement you will see in panel three of today's CoV. If it was not, it could have been. In one episode, she said "Sometimes, I forget my middle name." In another, "I don't brush my teeth. I rinse my mouth out with soda after I eat. I was pretty sure Dr. Pepper was a dentist." She is hilarious. OK, here's today's comic.

The GRANDS are spending the night. I am not sure of our exact plans, but I think they involve cake for dinner, cookies for dessert, and gummy bears for breakfast. Now I am not sure what the girls will have. Wow. I crack myself up.

I finished my Workplace Harassment course yesterday. I told the rest of the team to try and take the assessment quiz at the end before they wait on all the videos. I don't know if that is possible, but someone thought they had heard that from someone else. They should try it, though. Most of the questions were pretty obvious. You know, like "If someone said they felt harassed and ask you to keep it secret, can you? 1) Sure, it was not really that serious anyway. 2) No, tell them our policy requires that you tell HR and let them handle it and determine the seriousity. 3) Promise you will keep it secret but then tell HR anyway. 4) Do not tell HR, and if you tell your peers, make sure they will keep it a secret." No, I don't remember the exact question and options, but it was something like that.

Yesterday, my work email folder got full and I had to spend an hour or so going through it so I could send and receive messages again. Don't you hate that? I meant about the folder being full, not me being able to send and receive messages. Although I suppose you may hate both of those things.

For VD yesterday (Veteran's Day. What did you think?), the company provided donuts. Unfortunately, they gave us plenty, so I ended up the day having eaten three. Uggh. I still feel overloaded on sugar. So, I only had two for breakfast. No, none today, but three in one day is too much.

It was day two of light(er) traffic. Yeah, I could get used to this.

I need to start my workday now. I see a couple of incomplete actions from Wednesday that I want to knock out this morning. So, let's each grab our to-do lists and get some of the items done. Come back as soon as you finish your list and let's compare notes. Or we could wait until Monday to meet again. Yeah, let's do that.

Happy Veteran's Day

Some of you may be seeing this later than normal because you are sleeping in today. Well, not all of us get this day off. I know there are parades in PHX and the local suburbs, but I won't make any of them. Still, thanks to all of you who have served and helped protect the rights of our country and her people.

Having said that, I will now proceed to use the veteran concept to attempt some humor in today's Clarity of Vision.

Kathie working at McDonalds? Yep. They have an annual fund raiser at the nearby Golden Arches and the teachers all work for an hour or so. A portion of the profits is then given back to the school. I am thinking she will probably stay as a teacher rather than go full-time there.

We have a new Guide function on our Cox cable system. So far, I don't like most of it. They are trying to catch TiVo on functionality, but they took away some features that I was used to. For example, I tape a certain segment of the Sunday news show here (just the medical updates segment). So, I only set it for 8:10-8:30. We can no longer tape only part of a show. With Cox, it's all or nothing. Is it all or nothing with you? Oops. Sorry. My mind went all Oklahoma musical on me.

One nice thing about Federal holidays is that traffic flows very well. I was running late, but made up some time on the freeway. Whoo hoo.

Still, I am past the time when I normally complete my post. So, I will end it now. Y'all have a good holiday and let's meet again tomorrow, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I choose bright-eyed, so y'all better be bushy-tailed.

Warning! Office Space-Themed CoV

Have you seen the movie Office Space? Did you think it was funny? If not, then today's Clarity of Vision may not be for you. Well, there may be a couple of clever spots, but the movie's running jokes about the TPS report and staplers will be lost on you. Let's go ahead and get it out of the way.
OK, cartoon aside, what else happened? The girls are spending the night Friday night while their parents go to Cirque du Soleil. That should be fun. I know Kathie has a couple of new books for them, and maybe Mickey D's, and take MoMo for a walk. We will have a good time.

We had a good Chorale practice last night. It is all Christmas music all the time through the end of the year. We have a couple of really nice arrangements and the rest is pretty good. This is always a fun time of year for the group. Our big Chorale and orchestra concert is Sunday, Dec 19.

