I knew the day was starting off right when at breakfast I looked up just in time to see that mystery Union Pacific locomotive rolling by. It was hauling five or six empty tanker cars north and snuck up on us by not blowing his horn until he was past us.

Got a good look at him this time, too. He’s UP 2908.

I’m too busy loving life to write at the moment. Work is crazy, but I’m still enjoying it for the moment. The family is healthy now, which is good, too.

I’m having fun watching the robins pick through our lawn in the mornings, looking for worms. Worms didn’t care for the weeds we had before – so having them here is a good sign.

I’ve been learning all about End Of Train (EOT) devices as my railfanning hobby grows. Now I can tune into these transmitters and get a five minute notice that a train will be coming by. I hope to use this to snap a few pictures of the locomotives I see every day.

Finally moved most all the boxes that were cluttering our bedroom floor up to the attic storage area. It makes a big difference in how the room looks. Still have some cleaning up to do, though.

Bought a new VoIP phone to test-drive at work. It’s a Polycom Soundpoint IP 500. Definitely head and shoulders above the cheap-ass Grandstream Budgetel 100s I bought before. The Polycom’s cost three times as much, but they really make the Budgetels look like the toys they are. Should’ve gone Polycom from the very start.

We’re in the midst of transferring our Bellsouth home number over to Voicepulse. We’ll then have all the kewl phone features on our home phone for a fraction of the Bellsouth price. And we’ll still have 911 service, using our soon-to-be dormant Bellsouth line.

I woke up a bit depressed this morning and not really knowing why. I suppose I was stressed about the busy day I had in front of me. Fortunately, it was only 10:30 before I began to grin stupidly, again not really knowning why. I suppose I decided to just enjoy myself – so I did. While it was a busy day, it was nevertheless good.

Now its off to bed, with an eye on making tomorrow a fun one.

Today would’ve been my grandmother’s 94th birthday today. Still is strange not having her around.

Happy birthday, Grandma, whereever you are.

I stopped into Best Buy on the way home from work Friday. I was looking to buy some batteries for our video and digital cameras. When the cashier prodded me for my phone number, I politely declined and paid for my items, not thinking much of it as I left. Only today did the signifigance hit me.

I love Best Buy’s product selection and I love its prices. I especially love its return policy. It gives me confidence when I shop to know my satisfaction is guaranteed.

But returns can be costly to retailers. Best Buy has competitive prices and margins to protect. Obviously, the phone number thing is for tracking customers, but it wasn’t until today I remembered the extent of Best Buy’s efforts to discourage bum customers.

Radio Shack used to pester their customers for their phone numbers. Customers eventually got tired of being hassled and instead told them where to go. They don’t do that anymore. Apparently

Your job as a retailer is to make it as easy as possible to spend my money. Used to be that shopping at Best Buy was effortless until you actually had to pay for your items. Then you’d wait in line all morning while two cashiers rang up sixty customers. Now the cashier hurdle is gone, but the phone number thing has sprung up in its place.

Hey, BB: you can’t have my number. Let it go. I never had a thing for you: we were just friends. And please don’t start treating your customers like statistics.

Looks like this cold has been with me for seven days. Whee. It stopped being fun a long, long time ago. Come to think of it, it was never fun to begin with.

I’m in the “unproductive coughing fits” (“UCF”) stage now. This is exacerbated by my being at home this weekend, when something Hallie or Travis will do or say will set me laughing, which leads to UCF as mentioned above. I’ve had far too many laughs this weekend to keep from coughing. But I wouldn’t trade the laughs for anything.

Word to the wise: stay healthy.

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After dinner last night, I picked up my ancient Casio keyboard for the first time in I don’t know how long. With Hallie as my audience, I banged out a recognizable Beethoven’s Fur Elise, surprising myself with how much I remembered. My Audience didn’t ask me to stop playing as she sometimes does when I haul out my guitar, so I assume she enjoyed the music.

It was fun just wrapping myself into the music. I definitely need to play more.

I picked up a cold the past day ot two and I’m feeling the effects. We didn’t sleep much last night since Travis apparently had the sniffles. To top it off, I had a trying day at work. Woohoo.

I’m going to climb into bed and maybe watch the NCSU-Maryland game. State’s offense should be just the thing to put me to sleep.