Where do I start? I have several things I could focus on, so maybe I’ll just dive into the part of my life that most affects me first.
As we know from the economy being the way it is, I should be happy to have a job at all. Some of my family have been out of work for a while. Yes, I feel blessed to have a steady paycheck but, oh, the stress that comes with it. It’s been since January that my former partner at work moved to another department. Management didn’t see fit to replace that person, so I ended up managing a claims department by myself all the time. This leads to some interesting problems. A main problem I have is that, even though they have “talked” about cross-training someone for my position, I don’t see it happening (talk, as they say, is cheap). So, what happens when I need a vacation? I’m rapidly approaching burnout; I haven’t had any real time-off since the Germany vacation last October. I told certain members of management (including the GM) that, frankly, I’ve been very afraid to take a vacation because of what I imagine I’ll walk into when I get back. My former partner echoed the evil side of me on this point: Go ahead and schedule the vacation… now! Make them either panic or be concerned. If they don’t do right by the department, then it’s on management’s head, right? Right… but I’m still concerned about possible scapegoating. Guess I’ll just have to make sure to invoke the CYA Rule!
Last June 24th was Christine’s birthday and mine was on July 5th. We got a bit spoiled and we spoiled ourselves and each other as well! I got her a car charger for her iPhone; we recently discovered, though, that her lighter port isn’t working… something I’ll be fixing very soon. She surprised the heck outta me by getting me a Meffert’s brand puzzle. It’s a Meffert’s (Blue) Golden Egg! It’s actually simpler than a Rubik’s cube, but it has some shape-shifting qualities that make it play with your mind all the same. (I did get a couple of other new puzzles, but I’ll cover those in an entry about the latest YouTube vids) Also towards my birthday, I bought a present for each other… a Wii Balance board with WiiFit included. She had wanted to get one to supplement exercise, and I’ve wanted it for, well, gaming. The WiiFit game is a lot of fun, however if you’re sensitive about your weight and age, you’ll have to take its non-subtle ribbing lightly.
Another facet of our lives, that has made some of the depressing parts bearable, is semi-regular visits with friends such as Jean and Mark and, most recently, Angela. Every time we have hung out with these people, it’s been full of awesome and I can’t thank these friends enough for being who they are. Also, even though my old friends from high school and beyond are in our old stomping grounds of Chicago and its suburbs, we still enjoy seeing and talking to them on Facebook. The distance is made less unbearable because of this.
I’ve gotten some new music recently, too. The selections are mainly metal, but also some trance and classic rock stuff. New music from artists and bands such as Serenity (who I’m listening to now! 
), Nemesea, Michael Angelo Batio, Threshold, Vision Divine, Disturbed, Alien Project, Spheric Universe Experience, Edenbridge and classics from the likes of Vinnie Moore and ELO. I may have to cover some of this stuff more in detail in the form of review blog posts. Vision Divine and Edenbridge, in particular, have really grown on me. And I encourage anyone with even half of a musical brain to check out Michael Angelo Batio… his guitar work will rip your face off!
One more topic to add: You, dear reader, may have noticed some of the subtle changes I’ve made to the blog. First, I have my latest Dailybooth picture gracing the near-top of the sidebar. It used to be a random pic from my Zenphoto library (which needs severe updating, thanks for reminding me!), but that function got broken in a WP update. Second, I got rid of the tumblr.com part of the sidebar and header menu, since I do enough micro-blogging on Twitter and Dailybooth. Now I have links on both the Twitter part of the sidebar and the header menu to see all of my Twitter updates, arranged by week and in Esoterik blog format! It’s a good thing I did this, because the good folks at Twitter, unfortunately, made it really hard to go back to see updates from months ago in a heavy user’s account like mine. Now I have my own archive, on the off chance that the need may arise. So, the sidebar has the other parts of my internet existence that I touch on the most! Yay!
That’s all for now… I need to work tomorrow and it’s late, so I say goodbye for now… Cheers!
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Hoping for you to please feel better soon. 