Since I had practice last night, I did not get a chance to play with photos. And I forgot to bring one for today's post, so I got nothing to attach except the comic above.

Today starts the annual enrollment period for our company benefits. I am sure the prices have gone up, but I have not checked yet. They are touting that we can pick and choose levels of benefits in 28 ways. I'll be the judge of that.

We do not get Veteran's Day off. How about you? I think the teachers in the family are off at least for that one day (tomorrow, right?). However, since we are not off, they do get 3 balloons and a bag of candy at their desks and a thank you notice on the company website. Hey, nothing says thanks for your sacrifice like balloons and candy.

No, I still have not scheduled the tech dude to finish setting up my Macbook so I can run everything from the Mac side instead of Windows 7. Maybe I'll try to get that done by the end of the year. Maybe.

I am taking the annually required Sexual Harassment online training right now. They want to make sure we all understand it fully, so they disallowed skipping forward in any of the videos. So it will take a minimum of three hours to complete. Anyway, while I was watching it yesterday, they mentioned that we should not leer suggestively. I wondered...what does a leer look like, anyway? I tried one on a cube neighbor and she said it looked more like I had a stomach ache. We looked it up in the dictionary, but did not get a clear definition of how the face should look.

I guess I need to go finish that class, check on my benefits enrollment options, and get the weekly metrics compiled. Doesn't that sound busy? I think so. You go act busy, too, so we will all have jobs tomorrow. See you then.

Is It Winter or What?

Wow. A high of only 72F today? I am seeing many long sleeves and jackets today. Well, sure. It is only 60F or so this morning. That does remind me, though, of when K&K lived in Canada and came down and swam one Thanksgiving. Us desert dwellers stayed inside with the heater on.

Many Sundays, several of us gather with the folks for lunch. With several teachers in the group, talk inevitably turns toward teaching stories. However, we don't always hear some of the juicier stuff. I am sure each of them knows way too much about their student's family lives.

Sorry. I know I said I would have a photo in today's post. Well, I just now thought about it and don't have it staged for sharing. That just means you will have to come back at least one more day.

Is there anybody out there? I do see Craig has some feelings about a couple of recent topics and Lindsay chimed in about some Fall Break photos, but nothing recently from the rest of you. BTW, Craig, we did not make it to The Social Network yet, but I always like Justin (T not B) on SNL.

Only a single meeting today and it is first thing in the morning. Maybe I can just take the rest of the day off? No, probably not. I need to schedule that group training session before next Wed, so I'll get that set up. While I am doing that, you are free to wander around the room looking at the effluvia of other people's lives. Big word, huh? We can all meet back at my desk before tomorrow's blog, OK?

...But No Pictures

I had an idea for a cartoon while in the shower this morning. However, this is only tangentially related to the concept I started with. Today's CoV is loosely based on the strict DUI laws in AZ. I think a 10-day sentence is pretty much required, even on the first offense. So, how could I help someone survive?

As you noticed in the title of today's post, I do not have a photo to share because I had to delete them from my work machine and network. I did play a little with some of them trying to build a book. One shot from Bryce Canyon just screamed out for black and white. As you can guess, all that screaming scared the dog, but I did convert it and it came out kinda cool. I'll try to remember to load it tonight to show you tomorrow.

Oh, you want to talk football? The Cowboys? No comment. The Cardinals? No comment. ASU? No comment. U of A? No comment. That's enough football talk.

We had a really good East Valley Chorale concert last night. Good acoustics in the church. An enthusiastic audience. Most of the chorale in attendance. It was fun.

We went to see the Little Mermaid with the GRANDS on Saturday. They seemed to really enjoy it and the performance was clever and well p[aced for kid's attention spans. Then over to Joe's real BBQ for lunch. Mmm mmm.

Carey had a friend in from Canada this past week. We met her yesterday at lunch. She seemed very nice. I am afraid our family may have overwhelmed her. They were going ice skating after we left. What? Ice skating in PHX when you are from Canada?

