It's News to Me

In what felt a bit like an unexpected call in the middle of the night, back in October, the 21st to be specific, I received an email from a former client of mine with whom I have consulted off and on since around 1988 asking whether I'd be willing to consider «an assignment for a year or so in New Mexico.» Having already retired and, I'll admit, having begun to resign myself to the inevitable decline that leads to the end of life, I was surprised and invigorated by his suggestion so I followed up with him just to learn what the possibilities were. That conversation and subsequent events have now led to a new opportunity for me, a new role. And just this last week, I received a formal offer to become the Call Center Manager for the Vertex Outsourcing call center in Las Vegas, NM -- not Nevada mind you, but New Mexico.

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Happy Birthday Dad

Originally uploaded by Dr Reelgood & Co..

On November 7th, Mike and Cheryl and their kids helped me celebrate my 66th birthday with a dinner at their home. Mike captured this official portrait of me posed before an assortment of cheeses and fruit that he had purchased for the occasion. It was a delicious and enjoyable way to celebrate my birthday. He suggested that the caption for the picture should be Dad cuts the cheese on his birthday, but in the end, he labeled it a bit more soberly.

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The phrase «television worth watching» is almost an oxymoron nowadays, but this week PBS is airing «The War,» a documentary about World War II co-produced by the team of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.  Last night, I saw the first of the seven installments and that was enough to convince me that it is worth my time to watch this documentary.  If you'll visit this link you can click on «PBS Previews: The War» to see a 26:49 minute overview of the series, giving a glimpse of its goals and some insights about the making of the documentary, and if you bother to watch that 26+ minutes worth of introduction, I'm confident you too will be inspired to watch the series.  The next installment is presented here in the Eastern Daylight Saving Time Zone tonight at 8 PM on the local Public Broadcasting Station.  For more information about the series, you can check this PBS web site.

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I've already given this idea to the on-duty manager of the grocery store where I shop but she probably filed it under looney ideas gleaned from talkative old men in the checkout line and did little or nothing else with it, so I'm offering it to any of my programmer friends who might want to make a name for themselves and in the process create a useful tool for crazies like me who look for innovative ways to use our Internet connection.  I, like most everybody else and maybe even you, dutifully hand the cashier my «value card» as he or she is about to ring up my purchases so that I can get the discounts that accrue from having given them my name and address and having allowed them to tag me with a unique Customer ID.  They use it, among other things, to print out a listing of the items I have purchased that day, neatly categorized into sections like Produce, Package Meat, Grocery, Frozen Food, Dairy, Candy/Gum, etc., and at the conclusion of that listing they announce that Your Savings Today was $7.48 on my most recent (9/16/07) expenditure of $56.66.  I walk away, informed and satisfied that it could have been at least $7.48 worse.

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Back on July the 8th, a Saturday morning, I decided it was time for me to stop committing suicide by sitting (TM) and set aside a regular hour during which I would commit to getting some exercise.  I chose walking.  Believing that scheduling a time for the activity might make it more likely I'd notice that I should be doing some form of exercise at that time, I set the hour between 8 AM and 9 AM as my designated hour for exercise.  Since then, I've been quite pleased that during the ensuing two months I've kept up the walking through my neighborhood with good regularity.  (I've missed walking on only two days in the last 62.) 

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Jerry Pounds has tagged me to participate in the meme that he wrote about yesterday that he called «A Favorites List.»  I received a phone call from him, in which he urged me to answer the same set of questions about myself that he answered, and I agreed.  I don't go looking for these meme-type blog entries as do some of my blogging acquaintances, like Tish who says she enjoys them, but since I don't get many requests for specific posts here at my blog, I thought I'd comply with Jerry's request.  So hang onto your hat or hold your nose, whichever seems appropriate, because here are my answers.

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Just to update those of you who pay occasional attention to this web site, I'm now back after taking a month off from blogging. Also today marks 90 smoke-free days. With each passing day not smoking my pipe becomes easier, but lest I be complacent, I know that the only thing that matters is not smoking today. So I continue in my resolve to remain smoke-free today.

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As I mentioned on July 6th, I gave up smoking my pipe on June 6th, so today marks 60 days of success at stopping smoking.  Strangely it hasn't been that difficult so far.  Yet I don't take the success in these 60 days as a done deal.  Like so many other things, I must continue to succeed each day, if the cessation is to be complete.  As the man who fell off the Empire State Building was heard to have noted as he passed the 53rd floor, «so far, so good.»

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On June the sixth, I had my semi-annual appointment to get my teeth cleaned, and I dreaded the usual but familiar difficulty associated with removing the stains from my teeth that smoking a pipe causes.  So the night before, I tossed out my pipes and decided that the night of the fifth of June would be the last time I smoked the pipe.  It was (and is) time to give up that addiction.  When I arrived for the appointment, I told the hygienist that I was giving up smoking, and of course, she was very supportive and encouraged me to follow through on my plan.  And while I had every intention of doing just that, I had no idea whether I'd be able to stick to my resolve.

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