Song of the Day . "Love will Tear us Apart" by Joy Division

The Medium Dollars. As it happens this year marks the first time in my working career that I have received a bonus that isn't earmarked for anything or already spent. Its a rather bizarre thing considering we've been playing catch-up with some credit card bills for a while now but not in light of us selling our previous home and spending some of the profits judisciously. So here we are... and I'm not sure what to do with it - as usual when you have a fair amount of money to spend you actually think twice about spending it because its a rare thing to have. Now, I won't lie - I have spent some it already on small things; Season 8 of my X-Files DVD collection, a 802.11g adapter for my X-Box and a new KVM so I can share the same keyboard, mouse and speakers between my G4 and my PC, but other than that I'm in a holding pattern. Suffice to say, its rather nice to be able to go to Fry's and put some things in your basket and not worry about the prudence of the purchase. In any case, if I get any brilliant ideas I'll let you know. Feel free to forward any suggestions.

iPod anyone? As if I didn't have enough reasons to get an iPod, Apple and BMW have provided one more - BMW iPod. Now, I don't know how this will compare with an MP3 capable head unit but I'm sure that we'll have some reviews to read in the near future. The only question is will the steering wheel controls rival the wheel that the iPod is known and cherished for. I guess I need to find out if it will work with the head unit in my M3...

Song of the Day . "Falling" by DBA

Out of remission. Caught up in the everyday I haven't had a chance to write in a very long time. Sometimes when this happens I almost get to the point when I think it would be easy to let it go and focus on other things. I'm not sure why I always come back to the blog but I think its because of my lack of discipline in so many things in my life. Maybe its my own way of striking a blow in a small area of my life and exceeding expectations even if its brief and fleeting. So once again I am back and re-organizing thoughts - here's what I got...

We missed the chance to see Harry Potter this weekend. I wound up getting sick on Thursday night and spent most of the weekend blowing my nose and feeling miserable. I thought I had the cold licked by Saturday night but the fever/chills syndrome set in by Sunday and all was lost. I spent most of Monday in bed and watching television programming morph from one program to another. I vaguely remember sleeping from waking and it was a bit disconcerting not being able to get comfortable or being able to kill the headache that plagued me for most of the day. At the height of the whole episode I remember thinking to myself "why is my lip wet..?" and realizing that I had missed my cue to blow my nose...

It also appears that in my weakened condition Ronald Reagan saw fit to leave this world and move on to a better place. The coverage on the television has been epic and it now appears that everyone will be having an extra day off this Friday. I checked with our HR department this morning and apparently my company doesn't care that our beloved ex-president has passed on and we will not be getting the extra day off... so much for following the crowd. While pondering this whole dilemna I wonder to myself "why is it that we become a much larger person after we're gone then while we were alive?" Is it that people want to celebrate you more when you're gone or it is easier to pause and take inventory over the things that make us unique when we're dead than while we're alive?

So I'm back to work and catching up on things, at this point I'm going to be a little behind the eight ball but I hope to be caught up sooner rather than later. I've got some training starting tomorrow that I'm looking forward to (IIS 6.0 for thos that are curious) so I won't actually be back at my desk until next Monday. In any case my cold is finally going away and I'm looking forward to some much needed down time this week.