In the days when I had time on my hands, I posted a lot more in here and perhaps my thoughts were a little more, um, cogent? If that's the right word. But transition periods don't usually afford a lot of time. Learning a new job takes up that time, but I am starting to get to a point where I am settling in now, so you'll be hearing a lot more from me. I've filled time that I used to spend watching the news and getting upset over what I feel is actually a pro-Bush media, in that he's not getting hammered nearly enough over how dishonest his administration has been on so many fronts, with either being at work or being at home watching the Oakland A's try to hang onto first place in the AL west. My wife's not nearly as interested in baseball on TV as she is with football: that's one of the extra bonuses in our partnership...she loves football as much as I do and, in fact, nowadays gets a lot more pissed off when the Raiders lose than I do when the Packers do. But she does like to go to baseball games, like the one we're going to tonight. The A's play the Devil Rays, not exactly a game that generates as much excitement as the time we went to see them win their 20th in a row back in '02, but in recent weeks the A's have had tougher times playing the crap teams like KC than they have playing Texas and the like. So we're gonna go to show our support.

We are also inviting a good friend of ours, a guy friend in a couple that just broke up. Not another one of those! My wife and I have navigated through the tough waters of trying to remain friends with both people that were once in a couple that we would mutually spend a lot of time with, and our success rate in that has thus far been poor at best, but I'm thinking the lessons learned from past situations will help us this time around: Stay out of it, and don't pick sides. Try to be there as best you can.