Been working on getting my wife's business going. got her business cards. got her website up. put her first ebya listing (in over a year) up today. Revived her paypal account. it alot of work but i think she will be happier w/ this part time business idea than currently doing insurance quotes from hoem. the new idea is to sell custom made window treatments, www.firesideinteriors.com. She makes them at home and sells to neighbors and others via the web. it worked pretty well a year ago when she was doing it w/ her sister and now she would like to get back to it. I think she will be happy w/ it, if it takes off. We are hoping for an order to get her busy at the moment.

For me, I do all the IT and shipping stuff. Gives me something to do and a way to contribute since my position and income are the state are pretty fixed. There are a couple of private sector jobs in NYC at the moment but that is ahuge commitment in time (commuting and private sector hours). Had a frustrating work week. I'm ready to move on to new responsibilities but the opportunities are slim. My boss frustrates the hell out of me as he sets himself up for a position in another state agency.

bought a $10 cassette player yesterday. have been playing my old tapes. Been recording to MP3 too. Some of my tapes are custom mixes made by friends that i would like to get onto CD so i can listen to them and before the tapes fall apart. some thes tapes are 13 years old.

gotta go and take the kids out sledding. the snow is still on the ground from last week w/ a fresh inch from last night.

over a foot of snow today. i shoveled twice yesterday and will hafta shovel again today. Another 3-4 inches fell last nite since i shoveled at 8pm.

3 shoveling events seems like alot but i prefered to get 3 easy runs rather than 1 mega shoveling event w/ snow that might might be 1 1/2 feet deep! We live on a corner lot w/ several hundred feet of sidewalk.

This time i'm not clearing the driveway since we do not park there and primarily use the front door anyway. the driveway is behind the house and leads to the back door. Also in my favor is the fact that we have only 1 car, a minivan, a.k.a. The Party Van, that I need to clear and dig out. Since we don't park in the driveway, the downside is the van is in the street and needs be dug out there.

I got my CD burner working again by adjusting the IDE ribbon and setting the burner to "Slave". since last night, I've burned a few discs already including a backup CD of our family digital photos for the past 3 years and my PC's "My Documents" directory. At the moment I'm burning a VideoCD of our family photos that Nero says will make the photos viewble on a DVD player. We'll see. I'm a little skeptical cuz I've heard that there are numerous little details about disc formats and the like that make VCDs a little challenging to use.

The mailbug finally went out to Landel yesterday. The mailbug is the Christmas present we bought for my Dad this year. It's a little electronic device that looks like a keyboard w/ a small LCD monitor. The mailbug is an email machine that sends and recieves email over an analog phoneline. I figure Dad could use it since he lost his ability to speak back in 2000 after a stroke. He can read and write in small amounts and he can also understand conversation when you speak to him. Essentially, his mental faculties are fine except for the part that speaks and a little of the writing and reading portion.

I got a great price on the Landel Mailbug fromdistributor in Florida, via the web. Turns out, the price is so discounted cuz I hafta mail at my expense to Landel in Silicon Valley so they can "reprogram" it for me. They will then mail it back (charging $16 shipping costs to my newly created Landel account) and it should be ready to go w/ an email address. I'll then install it at Dad's and turn him loose. My sisters and I are all online and check our email regularly, me especially since i'm online always at work and at home. He can send a short email if he needs something. If it works out, I'll upgrade him to a WebTV unit so he can see photo attachments. Mailbug is only $15 a week or so while WebTV(MSNTV) is about double that. Knowing him, he'll probably start surfing the web as well. Actually, I have HIS old webTV unit from before he had his stroke (he wanted to throw it out at the time).

The VCD is a little over half done. I found the "This American Life" audio archives on the web. This radio show is one that I listen to occaisionally on the local NPR station, NJN at 88.1FM. They have all of the shows available for free in RealAudio format. One can also purchase the shows for a few bucks from auddible.com. Alot of NPR content is available at audible.com. This has got me thinking about accumulating digital content on my various systems at home and making it available wherever i want in the house. Another big, geeky project.

Well, winter has finally arrived here in Central Jersey. Its been frigid all week and walking to and from the train to get to work has been an experience. At the moment it is snowing steadily outside w/ a prediction for 10 - 12 inches. That's alot of snow for this part pf the world. Even if it only persists for a few days before melting off as the temps soar into the 40s early next week. Its in the teens right now.

this week i've simply been hoveling to and from the office. at night, I'm so glad to be home where it is warm, I simply stare at the TV, well past my bed time. At work my boss frustrated the hell out of me as I had to attend a meeting at his summons that was complete waste of time.

The kids continue tio wear me out. The wife too as she builds her world of happiness surrounded by her extended family and anything her heart desires. Meanwhile, I wallow in boredom, loneliness and bewildered poverty.

Fucked up my PC the other night. Windows stopped recognizing he CD butner so I tried to replace the IDE cable. Well now windows still doesn't recognize the burner and the CD ROM drive does not work either. Yikes! I have a handful of new IDE cables to try. The hidden blessing is that w/o the CDROM drive working, I haven't been able to play Civ3. Civ3 is known for eating huge amounts of my attention and time. I hide in my basement office at night and on the weekends and Civ away. Playing quietly and hoping that the wifey dowsn't nag about some chore. Pitiful.

These kind of self discussions lead me to thinking that I need to find a hobby and or some friends. I find it especially difficult to make friends these past several years. I'm used to hiding in my house alone and drinking till i pass out. though I no longer do that (Still DRY!), i find it hard to shake that hide at home behavior. My wife's friends are all pretty boring as i found out years ago. She spends time w/ her sisters and Mom mostly anyway. I'd like to meet a neighbor or guys that have an adventurous streak in them. Most of the guys around here are only into working on their homes and football. both of which I despise.

Looking forward to a 1 year anniversary for sobriety on Feb 23, 2005. check out some of my posts before Feb 23, 2004 to see my state while drowning at the bottom of a scotch bottle.

Oh man, I feel like I am slogging thru fog at the bottom of a well. Tired and the dreary, cold weather here in the northeast has just got me dragging and grumpy. I put on some weight over the holidays and just feel blah.
I'd pay alotta $$ for some sunlight. The days are short and its been cloudy and drizzly for two weeks straight. The weather is very portland, OR like.

I can tell that I'm getting depressed 'cause i do not look forward to anything anymore. Nothing seems fun or satisfying. yuk.

on the upside, work is turning around a little bit. making some progress w/ the upper management level at the office. they know my name now at least. i've had a realization at work over the past couple of weeks. simply, I am as good, if not better than all of the mucks that work there. That includes the upper management slugs. I have no reason to feel inferior to any of these people. I've also finally realized that there is no master plan or vision for our organization. See, I work in state government so we are not guided by profit motive. therefore, it is VERY important to have a vision of providing some good service to the citizens of the state. Otherwise, what the hell are we all doing there?

Each director is pursuing their own agenda whether that's empire building or gaining political clout or just coasting thru w/o working too hard. Nobody knows what is going on and nobody seems to care much. Its kinda shocking. For 4.5 years I've tried to figure out the processes, figure out the players and figure out the rules f my oorganization. I've finally got it figured out. Took me this long, I must be thick in the head.