I am so loving the little pink i-pod. I have new regard for the a-holes I see everywhere with headphones on. I am now one of them, and I couldn't be happier.

Today I was listening to the greatest song in the world, ever. Period. End of discussion.
Layla. The original recording, by Derek and the Dominos. Eric Clapton and Duane Alman exchanging licks. Both at the height of their youth, not that Duane ever got past it. First one, then the other, delivers up these wailing guitar solos of the pain that comes with love. With headphones on, and cranked up so loud that the entire train could hear the music leaking out of my head, it was a wonderful way to start the morning.

It put a rhythm to my step. It put a smile on my face. I didn't care that the PHB accosted me before the last notes died to ask a typically stupid question.

I was one with the greatest song ever. Until tomorrow, when it may be a bootleg cut of Bruce Springsteen from 1978, doing the extended version of Rosalita.

I'll see your emergency project and raise you a crisis.

Please drop the extremely urgent project you are working like a dog on, to do a quick graphic link for another urgent project that someone else has been assigned to complete, at the expense of their previously most urgent and emergent crisis project.
Because I'm the boss, and I committed all of you to do it, that's why.

We are all rats on a sinking ship, and my boss's new management mantra is the same as my old boss's:

It doesn't have to be done right, it only has to be done.

My mantra is: This isn't my ship. I don't care if it hits the reef, as long as I survive the shipwreck.

That pretty much sums it all up. I'm back, and my PHB did, in fact, manage to screw things up during my absence. Shocking. Just shocking.
The hospital continued to lose money. The Herald continued to report it. The PR department continued to not communicate about change to the employees. The hospital's president sent out a memo to upper management complaining about the Herald's reporting of our dirty laundry.

Yep. It's a bitch being a government entity having to do your business in the sunshine. It justs sucks, don't it?

The only thing that amazes me about all of this is that no disgruntled employees have forwarded that memo to the Herald. Or maybe they did, and the Herald chose not to run it. But that is so far removed from the realm of possibility that I must discount the premise.

Ah, well, it's been fun, but I must go off and update the most important page on the entire hospital site: our cafeteria menus.

Sad, isn't it? My life: creating electronic ephemera.

As if I needed any proof to points 1,2 and 3 below, I came home from my little vacation to discover that my e-mail had been rendered null and void by the simple expedient of my brother (who has his undergraduate degree in computer science, by the way) sending me a 3mg file of photos...
My in-box being filled by that largesse, there was no room for any other communication. A fact I discovered upon my return, because, as I told everyone, I would not could not pick up my mail while I was on the other coast.

Thanks a lot. I was only expecting communications from a commission, an update from Blog Moxie on the new, secret redesign, my usual riff raff of friends, meeting agenda and papers for Tuesday's board meeting, and like that.

All bounced. All lost. All requiring re-registration to mail lists, no doubt.

The irony is that the same thing happened to me last year, when my friend known as the King Geek (because that is his actual job in life) sent me a 5mg photo of his son. Like I don't see the kid on a regular basis.

And both he and my brother did this on the first day of my vacation.

In any event, I am rested, tanned, well fed and even got in a baseball game. Florida Marlins lost to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. But it was another ball park in my life list, and a nice, albeit domed one, at that.

Since I live here on the East Coast of Florida, when I head due west, it only takes me a couple of hours to reach the other side. And friends, the other side is where I am going today.

I'm pretty sure that there's no DSL in the little beach hut I'll be inhabiting for the next week, so you'll have to entertain yourselves while I'm gone.

Here's a handy little guide to seeing the world through my eyes:
1. the world is made up of idiots
2. they are all on this earth to torment me, personally
3. stupidity is a gift others like to share
4. oooooh, stop and smell the roses, pet the doggies, pull off the road to stare at a double rainbow
5. my job sucks and the people I work with suck worse (not my immediate team, maybe ... except my boss)
6. go to the gym and work off the excess anxiety and stress
7. drink
8. appreciate the friends and family I love and who love me, especially the RLA
9. create art
10. watch Deadwood, the Sopranos, 6 Feet Under, CNN, America's Next Top Model, Dead Like Me
11. complain with scathing wit, sarcasm, a fine vocabulary, and liberal use of the word fuck

That's pretty much it. You can randomly rearrange the elements. And you'll have to get your own to fill in the blanks on number eight. Most of my tv addictions are in reruns.

I'm off to the other coast, taking with me mangos, beach reading, an assortment of sun screens, and my brand new, pink mini i-pod.

Have fun while I'm gone.

The mangos this year are fragrant and heavy and plentiful. It starts with one. Then you have three or four on your kitchen counter, and then, within a week, you are sneaking out in the dead of night to leave them on your neighbor's front steps. I have four trees, and they are of three varieties. The Smithfels are an Asian varietal, huge and paisley-shaped. Their flesh is so soft, you can eat them with a spoon. They are slightly redolent of pineapple, and the color of their pulp is paler than the deep orange of the Haydens. They are sort of rare, I'm told. I just know that they are delicious.
In this sub-tropical town, at this time of year, there is no better way to spread joy to strangers than to hand out mangos. Today I had a bag full of Haydens and Smithfields from my yard, and I was a veritable Johnny Mangoseed as I handed them out to random folks I passed on my way to work.

Three burly Hispanic Wackenhut guards at the train station. The old-school Black gentleman who wears a red silk rose in his uniform pocket every day and drives the Metrorail.

I debated about going up to the woman engaged in a loud diatribe at the other end of the train, but I couldn't determine if she was engaged in a dialogue or a monologue and decided that discretion would be the better part of Valerie, and so did not share with her.

The old blind beggar was not at his usual station, but he has received my fruity largesse on other occasions.

I still have three, but the day isn't over yet.