Seeing the World in a New Way

The more I think about it – which isn’t much, by the way – the more I want a multiple monitor set-up for my computer.

I don’t do a lot of work at home. In fact, I do as little work from home as I possibly can. I have a supremely uncomfortable computer chair, and that’s a lot of the problem. I have a lame computer desk – it’s basically a flat table with 4 legs, and that’s it – and that doesn’t help matters. But I like the computer – so far, it’s been (mostly) trouble-free and does the things I want it to do when I want it to do them.

How do you define “work,” though? For me, work is what I do for a living; the things that I do to earn my wages. Long ago, I was a computer technician. I made my living, earned my wages and paid my bills, by fixing computer hardware- and software-related issues. I don’t do that anymore, and I haven’t for a couple of years, and that’s fine with me. When I came home from work, the last thing I wanted to do was computer repair work (just ask my poor wife, who couldn’t get me to do anything for her computer without a fight). Now that I don’t do that anymore, I still hate doing computer repair work, but I’m a bit more willing to roll up my sleeves and make it happen than I was a couple of years ago.

Right now, I’m not sure exactly what I’m doing for my living, but I’m certain I can’t do it at home, so that’s really a non-issue. So, what’s “doing work at home” mean to me now?

Again, I’m not sure, but based on the things I like to do with my computer at home, I suppose that it means doing the things I like to do with my computer. That’s doing “work” at home in this context. With that definition cleared up, here are some of the reasons that I have for wanting a multiple-monitor set-up for my workstation. These are as much justification tests for myself as they are reasons to convince my loving and not especially resistant spouse for the need; she may see some things here that apply to her too, and since she spends a lot more time on the computer at home than I do, she’s probably more deserving of the set-up than I am. So, before I digress even more from the topic, here are some of the things I do with my computer at home:

1. Programming. I spend as much time programming and learning programming at home as I can, which means not very much at all. One of the great things about a multiple-monitor set-up is that it enables coding and debugging to take place side-by-side with the execution of the program. Very handy, and a huge increase in productivity (this has been confirmed in multiple studies wherein people not only increased their productivity with multiple monitors, but they preferred two smaller monitors over one huge one every time, with no exceptions). Since I’m a novice programmer and make a lot of mistakes, not having to toggle between the coding window and program execution for testing and debugging would be a boon.


2. Gaming. Okay, I do less gaming than programming, so you have an idea of what that’s like there. But it would be nice not to have the game I’m playing commandeer the resolution setting of my computer so that the CPU fights to get back to the original settings when I switch back to my normal desktop. This way, the game can have one controller all to itself, and the PC can run the normal desktop on another, and that will fix the problem of toggling in and out of the game along with the delay in restoration of the desktop. For my beloved, she loves to play The Sims; it’s a graphic-intensive game, if you’ve been under a rock for the last decade and haven’t seen it yet. It’s her favorite pass-time and she’s constantly having to save, pause and ALT-TAB her way out of it do use the computer for anything else, so she only wants to launch the game when it’s going to be uninterrupted time for her to play. With two kids and a demanding husband (who is working on being less so), that’s really unlikely. Since she’s everything from my accountant to my research assistant, she’s switching in and out of the game a lot while playing. Multiple monitors would enable her not to have to do that, and with multiple video controllers, again, the game gets a dedicated controller so the machine won’t have to fight with resolution adjustments.


3. Email. Yes, I check email, and I’d like to have my email open along with having my search engine of choice open and maybe my favorite team’s homepage too. I’d like to have eBay and Amazon both up simultaneously. While I can do that to some degree now, particularly with tabbed browsing-enabled browsers like Mozilla Firefox or IE 7, it’s more convenient still to have separate windows open under certain circumstances, and not have to toggle amongst them to view. With only 19” worth of real estate on our monitors, cascading or tiling windows only goes so far. The solution? Multiple monitors, of course! Again, my beloved would put me to shame on this one; she can have Outlook express checking all her email accounts open while also having her web-based email accounts which won’t download to OE open too, and never have to toggle. Toggling is annoying.


4. Writing. I like to have the option of opening many different documents to peruse them, copy and paste from them, and have an Internet page or two open at the same time. This is a lot, and I mean a LOT, easier in a multiple-monitor situation. I can also have a spreadsheet or two open, along with the coding window behind that spreadsheet showing my VBA macros code. That’s kind of like programming, though, so I won’t beat that dead horse. I like to journal, too, and this way, I can have the journal open all the time with other applications running and never have issues with the two of them crashing into each other. In this, I have my sweetie beat. I journal, I blog (duh), and sometimes I even write fiction.


