Monday, December 29, 2003

I'm back in Grand Rapids. I had an awesome Christmas break with family and friends. BC was beautiful, I loved the different climates. The lower mainland was very mild, but then you drive a little and you hit winter and a foot of snow. It was great. So I got a green and a white Christmas...the best of both worlds. I have tons of pictures to share, 200+ not to mention the pictures that my mom is going to send me. We both had our digital cameras along and were having fun playing around with them. So stay tuned for pictures, I'll post a handful. If you want the full treatment, I have them on my laptop :) Got to see a bunch of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, some of my friends, and had some good times with my immediate family. But now I'm back and need to get back into day to day life again, bleh. Hope everyone had a great Christmas :)

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

This morning when I woke up I looked out the window and saw that the world had been blanketed in snow while we were sleeping. So beautiful. The cars looked all snug and warm in their blankets. And you can't beat the drive to work, the trees looked so pretty. It's beginning to feel like Christmas, three more days till I head for home!

Thursday, December 11, 2003

It is far too quiet here this afternoon. Everyone else has gone home for the day and I'm left here all on my own....Yikes, I don't like being here on my own...this creepy looking guy was just at the window so I locked the door. He's gone now, and I hope he doesn't come back. We're in the basement, so it's easy to see in our windows. Anyhow, that's not what I going to write about...hmm...I was thinking about the snow that is currently falling outside and I was thinking about Christmas, which will be here before we know it.

Ah yes, last night was our last GEMs night until after Christmas. We took the girls to Metropolitan hospital to go caroling. We asked the girls to bring some of their beanie babies and stuffed animals with them to give to patients, so as we caroled up and down the halls, the girls took turns giving the toys to people. It was a lot of fun, and I think the girls enjoyed it. I was amazed at how well-behaved they can be. But once we got back to the church they were back to racing around again. We had hot chocolate and I gave my girls cards and candycane reindeer. For those of you who aren't familiar with them, a candycane reindeer is a candycane with a brown pipecleaner for antlers and googly-eyes and a red nose. I also got to meet one of my girls' mothers, which is always nice.

Going back in time, Tuesday I did most of my Christmas shopping. Guam I think I did what you would classify as power shopping. Just some loose ends to tie up and my shopping will be done.

Further back, Sunday I decided to make the house more Christmas-y so I put up some lights and decorated my little pine tree. A rather small Christmas tree, but I think its kinda cute. Saturday I went to a Christmas party with Pat (for his work). And that brings us back to Friday which was Sinterklaas.

Thinking about Sinterklaas makes me hope that the Koogers have some fun Sinterklaas-like celebration in mind for when we're in Vancouver...that would be fun :) I can't wait till December 20th...only eight more days!

Friday, December 05, 2003

Happy Sinterklaas everyone!

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

*sigh* I wish I had my headphones with me... I bought the Return of the King soundtrack last night and was listening to it in my car. I popped it in as soon as I got out of Best Buy. Now I'm itching to drive home so I can listen to the rest of it...if only I had remembered to bring my headphones along today...

Monday, December 01, 2003

Wow, December 1st already...only 25 days till Christmas...how did that sneak up so fast?
I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving weekend. I for one really needed that four day break. Too bad it couldn't have been a little longer :) Good company, good food, fun times. But DC is right, the house will seem very quiet. I like having lots of people around. And I like playing the part of the hostess, feeding people, arranging beds, etc, etc. It felt as though no one had left, like we all lived in Grand Rapids again. Its sad that everyone lives so far apart...

By the way, the reviews are in, and Thanksgiving dinner was a success. Though we were a little behind schedule...but good things come to those who wait, right?

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Good morning everyone. One more day of work and then its Thanksgiving weekend, yey :) This year my roomie and I are being ambitious and cooking dinner for friends. Last night I tackled the pies. I've never made a pie before so I wasn't exactly sure what to do. But I followed the directions in the cookbook for apple pie and it seemed to work out ok. I was surprised at how little actually goes into a pie crust, only flour, salt, shortening and water. That's it.
So I mixed and rolled my crust according to the recipes suggestions. Now I just hope for the best. I'm hoping my crust will be flaky and not hard or dry, or soggy. We'll see when I bake it I guess :)

The pumpkin pie was easy. I bought the crust and all you have to do is mix everything together, dump it in and bake it. Couldn't be much easier than that. Baking is fun, tonight I'll mix up the dough for the rolls and set it to rising.

