Finally, this place is better organized and more positive in outlook than Wal-Mart on their best day. The salespeople are friendly and don't hover. The offer advice and samples without prompting, and are happy to help in any way. The management is quick to correct any slips, but without browbeating their staff. These folks actually are happy to work there.

There's a few downbeats though -- as in any tourist trap everything is priced a bit upscale, but not terribly so. The lines are a bit long, but there's almost always 5 or 6 registers open. And the vast selection of beer in the cooler just seems wrong to my eyes, having been brought up in the North where Open-container laws are the norm.

If you get the chance when driving I-10 between San Antone and Houston, you need to make a rest stop here. It's well worth the look-see; the "Wall Drug" of South Texas.

The "El Cazador" Taqueria in south San Antonio Texas. The proprietor of this establishment is a hunter (hence the name) who will make you any kind of taco you like. Elk, Dove, Quail, Venison, Rattlesnake, Fresh & Salt water fishes, and God knows what else. (I'm afraid to eat there myself.)

Confessions of a Mad Diabetic, Part I

This is pretty hard, really.

Diabetes is a glandular disease. It means that your body has either (1) lost it's ability to produce Insulin, or (2) has lost it's ability to use Insulin properly. (Insulin is the hormone that transports sugar -- or glucose -- into the cells, so that the cells can burn it for fuel. No Insulin, No glucose. No glucose, no fuel -- and that is a very bad thing.

Fortunatley I have the second type, which is called Type 2 Diabetes (imagine that!). This type you can workd with, if you can just get your diet habits under control. So that's what I've been trying to do the past 3 or 4 weeks. So the first step is getting rid of all the excess sugar in one's diet.

That is a massive statement in and of itself. Try to imagine this in your own life. Nothing with free sugars or concentrated sweets in it anymore.

Goodbye soda pop. Goodbye Pepsi, goodbye Coke, goodbye Dr. Pepper, goodbye Sprite. Goodbye Root Beer. (Of course, you can drink all the diet stuff you want -- but you have to get used to it first. It's not really that bad -- but it's the "getting-used-to" that's the bear.

And of course, sodas are just the beginning. No more sugar coated cereals -- which pretty much limits you to shredded wheat, cheerios, and rice crispies.

Goodbye Ice Cream, of course. Goodbye popsicles.

Goodbye pancake syrup (so goodbye pancakes and waffles.)

Goodbye all that good junk food. Goodbye candy bars; Goodbye granola bars. Goodbye Twinkies, Ho-Hos, and Ding-Dongs. Goodbye Sticky Buns.

And, (sob!!!), Goodbye Doughnuts.

Once you learn to identify the "concentrated sweets" and eliminate them, you've got 50% of your diet under control. The rest is what we're learning in our Diabetic Classes. Certain things will elevate your blood sugars, and others won't. Obviously concentrated sweets surely will, which is why we cut them out of the plan right off.

The good foods I can eat (If you remember your basic food groups from High School nutrition) are your have meats and fish group and your vegetables. The meats and fish have calories and fats, so you want to get the leanest cuts possible, right? (Goodbye bacon, goodbye pork chops; goodbye ribs, goodbye fried chicken.) Vegetables -- you can eat all you want of the vegetables.

Fruits have lots of sugars in them, but not nearly as much as a candy bar, so you have to be careful. But generally speaking, if you want a small bowl of cherries or 2-3 apricots after dinner for dessert, go for it.

Then you have your starches, or as they call them today, Carbohydrates. Carbohydrates (or "carbs" as the Atkins people like to call them) are essentially two or more sugar molecules locked together with a weak molecular bond. When those carbs hit your small intestine they become sugar molecules again, which can play merry havoc with your blood sugars.

Sugars include breads and pretty much anything made with grains. Buns, rolls, any kinds of breads -- you have to treat them like they're sugars and go very sparingly on them. So you can have a peanut butter sandwich, but only use one slice of bread. You can have a taco, but only on tortilla. Eat all the Taco Salad you want, but don't eat the crispy shell bowl. Corn and peas are also so loaded with carbs that they're treated like carbs rather than vegetables.

