Last weekend was pretty cool. We went to Cypress Gardens with my parents. I actually had to pay half but at least that was 18 bucks less. The place was actually better than I expected. It had a tree that the park was built around, called a Banyan tree, which was HUGE. These Banyan trees have branches which grow out and then grow into the ground, which serves to support the tree, and it beacause of this it can pretty much grow infinitely wide. There were also billions of lizards. Best of all, the weather was about as good as you could ever hope, partly cloudy and aupper 70's all day. It was definitely not something the 20's and early 30's crowd does, though. I think me and Steve were the only umarried people there from our age group. It was mostly retirees and kids. Still, it had some interesting parts, and at least I got to see something new and different instead of the same-old Orlando tourist stuff I've done over and over.

While I was there my brother Steve unwittingly let my mom know that I was an ex-smoker. I'd told him mom didn't know many times over, but he just let it out when he was talking about how he'd quit the same time I did. She was kind of stunned, and I know I'll never hear the end of it from her now, but I guess it was kind of inevitable. It's odd that she found out 7 months after I quit, and not at all during the 8 off and on years I was smoking.....

Now I'm looking forward to this weekend and our trip to spring training. We're going to Winter Haven, Orlando, Titusville, and Clearwater. The only bad thing is that this year's trip is going to be in the shadow of the war with Iraq.

I don't yet know what to make of the war. Like most Americans, I see the war as something I can't stop, and as such I figure I might was well stand behind it. It's going to be a while until we know if it's the right thing to do. It's the ultimate test of Bush's presidency. I can say this about it--he and his top officials do appear to have done their public relations VERY badly. Bush is not a convincing speaker, and I think that the way this all has been handled makes out country look like one big bully that'll do what it wants, because it has the military power to. Tony Blair from England seems a much more natural and convincing speaker. I have little doubt that there'll be more terrorist attacks as a result of the war. Only time will tell how the rest of the world, countries like France, Russia, and China respond, let alone how it will affect the already-insane arab world.

Sorry I haven't written in a while. It's been pretty busy at work recently, with daily outtages in Virginia, where most of the people we support work. AOL's network is about a piece of crap, and the company is one convoluted bunch of slackers. I predict it will be gone in 5 years. I hope I'm not around to watch the complete deterioration of it.

There still has been no movement on the job front. All I'm hoping now is to have a new job by year's end. Most articles on the recent job market talk about how hard is to find any job, and particularly a tech job. I'll just keep looking.

Speaking of jobs, his week I had vivid dreams that I was back teaching AGAIN. These are like my version of a nightmare dream. You'd think I've have more violent nightmares....but I suppose that up to now the most unpleasant experience I've had was teaching.

Another dream I had this week was that I was smoking. It's been since August and I'm still having these dreams. These aren't as bad as the still-teaching dreams though.

Tonight I am going to Orlando to stay with my brother Steve and hang with the parents one last time before they go back north. We wanted to go to MGM but my parents say they're too old for MGM and want to go to Cypress Gardens. I doubt I'll be very interested in it, but Steve has some free passes. It'll be nice to see them again, anyway. And Steve also has dinner passes to a nice steakhouse called Charlie's. All we have to do is pay the tip.

Then next weekend we go on our baseball trip. The only bad thing about that is that I'll probably get stuck having to drive my roommate and his younger brother. His brother isn't as bad as he is, but you can see that he for whatever reason looks up to him. i respect his brother more--he's in the Navy, and not a bum living at home as my roommate did until a year ago (when he was 26). I still don't have many good things to say about my roommate, but I think I can make it the one year our lease is for.

I hope it doesn't rain all night on the trip down to Orlando as the forecast predicts.....