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I'm a little tired this morning. I had planned on going to Vance's impromptu birthday party at Blanco's Bar and Grill after work with "da guys", but EL received a call with an attached dinner invitation from another couple, so we did that instead. It was great. We grilled fresh vegetable skewers, shucked corn, baked potatoes, and pork tenderloin and enjoyed various libations over cards and conversation. EL and I love playing cards. I suppose it was close to midnight when I finally went to bed. Long past are the days when I can stay up until two or three most weeknights and still get up and function the next day. I am still very much a night person, but not one that also can be happy-go-lucky at 7:00 the next morning. I have some martini-cigar-single-malt-live-blues plans this evening, so I took the bus as to be on foot when quittin' time came this afternoon. Big mistake. EL rang my cell just after the METRO left the station to tell me there was an accident being reported in the HOV. Now we wait. I think I could hop out and jog faster than traffic at this point. Welcome to everyday Houston, TX. The installation of Mandrake 10.0 over the Fedora partition I was testing out went like buttah. So far I really like it... just as nice as I remembered 9.2 being with some improvements like a 2.6 kernel (supports USB2.0) and more refined packages. It's even built with free86 4.3 with 3D hardware support. Linux has come a long way in a short period of time. I'm astounded at how dusty my relatively new laptop is as I watch the particles dance around in the light streaming from the window of the bus. Where are the handy little compressed air blowers when you need 'em? So I have some general landscape portfolio plans for this year based on the sequence of events laying out my vacation time. Between now and year end, if all goes well, I'll have had a week and a half in northern Minnesota to capture imagery of the north shore of Lake Superior and the boundary waters. I'll have had a few days of opportunity in Colorado to photograph some of the rugged landscape in the central region. I'll have had a full week in Switzerland, nestled in the Alps, with nothing to do but photograph the area outside of my one day assignment. Weather providing, I hope to have some splendid photos of poster quality for Christmas presents this year. Speaking of posters, I put up a few 16"x24" black and whites printed on Endura metallic in my office this week. I love the look of that paper... especially with black and whites. Well... I'm approaching my stop. I can almost smell the coffee from here.