So Phase I of my dietary adjustment plan (that is, from the end of May until last Monday) was weeding out the Concentrated Sweets. Phase II has been to decrease the fatty meats and carbs, and increase the fruits and veggies wherever possible.

I had my first hamburger tonight in two months. It tasted like manna from heaven, baby -- manna from heaven. And I'm learning to love Smoothies, too -- just small ones, not super-sized dietary monsters.

My blood sugars have come down from an average of the high 200's (and as high as 374 the first day I got my glucometer) to the 140's -- which is not bad at all. (Normal blood sugars are 70-140.)

I swear to you -- the Dairy Queen store across from my local comic book store calls my name like the Sirens of myth when I drive by.

I'm gonna get through this -- but the bear has his teeth quite deeply in my shorts some days.

The Nameplate that I made for the Nursing Office at my last job. My first effort at nameplates, and pretty darn good, I think.

Julian in the San Antonio airport; trying to look sophisticated and worldly wise; but just looking excited.

Otis and his "mother." (You thought I was kidding about him thinking the dog was his mom, didn't you?)

EVAN E. PARKER | THE TIMES Hunter Schroeder, 10, leads his cousins, Drew and Lily Doniger, through the Valparaiso Parks Department's preview showing of its Masterpiece Seats on Friday. The program features 24 park benches painted like classic art, but with a Valparaiso twist.

Valpo Shows Off Masterpiece Seats

Blogger's note: I think this idea is "absolutely brilliant," as the Harry Potter kids might say. A magnificient variant of the "Painted Cows" Theme of several years ago, this one both promotes local art and classical appreciation. Having said all that, my neice is one of the artists mentioned therein. Enjoy!

VALPARAISO: Painted benches to go on display this month

BY PHIL WIELAND
pwieland@nwitimes.com
219.462.5151

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Saturday, June 11, 2005 12:53 AM CDT

VALPARAISO | It's almost like dallying on a Dali or parking your posterior on a Picasso.

On Friday, the city's Parks Department unveiled its Masterpiece Seats, the first in what Parks Director Steve Doniger hopes will be an annual community art project in the tradition of the Chicago Cows and the Crown Point Bulldogs. The seats are park benches painted by local artists, and they will be on display all over the city beginning later this month.

Each of the 24 benches is painted with a copy of a masterpiece by a renowned artist, but it has been altered, sometimes in very subtle ways, to include a feature that is identified with Valparaiso.

For example, Vincent Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" was changed by artist Tracey Hunter-Doniger to include the Valparaiso University chapel in the landscape. When Becky Ashcroft recreated Claude Monet's "Japanese Bridge," she used the bridge in Ogden Gardens for the centerpiece of her masterpiece.

Other examples of "the Valpo touch" given the works of famous artists: a Viking ship floating on "The Great Waves" of Katsushika Hokusai when done by local artist Haylee Schwerdt, and a Valpo Velvet French vanilla label on a bench filled with copies of Andy Warhol's Campbell's chicken soup cans painted by Valparaiso High School advanced art students Christy Brown and Lindsay Popka.

High school art students Kaitlyn Cook, Lindsay Williams and Kathryn Dulla chose another Warhol work, the four portraits of Marilyn Monroe, and turned it into four portraits of Mayor Jon Costas. Valpo Velvet or Valpo are easy to detect in other paintings while the local connection in several of the benches is still a mystery to Doniger.

"I'm proud of how the whole project came together," Doniger said. "We started three months ago, and it took six weeks to get the benches. The artists had a window of five or six weeks to do their work. Everybody came together and did outstanding work."

The Valparaiso Arts Commission, made up of volunteers who are local artists, art students, park staff and community members, was set up by the Parks Department to assist in the creation of the art projects.

All 24 of the benches are sponsored, and 10 of them have been purchased for permanent display. The high school band bought one of two versions of "The Three Musicians" by Pablo Picasso for Band Director Dan Pritchett. The local artist is Chris Mooraidian. The parents of the Science Olympiad team at Thomas Jefferson Middle School bought one for display at the school. That bench was still being painted by the artist Friday.

The benches that are not sold for permanent display will be auctioned off in September to raise money for next year's art project. Doniger said the details of that project will be revealed at the auction, but it will involve something that can be displayed permanently at Foundation Meadows Park.

