I've gone back to the darkside.

In the 1990s, my company required that I have a laptop because I travelled a bit. Well, actually, I travelled a lot. Like 'three weeks out of the month' a lot

I got to see most of this country by flying first-class to a destination, staying at a very nice hotel and eating expensive meals that I charged to my expense account. It was a great gig for a year or two but I got really sick & tired of the fact that the only conversations I was having with my wife was over the phone and my kids, who were babies at the time, were growing up without me.

I also realized I was traveling too much when I checked into a hotel one night in Los Angeles by saying, "Is this Chicago? Is this the Embassy Suites? Do I have a reservation here?" The answer was, "Yes, this is the Embassy Suites and yes, you do have a reservation here. It's the same room we give you every time you stay with us. But no, this is not Chicago, it's Los Angeles. We're much warmer and sunnier than Chicago."

Anyways, sometime in the late 1990s, I'd had enough and I said no more travel. My company agreed and I said, "Can I get rid of this laptop now? Can I get a nice little desktop that I don't have to lug around?"

So ever since then, I've had a desktop computer and I've been pretty damned happy with it.

The problem is that my current desktop needs to be replaced. It's old and it's reached the point where it needs to be rebooted several times a day and during those periods of the day when it is running, it's running really slowly.

I took a walk down to see my buddies in the personal computing department and had a talk with them about what was new, what was good and what did they think I should do. They immediately, and in unison, recommended the newest little laptop.

So it looks like I'm going back to lugging around a laptop. Of course, this new one doesn't weigh very much and it's kinda small so I guess the word "lugging" might not apply.

My boss and coworkers have welcomed me back to the darkside but I made it clear that I still have no desire to travel. Let the people who like having frequent flyer miles do the traveling. I'll stay right here in my comfortable little house eating home-cooked meals, talking with my wife and petting my dog.

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Here are a few links that can be visited:

• I wonder why no one is protesting this? If this happened when Bush was President, there would be all kinds of tree-huggers camped out in front of his home chanting and banging on prayer drums. I guess it's because the republicans piss off people who have nothing better to do but protest and the democrats piss off people who are too busy working for a living to protest.



• Not sure I agree with the phone but everything else is unchanged.



• Chef Swaggers Brown Gravy!!