Monday, November 24, 2003

It's snowing! That makes me happy :) Keep it coming! It looks so pretty, so much better than dreary brown.

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Yesterday was Wednesday so I had GEMs. Brought the girls' mirrors back (I brought them home to dry and to put hangers on the back), we had praise and worship to start, then we had a craft. Denise had a craft planned for us. We made thank you gifts for the teachers and leaders in the church. The girls got to make two, one for someone in the church and one to take home to give to someone. A lot of the girls had a hard time with this. Some wanted to take both home, others wanted to give them to each other... It was kind of tough telling the girls that they couldn't, but I think it's an important lesson that they need to learn. It's also hard to get them to think of people outside of their immediate family. So an interesting night.

Afterwards we had a counsellor meeting at one woman's house. That was a little strange. All the other counsellors are married with kids. I felt really young and free. They were talking about how difficult it is to get out... how more than twice in one week is plenty... And I'm thinking, only twice? Its kinda nice being able to go out whenever you want. I think I'll enjoy others peoples kids for awhile :)

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

*looks around groggily*

Bleh, I hate headaches. Especially when they wake me up. This morning I was awake at 5:30 because of my stupid head. So I stumbled around in the dark, found some water and drugs, swallowed and fell back into bed. But on the flip side, I slept much better from 5:30 to 8:30...a little too much better.

I had a dream that DC and I went to my place again. We were at church and there was this rock band playing on the balcony. All my friends were there too, and some were in the band. I remember them being good, but can't remember what they sounded like. Strange dreams.

Monday, November 17, 2003

Monday...*sigh* I had a good weekend though. Friday night Cathy and I went to Pete Brown's Office (we're becoming regulars there :) to see one of Cathy's friends play. That was a lot of fun, I met all kinds of cool people. But I didn't get home till after two, which was kinda bad cuz Saturday DC, Michelle, Stacy and I went shopping. We hit three different malls and were out for 12+ hours. Man were my feet tired :) But I got some new clothes which I really needed, so that's good.

Sunday morning I slept in...oops :) Cleaned up a bit in the afternoon then went to the Vesper service. Went out to dinner afterwards with my roomie then came home to watch CI, of course. Worked on my cats x-stitch which is going to take me forever...but it'll be worth it, I really like the pattern. Anywho, back to work now...

Thursday, November 13, 2003

It's snowing! Well, not anymore, but it was when I drove in to work this morning. I can't wait for the snow to come :) It makes everything look so pretty. Much better than dreary brown.

Last night at GEMs was fun. I started off with the girls in two lines, facing each other. One side were mirrors and they had to mimic everything the other side was doing. Then we switched it around. The lesson was about being created in God's image and how we reflect God like mirrors. After our little game, I passed around the magazines with our lesson in it. The girls were not sitting in their chairs, so I said that whoever is sitting by the time I count to 10 gets a candy. That worked very well :) I'll have to remember that one. Our lesson continued the story about Josie that we've been reading all year. After some questions we got to the fun part. I bought some foam and mirrors and foam cutouts. I made frames for the mirrors out of black foam and had the girls decorate the frames with foam shapes. Heart, circles, squares, triangles, butterflies, dragonflies, ... The girls loved doing that, and it kept them quiet. We finished up our evening singing with the rest of the GEMs girls.

Friday, November 07, 2003

*breaths a big sigh of relief*

Its the weekend! Yey! That makes me so happy :) Talk about a roller coaster day. I worked on a total of four projects today. Not each one at a time, but on a rotating schedule. I worked on each one for about 10 minutes to half an hour, then switch! We've been getting things in three of our projects all synched up and my bosses were testing so we could push up a release tonight. So, boss 1 discovers an issue in project A, update, push up. Boss 2 discovers an error in project B, fix, push up. Boss 2 has a question about project C, take a moment to answer. Have a meeting for project D, drive over to client, come back, boss 1 is waiting with another issue, boss 2 has a couple more questions. Boss 1 finds some strange data in our database... And so on and so on, all day long.

