Hi, remember me?

I know, I know, it’s been a while. Things have been rather hectic here in The Blog Cave and in the life of The Masked Blogger. Lots of working hours (18 one day), lots of family and friend things and…some other things. If you’re in my address book, you’ll hear about those in a separate e-mail later tonight or tomorrow, but for now be assured that there have been few empty moments in my existence for the last couple of weeks.

And I don’t anticipate any for the next month either, but then every November/December is like that, no matter how much I try to make it otherwise.

Here’s a condensed version of the past 3 weeks or so. I was handed two new and good-sized projects by my division’s director. One of them involved a reduction in force action for our entire division and that has not been easy or enjoyable. Stressful and time-consuming, it has been. I had to oversee a project that will put 86 people in the unemployment line next month, one of them from my own department whom I love dearly as a friend and a co-worker. This was not an unexpected situation; all of us have known that the job we are doing for the big government agency is one that we would eventually work ourselves out of, yet I guess we all hoped it would still be off in the future somewhere. Instead, it is now. Barring any changes, we will do it again in April or May.

As unpleasant as it has been, I have learned a lot about certain procedures, policies and people that will be helpful to me.

The other project is an on-going one that is also teaching me a lot about the division I work within. Though my department’s work touches others and I have picked up some things from them along the way, almost all of my experience has been in the one department that I supervise. This project is helping me add to my store of knowledge about the entire operation. The more you know, the less expendable you are…I hope.

We had a busy, but enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner with some 30 family members. I was so tired I didn’t even take my camera to shoot pictures. After eating and celebrating the November birthdays, my father-in-law, 3 brothers-in-law and I sat down and ironed out the plans for our first camping trip together in January. I’m looking forward to that.

On Black Friday after work (when the crowds were pretty non-existent) Blog Girl and I ventured out to have dinner and buy our Christmas tree. When we got back to the Cave we put it up in the stand to allow it to “fall out” overnight. It is a huge 8 foot Frasier Fir that looks much bigger here than it did at the tree store. Saturday I put up the lights outside the house and the lights on the tree inside, and then Blog Girl and Amber decorated as much of the tree as they could reach, and I finished the top. It looks very beautiful.

Sunday morning after dropping Blog Girl off at Lake Eola, I went to Amber’s new house and put up hooks all along her eaves and then hung her icicle lights. After that I returned to pick up BG from Lake Eola and then we went to meet our friend Rhonda at the Disney Marketplace where we did some shopping and visiting. It was Rhonda’s birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY RHONDA!!

Today at work I got a really cool early Christmas gift from my friend Denise. If you’ve got a laptop and you’ve had to go searching for a Wi-fi signal so you could connect to the Internet, you know it can be a chore to boot up the laptop and go through all the steps to try to get a signal, only to find out there isn’t one nearby. Well, the WiFi Finder Plus licks that chore and makes locating that needed signal a breeze. Just push the button and within a few seconds the WiFi Finder Plus lets you know if there’s a signal and how strong it is. It also locates Bluetooth signals and has a little flashlight as well. Denise said she just couldn’t wait to give it to me and I’m glad she didn’t. I loves me my new toy! Thanks Denise!

Real quick; Egg nog is on the shelves!! Tomorrow the “Superman Returns” DVD goes on sale.

It’s late and I have to be up at 4:30 tomorrow, so don’t look for the e-mail with the “other things” news tonight. Probably tomorrow.

Last Thursday night the latest Spider-Man 3 movie trailer was released on network and cable stations and on the web as well. This is the link to the “official” studio trailer and it looks, well…amazing! I have also have a link to the “production” trailer that was sneak previewed by Sony at Comic Con. The second version uses animation and storyboard illustrations in place of some of the CGI effects that were not ready at that time. However, you should not let that deter you from watching the second link because it has something the first one doesn’t; a quick shot at the very end of Venom leaping toward the camera with his drooling mouth, full of razor sharp teeth, gaping open to devour the audience.

The movie opens in theaters on Friday, May 4, 2007. This will be the first opening day of a Spider-Man movie that I will miss because we leave for Paris that same day, unless they do a midnight showing that I can catch before flying out the next day. I hope they do because this movie looks to be full of action and story. Not only do we get the black suit (which becomes Venom) and The Sandman (those special effects look so great!), but we also get Harry Osborn seeking revenge against Peter Parker/Spider-Man for killing his father, The Green Goblin. I’d hate to have to wait 2 weeks when we get back to see it.

I’m also interested in seeing how they deal with the necessary changes inherent in the movie version versus the comic book storyline on these matters. In the comic books Spidey got the black suit when he traveled to another galaxy with various Marvel Superheroes in “Secret Wars” and eventually got rid of the symbiotic suit with the help of the Fantastic Four. That intergalactic journey obviously doesn’t happen in the movie and there’s no crossover with the Fantastic Four. Granted, in the trailer it’s obvious that he uses the loud ringing of the bells in the church(?) to take advantage of the symbiote’s weakness to excessively loud sonics and rid himself of it. Also, in the comic books the Sandman was a penny ante crook named Flint Marko who, while trying to hide from the police, came into contact with recently irradiated sand on a beach and found his body took on the properties of the sand. He could transform from granular to mudlike to solid rock as needed. In the movie, they seem to be implying that he is the man who killed Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben, but that was never part of the original mythos. But then, neither were organic webshooters (which, by the way, I don’t have a problem with) so we’ll see how the story progresses. Plus we’ll finally get to see the gorgeous (at least she was in the comics) Gwen Stacy.

