NorthWestern Vacation

What a great vacation. I want to write up everything that we did, where we stayed, ate, and played. I will attempt to get to this project as soon as possible.

I really enjoyed every one of the four cities we visited(Portland Oregon, Seattle Washington, Vancouver B.C., and Victoria B.C.) Each has its own charm.

The best thing I took away from this vacation was perspective. The eleven days I went without touching any computer equipment realy paid off. It is a really positive thing to get away from the central things in your life for a while. I appreciate things more now than I ever have. I enjoy my job, the people in my life, and I realize how lucky I have been every day of my life.

I am now starting to settle back in. There's work to be done.(A lot) Also laundry, car repairs and cleaning. I will be up against it this whole week.

Mark McGuire ends up with 70 home runs. Incredible.

My very smart cousin Jim Occhialini is getting married in two weeks. I am traveling to the wedding in Hershey Pennsylvania in two weeks. It will be the first time in years that I will see many of my more distant family members.

I'm a big Yankees fan and enjoying the game currently. Baseball has returned as a part of my life. I didn't leave as a fan because of the strike or anything, just other interests took the time I devoted to it.

Well I will probably be doing a lot of updating this week so check back often. I hope that I didn't lose too many of you because of my absence.

Netscape's Web client has very quietly become very stable in 1998. I know that, one year ago, I complained about stability all the time. I have been using their Preview Release 2 for a few weeks without any major issues.

I have been using Apple's new MacOS 8.5. I have to say that, if the beta's are any indication, they continue to take steps in the right direction. It is faster by far, easier to use, incorporates Internet terchnology, and the new implementation of AppleScipt is a screamer. It also looks like Mac User's will finally have a decent Java implementation to work with.

My playing with Macromedia Fireworks continues. I have a really strong grip on using it now. I think I will move onto another piece of software soon. I am way behind my informal schedule of technologies that I wanted to master in 1998. I can't believe that it's already almost October.