Friday was to be the day the hammer came down at the office, and, although we heard things were happening in the field and in our own building, no one will really know until Monday. This is just the start, we suppose, and our time, if our time comes, will come later toward the end of the year. Or next month. Or next week. These things drive you crazy. More crazy.

My company is in an industry not unlike the airline industry in that we're exposed to  terrorists, a self destructing world economy and deregulation, all of whom seem to have collided with what turns out to have been a third rate management team taking its lessons from Enron. That's an overstatement, of course, and I, at my myopic level, can't really see much of what's been going on, but this is a widely shared opinion. Too many people with mortgages, with kids in school and technology blistered stock holdings hunkered down in denial. I know about denial.

We are hardly alone, of course, here in the Bay Area. They say the commute traffic is down by 12% due to layoffs and people moving. Housing prices, if you can talk about housing prices in a place where a two bedroom shack goes for five hundred grand, have leveled off in the last month. Big deal, I don't believe it's a trend, but 12% gives you an idea all is not well. So we hunker down. And shoot pictures. And wonder if there's a next phase to this dot com revolution, this just beginning dot com revolution.

I'm taking too much pleasure in this doom talk. I know that. Lack of other excitement. My dirty little secret is, for all my carping, I'm still an optimist and still have the naivete for one more run with another company before I'm ready to retire. If my aching feet (what's with the aching feet?) don't slow me down when the run turns uphill and the skill set required needs more than a ready smile and a glib rejoinder.

Where's this going?

Sunday, I suppose.

Sunday. Three hours at the office, but a quick three hours that will make my life infinitely more easy come Monday morning. Laundry through the noon hour. A quick bus ride late this afternoon to Jack London Square just to walk around for a while. I ran into a bus as I was leaving the apartment (A sign from god saying get on the bus and go somewhere.) and I ran into a bus when I was feeling ready to return (Another sign from god saying it's time to go home. Life can be simple.) and now I'm sitting here winding down. The desk is clean and the bills are paid. I said I was going to clear my desk in one of the vacation entries two weeks past. Nothing surprising.