Someone left a couple of Jolly Rancher stix on my desk. It would have been better if they had not opened them and licked them first. No, they are still sealed. I did not touch them in case I need to check for fingerprints. Hmm. I watch too much CSI, right?

Four meetings today. Sounds average. One of them is about our new benefits package. It is our annual sign-up time. I don't imagine the changes are in our favor, though.

Today's calendar entry:
Question on insurance form: Could either driver have done anything to avoid the accident? Insurance claimant's answer: traveled by bus?

OK, I am feeling like I should go check on the emails from the weekend. Do not try to read them over my shoulder. I should be finished in 24 hours or so, so I'll meet you here then.

The Weekend Has Arrived

Well, actually, the final workday of the week has arrived. Do you think the weekend starts at the end of the workday or not until you wake up on Saturday? For me, it starts following the afternoon commute. Since that is just a few hours away, and you may not even read this until the end of your day, I say "The weekend has arrived!"

Today's CoV comes from my ideas file. I listened for a fresh, perhaps topical, idea last night and this morning, but nothing came. Yesterday's came to me during the night while letting the dog out. I was not so creative this morning. Still, I am a word guy, so I chose this idea because I heard someone misuse the word weary. Do you have any commonly misused words on which I could buid a cartoon?

The boss is off today. Does that mean I get to play all day? No, unfortunately, it kind of means the opposite. I do not have to attend meetings for him, but he does refer work calls to me, and I need to get stuff ready for him on Monday.

We are hoping to see The Social Network this weekend. And maybe we can make it to our Saturday morning brunch. And I need to work on a photo book so I can take advantage of a 20% off coupon. Hey, talk to the hand. I'm busy.

I need to finish a couple of things so I can start my weekend. Don't you have something you need to be doing, also? OK, let's both go and we'll get together again next week. Have a good weekend.

Anxious, But Not Worried

I had my annual prostate cancer checkup yesterday. My numbers were zero, so that is good. However, they are concerned over something about my bladder, so I go back in two weeks. So, y'all can pray for a good final result.

Right now, I am not worried about Clarity of Vision, either. I have been coming up with new ideas to keep it going. Of course, that does not mean any of you will find it funny. Hey, you're the ones reading this.

Four meetings today. Kinda back to normal, huh? 88F temperature today. Kinda back to normal for that, too. One thing that was not normal was trying a new place for dinner last night. We went to Elephant Bar. We got a good coupon in the mail and I decided we needed to treat ourselves. It was pretty good, a nice change, and about the same price as Chili's.

I found out that another member of our team is leaving next week. What is going on here? Can't we all just get along?

On my Stupidest Things Ever Said desk calendar, yesterday's was funny.
Dialog in an American film: It's a tough call.
Subtitle as it appeared in Europe: It's hard to make a phone call.

That makes me wonder, because when we lived in Mexico, I would watch the Spanish subtitles for English-speaking shows to help reinforce my Spanish. Who knows what kinds of things like that may have occurred?

Well, we don't want a layoff to occur, do we? So, let's all get to work for the day. We'll have time for chat again tomorrow.

One of My Favorite Movies, Fer Sure

We will start with today's Clarity of Vision cartoon because that is what the title of the post refers to. The craziness of the two Airplane! movies and the clever use of non-sequiturs has always captivated me.

Hopefully, all the political advertisements will be off the air now that the election is over. I do know that not all races or proposals are determined yet, but please, kill the negative attack ads.

It turns out Dad did not need his computer for church choir this week, so I still have it. Whoo hoo. So Kathie was able to check out my blog last night. Hmm. I don't think she laughed. I'll have to ask about that.

I do not have any work meetings on my calendar today. well, none scheduled as of right now. Who knows what the day holds?