*phew* This nutty (though strangely satisfying) day is over and I can go home and not think about work till Monday. Life is good.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

GEMS

Last night was fun. I was missing two of my girls, but I think that last night was the rowdiest. One girl in particular...she was actually vibrating she had so much energy. She couldn't sit still for more than 2 minutes at a time. Tiring just to watch her.

But despite that, the girls had fun. We started out with a charades type game to illustrate the power of words. They really liked that. After the game I pulled out my candy jar. You should have seen their eyes :) When I said that they had to sit down before getting any candy, they quickly found their seats. Candy works well on these girls. As they were munching away, we managed to get through two lessons, which surprised me, cuz they were so loud. But they did come up with good answers so they were listening too. I think the girls are warming up to me now, they were sharing all kinds of stories with me about their friends and school. I'm getting to know them better too.

I'm looking forward to next week, cuz I have a craft planned that ties into the lesson quite nicely. I used to love doing crafts when I was a Calvinette, and I know the girls will love it too. Next week's lesson also suggests a great game that the girls will love. Planning lessons for my girls is a lot of fun cuz at this age they are so receptive.

Saturday, November 01, 2003

Tonight I picked up two new CDs, The Essential Simon and Garfunkel and Natalie MacMaster - Blueprint. Mmm, good stuff. Now I need to take a roadtrip. Nothing like the listening to some good tunes and driving the open road.

Thursday, October 30, 2003

One more day till the weekend, *sigh* Oh well, tomorrow's Friday, yey! For those of you who haven't discovered it yet, DC and I started a Coffee Break site, which we can all use to exercise our creative skills. If you want to join let us know and we can make you a member. Then you can add to our ongoing story. Or, just visit on occasion and read our story in progress. You'll have to read from the bottom up though, there is no way to reverse the ordering of the posts. Sorry, we tried.

Also, no GEMs update this week, we didn't have a meeting last night.

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Last night, or rather this morning, I had a very strange dream. Not strange in and of itself, strange in the realness of it. At the beginning I was out shopping somewhere. I returned to the parking lot and got into a vehicle, I believe it was a minivan. At this time I was all by myself. Then my dream sort of morphed into a roadtrip with girls from my dorm my freshman year. I'm not sure where we were going, but as we were driving, the vehicle changed into a full size van. A little bit later, a bunch of kids appeared and my parents too. Then my three kids showed up. Yes, that's right, my three kids. I don't know where that came from. In my dream I don't recall there being a father for them around anywhere. It was just me and the kids. I had a three year old girl and one year old twins, a boy and a girl. The twins were quite remarkable, they were walking and talking in full sentences. Kind of eerie now that I think about it. I remember we all had to sit around a table, I think for dinner but first I had to change the little boy's diaper.

Ever have dreams that felt so real it was almost scary? This was one of those dreams. Not sure where my subconscious was going with this one, but I'm not entirely sure I like it either. I mean why three? And where was their father? My brain comes up with strange things sometimes (and I know that leaves me wide open, go ahead).

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

I wish IIS would just play nice instead of hogging all the toys. No wonder I couldn't get Apache to install with IIS, IIS grabs all the open ports when it starts up, leaving none for Apache. So dumb. So greedy. Of course this fact is very well hidden and must be turned off in a very convoluted way. Ah well, at least they both run together now...finally.
On the way to work this morning I was listening to my Great Big Sea CD. Some great tunes, which I know DC doesn't like :) But I thought that Ordinary Day was especially appropriate for a discussion yesterday about life and what to do in life, etc. In particular the chorus.

I've got a smile on my face, I've got four walls around me
The sun in the sky, the water surrounds me
I'll win now but sometimes I'll lose
I've been battered, but I'll never bruise... it's not so bad

Chorus
And I say way-hey-hey, it's just an ordinary day
and it's all your state of mind
At the end of the day,
you've still got to say... it's all right.

See that girl on the street, what keeps her from dying
Let them say what they want, she won't stop trying
She might stumble, if they push her 'round
She might fall, but she'll never lie down...

Chorus

It's a beautiful day, but there's always some sorrow
It's a double edged knife, but there's always tomorrow
It's up to you now if you sink or swim,
Keep the faith and you're ship will come in.

