Frankenturm

Today's picture is pretty lame, but I love the name. I'm staying in Trier, Germany for a few days and meeting in Chateau Betzdorf in Luxembourg. The hotel is nice - I've stayed here before - and there are lots of hotels nearby. When we got here yesterday, the Carnival parade was going through town. I got there just after the parade ended, but I got a few pictures of festival-goers. Thankfully, it's quite a bit calmer than Mardi Gras in New Orleans (at least from the sound of it - I've never actually been there). There was some good old oompah music on a giant sound system and a lot of people drinking too much and throwing the bottles on the ground. And a lot of spilled beer - everybody's shoes were sticking to the pavement. Still, nobody was obnoxious and the mess was amazingly cleaned up within a few hours of the event's end. I have a few more pictures that I'll post here in the upcoming days.

No post yesterday. Sorry about that - I was traveling and didn't get online. Right now, I have just a couple of minutes left before the hour of connection time I bought expires.

This week's meeting is going well. We hope to end tomorrow - a day early! - and go home on Thursday. We'll see how it goes.

Went out to dinner with Mike McHone, Bill McMurry, and Terry Jensen. It was Bill's birthday. We had a nice meal at the Coyote restaurant across the street from the hotel. It's kind of a German version of TGI Friday's, but the food was okay and the company was nice.

It's time for my connection to time out and, coincidentally, it's time for bed. See you tomorrow, hopefully.

Rider

How about another Nassau picture today? (Link alert: ocean sounds.) It's freezing cold, the wind is blowing at a million miles per hour, and it would be great to feel warm. Of course, in a few months, I'll be wishing I could just feel cold again. Some people are never satisfied.

Anyhow, this guy was riding his horse along the beach. Looks pretty cool. I imagine that's how he makes his living - I wonder what his schtick is. All I know is I wouldn't want to be the guy swimming behind him.

Although this post's date says Friday, I'm actually writing this on Saturday night. I didn't get to write anything last night because I was camping with the scouts. It went pretty well and I think everybody had a good time. We spent some of the very windy evening inside the church having our paper airplane contest. We went through a lot of sheets of paper, had prizes for distance, hang time, and accuracy, and generally enjoyed it. Ian won twice and Braden won once. Afterwards, the boys played dodge ball (with a big, soft, red ball) in the dark cultural hall. It looked like a lot of fun. I didn't play because I have a family to support and didn't want to break any of these old, brittle bones. Turns out I wouldn't have broken any anyway.

Off to Luxembourg tomorrow. I'm bringing my laptop computer with me, so I hope to be able to post while I'm there. If not, I'll arrange for a guest poster. One way or the other, keep reading!

The mystery is solved!

I saw this fungus (or whatever it is - link warning: sound!) growing on a log during a camping trip and loved the colors. It looks good enough to eat! But I don't recommend it.

Yea! An official welcome goes out to Reader Number Seven - our good friend Hannah from Colorado. Check out the list on the right. Now we just need to get you to send us your picture so you can be Prominently Featured. Send it in!

Reader Number One noticed that I omitted links yesterday. Sorry about that. I didn't see anything to link to at first glance, but I was definitely wrong. I'll make up for that today.

Went over this evening to visit my good friend Mike - Andy and I home teach his wife Teresa and him. They both have lots of physical challenges, but you never, ever hear them complaining, and they manage to do a lot and to enjoy themselves. It's one of the highlights of my week when I get to go over and visit them. The conversation is always fascinating and the energy level over there is high (they probably think just the opposite, but they're wrong). Mike doesn't just have every gadget there is, he has eight of each. Pretty cool.

Today's bad news is that I had to stay at work a couple hours longer than usual today. I'm traveling to Europe on Sunday night, and I just had to get some things done, not the least of which was a little fire drill on a requirement change our launch vehicle supplier is proposing to incorporate. They hadn't gotten around to mentioning it until today, and we needed to run it to ground as quickly as possible. It looks like everything will be fine, but we had to run around and panic a little bit first.

Today's good news is that tomorrow is my off Friday. I'm going camping with the scouts in the afternoon, as mentioned before. I need to make a quick list of things that need to be done before I start my mega-travel and work on some of them tomorrow morning. There will also be a few hours on Saturday afternoon, but that's about it, what with the camping trip taking up all morning and the stake dance in the evening. Then I'll pack up on Sunday morning, go to church, and head for the airport immediately after. Or maybe even during.