OK, so here's my dilemma. We have not been able to get our project tracking system modified. That means there are a couple of metrics we cannot provide the VP. However, there are two fields that we do not use at all in the tool. I could ask the PMs to enter the scheduled Go-Live date in the Risks Summary field and the actual system Go-Live date in the Other Business Objective field. Messy? Of course, but it would give me the data to track how well we meet those dates. Then, when we actually add those two date fields into the tool, we can move them from the temporary fields to the dedicated ones. What do y'all think? Is it better to not have them available? We had 11 projects close in October and were not able to capture that data in the tool.

Did you notice that I snuck a work problem into a personal blog? I'm a sneaky dude like that. It does mean, though, that I am already thinking work today. I suppose I will make it official and finish this post so I can dedicate my time to work issues. You weren't really paying attention anyway. See you tomorrow.

Voting For Your Beliefs? Or Theirs?

I spoke to the security guard on the way in this morning. He said that he no longer votes because "it doesn't make a difference anyway." He is a believer, so I asked how he reconciles his attitude about voting with the chance to get same-thinking people into offices. He suggested that God appoints the governments anyway. Well, we did vote, although we sent ours via mail last week. I reviewed one of those questionnaires that faith-based groups send candidates to help with some of the races. No, I did not vote for all of those judges. I don't know enough to differentiate one from the other.

Of course, I felt compelled to offer a vote-themed CoV today.

I found an email from the company this morning saying no personal pictures or music is allowed on company resources and please remove them. I suppose that allowing everyone to save some would add up to a lot of storage usage and maybe some CPU cycles, but I display my photos as my computer screen saver. I guess I'll just display the company-branded screen saver. What a drag. I'd better show you one of the shots before I remove them. Here is Delores City Park that we stopped at during our return to the Valley a couple of weeks ago.

Two meetings today. I am only going to attend one, though. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon, so I am ducking out before the second occurs. What kind of choice is that? Staying in the office but attending a meeting or getting to leave early but having to go to the doc's? It feels a question in the Would You Rather? game.

We only have one cupcake left. That's good because I don't need to eat so many cupcakes, but it's bad because there is only one left.

If the company were a voter, I hope they would keep me in office. I want to keep it that way, so I am going to do some work now. You can stay or go vote before the polls close. Stop by again tomorrow if you can.

Too Much Candy?

One of the challenges during the Halloween season is not to eat the candy you bought for the trick-or-treaters. How did you do? We were fine because we did not participate. We did not turn on our porch light and not a single person came to the door. The dog did get nervous once thinking someone was there, but we did not see anyone. Now, this does not mean that we did not dress up. We had a school teacher's party that we attended. Kathie went as a Pink Lady from Grease and I went as a tourist.

Not eating candy does not mean that we did not eat cupcakes. Yes, we got another delicious batch from our Daughter-In-Love and I reluctantly shared a few with family.

Hey, if you are using the Time Of Day from SRP Electric in PHX, remember that today moves us into the Winter Plan, so reset your thermostats and change the hours you do laundry. Hours are cheapest between 9 and 5 (both am and pm).

Kyle had our preacher announce Lyndsay's birthday yesterday, so the whole church sang Happy Birthday to her. No everyone gets that type of recognition.

I took home my work laptop, but since I do not have Admin privileges, I could not load the software to work on a photo book. So, I had to scoot over and borrow back Dad's machine. Since he needs it each Wednesday night, we will have to play Red Rover with it each Tuesday and Thursday.

Well, here we are back into the daily grind of work. Luckily, I like my job and my team. Not everyone does, though. Today's CoV is about one such unhappy individual. I is certainly not based on anything that happened to one of my nieces, though. No, this never happened to Leigh or anyone else.

I heard we have 55 days left until Christmas. Wow. That's exciting. I also heard we only have 1 more day until the elections. That will end these relentless and vicious TV commercials about candidates. Now that is really exciting.

Just 3 meetings today. That is exciting, too.

I am starting to hear startup noises around me, so Monday is officially underway. My startup Mac sound has already chimed, signaling a new workday. I guess I will join the throngs (well, the fives or sixes) that have come in since I started writing today's post. Y'all go do your own startups and let's meet again tomorrow.