The benches have to be weatherproofed before being placed on display. Anyone interested in joining the Arts Commission or buying one of the benches for $800 can contact Barbie Johnson at the Parks Department, 462-5144.

From Left: My neice Oriane; Julian, my nephew David; and my future sister-in-law having dinner last week in Paris. I'm happy to report Julian gives my brother-in-law the same scowl he gives me when i have a camera.

March 1988: the road to Chievres Belgium, early morning fog. Chievres was the largest Luftwaffe base outside of Germany in WWII; this road was formerly one of it's runways then. The trees were planted to camouflage them from Allied bombing runs. I love this picture; took it myself!

My cat Otis faxes well, don't you think?

In Many Ways, the News Is Not Good . . . .

I think I'm ready to talk about this now.

I've been at home for about 6 weeks now off work. The problems started the third week of April when I came down with the flu on a Wednesday or Thursday. While I've been known to get the flu before, my vitamin regimen (3 multivitamins a day with 1000 mg of Vitamin C -- plus 10 mg Pepcid for the stomach and an aspirin for the heart) usually prevents anything but the worst flu.

By the Saturday the 101.2 fever had broken, but only down to 99.5; which is high for me (I usually run in the 97.2 range. Being a nurse, I check these things a lot when testing thermometers.)The head congestion had settled in my lungs, and I had an almost continual hacking cough that was not only giving me headaches froim coughing so much, but also tore my itsy-bitsy umbilical hernia (the size of my thumb) open much larger (the size of my fist.)

I took a few days off the end of that second week (Wed/Thur/Friday) and went back to work Monday and Tuesday with the low grade fever; and went to the clinic Wednesday when I couldn't stop coughing long enough to type and started having breathless episodes and chest pain after coughing. THAT was scary enough to wake me up.

After two weeks off work being treated by the Physician's Assistant at the Clinic, all we knew was that it wasn't (a) Tuberculosis, (b) Hepatitis in any form, or (c) AIDS. We did find out that I had an abnormality in my liver enzymes, and that my EKG was "a little off" according to the Primary Physician.

Meanwhile, my supervisor at work was saying things to my co-workers like " . . . if he's as sick as he says he is . . . " and threatening to terminate me "so we can hire some more nurses." This despite faxing all my paperwork I received (and the "Off-Work" slips) to her after every appointment, and staying in contact every three days per their own policy.

So on the Friday of the third week off, after hearing the above comments, I decided to drop off my paperwork in person. For my effort I got escorted off the premises and placed on "Administrative Leave" and escorted off the premises.

Huh!

So I've been on Administrative Leave for three weeksnow when I get a call Thursday from the Director of Human Resources. I'm going back to work Monday morning. (Translation: "We tried to find some dirt on you for three weeks and haven't been able to; so we need nurses desperately -- so come back now.")


Meanwhile, here's the score from Dr. McMahon's tests:


1.) I'm diabetic. I don't appear to be Insulin-dependent, but we still don't have a good handle on it yet. The glyburide they're giving me is having some pretty awful side effects -- so there's some tweaking to be done there, obviously.

2.) I have "Reactive Airway Disease." This means when Ai cought hard or exercise, the outer portion of my lungs shut down, leaving only the bronchus open. It means it's hard as heck to get rid of lung infections (like chest colds or pneumonia) and very easy to get bronchitis. It's one of the reasons I'm still coughing two months later without any cold or upper respiratory infection present.

3.) My Ulcer is re-activated. Dr. McMahon switched me from Pepcid to Nexium when 10 mg of Pepcid became 20mg became 30-40 mg.

4.) We're still not sure about the ticker. I have a Treadmill Stress Test June 16th, and possibly an angiogram after that. Personally, I don't see anything grossly unusual with my EKG, but she's the doctor.

5.) I also have a surgical consult for some time in July to see about surgery for my ugly little umbillical hernia to finally get it fixed.


6.) ALL of these things are directly related to STRESS. And the only place I'm having lots of stress lately . . . .is work.


So . . . . you might think I might not want to go back to that particular job.


I have an appointment Monday morning to discuss just that with them. Stay tuned. I'm pretty sure it won't be a very polite conversation.

