The ballet people are champagne drinkers; a younger, more exciting crowd than the opera people. - Walter Nurena

This is mainly a tribute to my new found appreciation for Flickr, to some extent. And my enduring appreciation for ballet. And a cryptic self reminder to mention this quote to a ballerina that doesn't read my blog. And a reminder to myself that sooner or later I need to get a decent post up, now that its been more than a couple of weeks...

I'm back safe. Hope to get a recap post up tomorrow before I start working night shifts again, tomorrow night. Otherwise, I'll get it up when...I start working night shifts again, tomorrow night. In the meantime, here's a picture of the team, before we left last Saturday.

Why is it that I can't even stand to watch the trailers for Stone's WTC movie when they come on? I mean I literally have to change the channel, because seeing the shadow of an airliner flash across a Tribeca building makes me physically ill. It just all seems so wrong - Flight 93, now this...complete capitalization on the most horrible event of my generation.

I've never liked going down there, taking the Path to downtown makes me uncomfortable every time. I mean, its the biggest tourist attraction in the city. Hundreds of street vendors still making a living off of it. And now Hollywood needs to get their cut. Makes me sick.

Don't get me wrong, history needs its proper memorials, but these are clearly not it. A better example? Saving Private Ryan. Amistad. Schindler's List. Movies that weren't trying to make a buck off of horrible events in human history so much as tell the real story and make people remember. Neither of the 9/11 movies are trying to do that. I doubt many 9/11 movies will be able to do that, for years to come.

I've linked to it before, but I'm still interested in seeing The Great New Wonderful. This looks like a real movie for a real (good) reason.

Its morbid.

And yet stuff like Falling Man is fascinating to me. Because its the real, raw history. Its not commercialized.

Anyway, that said, I'm off to New Orleans for the week, as of tomorrow morning. Doubtful you'll see a blog post before next weekend, and even that will be difficult - as my work week will start Sunday evening on that weekend. Please keep me and the kids and the other leaders in your prayers.

This is Ozzie and Harriet. You can guess which is which. I picked them up at Ikea the other week as kind of a birthday present to myself. I figured I'm officially killing off my late 20's now so I should give having kids another shot. That's how I refer to keeping plants alive - its like having kids practice for the bachelor. They require periodic attention and nurture. Yes, I realize they require less than a normal child. But the basic underlying precept remains the same: I and no one else am responsible for either their life or death. My goal is to keep them alive until I move, which I suspect will be some time next year, either for school or necessity of a newly married roommate - who knows which would come first, if either.

Well, the school part better come one way or another. When you work a 15 hour day and come home in time to eat, sleep, and start it all over again, you find about 2 minutes, somewhere around the point you're stripping out of the work clothes and changing into sleeping garb, to wonder why it is that you can't meet someone nice to come home to and bitch about your day. When the only thing that didn't go wrong, right down to the 15 minutes you had to spend looking for parking after driving home from work, is the fact that you didn't find out that you *didn't* get promoted. Or worse yet, why you can't meet someone to come home to and tell that you got promoted. (Pray Lord let it be.)

I find out in the next week or two.

Basically it will determine exactly when and how hard I start pursuing my enrollment in a school for next year. If I do get the promotion, I figure I'll sock it out for a year, and hit school next fall if things work out smoothly, maybe wait 6 months past then and start the following spring - basically get some experience at the next level on my resume. If I don't get it, I'll be filling out applications starting the following weekend. No point in staying somewhere that isn't going to put you where you should be, isn't going to maximize your potential. That's right, I said it.

So anyway, other things I got for my birthday (from people other than myself) included, from the fam:


Which I have wanted for so very, very long. And this:


Which Mom loved, along with the accompanying documentary. And from the grandparents, the best table game of all time:


Oink.

That's it. That's all the presents I got - parents and grandparents. This is what happens when you get old. I remember reading in the 5 Love Languages that gifts or giving gifts or something like that is one of the languages, and I'm like 98% sure that its mine, along with a small mix of one of the others - words of affirmation. Problem is, it hardly seems to be anyone else's.

Well I blogged through last weekend and so didn't have much to blog about on Monday, and then it was Tuesday and all of a sudden its Sunday night.

Started working on Wednesday of last week, Friday morning I went to work and by the end of the day I could barely breath, my throat was so swollen. So, I had to get that taken care of. Saturday I didn't go in, but I did get over to Matt's in the afternoon after I woke up and ganked a Zithromax off him - they have a powder-in-a-bottle version now that you just add water to and guzzle. Then I came home, had another gallon of soup, and crashed again.

Today was church - for our commissioning for the missions team, then right back to work. Had a good conversation with the manager I'm actually enjoying working with, because he's cool. Might end up staying on this project and taking on a manager role, if nothing comes up in retail.

Going to work tomorrow and Tuesday, maybe a bit of Wednesday too, then I think I'm going to hit the beach for a day or two before we take off for New Orleans.

This week - a half-decent links post and the *original* Snakes on a Plane story (long story short - I had this idea years ago).

P.S. Football is in the air. Hall of fame game. Eagles and Raiders - I couldn't possibly care less, but I do hear Madden's voice and men hitting each other at high speeds in the background, and that makes me happy. Fall's coming. Joy.