"Waitress, I need two more boat drinks, Then I'm headin south 'fore my dream shrinks. I gotta go where it's warm."

I saw an eight foot snowman in some ones yard today. That’s impressive. I’m sure that took a lot of work to make. The most troubling part is there’s enough snow to make an eight foot snow man. And it’s still falling. And there’s more coming this way. I shouldn’t complain too much, I could live in the Baltimore area where they have something like 8 feet of snow. At least my little Scion will climb a 8 inch snow berm. I know this because that’s the approximate height the plow piled it up when they scraped my street. One of the disadvantages to living on a snow emergency route. At least my road gets scraped.

I keep thinking ahead to lying on a sandy beach looking out onto the Gulf of Thailand. In about a month I'll be winging my way towards that goal. I'm very much looking forward to warmth and sun and sand and Thai food and a massage. And then there's the opportunity to visit Adam and his new found harem. I'm still working on how I'm getting there. I don't think I'm going to take the Sydney route and instead spend more time venturing around someplace I've never been before.

So I'm looking forward to that. otherwise, it's been cold and dreary about. I spent the last couple days off down south in the Atlanta area. It was good to see everyone, and I was quite saddened to leave. The mood didn't improved when I had to scrape a few inches of snow off my car.

On the flight back, there were a few military personnel who were coming home for their 2 weeks of RnR. The young lady behind me had just spent 4 days flying from Bagram Airbase in Kabul to Louisville via Al Udeid (Qatar), Kuwait, Shannon, and Atlanta. IN the conversation we had, I learned that she wanted to see "green". I felt kind of bad when we busted out pf the clouds and Kentucky was covered in snow, and probably will be for the duration of her visit. She was coming home to a house she had never seen before (her husband had been transferred from Ft Hood TX to Ft Knox while she was deployed). Hopefully over the next couple weeks she can road trip southward and find some greenery.

The other soldier on board took up the role of a babysitter. He didn't seem to mind though. There were a couple of mothers traveling solo with their children, both of which were "laps". The soldier had the fortune to be seated next to one and across the aisle from the other. He was actually playing with one of the little ones while the mom was situating the paraphernalia that comes with shuffling a small child through the skies. Luckily, the flight was pretty empty and mom and baby took up residence behind the GI in an empty row. But he still held and played with the baby for taxi-out, and most the flight.

The on arrival he was met by his own wife and child, who was about the same age as the kids on the plane. Very touching reunion. A small reminder of how good most of us have it, and how much some people are sacrificing to keep us that good.

So, now I feel like I shouldn't bitch about work, but I will anyway. It's been snowy here which totally confuses us. Still nothing new really on me not taking a pay cut. There's some options being presented that will help keep all of us employed (hopefully), but it's hard to feel like saving a company money that comes out and says "we have a surplus of cash on hand." But in other news, I'm still keeping my eyes open for self help options. I'm amazed at the encouragement from others to keep looking (and not just friends, but co-workers). I firmly don't believe you have to love your job, but you shouldn't loathe it.

I'm off to do some research on southeast Asia. Hope everyone is doing well and I encourage everyone to take a vacation soon. Just thinking about getting away will make you feel better. Later!