Monday, October 27, 2003

Monday morning again. Weekends go by way too fast, especially good ones. Friday my roomie and I had a dinner and games gathering. We made Chinese dishes from my new cookbook. That was fun, and the recipes all turned out pretty good. We played Cranium and Trivial Pursuit, though I think we should have done it the other way around, I was way out of it for trivial pursuit. Way too much to drink ;) so by the time we got to trivial pursuit I wasn't really with it anymore. Now that is a strange feeling. I don't think I've ever had that much to drink in one evening.

Saturday afternoon, after returing home from work (bleh) I called the salon, and set an appointment to get my hair cut. I was pleasantly surprised that they still had a spot open. Amanda cut my hair. I really liked her. I told her what I wanted and she knew exactly what I meant. Nothing drastic, not losing much length, but more body and volume. I got exactly what I wanted and I love it :)

That evening I went to Pete Brown's to listen to Fonnhmor, an Irish band. I liked the music, reminds me of some of the east coast bands from back home. I really enjoyed the male vocals, wish they did more. Bars are interesting places. When we first got there, there was this older guy (like 50s) sitting at the table next to us, Ken was his name. He had a great 'pick-up' line. He pulls out a card about the size of a wallet-sized picture. Then he leans over and says that he wants to show us his pride and joy. He shows us the card and it has a picture of a bottle of pride furniture polish and joy dishwashing soap. Ken proceeds to give us his card (for jewerly and watch repairs) and invites us to go to another bar where he plans to sing (karoke) and buy us a drink, if we come.

The music was great, very fun. Though I was hoping for more of the upbeat lively stuff. Makes me want to go to the UK and visit some pubs. Another interesting guy at the bar was 'Sound Guy'. The sound booth was right next to us, on the shuffle board, and since it was so crowded, the waitress would hand someone at our table the beer and have us hand it to the sound guy. We got to chatting with him a bit, and asked if he was 'Sound Guy'. He said, "something like that". And so he was dubbed Sound Guy. Finally at the end of the night we asked if had another name that he would prefer to be called, besides Sound Guy, Marty he said. Then, Vbijl was done saying his goodbyes to the band, so we started to leave. As we were just about out the door, Marty comes after me and asks me for my name. I tell him and he proceeds to tell me that he couldn't keep his eyes off me all night, that I was riveting and he just wanted to tell me that. Now that was a surprise. He didn't ask for my number, but as a pickup line that was definately top shelf. I had noticed him looking at me from time to time, but never really thought twice about it. That was so strange, caught me completely by surprise. Good surprise though :) Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Sunday was the usual, church then dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. Vegged out in the afternoon, watched Down with Love. A purposefully cheesy romantic comedy mimiced after the old 50s and 60s romantic comedies. It was fun, but I wouldn't want to watch it again. And definately a chick flic.

But now, it is Monday morning, so nose to the grindstone it is...

Friday, October 24, 2003

YES! YES! YES! I'm happy now :) It took me all morning, but I finally got Apache installed and configured to redirect to Tomcat. *breaths a happy sigh of relief*

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Grocery shopping is kind of fun. Last night my roomie and I visited two asian stores and good old meijer. I should go to the asian stores more often. You can get all kinds of strange and wondrous things there. Grocery shopping got me to thinking. As I spend more and more time here, in a larger city, I wonder how it would be if I were to move back into the country. At home I could never find some of the things that we bought last night without going all the way to Toronto. I would also miss the bookstores and malls here. For any decent shopping at home you have to drive at least 45 minutes.

On the flipside, when I'm here I miss the quiet of the country, knowing who lives down your street. I miss being able to look up and see the stars, its way too bright at night here. I miss the space and the trees and the animals, at times I feel that there are far too many people and cars and buildings around.

When I go home to visit I thoroughly enjoy myself. But at the same time, I can't wait to get back. I feel torn between the two. I guess I just to find a place that has the best of both worlds. Or perhaps I'm just experiencing the grass is always greener syndrome.