~~JD~~

This is Otis on the Left, who is allegedly a cat . . . .

. . . . but he thinks he's a puppy. To the right is Samantha, whom Otis thinks is his Mom. (Please note they are both sitting in exactly the same pose; paws in front, tails to the left.) It's even more hilarious when they sleep together or groom each other.

The lovely and Gracious Miss Mommie, . . . .

. . . . sitting at her new Dining Room table. Note that all chairs are bar stool height, so no-one's feet touch the floor. She just loves this! We take delivery the end of Juloy when we move into our new apartment.

Things to Think About while you're Off Work in Texas

Barbecue.

Barbecue is almost it's own food group in Texas. We have barbecue joints down here like they have McDonald's on every corner in Chicago. I can drive 2 miles in any direction and find a Bill Miller's; a Suzie's; a Grady's; or a Casey's barbecue.

But while those are all very respectable and delicious barbecues in their own rights, It's Rudy's Barbecue that's the best. (http://www.rudys.com/index.html). There's only 3 of them in San Antonio, but they're well worth the drive. I like the Leon Springs Store the best -- it's the original. It's not actually a restaurant -- it's a meat market that has tables so you can eat what you buy on the premises (an interesting loophole in Texas law.)

And Barbecue down here differs VASTLY from the backyard grill barbecue I grew up with in Indiana. Up north you take the meat, slap it on a gril for 10-20 minutes, and add ketchup and mustard. Down South you first prepare the meat with a Rub that has salt, peppers, and spices. The meat is grilled for 8-10 hours (yes, hours) and sauce is added as an aside, or slathered on after cooking. Meat is Never cooked with sauce on.

While each griller's Rub recipe is a closely guraded secret, so is each griller's Sauce recipe, which varies from region to region. Each region had certain elements that are more prevalent that the sauces are based on. North Carolina sauces are more vinegar and mustard based, whilst Kansas City sauces are more molasses and tomato based.

Texas sauces are also tomato based, but also have a healthy helping of peppers -- jalapeno and otherwise. The best ones are not so much hot, but spicy and flavorful. That's what Rudy's excels in. If you follow the link to the website, they'll send you a bottle, and you can taste for yourself.

Or, if you come visit, we'll take you out there one night. Heckuva place, that Rudy's

~~JD~~

Why We Don't Play Much Chess at Our House (In the Middle of Our Street.)

Why we don't play much Chess at our house.

Teen-Age Angst in South Texas, Part 1006

This is Julian. Julian Loves his Mom, and his Mom dearly loves all things involving cats -- particularly the Pink Panther. Julian also thinks his Dad is a bit looney. That's why he's so patiently posing with an annoyed look with the Pink Panther (for Mom) while Dad snaps the picture (It was Dad's idea, y'know).

Experiment Day Four; ~or~ Let's Just Say "Merry Christmas" and Get It Over With Already

Or are we allowed to say that here in America?

Just in case you were wondering, here's how you say "Merry Christmas" in a buncha different languages:


