Thursday night – reflecting

Quiet day today. I worked at home all day which was nice. I was considerably more productive and more optimistic today.   Our moods are like the weather these days.. you get what you get… and you know they’ll change.  One good thing about working at home is that I can do mindless manual labor while I’m on teleconferences.  One big accomplishment over the past two days is that I managed to buff out the scratches in the viewing screen of my trusty camera.. the one I use for photos in this blog. That poor camera is only 6 months old.. but it looks so beat up . I’m always jamming it in my pockets with whatever else might be in there : keys, cell pones, SamStones.. As a result, the viewing screen had been scratched to the point that it was very hard to use. Someone gave me the suggestion of using a mild abrasive like Brasso to buff out the scratches.. Over several hours I was able to use a cloth with progressively finer abrasives (Brasso-> copper cleaner -> silver polish -> toothpaste) to bring the screen back to pristine clarity.. it was so cool to watch !  I was so proud of my handiwork, that I tried to get a picture of the screen … It’s hard to do. I tried with a set of mirrors.. you can’t see the screen very well.. but you can see me reflected..  ..

 

I couldn’t help notice the look in my eyes here.. It’s like the spark is out even as I was doing this weird and fun picture. I reflected (ugh) on that for a while…. Even talked it over with Diane. Sometimes what I’m doing.. as reflected in my life at work or around town or in this blog is not always 100 %  how I’m feeling. As I’ve said in the past I do think about what I’m going to write here. I sometimes have to edit/omit stuff that’s too deep or too sad or too personal to relate in a public way like this. I hope  that people understand that. Somehow writing the slightly more upbeat story here serves as a kind of therapy. I can go back and read what I wrote and view things a little bit more optimistically.. it’s kind of a bootstrap thing. Does that make sense ?

That was today’s ruminations..  I did break and had lucn with my friend Pooja who was up visitng from IBM Fishkill, BY. We had more NY friends in this evening.   My friends Katherine. Kevin and their 4 boys were up visiting in VT for a week.  They stopped by for dinner. We had a blast.. Their kids are all so funny. Diane made a delicious pesto dinner then we all went outside and did the male bonding activity of  BSO (blowing stuff up) .   In the middle there we got a quick lesson in juggling !

 


OK.. now to bed. Tomorrow is Diane and my 21st anniversary.. We plan to hike a mountain as has been our custom. Like all days now.. I’m sure it will be bittersweet,  I will say that I’m incredibly blessed  to be married to such a loving, strong and fun person. I love you forever Diane

I love my family…

-me