Chris Moss Online

In all this geocaching stuff, there is a cache about .3 miles from my house. The geocaching.com website lists the closest ones to your house, and puts a nice, big red check mark next to the ones you have found. Well, #2 on my list has not been checked, because I haven’t been able to find it. It wasn’t for a lack of looking. I’ve been by three times and searched and searched but couldn’t find it. The same guy who owns it has many in the area, and I’m learning his style. And, I’ve found several that have a difficulty rating higher than the one I can’t find.

It really drives me crazy because I drive past the spot where it is supposed to be EVERY day.

Well, someone else finally logged that they couldn’t find it either, so the guy who owns the cache went to check on it and confirmed that it is missing! Yay! I’m not glad that something happened to it, I’m just glad that I wasn’t crazy or insufficiently dilligent!

I just discovered a very significant flaw in this blog software, and I’m pretty pissed off about it. I just spent about 15 minutes tapping out a lengthy update of the past couple of days and my visit with Tim & Kate (and Isaac). Since it was pretty long and it is now 4:18 in the morning, for the first time ever I pressed “preview” instead of “submit”.

It only showed the first couple of paragraphs, so I hit “read more” and it gave me my true home page, without the new article. I hit “back” on my browser and it reloaded a blank entry form. I tried a few ways to get back to the correct screen but it seems pretty clear that post is gone.

I’ll try to re-do it tomorrow but it is not likely to contain the same detail. Suffice to say: pleasant trip, miss James.

‘Night

It’s been a pretty good week so far, except that I have a bit of a cold. Not surprising given that the temperatures here have been up and down quite a bit. 30 one day then 70 the next, then 40. It’s sunny and about 70 today but supposed to rain on the weekend and only be 49.

Fortunately, I won’t be here to experience that. I’m leaving tomorrow to go visit my friends Tim & Kate in St. Pete. Kate gave birth to their first baby, Isaac, 3 months ago. I have waited about as long as I can so that the parade of grandparents, etc could subside. One of my neighbors has been comissioned to create something special for young Isaac but I don’t think it will be ready for this trip. Will give me a reason to go back.

James is probably about ready to kill me. I have this trip to St. Pete, then about 2 weeks later I am going to DC for the asbestos conference, and yesterday I booked a trip to London – departing just 2 days after I get back from DC. Going for a “mileage run” so we can have enough miles for James and I to travel to Australia in Business Class. Paul and I spent hours looking at fares and various ways to maximize the miles for the fare, and then the direct flights came down to $330 all inclusive (what I refer to as “tax, title & license”)…so, we’re doing it. More about London later.

You may have noticed a couple of links over there on the right side of people who you may not know who they are. Well, I didn’t want to just recycle the same lists of all my friends! But more importantly, the Iron Knee blog belongs to my high school English teacher. I stumbled onto his site some months back, and he’s (naturally) a great writer but also very articulate about a lot of issues near and dear to my heart. Plus, he’s pretty damn funny. I finally sent him an e-mail recently and we have been trading marathon e-mail exchanges for the past several days, and it’s great. Please give his site a read – he is fairly prolific and his is a site to check every day.

I also added a link to “DetourLeft”, the personal site of Kathleen Anderson, who is dating my friend Todd Davis out of San Jose, CA. Todd sent me the link to her site some time back and Kathleen is quite the photographer. She also has some home grown music and poems that are most certainly worth a review. She and Todd travel quite a bit and there are great photos of some of the more exotic locales of the world.

Enjoy

Current mood: Sneezy.
Current music: “Leaving New York” by R.E.M.

The fact that this month seems to be flying past does not bother me in the least. January is the most heinous of all months! Even though it is Texas, it is still cold. I hate cold weather and Jan is our coldest month, as it is with most places in the northern hemisphere. Yesterday was spent primarily indoors. Although it was sunny, it was 43 degrees and the wind was blowing about 43 miles an hour. Despite a list of things to do a mile long, I let the day slip away while surfing in front of the computer.

Last night was dinner and “game night” at Bobby & Ian’s. It’s always a blast, and Ian is such a wonderful cook – he always prepares a great meal. The boys like to mix up the crowd when they can. Jai came along again, which is great because he is very competitive. But this time AJ & Danny came, too, which was a nice surprise as we don’t see much of them these days. For those that don’t know, Danny is only 20 and is undergoing chemotherapy for Leukemia. He has been in & out of the hospital but only has one more round of treatment to go. He really looks great now and I think he will be just fine now that he can see the light is at the end of the tunnel.

Today was sunny again but only about 35. Not so much wind. Drank coffee this morning which set me abuzz…got quite a few things accomplished electronically and then headed for the office. I started to look for a geocache along the way, but after I got there I realized it was a 3-stage and would take too long, so I went on in.

I had told James I wouldn’t be long, but after doing what I needed to do, I decided to rearrange the furniture in my office. My L-shaped desk is in a corner, with me facing the wall. I was tired of that and tired of people “sneaking up” on me. We have one colleague who will stand in my doorway silently until she thinks it is a good moment to interrupt me and she usually startles me! So now my desk is in the middle of my office facing the door with window behind me.

Fascinating, I know. Maybe I should post a picture of the view from my office window so everyone can appreciate what a cool view I have of the airport.

Tonight I made chili for dinner, it was very yummy. James got all the way through Halo 2 on X-Box and now is playing online via X-Box Live. He’s so cute in there playing it

Current mood: content
Current music: BANG BANG – ZAP ZAP “awww dammit!”

One of our friends had his wisdom teeth taken out yesterday. It reminded me that my dentist has recommended that I have this done. I suppose they recommend this to everyone, but no one has been able to satisfactorily justify to me why it should be done.

Originally, the cynical side of me assumed this was something dentists have been telling people to generate extra income. But my dentist doesn’t do this procedure but recommended a dentist. Maybe he gets a referral fee, I don’t know. I like and trust my dentist, but I’m still not convinced that paying money (surely it’s not 100% covered by my dental plan) and inflicting pain on myself is medically necessary until such time as I have a problem with my teeth (if ever), at which time they can come out.

Current mood: Curious
Current music: “Superstition” – Stevie Wonder

Yesterday afternoon, one of my clients called to invite me to come along to dinner tonight at Palomino, followed by a Dallas Mavericks (basketball) game. An underwriter and his broker were taking him out and it was nice of him to invite me along…it was fun. The game was fairly uneventful and then got quite exciting in the last few minutes of the 3rd period, and the Mavs ended up winning by 20 points.

Also yesterday, my boss decided I should attend an asbestos conference in DC next month. The host hotel is the Ritz-Carlton. We have a client that is also going and it was also decided that I should stay at the same hotel. Seems like a waste of money to me, but at least it is being wasted on me. We stay at La Quinta when we’re in Houston but when “people” are around, I guess we get to make up for it.

James & I are giving consideration to going to Australia this summer. He needs to go back there to get a new visa so he can change schools to a four-year university. It’s time to move onwards. Anyway, I’m trying to build enough miles so we can fly business class. 16 hrs in coach ain’t fun. I’ve decided to route myself to DC via Miami. Almost twice as many miles for the same fare

Current mood: Sleepy
Current music: “As Long As You Follow” Fleetwood Mac