Sunday, October 19, 2003

I uploaded some pictures from my trip home to my other website for your viewing pleasure. I have more animal pictures, but I only posted the better shots. My favourite one is the picture of the baby tiger. He was only 9 weeks old...just a kitten. He was in a small cage under a tree, but he really wanted to come out and play. He kept climbing up the side of his cage and roaring his little roar. Too bad they grow to be big tigers, it would be fun to have a baby tiger :)

Thursday, October 16, 2003

Belated GEMs Update

Since we left right after GEMs last week for Ontario, I never did blog about it. So that night, lets see, the 8th, was craft night. So I had no need for any bribery cuz I didn't have a lesson to get them to pay attention to. The girls were making mosaics with cement and glass stones. Each girl had a pie plate of cement, into which she could put a design using the stones. The catch is, that each girl wants the stones that another girl has. Lots of trading, stealing, tricking, went on as each girl tried to get the stones she wanted. Cries of "so-and-so's not sharing" arose from various corners of the room. Kids. Reminds me of when my mother would buy us Smarties. She would count out the colours so that each kid had the same amount of each colour. That way we couldn't fight about it.

Eventually each girl was satisfied with her allotment of stones and they set to work on their designs. After the craft, the girls had a rowdy game of tag in the basement. When someone suggested Telephone, I jumped at the chance to get the girls settled down, and organized them to play Telephone. Which they did, quite happily until it was time to go home.
Last night I decided to go out and take a walk. Haven't done that in awhile, since I got my car I haven't needed to walk as much. But it was a beautiful evening and I decided that I should take advantage of the nice weather. Afterall, soon it will be snowing again. So I grabbed my keys, put on my running shoes and a sweatshirt and headed down the road. Down Knapp St, and up Ball St. Did you know that there is an elementary school and a small park on Ball St? I didn't. On the way I saw a girl walking her dog, an elderly couple walking and a person trying to calm down a screaming baby (on her porch). It's nice to just walk around and be alone with your thoughts. Just me and my thoughts, strolling down the street. I have decided to do that more often. I like to explore the neighborhood on foot, you see so much more that way. You see the smaller things that you wouldn't notice in a car.

Monday, October 13, 2003

I'm back to the land of the bloggers. A little tired from too much driving, but otherwise feeling good. Toronto traffic is always awful, not to mention that it was a long weekend. Bleech. Driving in downtown Toronto is interesting, a little scary and not something that I want to repeat soon. I greatly prefer the quiet country roads around my parents' place.

Having to go to work today is kind of a bummer. I want to go outside and enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful fall colours. I think fall is my favorite season...it's a toss-up though, I like spring too, with all the new leaves and flowers coming out. But you really can't beat the reds, oranges and yellows of the leaves in the fall. Makes me want to take up painting, or maybe photography. More about my weekend to come, but for now...back to work...

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Only one more day...woo hoo! Tomorrow at this time I will be done with work for four whole days. And after another rowdy evening with the GEMS girls, my roomie and I will hit the open road and head east. I can't wait. I love road trips. I know, a seven hour trip hardly classifies as a road trip, but that's what I'll call it anyways. I hope the weather is nice.

But now I must go home and eat something and pack some clothes, etc, etc. Till tomorrow...

Monday, October 06, 2003

:D Smile everyone, it's Monday! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, it's a beautiful day! Can you see my huge grin yet? Dunno why I'm so happy...slept well I guess, and the pressure is off (sort of) at work. Oh, and I have a short week this week, that could have some bearing on my mood. I'm taking Thursday and Friday off this week so my roomie and I can drive to Ontario to visit my folks, and take care of some business in TO. So, three days and I'm off on a four day weekend, woo hoo! So I'm happy, all is right with the world.

Yesterday was fun. Went to church in the morning, and was actually on time for a change. Went to lunch at the Olive Garden with DC and Guam. Took a nap (gotta love Sunday afternoon naps). Saw Luther with Guam and Vbijl. Good movie, I enjoyed it. The theatre was surprisingly packed...a couple of church groups I think. After the movie went with Vbijl to Kathy (sp?) Cathy and Pat's for dinner, then went to Billy's to hear the Red Elvises. I don't normally go out on Sunday nights, but this group was well worth it. Not sure how I would describe their music style, but it's fun. When you first see the group come out on stage, you know its gonna be a blast. One guy was wearing a gold suit, another a red sparkley suit with 3" platforms and a top hat, another a animal print suit that looked sorta like pjs. The instruments were great too, I loved the accordian, and one guy was playing a guitar that was a huge triangle. Their songs were all sorta wacky and joking around, and you could tell that they were enjoying themselves too. The music was right up my alley :) The only downside is that you come home smelling like stale smoke, but *shrugs* what can you do...you can't win em all.

