Long day.  Usually I break out on Thursdays and see if I can find a garage sale or something to take my mind off this place for a while.

Not that there is anything particularly bad about this place (work).  I just need a mental health break about lunch time.  An hour of mid day me time is essential.  I have not been able to get a lot of that lately.  Team lunches, meetings and fires have crowed that time out.

We had a recognition ceremony this afternoon.  This always causes me to go back to my desk and look through a stack of previous plaques and ask myself if I'm doing the best job I can.

I'm not going to kick myself too hard this time.  I could be doing better, but I have done quite a bit this year if I take an inventory of things.  I done this without the required goal list.  For some reason, my supervisor and I have never sat down and finalized my goals for 2003.  I have a draft written out, but many no longer apply.  Sometimes, the ability to fly by the seat of your pants, saves you from some rough landings.  It is, however, time to do a flight check.

The boss has been away, but that doesn't mean the mice are playing.  OK, maybe a little, but it is often the case that micromanagement inhibits productivity.  Take away team meetings, telephone conferences and all that time you spend justifying your existence to your higher ups, you have time to get your work done, and time to spare on top of that.  In the IT field, communication is most challenging.  People want to know exactly what you are doing, and because they don't exactly understand, they keep asking you to explain it.

Most people don't know how a television works, but that doesn't keep them from watching it.

Continuing on my Indian Summer theme from an earlier post, we are still experiencing some unseasonable weather that is bringing out the color in the fall foliage.  I took a wonderful ride with my significant today.  We hit many parks along the Platte Valley, and finished our afternoon petting and feeding horses at the Platte River State Park.

My daughters marching band has become a popular topic for me to blog about.  The URL to recent pictures is again below. 

http://members.cox.net/studebkr1/lsw/index.html

Last night I took a friend down to Lincoln with me and watched them march again.  The football team won too, but that does not matter to me.  I got to see my daughter have fun with her teenage friends, the night before her first homecoming dance.

It's funny that in a world with new right to privacy act laws, that you really don't have that right.

The measures in which I have taken to try and get my picture removed from some guys website in Omaha Singles has been a lesson in the new frontier of the Internet.  If someone puts a camera in your face at an AA meeting, you can politely remind them that you have a right to anonymity.  I have been spoiled by that tradition, because a new Paparazzi has formed in Omaha Singles, and those rights have gone down the toilet.

Folks say there is a mountain lion or cougar around these parts.  Yeah, in Omaha.  I would find it hard to believe, but they caught one on the west part of town last week.  Now there are sightings in Memorial Park.

I wanted to see for myself.  Shiloh, Wally and I went hunting.  Armed only with a flashlight, and dull knife, we parked the car by the softball field and walked into the darkness.  It was really dark.  It was too damn dark, but the dogs pressed on.  I thought I was in a bad version of The Blair Witch Project.  About 1/3 the way from Western to Dodge street, I decided it was too scary, but Shiloh went bizerk.  This is not uncommon.  Instead of following the creek, I ventured up towards the monument.  There would be light there, though we would have to come back to the truck via the dark.  Something did run by.  Probably another dog, or raccoon, and the dogs went nuts.  It did not matter at that point, I had my mind believing something would pounce from the trees.

While some were paying $10 a piece to go through a haunted house, I made up my own little fantasy.  The adrenaline rush was cool.  I don't think I will do it again by myself.

We got a treat on the way to lunch today.  There was a pickup truck in front of us with two gold Labrador Retrievers.

I always wondered how dogs could stand in the back of a pickup without falling out.  Today I witnessed acrobatics that should not be possible in the back of a truck, or legal.  Bravo!  This pair gets my endorsement for the 500 Club!

I was thumbing through a News Week article on Adult ADD.  I have all the symptoms!  I have a hard time staying on task.  I started and get involved in many tasks that are never finished.  I procrastinate.  I have a hard time staying in my chair.  I squirm during meetings.

OK, is it just me, or are many of these common work behaviors?  Instead of blaming these on a chemical imbalance, I would rather blame myself for poor habits, and my workplace for not respecting the time I have scheduled to work on specific projects.  There always seems to be a fire bigger than the one I'm currently working on.  In addition to that, I, uh....  shoot, this was really good too....  maybe I will remember later....

