[lbo-talk] update!

[bitch]

Well, things have been crazy, a real roller coaster ride. I haven't had 
time to unpack it all or decompress or anything. But I really love it 
here so far. I missed the architecture of the older homes. I missed the 
pine trees. I missed the rolling hills and the way the deciduous trees 
lose their leaves. I missed tulips budding in spring. I missed the way 
the sun looks when it's setting on a cold, late winter evening. It is 
funny how you can miss the geography of place -- a least me. I will 
never be able to enjoy the feeling of looking down from the top of Owego 
hill road to see the glacier carved valley below, covered in early 
morning mist, thinking how, if you imagined it just right, the mist is 
really the glaciers that had been there many many years ago. carving out 
what would become the valleys, streams, rivers, and lakes of the area 
that had been my home town. I'll never get that back b/c the town is so 
dead, work wise, that there's no going back. But tulips and daffodils 
blossom in the spring elsewhere. And tall pine trees grow so dense that 
the ground below is a bed of thick pine needles blanketing a rich, 
acidic, black, loamy dirt beneath, a black earth so rich with decaying 
material that it's light and airy and when you walk on it, it sinks a 
bit as your body weight crushes out the tiny pockets of air forms from 
the decay of pine needles, leaves, bark, and animal matter. And when you 
look up, you see the light playing on the trees and earth. Looking up 
you see the bright blue sky peeking out through the canopy of pines, and 
the sun beams its rays down in rivulets of light splashing on the ivy 
growing up the lanky sides of the pines. You close your eyes for a while 
and open them again, this time imagining whispy ghosts of people and 
animals that had been through before, stopping to eat wild berries 
growing in a patch of rich black earth where just enough light shines 
through to nudge flowers and eventually berries from the patch.

I made friends with a workmate from New Dehli. He's really friendly, 
inviting me out for lunch and then taking me for a walk around the 
block, trying to get me to play hooky from work. :) All that work we did 
on the web sites that I sometimes tested out here, btw, was what paid 
off. Apparently, people working in standards based design using CSS for 
layout instead of tables are in short supply. Which is why I was given 
the posish of Sr. level developer. I have Keith (an lbo subscriber) to 
thank. I used the source ordered layout used on his new Web site, which 
really impressed 'em. Then, I have to thank Yoshie and John Mage. 
Something I used on a project for them (will be finished soon!) was 
implemented in my UI developer test as well. Because I tested it on that 
gig, I was able to quickly implement it for the test. Oh, and Dwayne too 
since we also used source ordered layouts for his site. That was the 
other thing: the sample sites I showed them made them happy too.

I took a bunch of pics and posted them at the update blog. The office 
building is brand new and very beauteous. I even went so far as to snap 
pics of the cube. :) You can see my new reading glasses, which I had to 
buy in order to read the map. Bought them in a truck stop -- great name 
for a country music song, yes?

Anyway, gotta run and check out places to live. I don't think my back is 
going to take a hotel bed for more than another week -- let alone my 
back and hotel room chairs when I use the laptop. Arrrrrrrrgh.