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I must sincerely apologize for my falling off the face of the Earth... not that it really matters to anyone, but I've been... umm... busy. First off, work has sucked major ass recently. Calls after hours, night time, boss over reacting about shit he doesn't understand... you know... typical life of an IT type person. Although I have everything else under control and ends used to being loose of recent tied up, I'm now working against a ridiculous deadline to write some standards documents that are relatively meaningless in the current structure of responsibility at my (dis)organization. I have four (yes 4) business days to write about a month's worth of verbiage. It sucks. The CEO of my (dis)organization rolled in this morning and gave an impromptu speech on my floor. He comes across as a very intelligent man with a plan and I'm sure that I could deeply respect him as a leader if given time. Unfortunately, I don't plan on staying here for the long haul. The crazy weather in Houston caused all sorts of wind related chaos in my neighborhood. Pieces of trees litter the streets. Outside of all the hustle bustle recently, I am happy to announce that my replacement camera is in hand. Dream a little dream. I am both utterly and completely amazed at this fine piece of state of the art technology before me. It represents a mountain of challenges to climb as it is much more sophisticated than I ever expected, but between my love of nature photography and the commitments I've made to do holiday photos of friends' family young-uns, I'm sure I'll get plenty of practice over the next month or two. The goal is to be proficient in navigating this starship by spring when mother nature wakes up. I have a meeting with my boss and his boss in like 10 minutes... gotta run... more later...