Got a fortune cookie last night.  I can't tell you exactly what it said because I just put a shirt in the wash, and that slip of paper was in the pocket.  It said something to the effect of, "Today is a good day to take care of yesterday's stuff."  I'm not sure I like that.  It makes me sound like some kind of procrastinator or something!

I got up early this AM.  Though be it in another county.  It has given me the time to put out the Wednesday trash.  Haul the dog kennel outside for an "air out", and start a load or two of laundry.  I'm also writing a weblog for the first time in days.

Strange to get dark so early.  Seems like just yesterday I was riding my bike after 9:00PM and now I'm walking the dogs at 8:30 under a bright full moon.

Near perfect temperature for October.  No jacket weather.  We went downtown and hiked our way from the river up to Ted and Wally's.  Had I not Shiloh and Wally with me, I might have had some ice cream.  It sounds good tonight!  Oh well.  Why ruin a healthy walk with food?  I want to do that some time when I have a red head with me!

The beagles needed that walk bad.  They were just plain naughty.  They pulled and tugged me all over the place.  So much to smell, so little time.  Very quiet downtown for a Thursday.  I think a lot of people were at the Fleetwood Mac concert.  I'm glad I got out of there before the crowd broke.

I don't know what to write about so I will just add a picture of a dog.

Not sure which of my dogs this reminds me of.  The sneaky look it has, I would say Shiloh, but it looks male.

I saw a really cool quote while looking for anti-spam information on the web tonight.

[Spammers] are the mutant spawn of a bizarre reproductive act involving a telemarketer, Larry Flynt, a tapeworm, and an executive of the Third Class mail industry. -- Dave Barry

[email protected] is not my real address.  It is real, but not my private address.  If I order something, go on Ebay, join a forum, I use that address.  It gets 75 unsolicited emails a day.  The sad part is; the address I hid for so long gets a couple a day.  I have either used it someplace that I trusted, or someone used it in a referral, or such.

http://spam.abuse.net/ is one helpful link I found tonight.  It has links and suggestions to many other tools and sites.

But wait Michael, don't you work for a telemarketing company?  Yes, and I weighed that fact before I joined.  The company adheres to the list founded years ago by the Direct Marketing Association, and only does 7% outbound.  It has mutated into an inbound customer service organization.

You can go to http://www.junkbusters.com and learn how to get on that list.  The national list has been stalled, but this list exists and is powerful.  It is not as convenient, because you must put a stamp on a letter, but it works.

Back to spam.  I guess what bothers me most, is that they are sending me ads for things I would never dream of buying, and there is no way to tell them "NO".  The just keep coming, clogging up a mailbox that I'm trying to use for something else. 

If you can ignore the "boom cars" in the distance, and the sound of mother's screaming obscenities at their out of control kids down the street, it is really quite a beautiful sight in this old neighborhood right now.  I should go out and snap some pictures.

Some time back, the civilization that used to populate this neighborhood planted a variety of interesting trees.  The colors are starting to come out, and as this warm fall day came upon us, they seemed to come forth with yet an even more vibrant surge.

The reds and tawny browns of crimson and sugar maples line 48th street highlighted with the gold and yellows of ash and willow.  Burning bush, even the one in my front yard are starting to turn.  I saw some at memorial park today that were brilliant.  Along their side was several gardens of very large cannas and decorative brome grasses, the seemed to fair the summer draught well.  The rose garden that looked lost in the earlier part of the year seems to have survived well, and standing down wind, is in no pun intended, breath taking.

Friday night was special.  I don't get to transport my daughter to Omaha the way I once did, as she is a teenager who is very active in her new high school and marching band.  I posted band pictures here before.  Click Here. 

The game was early in the afternoon, and the weather perfect, so I took half a day off work and journeyed down to Lincoln.  She was to meet me at school and invite a couple friends for pizza after the game.  She warned me the she and her friends might act giddy and annoy me.  If she only knew the truth.  For a father to sit and watch his daughter interact with kids her age, swap secrets about crushes, cheer when the team gets a score, is a blessing I can not describe.

All too soon, will that day come when she has her own car, and strives to be independent of me.  I know our visits will continue, but happens during those visits will be less determined by me, and that is OK.