It's supposed to get down to 23 degrees tomorrow night, and up to about 40 on Saturday, with rain in the afternoon. It sounds just a little iffy for the campout, but certainly not bad enough to entertain cancelling. The show must go on!

I'll try to remember my camera for the campout. The blog photo list must be fed!

The book club should go up tomorrow. Possible guest bloggers next week. See you Friday.

Rock sculpture

Here's Reader Number Four with her hand-made rock scuplture. It kind of looks like a duck, doesn't it? Good work, Reader Number Four!

We have a very mysterious comment on yesterday's post. Somebody is claiming to be Reader Number Seven! Naturally, I'm delighted. However, it would definitely be a good thing if that person would identify him/herself. That way, we could give him/her proper credit over there on the right and do our traditional feature picture. Speaking of which, I'm still hoping Reader Number Six will send me a picture of himself for his traditional feature.

I've been indulging in a little fantasy this afternoon. We learned today that our company is going to be laying off a substantial percentage of the workforce. I doubt it will affect me, but it occurred to me suddenly this afternoon that if we worked the finances just right, got a couple of good breaks, and were careful spenders, I could just retire. I wouldn't have to work another day in my life if I didn't want to. Of course, we'd have to make a lot of changes, and I might get sick of being retired after a couple of years, but it would sure be cool to try. Besides, I could get another job in a couple of years if I wanted to - maybe be a high school physics, math, or computer science teacher. Then I would still have summers off. Let's hope they lay me off! No, not really, I guess. Things will probably stay just exactly the way they are right now. There will probably be a better time for retirement in a few more years.

Still, it would sure be great to be permanently at home while Mark and Andy are still there too.

Not too much else new today. Scouts went okay, I suppose, but our Woodworking merit badge counselor didn't show up, so I had to punt. We did a little bit of first aid that was received pretty well. We also named our large camp stove. It's no Mahonri Moriancumr, AKA Moe. Great.

Back to ENIAC. I'll work on the book club soon.

Next-gen desk

Here's my proposed new design for the computer desk of the future. Actually, they may have done a lot of things right back then. I've been reading a little bit from people who have stand-up desks, and they seem to be pretty much an ideal way to write. The desk in today's picture is beautifully made, has lots of storage space inside, is pretty ergonomically sound, and even has several strategically-placed lighting sources. Not that candles are necessarily the best light for writing, but you have to admit they're cool.

Spent the day getting a bunch of little things out of the way - things like travel authorizations for the next month's worth of travel and deliveries of a few documents to launch service providers. I never got to the main thing I wanted to do today, but I hope to be able to spend most of the day tomorrow on it. It's got to get done before I leave for my campaign in two weeks, and I'll be spending a week of that time on travel in Luxembourg. It's pretty much now or never.

My evening was mostly taken up with scouting and finishing my 25 weekly pages of the Old Testament. At this rate, I'll read the whole thing before the year's out.

I've been thinking of adding a book club on the right side of this page - kind of like Oprah, but much better books and much lamer execution. I would just list recently-read books, my current reading, and what's on the pile. Maybe there would be links to significant sites related to the books. What do my Esteemed Readers think of the idea?

I have to go pick Mark up from Barbershop practice in a couple of minutes, so it's time to quit! So long.

Rock walker

Here's Reader Number Two climbing around on the rocks at Worlds End State Park. What a great park! I really want to go back there again. I really want to go camping anywhere. With my family that is.

I already have frequent chances to camp with the scouts, which is also a lot of fun, but it's a different kind of fun. We're going this coming weekend, although we're only camping on top of the septic system at the church, since we're working on our video on Saturday morning in church kitchen. We're planning a paper airplane flying contest in the Hall of Culture on Friday evening. Since we'll be at the church, we can't have a campfire, of course, and we need to be particularly good neighbors, so we'll find fun things to do inside. It will be fun regardless.

But the real camping fun this year will be our family trip to Ohio and Illinois (along with other possible destinations) in the first two weeks of August, as mentioned in a previous column. I'm ready to go right now.

Elizabeth, my friend and co-worker from San Diego, Denver, and McLean, came up to Newtown to work on an ICD with me today. We had her come over for dinner this evening too. It was really nice to see her and catch up on things. Today's work went really well too, and I got a great sushi lunch out of it to boot.