5. Drawing/graphics. It would be nice to have a web tutorial on Photoshop drawing available without it hiding behind Photoshop so that I can walk through the tutorial and actually DO the steps I’m reading about without having to switch back and forth between the two programs. Again, tiling the windows or cascading them only goes so far with limited visual real estate, and I feel that for making artwork on the computer, a multiple-monitor situation solves all the problems that come with it … and the ones that come from learning it. I’m the only one in the house that draws on the computer, so my lovely has nothing to relate to here.


6. Instant Messaging. It would be nice to communicate with friends and acquaintances without having to shut down this or get out of that to do so. Multiple monitors would enable having IM programs out of the way without being invisible, or being left closed because they annoy me while I’m trying to work.

I can probably think of more, if I spend enough time doing so, but that’s really the bulk of it for me. My wife can add her own reasons to the list, but before she does, she’ll have to rethink her computer desk. She bought one that isn’t really conducive to multiple monitors and until recently didn’t understand why I don’t want one that’s anything like hers. For me, I’d probably have to design and build my own. I can’t think of another way to get all the features I want in a practical design. Out-of-the-box or off-the-shelf desks just don’t seem to work for what I want.

Anyway, so what do I need to accomplish what I want?

As far as I can find, there are at least two different ways I can do what I want to do. For me, the best situation is probably going to be a mid-level graphics card, say in the 256MB or 512MB range, which will support two more monitors. The first, my on-board graphics chipset, may work with the triple-monitor situation, but if not, at least dual monitors will be possible. One additional controller will enable me to add another VGA monitor, which means I’ll likely have the option of deciding which controller I want to be my primary controller. This way, if games are an issue when they launch (and they choose their own monitor upon which to launch), I can set the higher-performance card to be the primary and the on-board to be the secondary. Once I’ve established where the applications open, they will always open there. Since I don’t need wicked-speed graphics for doing spreadsheet or database programming, it’s no big deal for me to have them open on the lower-end integrated controller. And, the two screens can have different resolutions then (I think), so that the game’s alteration of the screen resolution on one controller won’t mess up the graphics on the other one.

The second situation involves getting a lower-end PCI card along with the higher-end PCIe card. Since my computer doesn’t support AGP interfaces, I have only PCI and PCIe to work with, and there’s only ONE PCIe slot available. So, that’s where the higher-end card will go. The lower-end, PCI card, will occupy one of the open PCI slots and permit me to run standard, non-graphics intensive items on it … and on the integrated controller. Are you counting? That’s up to 4 monitors being supported now. Since Windows XP Pro and Home both support up to 10 monitors on a single computer, why the heck not?? I’m only limited, at this point, by money.

Now, there is another way. The second way is to buy a device called “TripleHead2Go” from Matrox. It’s a hand-sized device that allows you to plug in up to four monitors, and will enable you to have a single desktop that spans over the entire array. I think, if I recall correctly, the device will also allow you to have individual programs, like games, running on only one of the monitors, too. That way, you don’t have a game character working on the border between 2 monitors, which would be really distracting. I’d have to re-read their webpage to be sure, though. At any rate, this bugger is only about $180USD, or less, and is portable, since it’s so small. The only difference I see in the two methodologies is price. As far as I can tell, they may be equally versatile.

If you’re going to have multiple monitors, however, you want them to be as intuitive and easy to use as possible. With multiple controllers, you’re going to need a program to make moving among them as simple and easy as possible, so that dragging everything around doesn’t become as tedious as toggling back and forth in a single-monitor set-up. For that, it would be nice to have a task bar at the bottom of EACH screen, rather than just one. And to accomplish that, you can use “Ultramon.” It’s a nifty little program for about $40USD that does just what I’ve described, and a whole lot more, including enabling a different screen saver on each monitor, and if I understood correctly, a different background/wallpaper on each one, too. I’d have to check that, though. Or you can; just Google for “Ultramon.” It’s a very, very cool program.

As for the things I want in the graphics controller(s) of choice, well, there’s a lot to consider. One of the first things I’ll have to do is beef up the RAM in my computer from 1GB to 2GB (the maximum), just to make sure I’ve got plenty available. 4GB would be better, but I think the maximum allowed on this model is 2GB. (My wife, when she reads this, will look it up and correct me if I'm wrong, so I'm not going to bother doing that now.) Anyway, that’s probably all I can afford right now … remember, what I do to my computer I must, out of guilt, also do to my wife’s computer.