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

Another Night of Rowdiness

Just got back from another interesting evening of GEMs. Tonight we had a regular lesson from the Shine magazine. The lesson this week included a story about Josie and Meagan. Josie wrote a really nasty note to Meagan and left it on her locker. The theme this year is about building others up, so tonight we talked about how the things we say can hurt and shatter a person's insides. The girls had lots of fun thinking of mean things that people can say. They were much less quick to come up with nice things to say.

They were just as rowdy as last week, though I have a better idea how to handle them now. They were really quiet while we were reading the story and they all wanted to be involved. They also liked the stickers that I brought so we can keep attendance. Each week that they come, they get to put up a sticker by their name.

Didn't try candy this week cuz they already had plenty of candy. Maybe next week. I think I will try playing a quiet game. The girls have to be quiet when I say and if anyone talks, they get points. The person with the least points wins. I will bring my box of prizes for the occasion, pencils, erasers, notepads and the like. Just the sort of thing that little girls love. I think that will work, though I think I know who will win :) There is one girl in the group who reminds me of myself when I was that age. Very quiet, but happy to just sit back and watch.

They really wanted to play telephone too. I wonder how old that game is...I can remember loving that game as a kid. That will be a good bribe too. If everyone is quiet and we can get through our lesson fast, we can play telephone.

They are rowdy, but one thing is certain, there is never a dull moment with this group :)
o/~ Today is Wednesday, today is Wednesday.
        Wednesday zooo~oooup, all you hungry children come and eat it up. o/~

Don't mind me, just felt like singing :)

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

*breaths a huge sigh of relief* Finally, the web app is out of my hands and I am back in my comfort zone. Now we just have to wait for our IP address to be set so we can redirect it to our app. In the meantime I'm back doing my usual development which is wonderful. Now I can finally address the issues that the clinics are having! Feels good. *sigh*

Now as the clock ticks forward I don't cringe at every second that goes by. Five o' clock here I come! Today I will actually make it home at a regular time and be able to just go home and not worry about this project. How wonderful.

Monday, September 29, 2003

*squeek, squeek* This mouse is tired, time to curl up in my pile of feathers and snooze away till the sun comes up once more.

Sunday, September 28, 2003

New Look and Feel

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon, kinda rainy out but that's okay. Here I sit at Urban Mill yet again, playing with the layout of my site. The red and yellow was getting too glaring and bright for me, so I went for more mellow blues.

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Rowdy Girls

Last night was the first meeting of GEMS where we actually had a lesson with our classes. That was interesting. I can see that I will have to put my foot down next week. Their previous counselor wasn't kidding when she told me I'd have to keep my thumb on them. That is an understatement. You would think that six 4th graders wouldn't be too much trouble. Man, they were so loud! Picture a room with six 9-year-olds sitting, or bouncing on their chairs, eating chocolate and talking/singing/laughing, throwing candy wrappers at each other, fighting over pencils, dancing around the room. That was pretty much how the lesson went :) But somehow we managed to get through our lesson. I can see that some bribes would be helpful (though NOT candy!), maybe stickers. At least now that I know my group, I can plan accordingly.

But don't get me wrong, these girls are a lot of fun. Never a dull moment as they say. And I certainly won't have any problems getting them involved in the evenings activities :) Next week should be fun, but I should plan for some active activities...and bring bribes.

Sunday, September 21, 2003

Working Late...

I honestly don't think my night can get any worse. *knocks on her desk* First of all, I've had a terrible weekend. Usually I don't stress about stuff, but this weekend I've come pretty close. For work, I've had to learn a whole new technology and pump out a complete web-application in the course of one week. One measly little week. That's not so bad - except for my very busy and mildly worried state of mind because I don't know what I'm doing - afterall, I enjoy the challenge. I'll be the first to admit it, I'm a geek, but I've enjoyed working with Java and Tomcat and struts, it works really well. The downside is that I've pulled 11 hour days for most of last week, and ended up working most of Saturday.

Now it's Sunday evening and where am I? At work of course! Trying to meet our nearly impossible deadline of tomorrow at 3:00pm. My boss just left, its dark outside, its quiet in here, I have a mountain of stuff to do... In other words, yeech! On top of all that, I'm beat from staying up too late coding, I have a headache and I just got blood on my white shirt from a scab I picked (I know, I know, that was dumb). I just wanna go home and sleep...but...back to my coding.