I listened to a new podcast tonight. It's called Daily Giz Wiz and features Dick de Bartolo and Leo Laporte. de Bartolo is a very entertaining guy who discovers and writes/talks about all kinds of neat little gadgets. He used to appear on The Screensavers pretty often, along with several other more networky shows. He's also a longtime writer for Mad Magazine, which I really enjoyed as a young person. His website is here. Anyway, the podcast was pretty cool. It's supposed to become a short daily show, and I'm really looking forward to hearing it every day.

Right now, I'm listening to an old Charlie Chan radio show. Very entertaining. I've found a website or two with some old shows available for download. Unfortunately, they're pretty heavy on Red Skelton shows - not my favorite - and too light on Bob Hope and a few others I enjoy quite a bit more. I would love to find some old Blondie shows. Readers are invited to let me know where they are (for free, of course).

I finished reading The Psychology of Everyday Things. It wasn't exactly what I had thought it would be, but it was fascinating nonetheless. It's basically a treatise on what makes for good design, which it basically defines as ease of use. I especially enjoyed the early parts of the book where numerous examples of bad design are given. The examples hit pretty close to home. If you look around a little bit, you can find practically unlimited examples of hard-to-use things, including such commonplace things as doorknobs and telephones. Very amusing and informative. I recommend the book. Just don't expect it to be a psychology book - it's more of a human factors engineering treatise.

Having finished that book, I've started Eniac, by Scott McCartney. It's a history of Eckert and Mauchly, the designers of the first digital computer. I'm only nine pages into it, so it's way too early to tell if it's any good, but the subject is a fascinating one to me - the history of computing and the people who were there from the beginning. I'll keep my loyal readers informed of my progress and opinions. I'm sure they're dying to know.

It's just a few minutes after nine o'clock, but I'm really sleepy, so it's time to quit. Besides, Charlie Chan is done. I was too busy typing to find out who done it, so I'll have to listen again soon. The suspense is killing me! Good night.

Buckley and Brooke

Liked the sign. Took its picture.

Monk (sound file behind the link - you've been warned) was good tonight, as much of it as I could stay awake for. I'll bet the rest was interesting too.

Also saw Napoleon Dynamite, which Shannon borrowed from a friend today. It was actually amusing, although they tell me you don't really appreciate it until you see it the second time.

Also saw a goodly portion of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians - the MST3K version. Brilliant. I told a co-worker I was grieving at having recorded over it some time ago and he got me another copy. Thanks a hundred, Charlie!

I planned some business travel this afternoon. From 26 February until 23 March, I'll be home a total of four days (7 thru 10 March, actually). Yuck! I could technically be home a couple more days in there, but it's hardly worth flying home from Europe only to turn around and go back two days later. So I'll stay. After that little jaunt, I'll be home for a week and then back on travel for three more weeks in April. Busy, busy, busy.

I've decided to stop saying I have no time to write anything just before I end up writing 500 words. So, good night.

Another lighthouse

Here's the second in my famous "lighthouse" series. It's also the last, so far. This one is in Nassau. I like the blues.

Tonight, Mark and I took Andy to dance class and then went to Staples and the library. We needed to pick up a box of paper clips for Shannon's science lesson tomorrow. We found the paperclips ($1.29 for a box of cute striped clips - great deal) and also picked up TurboTax and new print cartridges for Mark's K12 computer. So, we went in for a buck-something item and ended up spending just about a hundred bucks. I'll bet they love us at Staples. Mark also bought Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator, which he's enjoying trying out.

I spent the rest of the evening getting Mark's printer (HP DeskJet 5550) working with the new cartridge (the black cartridge was fine; the color one said it was full but absolutely refused to print in spite of repeated cleanings and primings - I finally gave up and put in the new one), setting it up to print to my LaserJet 1100, getting his account straightened back out, setting up Outlook, and finally making my computer print to his printer over the network. It all works!

But alas, I'm out of time, so I'm off to bed. Good night.

Flamingos

Here's another shot from our trip to Nassau. Our tour was a waste of time and money and the Ardastra Zoo was a real disappointment and the flamingo show was completely lame (they have actually trained them to walk!), but the birds were pretty, anyway.

