I'm doing all the right things - extra vitamin intake, plenty of rest and drinking lots of fluids (not all of them alcoholic); but this flu bug is one tenacious little critter. On the positive side I'm still alive so I probably didn't catch it via the postal service.

On that note, I thought it convenient to point out that a couple of companies who send me regular material via the postal service have gone to wrapping the material in clear or opaque plastic so you can see at a glance any impurities that might be present on the surface. An unnamed brokerage firm is using vellum envelopes - a real class act.

The lady next door is still trying to get fence estimates. Right now I'm looking at paying 50% more for the one side of the fence. It's like military grade. But jeez, I'm not fighting a neighborhood war (at least not today), so why bother? Suppose that since my other home improvements have a 50 year lifetime I should just accept it and move on. But I don't like to give in to terrorists and she's doing a good job of terrorizing everybody who has been in any way involved with this fence project. Even the lady across the street - we only went over to look at her recently built fence; is now disgruntled at my next door neighbor because she pointed out in detail how flawed the other person's new fence was. By the way her husband is still out of town and refuses to return until it's all over.

Had dinner with one of my former co-workers and for the first time got some insight into the depths of the cutbacks which led to my departure from AOL-Time Warner; which seems like an eternity in the past at this point. I left early that day and I guess the axe was swinging far beyond the point that I departed. I understand that very few (if any) have been able to find employment at this point due to the industry wide downturn. Spooky considering that this scene is probably typical for a lot of (ex) south bay workers - not to mention elsewhere; and we're on the waning side of the duration of many of those severance packages.