The card itself should be no less than 256MB, and preferably 512MB or greater. The on-board controller is 256MB, and I want something superior to that; I also do NOT want the card sharing memory (RAM) to assist it. I want that bad boy to be a fully-stand-alone GPU, and I want all the memory my computer has available to the computer, and not being leeched for video support. There’s no point in stepping up the graphics capability if I’m going to degrade the PC’s performance at the same time. That just doesn’t make sense.

I should also consider carefully the manufacturer. Since there could be a problem with compatibility between my on-board controller and anything else I stick in it, I should look into needing to stay with the same manufacturer, and how that might interfere with the features I want from the card. I’ll cross that minefield when I get to it, though.

The card should also have dual-monitor support. There’s no point in not having multiple-monitor support on each and every card I put in; you never know. Maybe I’ll end up like one of those computer geeks on TV, sitting in a darkened room illuminated only by the soft glow of my LCDs, drawn and reclusive. Okay, more drawn and reclusive. On the surface, this doesn’t sound so hard, but I have to be very careful how I do this in selecting the card. For one, some of them come with a TV tuner, and I can’t use that in my system for some reason. Rather than risk the card not working at all because of that, I’d rather have one that doesn’t include a tuner. I don’t drive my entertainment system with the PC either, so I don’t need an S-Video connector. And since my on-board controller might have a problem with playing nice with other VGA controllers, maybe going with just DVI outputs would be best. After all, I don’t think I’m ever going back to CRTs again, so DVI connections to additional LCDs work just fine.

As for cost, I think I can keep the cost down on this gig by using 19” LCDs. For one, the price on those has come down dramatically from what they were even a year or two ago. I’ve seen some really great prices on monitors that have fairly good specs. Only the most hard-core gamers might have an issue with the “ghosting” and after-image matters; for me, that typically doesn’t present a problem on email and spreadsheets. I’ve never seen Word burn a hole in a monitor’s performance either. So I’m good. Since they’re so much cheaper than they used to be, I can afford to stock up and have a few lying around.

Okay, not really, but I can probably swing a couple of them. Remember, what I do to my computer I must, out of guilt, also do to my wife’s computer.

For her, I think two monitors will suffice, but I bet if I can talk her into three, she’d never go back. For me, the goal is three for now, and I’ll be bucking hard for four of them before too long. By then, though, I’ll already have the bulk of the setup ready for additional screens. All I’ll need to do is add screens.

I’ll keep you all posted.

-JDT-

More Movie Woes ... I Can't Win

So, there I sat, trying to be a kid again and doing my best to suspend disbelief. I mean, come ON – you HAVE to do that to SOME degree, right? Just to accept the movie at its premise?

I didn’t feel well, and of course, that never helps. It’s not my favorite character, either, although movies of this nature really help me because you don’t have any expectation of adherence to any semblance of reality. And, of course, the role was already defined and has been set in concrete by another actor in another movie, and against his performance and appearance as that character all others will forever be measured. At least by me.

The movie was Superman Returns, starring Brandon Routh as Kal-El of Krypton. I wanted to see it, but as is my nature over the last several years, I refuse to pay theater prices for a movie that I’m not going to get to sit through pleasantly. (I’ve already groused about that in another entry.) So, I wait patiently for these things to come to cable where I can watch them against my ordinary cable bill and not enjoy them more inexpensively. As I recollect, the last movie I saw in a theater was Spiderman, back in 2002 (thanks to my loving, if pesky, wife for the updated timeline on the release of that "blockbuster" movie). And, I must say, I should have waited.

Anyway, I was really anxious to see this one, so I went Pay-Per-View rather than wait another few months for it to come to the premium channels.

And, I must say, I should have waited.

Okay, it was an all right movie, but goodness – what have you brought Superman to of late? I figured Lex Luthor would exploit his weaknesses – doesn’t he always? – and I figured there’d be tension and conflict and the “Oh no!” moments of any movie. But please, people, at LEAST be CONSISTENT with the garbage!

The ending? I’ll suffice it to say that the movie, at 2:35, was about 35 minutes too long. I thought that time could have been better spent revealing more about Luthor’s world conquest plot or depicting the heroic return of Earth’s greatest defender after a five-year absence than it was dragging the characters through forced clichés.