The missionaries invited me to help them teach a couple of spanish-speaking guys - Alex and Juan - this evening while I was at Young Men. Alex was baptized two Sundays ago and Juan is pretty serious about joining the church within the next couple of weeks. They're both really nice guys and I really enjoyed speaking some Spanish again. I mentioned to Shannon at Alex's baptism that I think he already looks like a member of the church. It's still true. I've been invited to teach the Gospel Principles Sunday School class next Sunday too. Because of the several Spanish-speaking people attending the class, it's held in both English and Spanish, which ought to be interesting. My experience conducting meetings in both English and Russian with ILS should be helpful there.

The cheesecake was excellent! Maybe the best ever.

Zoinks! It's already almost 10:00 and I have to drive to Seminary tomorrow. Better get to bed. See you tomorrow.

Slacker

Well, he's really not a slacker, but his t-shirt is. This is another one taken at Hopewell Furnace last year. That was a pretty good day for photography, if I do say so myself. There were lots of interesting places and I guess I was feeling creative that day. I need to keep my camera a little bit handier - I frequently see things that I think would make a good picture, but don't often get to take advantage of those moments. The trouble is that we're not technically allowed to bring cameras into the office (although so many people have cameraphones these days that it's effectively impossible to keep them out), and I don't want to leave it in the car to freeze and/or burn. So, no photos unless I specifically go out to take them. Sigh.

I have to go pick up Mark from his Barbership practice. Back in a little bit.

I'm back. Actually, I never left. Just as I was getting ready to go downstairs, Shannon called and told me she was on the way home and would be happy to go pick Mark up. So I stayed home.

Happy Valentine's Day! We're spending the holiday quietly at home, except for Shannon, who went to visit somebody in the Relief Society, and Mark, who went to Barbershop practice. No, he's not learning how to cut hair - he's learning to sing a capella, as in Barbershop Quartet. Although there are about a hundred of them. I guess that's just 25 quartets, if you care to look at it that way. Or one hundred-tet.

Anyway, we're spending the holiday quietly at home. I presume (hope, actually) that Shannon made me my traditional cherry cheesecake. Presumably, we'll have it after she and Mark get home.

It was a pretty busy day at work today - much busier than I'm used to these days. I spent essentially the entire day in telecons, which may not sound exhausting, but it was. The good news is that we got a lot of work accomplished for Astra 1KR. The less good news is that I didn't get any work done on my JCSAT-11 ICD, which I have to review with my ILS friends on Monday. Well, there's always tomorrow. Besides, 1KR is my absolutely top priority right now. If I don't find the time to work on J-11 tomorrow, though, I'm in real danger of needing to work a little bit of overtime to catch up, and that would be a problem!

Shannon's not feeling well right now - a cold, she suspects. She has my pity.

Somebody's been looking at my Flickr photos! I wonder who. I wonder why. Is it one of my readers? Is it a perfect stranger? Is it an imperfect stranger? I certainly hope not. I guess I should have put a link back to the blog there - maybe I'd actually get a reader who I don't already know! Nah . . . that'll never happen.

They're back from Barbershop! I'm off to eat cheesecake. Bye.

Rock climber

Here's another rock climbing picture. That was the coolest place! I don't remember which state park it's in - maybe Worlds End.

I haven't found a picture of Reader Number Six yet. I know I have one or two around, but they're on a different computer, I believe. Number Six, if you're reading this, feel free to send me a picture to be Prominently Featured.

Tonight is another Short Shrift night. I realized this afternoon that I failed to read my 25 pages of the Old Testament on Sunday. Not that there wasn't enough time for it - we got a foot and a half of snow overnight on Saturday and church was cancelled yesterday. The four of us spent a few hours working hard to clear the driveway (I think we have snow piled up about five feet high in one place) and spent pretty much the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying a nice fire. Andy and I went over to visit Mike and Teresa Bement and enjoyed using four-wheel-drive on the plowed but still snow-covered roads.

The roads were sufficiently clear this morning to make it easy to get to work. Andy's school start was delayed this morning, so there was no seminary. Things should be totally back to normal tomorrow morning, and we're expecting temperatures to get back over 50 degrees by Friday. That will probably make things pretty sloppy for a while - might as well not wash the car for a few weeks. That's an unfortunate thing for the truck - I drove it today and it's absolutely filthy now.

