yearbook photos

I'm not sure which of Karen's friends found the site, but it's yearbook yourself.com ... and it was quite fun to fiddle around with and to make Karen look funny. Anyhow, I'm posting a bunch of photos so you can see what Karen and I would look like if we were dating in the '50s and '60s ...

anyhow, Karen pretty much nailed everything down as far as updating everybody on everything.

I am taking a class at the community college near my work. It's an Adobe Creative Suite Survey which includes the computer programs Adope Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator. I am self-taught in Photoshop and Indesign so a little formal training will be very good to have under my belt. The class seems a little elementary, but the teacher says she will get cranking here any minute and we can get into some deeper water. I'm such a cheapskate that I decided not to shell out the twenty bucks for a parking pass and instead threw my beach cruiser bicycle into the truck on the first day of class last week, drove to the Daily News and parked the truck and then rode my bike over to the college. It's only about a 10-minute ride but more exercise than driving. The class is going well, but I just shake my head as I make my way around the campus and look at some little snot-nosed kid and say to myself, "there's no way that punk kid is in college." I am getting older, but I'd just bet those kids are getting younger, too. They just have to be.

At work, we're getting ready to move into a brand new building the weekend of the 19th and we can't wait. Our current building is like a dungeon. There are no windows and lots of bad joo-joos from all the firings over the past few months. The staff can't get any thinner and the publisher assures us more cuts are not on the table, but morale isn't great so moving into the new building will be a boost, I'm sure. The higher-ups kept saying how wonderful the new building was and that it will be great for morale and I just wasn't buying it. As one of the higher-ups now, I was able to check out the new building last week and it's really great, everything is brand new from our workspaces to the phones to the WINDOWS! And I actually am buying into the notion that it will be good for morale and we can leave behind some of the badness and some of our bad habits. There are some problems with the paper, so the senior editors met Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the paper to hammer out some issues. It was productive but sad it had to be on a Saturday. I have a lot of work on my plate now, but it's an exciting time for the paper and I am enjoying the new challenges I face. The Lord is good and comforts me during tough times and knows how much longer I'll have to stick it out here. Karend and I would love to go somewhere, we're just not sure where. I am so ready to leave the newspaper industry, but with the new position it would be good to stick it out for a bit.

OK, that's enough rambling for one night ...

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