Forty-six days until retirement, by the way. Best to mention it right off.

Otherwise nothing much happening. We still have lots of people in from various places around the world learning what they need to learn to take over our jobs after we leave (did I mention we're leaving in forty-six days?) and that's pretty much stumbling along. Good people, most of them, working as they do for half and sometimes a quarter of what they pay us here. No regrets, no upsets. Most of us are going on to better things that can't be done from an office located ten or twelve time clicks away. Well, can't be done at the moment. I was reading where the publisher of a local magazine serving a suburban California city had hired two people in India to monitor their local city council meetings over the Internet and write them up for his publication. The outsourcing of journalists. My, my.

Then again, who knows what any of this means? I suspect the politics of the matter will heat up even hotter as the years pass. Outsourcing the fourth estate will get editorial attention. Well, maybe it will get editorial attention, but we won't see any of it in print as the one last news publishing organization that remains after consolidation (Walt Disney? Fox? Murdoch?) will not allow any of it to spill out onto its pages. Or web sites. Whatever means they will use to transmit our instructions.

Are we bitter?

Hell no, we're in a good mood. Did I mention the forty-six days? Until retirement?

Did you mention hyper-inflation? Your rent increased by a factor of ten in the blink of an eye? Apples going for $10 when you can find someone willing to sell you one on the corner? “Brother, can you spare a thousand dollars?”

You're suggesting there are no guarantees, no safe places?

I'm suggesting you calm down and pour yourself another cup.