Afrikaans: Gesëende Kersfees
Afrikander: Een Plesierige Kerfees
African/ Eritrean/ Tigrinja: Rehus-Beal-Ledeats
Albanian:Gezur Krislinjden
Arabic: Milad Majid
Argentine: Feliz Navidad
Armenian: Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand
Azeri: Tezze Iliniz Yahsi Olsun
Bahasa Malaysia: Selamat Hari Natal
Basque: Zorionak eta Urte Berri On!
Bengali: Shuvo Naba Barsha
Bohemian: Vesele Vanoce
Brazilian: Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo
Breton: Nedeleg laouen na bloavezh mat
Bulgarian: Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo
Catalan: Bon Nadal i un Bon Any Nou!
Chile: Feliz Navidad
Chinese: (Cantonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun
Chinese: (Mandarin) Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan
(Catonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun
Choctaw: Yukpa, Nitak Hollo Chito
Columbia: Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo
Cornish: Nadelik looan na looan blethen noweth
Corsian: Pace e salute
Crazanian: Rot Yikji Dol La Roo
Cree: Mitho Makosi Kesikansi
Croatian: Sretan Bozic
Czech: Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok
Danish: Glædelig Jul
Duri: Christmas-e- Shoma Mobarak
Dutch: Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!
or Zalig Kerstfeast
English: Merry Christmas
Eskimo: (inupik) Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame pivdluaritlo!
Esperanto: Gajan Kristnaskon
Estonian: Ruumsaid juulup|hi
Faeroese: Gledhilig jol og eydnurikt nyggjar!
Farsi: Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad
Finnish: Hyvaa joulua
Flemish: Zalig Kerstfeest en Gelukkig nieuw jaar
French: Joyeux Noel
Frisian: Noflike Krystdagen en in protte Lok en Seine yn it Nije Jier!
Galician: Bo Nada
Gaelic: Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath ùr! German: Froehliche Weihnachten
Greek: Kala Christouyenna!
Hausa: Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!
Hawaiian: Mele Kalikimaka
Hebrew: Mo'adim Lesimkha. Chena tova
Hindi: Shub Naya Baras
Hausa: Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!
Hawaian: Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou!
Hungarian: Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket
Icelandic: Gledileg Jol
Indonesian: Selamat Hari Natal
Iraqi: Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah
Irish: Nollaig Shona Dhuit, or Nodlaig mhaith chugnat
Iroquois: Ojenyunyat Sungwiyadeson honungradon nagwutut. Ojenyunyat osrasay.
Italian: Buone Feste Natalizie
Japanese: Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
Jiberish: Mithag Crithagsigathmithags
Korean: Sung Tan Chuk Ha
Latin: Natale hilare et Annum Faustum!
Latvian: Prieci'gus Ziemsve'tkus un Laimi'gu Jauno Gadu!
Lausitzian:Wjesole hody a strowe nowe leto
Lettish: Priecigus Ziemassvetkus
Lithuanian: Linksmu Kaledu
Low Saxon: Heughliche Winachten un 'n moi Nijaar
Macedonian: Sreken Bozhik
Maltese: IL-Milied It-tajjeb
Manx: Nollick ghennal as blein vie noa
Maori: Meri Kirihimete
Marathi: Shub Naya Varsh
Navajo: Merry Keshmish
Norwegian: God Jul, or Gledelig Jul
Occitan: Pulit nadal e bona annado
Papiamento: Bon Pasco
Papua New Guinea: Bikpela hamamas blong dispela Krismas na Nupela yia i go long yu
Pennsylvania German: En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr!
Peru: Feliz Navidad y un Venturoso Año Nuevo
Philipines: Maligayan Pasko!
Polish: Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia or Boze Narodzenie
Portuguese:Feliz Natal
Pushto: Christmas Aao Ne-way Kaal Mo Mobarak Sha
Rapa-Nui (Easter Island): Mata-Ki-Te-Rangi. Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua
Rhetian: Bellas festas da nadal e bun onn
Romanche: (sursilvan dialect): Legreivlas fiastas da Nadal e bien niev onn!
Rumanian: Sarbatori vesele
Russian: Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom
Sami: Buorrit Juovllat
Samoan: La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou
Sardinian: Bonu nadale e prosperu annu nou
Serbian: Hristos se rodi
Slovakian: Sretan Bozic or Vesele vianoce
Sami: Buorrit Juovllat
Samoan: La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou
Scots Gaelic: Nollaig chridheil huibh
Serb-Croatian: Sretam Bozic. Vesela Nova Godina
Serbian: Hristos se rodi. Singhalese: Subha nath thalak Vewa. Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa
Slovak: Vesele Vianoce. A stastlivy Novy Rok
Slovene: Vesele Bozicne. Screcno Novo Leto
Spanish: Feliz Navidad
Swedish: God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År
Tagalog: Maligayamg Pasko. Masaganang Bagong Taon
Tami: Nathar Puthu Varuda Valthukkal
Trukeese: (Micronesian) Neekiriisimas annim oo iyer seefe feyiyeech!
Thai: Sawadee Pee Mai
Turkish: Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
Ukrainian: Srozhdestvom Kristovym
Urdu: Naya Saal Mubarak Ho
Vietnamese: Chung Mung Giang Sinh
Welsh: Nadolig Llawen
Yugoslavian: Cestitamo Bozic
Yoruba: E ku odun, e ku iye'dun!


