OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

Well, it's almost 3 now. Be going home soon - yippee. You know, I sure like home better than I like work. Can't understand the workaholic type. Neither can I understand the type of man who never wants to retire. I can't wait. I have a post-it on my cube light that I change every friday, counting down the number of weeks until that day for me. Tomorrow it will go to 246. Can't wait. Course my wife doesn't know what she's going to do when I start being at home all the time. She told me years ago that I couldn't even be there on Tuesdays. :) Boyfriend comes in that day, don't you know. :)

Anyway Survivor tonight, we get down to the nitty-gritty of 4. Of course, I've known from the start who the net says is the final 2. And they're still in there, so we'll see. Rumor on the net now is that during the final tribal council and all the jury has their say that there are 5(!) Susan Hawk's types. Who in the world could they all hate so much?

The wife is going to try to get the son coming over tonight for dinner and survivor to go by wal-mart and pick up an exercise bike. He has a van, you see. We both can use it and if all goes well, it may be that we can reduce our diabetes medicine dosage levels. Maybe I can be in a little better shape by the time for my stress test in May. Then maybe it won't be as stressful :)

Well, have communicated with the boy's new significant other. e-mail, of course, in this modern day. My wife and I have just about reached what I call "last technology level". There seems to come in everyone's life when they say, no more changes, no more new gadgets. My wife's parents, for example, have a micro-wave that was given to them, but they seldom use it. They just recently got a touch-tone phone (again, because someone bought it for them, they were happy with rotary dial). They don't have cable and probably wouldn't know how to deal with those extra channels. Certainly they would never consider any need for a VCR or DVD player or cell phone. Well, we're not quite that bad, but I think we have, at least temporarily, drawn the line at cell phones. We just don't want to be in touch that much. On the other hand, things change and it well may be that in a few years there won't be any regular phone service.

Oh, back to the new "woman". Note that I put quotes around that. Why, you ask? Because I was looking for another way to describe her and I didn't want anyone to think that I was denigrating her in any way, so I wanted to indicate that I knew that it probably was bad form, but I chose to use it just because I couldn't come up with anything better. I'm sure that my son will be glad to clarify all this some time. Anyway, what can you tell from one e-mail other than the proverbial "she seemed nice". She seemed mature, intelligent, and perhaps, even, in love. And her typing seemed quite professional. :)

We'll know more about her when she has to come in contact with my wife's brother. I've actually had to throw him out of our house (verbally, of course, physical like that, I'm not). For some reason, saying that, I'm reminded of the scariest thing I ever did - I talked a biker out of attacking and raping my second wife. Of course, she was just my first wife's best friend's husband's sister then. Still, he WAS a biker and he WAS big and he was very, very drunk.

Anyway, so the boy has agreed to pick up the exercise bike, dinner is going to be meat loaf, and I can't wait to get out of here. Unfortunately, I have to. SYOTFS