Anyway, I need to get reading and do a little work on the scout troop's plans, so I'm done here. So you tomorrow.

Nassau

Here's a picture of Reader Number Two in the fort overlooking Nassau, Bahamas. We had a lot of fun on our Cruise, but didn't actually think much of Nassau. I doubt we'd go ashore there if we had it to do over again.

I went and watched Reader Number Two's theatrical performance this morning. It was cute. I was supposed to go help my friend Mike put up some blinds afterwards, but he cancelled. Had to find things to do on my own instead. Somehow I managed. Luckily, I didn't do anything useful, other than work on the blog a little bit. Got the Flickr link up - have a look (the morrowlife photo collection over there, on the right)!

Katie (A.K.A. Reader Number Five) sent a link to Gary's and her new website. It looks nice to me. I hope it makes them a million bucks. And that they remember their dear old dad.

Speaking of Gary, the good news just keeps rolling in! He's Reader Number Six!!! Welcome. We'll get you picture up Real Soon Now. Make a comment! I really mean it. Really.

Take a hike

I love these camping pictures! Here are Readers Number One and Four on a short hike sometime this past summer. As I recall, it was a beautiful, cool day - just right for camping. I know we had a great time - or at least I had a great time, and I hope they did too - because we were in the outdoors and we were together.

Speaking of which, we've scheduled the first two weeks of August for a long camping trip. We think we'll go up to Kirtland, Ohio; Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio; and maybe on to Nauvoo, Illinois. Who knows, maybe we'll find a nice state park in Michigan for a few days too. I'm hoping two weeks will be long enough. Three weeks would be better, but we just don't have three weeks available this year. I'll be spending the last week of June at scout camp and there are a million other things going on this summer, so that's probably about all the time we can spend on our long vacation this year. Besides, I want to save a few vacation days for shorter campouts throughout the season.

Reader Number Two has suggested that I post larger versions of the blog photography somewhere, so I've decided to try it out. I have a Flickr account and will start posting the daily picture there. I'll put a link on the right side of the blog as soon as I get it set up. Maybe tomorrow.

More Klondike

Here's Reader Number One with a friend at the Klondike. This was taken during lunch, which went very well for us except that we forgot one of the key ingredients and all our dishwashing equipment. At least the food was okay - or so they tell me. There wasn't quite enough for the adults to have any. I ate again later, fortunately.

Tonight's scout meeting went okay. We're struggling to get very many interested guys to Mutual these days. We worked on our movie and did some planning for future meetings. I now have a very long list of merit badges the guys would be interested in working on. I'll meet with the adult leaders on Sunday evening (I hope) and we'll figure out how to make some of those badges happen. We also have a couple of second- and first-class requirements to get one or two boys through, which will take priority.

I got my car washed on Monday. It had been way too long since its last wash, and the weather people were predicting at least a week without any precipitation. That's holding true so far, but today I got a bird dropping on the roof of about four inches in diameter. Yuck. Back to the car wash, unfortunately. It costs a fortune around here (like everything else), so I'm more reluctant to have it done than I used to be, but great big bird droppings are very bad for the paint, so I'll have to bite the bullet. It's just too cold to wash it in the driveway.

I'm about two pages away from finishing the Dave Barry book. All in all, I suppose I've enjoyed it, but I don't really recommend it. Too much of the humor is topical to the eighties, and the writing is simply not as refined as his later stuff. Stick with the new stuff, that's my advice. You're welcome. My next book will probably be The Psychology of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. While I don't normally trust people with two first names (not to mention a single name, Heaven forbid), the book looked interesting on the shelf. And it got pretty good reviews on Amazon. I'll let you know.

Right after I finished writing last night, I thought of something fascinating that needed to be discussed in the blog today. Now I can't remember it again. Maybe tomorrow. A little more artistic photography tomorrow too. So long.

Back to business

Okay, with the excitement over Reader Number Five dying down slightly, it's time to get some promised business out of the way. More Klondike pictures!

Here's the troop proving they can work as a team. They didn't do so well on this particular activity, if you must know the absolute truth, but they did manage to break one of those 2x4s.

Sadly, this has to be extremely short tonight because I have to prepare something outstanding for tomorrow's scout meeting. Bye.

Welcome, number five!

We have a fifth reader. What a shock! I happened to mention in the family newsletter the other day that I had a great blog (this one), and somebody (see above) happened to read it! Welcome, Reader Number Five, and keep coming back!

