8:07a
Thursdays are ok. Especially when it's nice and cool and the sun is breaking through the clouds. It is made a little less happy/hopeful when you pull up to your office and it looks as if a cloud has descended and is just hanging out - seriously,visibility dropped to about 100ft. Jen and I thought that something was seriously wrong (the fog combined with the curious lack of traffic on the hwy)- like the Sham-Hex campus had burned down. However, when I checked the weather this morning, it said that there would be areas of dense fog, one just happens to be centered over work - it's a little bit of a downer.

9:43a
How come when the Democrats disagree with the Bush Administration, they are "squabbling" or "bickering", but when Republicans disagree with the Administration they are "blocking" "rebelling" or "standing in opposition"?

Note: This http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/13/princeton_researcher.htmlis why we should have paper ballots or machines that print out a receipt. If you can access, alter and replace the software in these things to change the outcome of an election UNUTTERABLY, in inside of "a few minute"...oh I don't know, something seems very wrong with that.

10:21a
Slow work day - the whole gang is here, though Rhonda and Joyce are both hyped up on Vicodin. At least I am a human answering machine no longer. Trouble though- today after lunch (I've been told), I will have the pleasure of finally getting trained on one of the three systems we use. It's expected to take 3 hours and I expect that it will be excruciating. Trouble is, I think that I pretty much already know what they are going to train me on from watching people work ALL LAST WEEK. Training has been terrible this year. Last year, it may have lasted two weeks, and I may have bitched about it every day, but at least I knew my shit. This year, all I need is for someone to show me how the systems work but also give me a refresher course on all the things we had to learn last year, in addition to anything that might have changed. This has not happened yet, and it annoys the fuck out of me.

10:39a
Luna bars look and taste like regular granola bar and pack a hefty helping of vitamins and nutrients. CLIF bars (same parent company) look and taste like a pile of dog poop and pack a hefty helping of vitamins and nutrients. Tell me again why when I had the option I picked eight Luna bars and two Clif bars? ...back to eating me pile of poo.

10:45a
Our dear President kindly shared his reading list for the summer:

Quick Red Fox
The Dreadful Lemon Sky
Challenger Park
After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro's Regime and Cuba's Next Leader
Flashman at the Charge
Finding Fish: A Memoir
Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different
The Bridge at Andau
Flash for Freedom Mayflower : A Story of Courage, Community, and War
Through a Glass, Darkly : A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery
Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer
Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
The Messenger
The Places in Between
Beach Road
Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power
Polio: An American Story
The Stranger
Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural
Promised Land, Crusader State Cinnamon Skin: Travis McGee Mysteries
Macbeth
Hamlet

Note that it includes Camus's novel "The Stranger" and two "Shakespeares." Does anyone actually believe this guy? Are we actually supposed to believe that a man that couldn't be bothered to read a Presidential Daily Briefing could actually work his way through 25 books in three months - in between all that brush clearing, bike riding, and varmint shooting. A president that can't get a sentence out without stuttering, stammering, getting confused or mangling the English horribly is reading Macbeth and Hamlet. Please.

Here's my reading list, and I'm a voracious reader with nothing to do during the summer, especially not, oh, running the country or anything (though I did work from 9a-5p, just about everyday)

1984
Brave New World
Fight Club
Watership Down
Freakonomics
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
How Soccer Explains the World
Sun Tzu's Art of War
The Zombie Survival Guide
Written on the Body
Bushwhacked

Ok, so to sum up, I, reading at 100 pages an hour, working full time was only able to complete 11 volumes that did not really include "deep" material. Our president, while running the country, managed to complete 25 very hard works. Something is not quiet right here.

Ok, so one book that was on my reading list that was not on dear Georgie's that maybe should have been: Sun Tzu's Art of War. Here's a good article, telling you why.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0913-24.htm

12:21p
Jen came to meet me for lunch! And did I mention that it is a perfect day outside? 74 degrees and sunny, with a gentle, yet refreshing breeze. Perfect. And Jen is a superhero for coming to have lunch with me, especially since she drops me off and picks me up everyday too, because the other car is currently kaput. Her grandfather thinks it's something with the heater core and when we added a gallon of water to the engine coolant tank, it immediately came out of the bottom of the car from somewhere. Not good at all.

12:28p
Funny how gas prices were really fucking high at the beginning of August ($2.93- in MO) and now they have steadily dropped falling almost a dollar to date. In Jackson, MO, you can get gas for $2.01. Expect gas prices to keep falling or stay low all the way until mid-term elections.

1:01p
3hr 29min remain. Eleven interactions.

3:02p
Well time was moving really fast there for awhile (working on a special project), but now it has slowed to a standstill again. 1hr 28min remain.

4:02p
My boss just had me train. I'm working off of knowledge that is one-year old. Real smart.