I thought Spider-Man 2 was as good as the first Spider-Man movie, which is not how I usually feel about sequels. If the trailer is any indication, this third movie may be as good or better than the first two.

Compliments of your Friendly Neighborhood Masked Blogger.

About a week ago Josh Hallett, founder and organizer of the successful, informative and enjoyable BlogOrlando 2006 conference and a consultant on corporate and social blogging (as well as most things “geeky”), posted an entry on his blog regarding people wearing Bluetooth headsets in stupid locations. Both the post and the comments made me chuckle because I realized that, in the short span of time that I have had my own Bluetooth headset, I have probably been guilty of wearing mine in some stupid locations. I plead “new use” syndrome (that peculiar action of using something new quite a bit at the onset of ownership or availability, then finally finding a balance as the “something” becomes more familiar) and the fact that my headset is SO comfortable I sometimes forget I even have it on. But I have been making progress (”Hi, my name is The Masked Blogger and I wear my Bluetooth headset in stupid places.” “Hi Masked Blogger.“), now that I am a month into using my Bluetooth, in removing mine after each use when it would not be appropriate to wear that handy little object.

I particularly enjoyed the “It’s a phone, not an earring…take the damn thing off!” line.

Along the same lines, TechEBlog recently published an article entitled “5 Gadgets You Don’t Want to be Seen Wearing” along with pictures. Shown below is the gadget I found the most amusing, the “Techno Privacy Scarf”.

“Developed by Joe Malia, this ‘Techno Privacy Scarf’ supposedly protects your privacy when using portable devices in public areas - or at home.”

This article reminded me of some of the ridiculous creations I used to see in Mad Magazine when I was a kid when I would read the “Inventions We’d Like To See” feature, where artists would draw inventions like the “Cigarette Smoke Recycler” (which resembled the human wastewater recyclers in “Dune“) and the “Electric Shaver Necklace“.

I love new tech toys and you still might see me occasionally wearing my Bluetooth in stupid places…but I’ll definitely skip the “Techno Privacy Scarf“.

Although I have missed Blog Girl while she has been away, I have also enjoyed the solitude of the Blog Cave the past few days. I’ve been able to get quite a bit of reading done and spent several hours working on designing and coding my new writing website. I was even able to relax a bit by sleeping in until 6:45 this morning. That will become even more important in the coming days.

I found out a few days ago that I’ll now be spending even more time away from home each workday. The big government agency that I work for finally found a new building for us. The biggest problem with it is that is now an hour’s drive each way from the Blog Cave to the new drone dump, so 90 minutes a day that I used to have during the work week to do things in the Blog Cave will now be spent driving on Central Florida’s wonderful toll roads. It’s not really as big an issue for me as I make it sound; after all I was able to spend 2 years driving just 12 miles a day round trip from the Blog Cave to work and back. But I got spoiled and will miss the time to work on projects or just relax in the Blog Cave and I certainly won’t enjoy the tolls I’ll be paying.

Speaking of which I went Thursday night after work and bought an E-Pass transponder from my neighborhood Publix, then came back to the Blog Cave and signed up online to fund the E-Pass so on Monday I won’t have to fumble for change at each toll booth. I don’t really like the idea of the E-Pass because to me it’s just another way for Big Brother to keep tabs on me, but like a lot of things we do these days, the convenience is what ultimately draws us. The toll roads are set up in such a way now that if you don’t use an E-Pass, you’ll end up sitting in a mile long line of other drivers waiting to throw quarters into the bin and so you still waste the time you hoped to save by taking the toll road in the first place.

While I’m griping; about the only TV that I watch in “real time” is the local news and sometimes the national news or news talk shows. Everything else is DVR’d and I get to skip through the commercials. But I have to tell you that the increasing preponderance of campaign and candidate commercials are about to make me swear off even the news programs until after next Tuesday night. It seems like EVERY commercial is related to the upcoming election. I guess it’s doubly aggravating to me because I have already voted, so there’s nothing I’m going to hear that is going to change my vote. Thank goodness we got rid of the land line house phone and I don’t have to listen to a dozen recorded calls from candidates and causes every day when I get home.

Blog Girl will return home Sunday afternoon and even though I have enjoyed my time alone, it will be nice to have her back in the Blog Cave.

Things will be quiet around the Blog Cave for the next 4 days. Blog Girl flew out this morning to spend a few days visiting a friend in Columbus, Ohio. Maybe not so quiet though. After all, I’ve already spent as much time talking to her on the phone as I would if she were here.

She called me earlier this evening as excited as a little girl because some unexpected snow flurries were falling. It was nice to hear the elation in her voice and to know she was having fun spending time with her friend.

She’ll be back Sunday afternoon, but until then I have the Blog Cave all to myself. Well, myself and Blog Hound and Blog Cat.