I slept for 12 hours last night. And it felt good! Really good! Now, I can truthfully say I am completely "recovered" from our trip to Scotland. Rich, my mentor at work, mentioned to Sarah that we both seemed like we were in a good mood today. That's why vacation is so important!

I'm in an even better mood because yesterday I found out I get a Christmas bonus in my pay check today. Isn't that exciting? Now, you may be curious why I get a Christmas bonus in September. Well, the government's fiscal year ends at the end of September. That's why. And since the government says it is the end of the year, then Christmas MUST be at hand. Ah, I love the logic.

Sarah put up 252 digital pictures of the trip at http://sparky.nique.net/~sarah/scotland/index.htm. If you're curious you can skim through the index and look at the good ones. I'm going to get my pictures printed tonight (I'm so excited to see them!). Eventually, I'll add a narrative page about the trip and include the best pictures, so if you don't feel like looking at Sarah's page, well, you'll just have to be patient.

I'm in such a good mood today, even George Bush is making me laugh instead of bury my head in embarrassment. His staff has been very saavy dealing with their boss's limited intellect (oh, what a great speech-writer I would make!). Bush's speeches always have cute little single-syllable colloquial expressions that the media can grab onto and use as a headline or sound bite (i.e. "Wanted, Dead or Alive","You have awakened a sleeping giant", etc.). Anyway, today's soundbite is: Saadam is "playing rope-a-dope with the world". He he he. How silly! It makes me glad that Bush's speeches are geared towared 5-year-olds. That means the average America can understand what's going on. Too bad the average American doesn't pay enough attention to the news to hear the idiot-quotes. But at least it provides me with regular entertainment. Until Bush's quotes, I didn't think the media could dumb themselves down any more, but I guess they still can. I'm sure G.W. has some Yale Ph.D. on his staff that we can blame for lowering the bar with each and every speech. Isn't it ironic?