Did anyone see the cover of the SJ-Mercury News today? Todd Harvey, hanging his head. That pose, it’s unspoken eloquence sums up the feelings of a hundred thousand Sharks fans, to get close enough to touch it, but come up short. This morning I got up, got Caitlin ready, took her to school and then went to my dentist’s appointment, only to find that my appointment is *next* week, not *this* week. So I went to Denny’s for breakfast. I read the paper, wallowed in my depression, and now I sit here, at work, unmotivated, tired, and grump-ay. I hope no-one bothers me today.

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Most of 2000 I worked for a startup named lightsocket.com. The people there were pretty cool, and when I got married they had a little party right before my vacation time started, and they got me a bunch of cool things, like an espresso machine and some hazelnut syrup.

So I’m surrounded by all these laughing, shouting people, opening gifts and having cake and soda and stuff, and I open this bottle of hazlenut syrup and they’re all cheering, so what do I do?

I take the top off and take a hit.

The crowd goes wild, and starts chanting ‘HARD-CORE! HARD-CORE!”

Don’t ever try this at home folks. It took a week to get the sugar out of the cracks between my teeth. That stuff is sweet.

Since then, I don’t go for hazelnut so much. I still have that same bottle, half full in my cubicle right now.

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Caitlin has some kind of an allergy, this morning after breakfast, she was covered in huge white welts, all on her hands, feet, legs and arms. Some benadryl helped but her hands and feet were still puffy. The doctor says that she might be developing a nut allergy, and I don’t like the sound of that. I’d hate to have to carry an epipen everywhere I go with her, in case she comes into contact with a peanut. The thought of not being able to help her is so frustrating. I feel powerless.

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This is the muse I thought of last week and almost lost due to the brain suckage at work. I seriously think I’d be better off if I moved into the stairwell with just my laptop and a recliner. Anyways, I’m having a discussion with someone last week and something occurs to me. There are lots of people, more and more every year that are going into science related fields. Things like Comp Sci, EE, ME and even things like chem., bio and medicine. That’s fine, don’t get me wrong, but the thing that worries me is an almost complete disregard for what might be referred to as ‘classical studies’ – How many people do you know that majored in History? Anthropology? Archeology? Right. And how many of them serve you fries on your way home? I wonder if our society is becoming so technically slanted that classical studies are in jeopardy of being lost. I know, there are a few stalwart holdouts that still believe that 17th century poets are worth of study, but by and large, I worry that in 50 years, we’re not going to have people digging in Egypt, piecing together lost civilizations in the Amazon, or poring over ancient latin texts by candlelight at Miskatonic U. Do you think that’s a valid concern? I mean, I don’t specifically have a use for someone to translate ancient greek and Aramaic texts to me, but I feel content somehow knowing that there are people out there who can. The next time I’m confronted with a star vampire, or a copy of De Vermis Mysteriis, I might need that person, unlikely as such an occurance would be. And if that person doesn’t exist… then what?

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I swear, the train is like my muse. If I ever get around to having time to write on a regular basis, I’m going to move to Toronto and just ride the subway all day. Stop at union station and get a bite to eat at lunch, then go down south, take the bloor/spadina transfer to the e/w train and ride it all the way to eglington station and back, every day, I’d love to ride the underground in London too, especially after reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman There’s so many interesting names.. Earl’s Court, Blackfriars Bridge, Angel Station. Anyways, back to my inspirational thoughts. I have these two books, both by an author named Roger Von Oech, and they’re great, they’re about getting out of your rut (mentally speaking) and thinking creatively. And in it, he talks about one of his clients who, upon entering the shower every morning, had a 20 minute mental dump of ideas. It was the time of day when he was most creative and generated his new ideas. So he purchased a piece of Lucite and mounted it in his shower, and got a grease pencil so that he could note down all of his great ideas. Now, all the great Ideas I have come either when I’m a) asleep, or b) drunk. I remember the time I thought of sending out for teryaki wings on new years. Man, that was a great idea. But my brain seems constantly stuck in idle, especially once I get to my entropy pod at work, except when I’m on the train. Then I get to wondering and thinking and looking. Sometimes I do the crossword or one of those mental puzzles in the paper, that’s cool, expand my mind a bit. Sometimes I just stop and stare. But always I’m alert, feeing good and mentally there. I had a thought that I wanted to blog about last week and I filed it away to do so, but of course, I got to work and IT got to me. If only I could exploit a handy tesseract and find something interesting to do with my day. I’m available to save the world if anyone needs a hero, Monday-Friday, 7:30-4pm, Saturdays by appointment. Enough rambling.

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