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Well, I've finally bitten the bullet and started on a partial reorganization of my own page, 'Mike's Bit'. I've started by shifting the diary/journal part to the front page. There are 2 reasons for this.
First, I wanted to separate the journal part from the 'Thoughts' part. I want to keep my thoughts on the world separate from the regular what's going on chez Deans.
Secondly, I'm going to get this added to the Journal Web-Ring, so I wanted it in a more accessible place.
(For the uninitiated, a Web-Ring is a collection of like-minded pages, with links between them. The Journal Web-Ring is a ring of web-sites with journals (like, duh!).)
I keep up with a few of them on the Journal Web-Ring, Like Lorraine (BaddGrrl), Anita (BleakOutlook), Adam (Kong Pou) and Liz (Sadie). I'm just fascinated by others' experiences. Anita has even included a link to this site. (Thanks, Anita! America hasn't scared us at all, it's great here.)
Work has been keeping me busy this past week. A major payroll report problem had me working late on Friday and most of Sunday. It has to be done, and at least I get paid for it. I've heard a bit more about what I may get assigned to when I join Oracle. There's a project going down in Pasadena that requires people with my exact skillset, so I could be heading there for a few weeks until the end of May. Could be worse...
The other event this week was my first board meeting of Lake Oswego Soccer Club. I certainly didn't expect it to take almost 4 hours, but it was quite interesting seeing the inside picture, and the interactions of some of the people I know (read politics, urgh!). I've taken on responsibility for the club's e-mail and web-site requirements, so that should keep me off the streets for a while (as if I didn't have enough to do!).
This coming weekend sees a few gamers coming over for an extended session. This is the first chance I've had to play some serious games for a good while. There is another group that meets every Tuesday, but that's a popular night for soccer, so it's difficult to get along more than once in a blue moon.
Colin has still been playing soccer, and is still getting the HOT tickets at school. That's 4 in a row, so far, and is a real turnround from the previous weeks. Let's hope he keeps it up. He's also started putting together a web-page of his own using the same 'HTML in 24hrs' book I used. So far he's on hour 3, and getting on fine. I've set him up with a web-page on Xoom.com, so we should have something out there by the end of this next weekend.
Graham had his picture in the local paper this week. There was some sort of chef/cooking thing in the school and he happened to be there when the photo was taken. I'll get it scanned and up in the next day or two.
Catriona has just been tooting, as usual. Her Brownie troop starts its cookie sale this coming weekend. Ahh, it feels like we're taking another step towards being fully qualified Americans!
Cathy was on her quiet week this last week. Most of her school classes have been scheduled in the same week, so she has a busy week and a quiet week now. I tried to persuade her to come down to Salem for lunch on Friday, but she didn't want to drive that far (it's 40 miles). Pity, it quite brightens up my day.
The big news is that we finally got our tax return back from the accountant, and we're due to get back over $5k from the IRS. Woo-hoo! I've been back in touch with some mortgage brokers to see about the likelihood of getting a mortgage to buy our own place. It probably won't be anything grand to start with, but we both hate paying out money for a rental house when it could be going into a mortgage for our own place. I'm not too hopeful about getting a mortgage, as we may have to get our Green Card first, but we'll see. My manager at Oracle has promised that she'll get the GC application going as soon as I start, and I hope that proof of application will count for something with the mortgage lenders.
Anyway, that's enough for this week