Communication is vital in any workplace. But at mine, some forms work better than others. Case in point: instant messaging. My department can't live without it. One co-worker said it's much easier than going around the corner to my office or to even look up my number and calling. My boss even instant messages me. He's three doors away! During one such instance, he was giving me an assignment. At the end, he wrote, "No need to stay extra late!" I said okay, but I was laughing out loud. I probably wasn't going to stay late anyway.

Training for that new system is underway. But so far, it's been a complete mess. I don't think it's even at beta mode yet. The teacher was showing us a new programming language called LUA. Who's ever heard of that? He went on to say that it was written in Brazil. Yeah, like I'd trust a programming language from Brazil. Might as well teach me Scheme again. Well, sometime later, the server crashed in the middle of class so they had to postpone instruction. I just started, but now I think using spreadsheets are much easier than this.

The Sharks released their schedule for the upcoming season, if there is an upcoming season, and lo and behold, there is actually a game relatively close to my birthday. December 18 to be exact. Come on, you know you wanna come along. No? Fine then.

The results for that appraiser test came in and out of the hundreds who took it, my half-serious approach to it got me #10. But you know, they probably only have 9 jobs waiting.

One of the highlights of the New York trip last year was watching Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. That was a wonderful experience and so I have high hopes for the movie coming out this December. But what's with the trailer? It's like Michael Bay edited it. So if you watch the trailer, you just might get a bit dizzy.

The L.A. trip is off. Work won out with end user training and testing of that new system beginning on the day I was supposed to go. Guess who gets to train them? Yes, me, the so-called super user. I'm obviously qualified to do it considering my 4 days worth of experience using the system.