I'm never going outside again.

Yesterday I was accident prone. Well, they weren't really accidents, more like, forces of nature.

It started out fine. We were spreading pellets in the pond to take away the green stuff. Then just wandering around back there. It's so beautiful--my own magical place.

Well, the magic was flowing ... or something, because I saw this huge frog, it caught my eye not the hugeness of him, but the tealness of his head. Yes. A frog. With a teal head. Seriously.


So, I caught him to gawk. Unfortunately, I think he cast his evil mojo voodoo on me.

We were looking at my mint, and mom asked me to pull a weed by her flowers. OUCH! Fire weed.

The plant bit me. STACEY--O EVIL NATURE--1

Next, in the back garden spraying the weeds, walking through posion, almost done, and DAMMIT! Thistle?

No, bee sting. STACEY--O EVIL NATURE--2

Okay, I can't take much more of this. I'll walk down to the pond, don't remember why, but I'll be careful.

Watching my step, la la la, look up. YOWEE!

Thistle~! (what are the chances of that?)

STACEY--0 EVIL NATURE--3

Clean sweep. I give up.

Top left: Here's a piece of nature, that wasn't evil to me.
This ws a plant on Alcatraz Island. The funny thing
is, we have this plant by our pond. This was as big
as my head. Ours is as big as my foot.

Road Rage, KoL

I have been experiencing quite a bit of road rage lately. Maybe it's because I drive 37 miles everyday.

Maybe it's because I have to take six roads to work instead of three. Because it does, of course, make sense to rip up all the main roads to and from the closest town.

Or MAYBE it's because the people driving on these detours are driving 45! Come ON people! Speed limit...at least reach it. Then I won't be as pissed when I need to pass you.

In town, it's just as bad. The left and right lanes are driving the same speed...about five miles under the speed limit. I respect people who drive the speed limit...hell, I sometimes do it myself. But if you're going to partake in such activities, let the less patient people wander on at their own pace. Stop being so controlling you evil crawling bastards.

Today, I celebrate my one month anniversary at work. No one notices.

I adventure deeper and deeper in the kingdom of loathing. Totally hooked. Thanx Tim ;-)

Stay on the melon truck and keep driving!

Remember when I told you about Corporate Communications? This was the class with the Crisis Case (i.e. high stress, real-time work) we rocked the presentation and got a 98 on the paper. For the previous case we had one more group member. He was a nontraditional student that asked Kerry to be in our group. Now, we had reservations, not because he was a nontrad, but that he didn't seem to catch on as quick as others. Well, he never caught on...he sent us tons of emails with random information, never took the information to knowledge we could use, made an incomplete powerpoint that we needed to redo the day before and never sent me his sources or writen part of the paper (not to mention that the day of the presentation he didn't run the powerpoint right).

Anyway, with the stressful second case, we asked him to leave the group. It was hard and we felt bad. Our professor understood. He responded with a couple of emails the first two weeks after saying we were petty and a bunch of little girls playing high school games. Then he left us alone. Unfortunately, he had some residual anger, and took it out on Kerry ... below is the email he just sent to her (poor kerry).

It's amusing in a bizarre sort of way. Thought you would be interested/astonished, etc.

Sdo



This message is from Mark. This message is late, but youare going to get it any way. Normally, I'm a pretty good judge ofcharacter, but I was quite wrong about you. The reason I asked to workwith you in that corporate communications course was because I thoughtthat you had a kind heart and enjoyed working with new people. Youturned out to be quite the opposite. I respect people who have intelligence and work hard, as you do,but have a higher respect for people who treat one another withdignity. That is a category that you fall short in.

My wife has moreeducation that you will ever live to have and enjoys being aphysician. I didn't marry her because she draws a good income orbecause she is so intelligent. I'm with her because she is a kind,loving woman who has passion for the people she deals with. I'm old enough to be your father, and have a lot more experience inliving than you do. You need to realize that you shouldn't shut thedoor on people so quickly. I worked with another group of people inanother course on campus, and enjoyed that experience because wetalked to one another if we weren't on the same page. However, theywere in their 30's and had a higher maturity level than you and yourgroup members do. Someday you'll realize how wrong you were in makinga decision like the one you made last spring.

I didn't leave your group because you felt that I wasn't holdingup my end. I left because I felt that I shouldn't have to prove myselfto a bunch of kids. I didn't fall off the melon truck, and have plentyof "street smarts". You don't know the true meaning of the word"RESPECT" yet, and you may never will unless you change your attitude.I don't want to hurt your feelings and want you to succeed, but thinkthat it may help it you integrated more humility in your dailythinking routine. ----Mark