My Apologies

This has been a hectic week, and I apologize for not writing. It isn't that I haven't wanted to.

I haven't even checked in with my usual blog-reads.

I put my kids on a plane last Saturday, and that tends to make me want to retreat a bit. In this case, quite a lot. One would think that over the years, sending one's kids off to their mother's house would get easier, but it does not.

It actually gets worse.

It doesn't help that my older daughter has called three times since, just to talk. That's about as close as she gets to saying, "I don't want to be here. I'd rather be home with you, Dad."

The night before my girls left, my older daughter took me to see "Evita" at the Civic Theatre downtown. For her birthday this year, I'd given her a pair of season tickets and a promise of transportation to and from each show for her and whomever she'd like to take with her. She has taken me to both shows so far.

After the show, I picked my younger daughter up at the babysitter's and took them both to the local book store for the midnight Harry Potter vigil. We wore round Harry Potter glasses, with me wearing mine over my real glasses. We were in a book store after all, and it's not possible to spend two hours in a book store without reading anything. Actually, it would have been possible for me to spend two hours in a book store without reading anything if I had not brought my glasses.

The rest of my time has been spent working on curriculum development for a new course my company is introducing next week. Those of you who are still around and have read me for a while know that I'm not a half-bad writer. I've got a way with words. Unless I'm doing technical writing. Technical writing is excruciating. When faced with technical writing the next day, I will grind my teeth in my sleep. Given the choice, I would eschew technical writing in favor of, oh, say, prunes rolled in oil-soaked sand. Though my boss is delighted with the product, I find myself merely relieved that the writing part of it is done, leaving only the presentation part, which is only slightly less unappealing.

I also rebuilt my best friend's computer this week. He experienced a motherboard failure in an eMachines computer, and good luck finding a motherboard to fit in the eMachines case. I managed to get him into a new computer for less than three hundred bucks, which is pretty good for an afternoon's work, if you ask me.

Tuesday afternoon was my biweekly lunch with RadiantSmile, and we had an excellent time talking about...stuff. She still faces the battle with her son's father, but there has been good news on that front lately, and she was her old sweet/funny self. Twenty minutes after I dropped her at the airport again, she sent me a text message: "U r wonderful thk u" Thanks, Hon.

On Wednesday evening, my friend SundayChef took me to see Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre. I enjoy Shakespeare and I am unashamed. I am also happy to report that I have passed this on to my older daughter, who asked for "Othello" on DVD for Christmas, and gave me "Henry V".

Incidentally (and I write this with the full knowledge that I may be alienating the Star Wars fans among you), Hayden Christensen as the child-murdering Anakin/Darth is nowhere near as evil a villain as Kenneth Branagh's Iago, who manipulates his friends into murdering each other.

As if I hadn't enough to do, I have also spent some weeks beta testing an add-on aircraft for Microsoft's Flight Simulator. I joined the testing team late in the process, when the project was nearly finished, but I was able to spot a few things that others missed, and so (I think) justified the developer's invitation. It was quite an honor to be asked, since I was the only tester who is not a rated pilot, and six of the other seven testers either fly the Beech King Air professionally...or own one. (Yes, own, at five million dollars a copy. I paid $35 for mine, thank you very much, and unlike real jet fuel, virtual gas is free.)

If you're still here...I appreciate your patience with me.

I'm back now.