I won’t belabor the point too much, but let’s be honest with the characters, at least. Let’s stay consistent within the confines of the “reality” established for the characters. And someone PLEASE give Lois Lane a safe sex pamphlet and caution her about multiple partners and birth control, please! Ugh.

Superman’s allergy to kryptonite isn’t as strong as it was prior to his trip to Krypton’s former location, evidently. Or is it? The movie couldn’t seem to decide. And it’s a darn good thing the Fortress of Solitude is so convenient and easy to access, or the whole movie would have had no monumental cataclysm. And aren’t we fortunate that Lois Lane has become such a sleazy slut? There’d be no touching closing scene without it, not to mention a rescue scene that wouldn’t have been possible. Why, she’d have died 45 minutes too soon without her promiscuity to save her.

Of course, there’s always the possibility of a sequel, and Superman did a pretty poor job of protecting himself from future kryptonite attacks at the end, spilling metric tons (tonnes) of it into the Atlantic Ocean. He also was careless about handling his magical crystals, considering that he must have known how dangerous they could be in the “wrong hands.” Don’t Lex Luthor’s hands count? And since good ol’ Lex is credited with having nearly killed Supes before, doesn’t it behoove the Last Son of Krypton to be a little more careful – or even more FINAL – when dealing with Lex? (Let’s face it, any of us would have killed him to avoid future problems. You know it, and I know it too. Moral standards not withstanding, the world is a better and safer place when terrorists are eliminated and prevented from resurfacing, isn't it, President Clinton?)

In his absence, I’m not sure what the world did to get by without Superman, but I’m sure with terrorism at an all-time high and the ever-increasing tension in the middle east, he’ll be kept fairly occupied now.

I was a bit disappointed with the choice of Brandon Routh as Superman when it was initially announced last year. The first pictures of the actor in the “new” suit showed that, physically, he wasn’t nearly as perfect for the part as the former Superman, the incomparable Christopher Reeve. And the portrayal of the Man of Steel wasn’t as strong, either. I can’t tell if that’s because of the way the movie was written, or because of the actor’s lack of skill, or if he’s just too much a pretty boy to carry the role off. Whatever the case, Routh’s Superman wasn’t at all like I’d hoped it’d be, and it left me feeling nostalgic and not very happy with the movie. And when did Lois Lane find the fountain of youth? Wasn't she a grown-up in the last outing? Now she's barely in her twenties, a child. I guess she's aging "gracefully."

So what else is new? When am I ever happy with a movie?

I liked the X-Men: Last Stand movie better. It’s also ridiculous, so I’m less cynical right out of the gate. But, they got carried away too. The old deus ex machina device so common in plays of antiquity was not left out of that effects-fest either. Heck, they went one better and never put her in the machine to begin with; she started out ex machina and that’s how they resolved everything at the end. Weak; downright pathetic. And yet, still a bit stronger than Superman Returns. That could be due to my lack of familiarity with the X-Men in general, though. Not knowing anything about them (or at least not much), I was at a disadvantage when presented with the fantastic laws-of-physics-altering mutants. All I could do was shrug and roll my eyes. For all I know, though, they were at least being consistent with their characters and “universe.”

Nope, Superman Returns can’t say that. In retrospect, though, the original Superman movie had to resort to a time-travel scene for Superman to save the day, so I suppose this wasn’t any worse than that. It just felt worse, somehow. Maybe it wasn’t. The only comic hero movie I've seen and really enjoyed in the last several years was Batman Begins. And it had problems, too, but not so many as this one.

All I know is, next time, I’m waiting for HBO.

-JDT-

Happy New Year ... really!

Normally, I don’t put much into New Year’s day. Or New Year’s eve, for that matter.

As a matter of fact, it’s usually just another day for me. Maybe there'll be football. Nothing big; just a day off of work and another excuse for people to go out, get drunk, be obnoxious and say it’s all in the spirit of the “holiday.” I don’t usually buy into it; I don’t believe that most folks are going to change their ways in resolution, I don’t believe the new year brings new hope, and I don’t mark days or seasons. It’s just another day. Just another year gone by where I didn’t do the things I hoped, the things I wanted and in a lot of cases the things I needed to do. I haven’t generally accomplished anything of import, I haven’t done any good for humanity, and I haven’t done right by my family. My wages are, if I’m lucky, the same as they were last year. I’m still working steadily if I’m really blessed, and don’t have to worry about the coming year and finding employment during the first quarter, and will be okay for the most part. Like I said, it’s generally just another day for me.