Not a lot of news today. We jacuzzified after home evening tonight. It's been a sunny but cool and windy day, and the cold wind was a strong contrast to the hot water. I think we enjoy the spa more in the winter than in the summer. And use it more too.

We have a launch coming up on the eighth - that's two days away. Watch for it on the Sea Launch website.

Today's bad news is that it appears that the minivan we were thinking about has been withdrawn from the market. The good news is that we don't really need another car for about 14 months. Something great will come along.

Speaking of something great coming along, I came really close to buying a Mac G5 with dual 2.0 GHz processors on Saturday. They had one at Comp USA for a great price, but it was still a high price. If only I needed it. It is such a beautiful computer. Someday, someday . . . it will be mine.

I have to drive to seminary tomorrow morning, so must get to bed. 'Night.

Today's photo by Mark.

Who was that masked man?

Here's Reader Number One practicing for a brilliant future in bank robbery. Best of luck with that. He might want to remove the tags before his first job.

Today went from a gray, rainy - but warm - morning to a warm, beautiful sunny afternoon. We're not expecting the beautiful weather to last any longer. My friends at the Weather Channel are predicting daytime temperatures in the 30's and 40's with nighttime lows in the 20's for the next several days. That's more normal winter weather around here, but we've gotten to like the other stuff. It's not normal to have spring fever in February!

The Dave Barry book is gradually improving. I've actually had more enjoyment than annoyance at the last couple of chapters. He's just wearing his hatred for Ronald Reagan on his sleeve a little too much (the book was published in 1985). The ironic thing, of course, is that the things that Dave and all the other newspaper people were mocking President Reagan about turned out to have been brilliant ideas that liberated millions of people from Soviet oppression. That doesn't leave Dave looking too bright, now does it? At least he had a lot of company back then.

I've been trying to get Mark's school computer back on the road after a catastrophic hard disk crash. It's taking a very long time, but the machine is now running and currently downloading and installing all the Windows patches (27 and counting). It refuses to install Microsoft Office, so we'll have to call the K-12 help desk and see if they have any ideas, like another copy of the installation CD. It took quite a while to get the wireless card set up, but that's working now. I first tried installing the driver from its CD, but that installed a bunch of garbage I didn't want and that kept the Windows wireless manager from working. When I uninstalled the garbage, it also uninstalled the driver. So, I had to restart the machine and wait for it to ask for a driver, at which time I inserted the card's CD and let Windows find the driver for itself. Voila! It's working.

Now the biggest problem is unbelievably sluggish performance. Hopefully, we can work on some optimizations and get it back to working like it did before. Very odd, that.

Dessert time - we have some fresh-baked cookies tonight that are crying out to be sampled. Bye.

Abstract art

Here's something a little bit different - an old tile roof. Talk about your Great Art, huh?

Came home from work early today. I was feeling pretty sick to my stomach, unfortunately. Things are much better this evening. Thanks for asking.

We went over to look at a very old pickup truck (an '89 Dodge D50 built by Mitsubishi) for sale this afternoon. It looked pretty good for a truck with nearly 200,000 miles on it - no rust to speak of except on the bumpers and exterior mirrors, and it started right up. However, I think I detected a slight smell of anti-freeze in the exhaust, and the automatic transmission is slipping like crazy, making its value about negative $2000. No bid from me. Some friends have a minivan for sale that we're now thinking about. I could probably use a pickup more than a minivan, but the price is pretty good and the van appears to be in pretty good shape. We're looking for something cheap and reliable that Reader Number One can drive when he gets to the right age (soon), so its utility to me in the meantime is of lesser importance. Besides, who says you can't haul a load of manure in a minivan?

Ice cream is waiting. Later.

Scouts having fun

Doesn't it look like they were having a great time on last weekend's Klondike Derby? No? Well, appearances can be deceiving. We actually had a great time! I'll try and post some pictures of the actual Klondike part over the next few days.

It wasn't quite as busy a day at work today. I made additional progress on my ICD signoff, had a little conflict with my former coworkers in Colorado and Virginia, and prepared for tomorrow's telecon with our Japanese customers at 7:30 pm our time. I have a feeling I'll be doing lots of phone calls from home with these folks - the time zone difference seems to dictate it.

Time to go to Young Men. So long.