Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts
(21-30 May 2004)

30 May 2004
-A new kid today, which was a pleasant surprise as it turned out.  Mostly he seems as cool as can be, & very grateful & appreciative of everything.  Which is awesome.  Other highlights from today included meeting a man older than myself in a park who grew up in a group home himself & advised our kids at the park to heed our advice.

29 May 2004
-I'm caught up with all my notes!!  You have no idea how much of a throwback to college the last few hours have been.
-Sometimes it takes so little to get me unfocused & even grumpy.  Maybe I'm catching attitude problems from the kids.

28 May 2004
-Got absolutely battered in kickball yesterday, losing 7-0 to a fellow-.500 team.  We have proven, above all else, that we are the most unpredictable team in the league.  No telling what the next few weeks will bring!
-Too.  Much.  Poker.
-Holy cow, Fish's friends in Wisconsin teamed up to buy him a Gamecube.  It's really all over now.

27 May 2004
-I've always been a little baffled by the idea of releasing pictures of those one is trying to track down or capture.  I guess it has been successful at times, most notably/recently with the capture of the DC snipers who were turned in by surprised relatives who recognized the photos.  But other than the relative/friend angle (keep in mind it has to be a relative/friend willing to turn the person in), it just seems to be a placard saying to the people pictured:  Change Your Appearance!  If you have a beard, shave it; if you don't, grow one; if you have hair, cut it; if you don't, wear a wig.  & with one's life on the line, plastic surgery or similar alterations would well be worth the investment as well.  Certainly the private use of pictures of moderate-to-low-level suspects is necessary in everyday law enforcement.  But publicly printing pics of the top public enemies?  Doesn't seem to make sense.  So let's look (you knew where this was going, right?) at the seven faces of alleged terror released by the US government yesterday.  Never mind that they emphasize that the purpose of a terror attack would be, in part, to influence the outcome of the upcoming election... so if you're not voting Republican, you're literally with the terrorists.  But let's look at the seven faces.  We've got 4 folks of standard-issue Middle Eastern descent, one of whom is a woman just to buck the trend.  Then we have two black men.  Finally, we have a long-haired white guy.  Forgive me for thinking of these seven pin-ups as a manual of profiling policy rather than any necessarily exceptional threats to national security.  Could they be seven actual people that the government is looking for?  Sure.  But were these seven hand-picked to tell law enforcement nationwide to crack down on all people who look Middle Eastern, black men, long-haired guys, & the occasional female minority?  You betchya.  I know that my conspiracy ratings are often high, but in a world where lots of folks are offering proof that Nick Berg was killed by masked Americans at Abu Ghraib, this type of thing just seems obvious.  As the phrase I coined long ago at CTY goes, paranoia is healthy in paranoid times.
-Sometimes, I am all about proving myself wrong.  This does not refer to the above post, but rather to my uncanny ability to turn around on certain probabilities I lay out for myself.  It's just amusing.

26 May 2004
-I have a lot to do in the next few days, but they're still going to be great.  The fog of May may just about be lifting.
-Things are just on cruise control.  Getting our team-of-the-month meal 3 months late is a little silly, but it was still fun.  Been playing a bit much poker, but overall things are just groovy.

25 May 2004
-I feel like my poker game is improving a great deal with online play, but could still stand to be more consistent.  Meanwhile, my poker face is improving a ton as a result of my job.  Playing in WSOP '05 (in one year almost exactly) is probably still too lofty a goal, though.
-Today I was in a great mood all day & even when there were some difficulties at work, I still was high-energy & ready to go.  That's a nice change from the past 3 weeks & a good sign overall.

24 May 2004
-It's great to see Fish happy... hasn't been happy like this in a while, at least that I've seen.  Fun fun fun.
-It's always a shame to see kids' behavior regress.  But even in the regression, there are often strong glimmers of the progress they've been making all along.  I felt like I did good work tonight, & amidst my slump & general tiredness, that's a welcome realization.  & by welcome, I mean all but necessary.

23 May 2004
-My Sundays have been put in perspective by Em's summer canvass schedule, which is utterly inhumane.  Nonetheless, the Sundays still wear me out.  That counts for something, right?

22 May 2004
-Andy, did you hear about this one?  If it were true, it would seem that Freez was right all along.  But this is, by all accounts, a hoax.  So it goes.
-Other coincidences seem to be in the offing as well!  My oh my!
-Got a rather varied crowd together for "Shrek 2" in the biggest theater of the Grand Lake Theater.  'Twas altogether amazing.  They actually have an organ player prior to the show.  Not only did we get to see the "Harry Potter 3" preview, but the movie itself was quite good.  Honestly, seeing almost anything is worth it just to go to that 600-seat tribute to what a theater can be.

21 May 2004
Happy Birthday to Lauren Cusick
-I have a lot to do today, mostly catching up on paperwork from work.  Recruitment for the agency is not enough...
-Apparently high school librarians in Napa, Chico, & even Colorado Springs think that the Book Quiz is a good way to get their students interested in reading.  Or at the very least they care to link it on their library pages.
-The Loosely Based page has been totally revamped to include samplings of online reviews the book has received, price comparisons from various sites, & a PDF of chapters 1-4 of the novel.  We'll see if this generates additional interest!

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