Over the last couple of years, I haven’t really been able to capture the holidays. That’s really important to me. It’s my favorite time of year, it’s my favorite season, I love Christmas, and for much of my life, the holidays have been a mish-mash of raging alcoholics, family feuds and frantically searching for a new job. There haven’t been many years where I could sit back, enjoy the time, and just feel the joy of the season. This year, I nearly missed it again. It was work, and worry, and concern over what I’m going to do next year for a paycheck. I was depressed over losing a job opportunity that would have meant a huge leap forward for me and my family in both income and opportunity. I’ve had my career on my mind a lot over the last few months, and Thanksgiving got away from me without much notice except for a four-day weekend. Christmas almost snuck up and got through unnoticed too, but for my wife’s herculean effort to bring me back around. Some last minute shopping for the kids and a bit of eggnog and Christmas music helped rescue it for me. Then came this weekend, and I felt that this would certainly come and go without so much as a yawn from me. The only catch would be remembering to put the new date on any references and checks I write. Not the big.

But, this year turned out differently.

For some reason, my wife was able to catch and hold me this year. She was able to pull me down and make me realize that, maybe, just this once, there IS something worth hoping for at year’s start. She made me realize that, maybe, just this once, there was not just hope, but a reason for optimism and a chance to really do something differently than I’ve done before.

So today, for the first January 1 in a long, long line of them, I have hope. I have optimism. I have a plan.

And it wasn’t just my plan; it was our plan. My beloved and precious spouse helped me come up with it. She backed it, believes in it, and is hopeful in it. She reaffirmed that she believes in me, believes in us, and still holds that Pollyanna hope that the Lord has bigger, better things for us – not just in a spiritual way, though that would be cool enough on it’s own, but in a whole-life kind of way. She made me hope, and each year that it didn’t come to pass I felt that hope fading.

Until this year.

Today, I have resolutions of my own to make. I have a plan for my career, and if God is willing, it will work out for us. I have a plan to be a better, happier person and to grow as an artist. And, while I don’t know whether all or any of these things will come to fruition, I know that I have a real, unbridled sense of hope that I didn’t have last week. I have the sensation that, for the first time in a long, long time, the holidays were meaningful and good, and I didn’t miss them. But best of all, I have a reason to believe that things will be better this year than last.

May God help us.

-JDT-

Contemplation

I've been thinking a bit lately about my life, and how things have gone so terribly, horribly wrong for me over the last several years.

It's bad enough that my life is in havoc, but this doesn't just impact me. My screw-ups have been affecting my wife's life and the lives of our children for a long, long time too. That's hard to swallow. It hurts a lot to realize that, not only am I not succeeding as a person -- in almost any capacity -- I’m not a very good husband, father or provider either. I’m not sure at what else I can fail, frankly.

A lot of mistakes that I made can be traced back to when I was in high school, and therein is where my introspection has fallen as of late. I realized that, had I subtly changed the course of the direction of my life, and avoided some of the horrific mistakes I made along the way, maybe I’d be somewhere different by now. Maybe not, but I find it very unlikely that I’d have ended up here, in the situations in which I find myself, had I made just a few different choices.

I don’t know what happened to my brain during the years that I spent in high school, but it certainly didn’t function the way it does now. I can look back at the decisions I made and even today I shake my head and mutter “what were you thinking, moron?” I have no idea. I don’t know if I did then, either. All I can do is try not to duplicate those mistakes as I go through what’s left of my life, but the fact is, I probably won’t have the chance to duplicate those mistakes. Many of them were one-time-only, chance-in-lifetime sorts of things, and I indeed blew those chances royally. Those that I could have avoided or changed later I just didn’t, so in some sense, I suppose I did make them all over again.

It’s a damned shame.

I can sum up the things I want to change into a handful of events that, while they didn’t seem like much to me, were cataclysmic, calamitous decisions that had long-term, life-altering impact. All of them took place in a span of just a couple of years, too; perhaps the two or three years from when I was about 16 years old until the age of 19. By then, the decisions had crippled my ability to recover from them, destroyed what flimsy and pathetic “support network” I had, and I am still paying for them today.

I’m not in this alone, however; my genetic donors could have done more to help, but being that they’re not the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree either, they couldn’t pull their heads from their rectal cavities long enough to see what was necessary. This, sadly, from people that are twenty and twenty-three years older than me. So, well into adulthood, they couldn’t find a clearer path to assist me than what they chose. Or, more likely, the desire to assist wasn’t really there to find another way.