(I have no idea what "Yoruba" language is, myself. I'll just take it on faith that THIS WEBSITE HERE knows what it's talking about.)


Yet in America today it's almost blasphemy to wish people a "Merry Christmas" or even to show any kind of religious connotation related to Christmas. School and government officials live in fear of being sujed by some whack-job who is "offended" (god forbid!) by mention of the Almighty or the birth of his Son. Retailers emulate the schools and local governments, again to avoid "offending" someone.

Yet the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that celebrating Christmas in schoold is not only legal but permissable. Why all the fear?

The answer to this is found in the book The War On Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought by Fox News Anchor John Gibson. It's a thourough by avid read -- keeping me enthralled all through the book. I'm about halfway through the book but the story is essentially the same with every example Gibson gives. Nutjob threatens school board/government/etc with ACLU lawsuit and false "facts" about what is permissable -- ergo, the school board/government/etc folds to avoid threatened lawsuit.

Gibson's book is a godsend to the local school boards/governments/etc in that he details just what is and is not permissable in celebrating holidays. It makes buffoons of the Nutjobs who have brought these lawsuits by quoting interviews with them, and is a wonderful resource to anyone who wants to fight these nutjobs when they raise their ugly heads in whiny, mealy-mouthed protest.

And I promise you will be astonished with some of the crap they've gotten away with. There's actually a town here in Texas where it's not even permissable to wear the colors Red or Green at Christmastime.

Yeesh!

Highly Recommended. Click on the book to buy it at Amazon.com.

~~JD~~

I've Been Assimilated !!!

For those of you not part of the Palm Pilot / Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) revolution, it is well and truly here.


I bought my first PDA in the fall of 2001 (after the crash of Professional One Limousine.) I bought it with my first paycheck after the fall, mostly because I saw a co-worker (a temporary nurse from an Agency) at the Nursing Home I was working at using a PDA, which caught my eye almost immediately. She had loaded a Nursing Drug Handbook onto hers, which meant she not only had one availabe at all times on the job, but the lookup was lightning fast, too -- saved a lot of time.

Fast **and** accurate? I was sold right there.

My first PDA was made by a company called Handspring. They were the cheif competitor with Palm; which Palm also recognized when they bought them out. (They're called "PalmOne" currently.) The similarities were obvious; both Palm and Handspirng shared their Operating System, Programs, and desktop software. Handspring differed in that they had an Accessory Port into which you could plug available hardware; like a camera, GPS device, additional memory cards, E-books . . . all kinds of neat stuff. Although I never bought any of the hardware, I liked the idea of having it available.

Well, a PDA is designed to last about 2-3 years, and mine was almost 4 . . . so I decided to upgrade. I had gotten tired of lugging around both the PDA and a cellphone, so I looked for one that combined the two. Researched out the different models, checked around for the best deals, and found the TREO 650. Top of the line and brand-new; it has many times more memory than the older Handspring, as well as a built-in camera, video recorder, calculator, and internet browser. I've also downloaded software so I have databases to contain all the information I need to know about my patients at work; plus my drug book, a Taber's Medical Dictionary, and three different versions of the Bible. I'm going to buy more software to load the entire DSM-IV (psychological diagnostic manual). With the old Handspring I was lucky to get the Drug Book and the Bible in there.)

And, of course, the old reliable Palm OS still has the dependable standbys of "Contacts" (which pretty much has every name and phone number of everyone I've ever met -- painstakingly entered from my old Address Books over time); an Appointment Calendar to keep track of meetings, work schedules, and such; the "Memo" feature which lets me keep everything from genealogical information to favorite quotations to Erikson's Stages of Adolescent Development; and the "To-Do" features, which lets me make lists of things I need. Shopping Lists. Christmas Lists. List of the Garth Brooks albums I need to complete my collection. List of my Disney videos . . . etc, etc.

And a cellphone. And a Realplayer MP3 Player. And I haven't even figured half this stuff out yet.

So very . . . . Star Trek!

The good news about this is that you'll be seeing more photos since i now always have a camera with me. This may not be a good thing, as you'll see below. Julian surely doesn't think it is . . . at the moment.