At any rate, I can’t blame them. I have the pocketful of crumbled dreams and ashes of hope in my own hot little hand to attest to the wreckage I’ve brought upon myself. They were, after all, my mistakes, and mine alone. I have to deal with the consequences, not they; I have to try and find the alternate path, not them. This is my responsibility, my burden, my millstone to bear, and no one else’s. Except, of course, for my wife and children, who had nothing to do with any of this at all. They just get to bear the brunt.

If, however, I had zigged rather than zagged, had weaved instead of bobbed, in just a couple of situations I was in, I could be a completely different man. I’ve been down this road thousands of time before. I torment myself with wondering what life would be like if I had chosen differently just once, never mind in every one of those situations. I could have been, and done, so much more, I think.

On the other hand, there is the theory that we don’t actually have choices, only the illusion of choices. We can’t really make any other decision than the one that we made, and there IS no path not chosen, road not traveled, life not lived. There is only this life, this path, this road which is traveled, and no other. While at the time there seems to be a fork, there is in fact only undeniable, inexorable, inescapable fate, and we never had the chance to do other than what we did.

Theologically, I reject this idea out of hand and soundly. It’s ludicrous, because the entire basis for a relationship with God becomes a random, capricious, completely arbitrary selection process to which we will never be privy. Since the decision in the Garden of Eden, the choices have been there, and have played themselves out. While the idea of foreknowledge can confuse some, foreknowledge and predestination are separate and distinct ideas, if intertwined. I can go much more into detail on this, but I’ll allow that to suffice for the Internet. Want to know more? Go look it up. You are aware the Bible opens, aren’t you?

At any rate, Calvinism is not for me. Perseverance of the Saints, one of the five points of classical Calvinism, is about all I can stomach. The rest leads people to irresponsible and dangerous behavior that isn’t biblical.

Now then, where was I? Oh, yes; my misery.

I believe that, now, after all the years of thinking about it, reliving the years between ages 16 and 19 would right the capsizing ship. Of course, I can’t do that, but if I had a temporal displacement device, or if I could slipstream into the time-space continuum and speak with myself, that’s probably the time in which my efforts would be focused. It would be interesting to see if anything that I could say to myself then would have impact on me today. If I return from my conversations with my younger self and there is no change, does that mean that I’ve been ineffectual, that I chose the same routes despite being warned, or that there is no way to alter the past and affect the future?

Of course, the latter is true. There is nothing we can do to change the past and get the future back on track. This is what we have, and in that regard, the future -- or the present, I suppose -- is set. Like the time travel theory (if you want to call it that) in the movie 12 Monkeys, there is nothing we can do to stop the inevitable outcome of the choices of the past.

Which, of course, brings me to the future. As murky and uncertain, dark and foreboding as it is, it is the only timeline upon which I can affect any deviation. I can alter that timeline. I just wish, as I sit here and realize that the present has indeed crept into the future and the future has eroded into the present, I had some lantern, some dim candle, even a matchstick to light the inky blackness ahead of me. I just wish that, somewhere along the way, there was a method for piercing the veil that separates past and future, at least my own, such that I might see what it is I’m supposed to do and which road to choose. Even if there aren’t as many as there were once upon a time, the choices are far more frightening. Fewer choices equates to more dramatic mistakes, and less time to recover from them. If I haven’t recovered from those that I made a quarter of a century ago, and if I may not have a quarter of a century left to live, what chance will I have to correct the listing, sinking ship in that shallow, turbulent, violent sea of the future?

No, there is no way to see ahead. We can only guess, and do our best.

P.S. - Don’t even get me started on psychics. Have you ever seen the headline “Psychic Wins Lottery”? I haven’t either; case closed.

Yeah ... About that Last Post ...

So, it turns out that I really AM good at messing things up. And it turns out that God really DIDN'T fix it, after all.

The job fell through; actually, the recruiter's exact phrase was "retracted." The offer was retracted. I no longer have a long term contract with a large company doing work that will greatly benefit my career going forward. I have to start all over again, and begin the painfully slow process of searching for a job again. I know how little is out there right now; it's always that way for me at the end of the year. Monster.com is full of job offerings, but nothing for me. Recruiters are busy enough to earn THEIR paychecks somehow, but me? I'll be lucky to make rent next month. The month after that is doom.

Ah, nothing succeeds like success, eh?

If you pray, please do. If you don't, I'll pray for you. Thanks.

-JDT-