Hello Cruel World,

Here it is, Friday night and I couldn't be more pleased. It was a very good day. I finally got the concept behind a project to absorb through my thick skull, and I've finished it ahead of schedule. Of course, everyone thinks I am a major kissup for actually being productive on a Friday, but that can't be helped. I kind of came on board there as "teacher's pet", so to speak, anyhow.

We had our division lunch today. The restaruant was my pick, so I chose My Thai and was a tad bit disappointed. But mission accomplished - I got two people to try Thai food. Unfortunately, I don't think it went over well. The conversation was nice, and it was fun hanging out, talking about other people we work with, and getting the scoop on the gossip history. I'm telling you, these people can DISH and they don't forget a thing.

After lunch we took a stroll around, watching the practice run of the Air and Water Show, which I'm sorry to say, didn't impress me at all. I don't dig fighter planes. They are too loud, and remind me too much of the middle of September last year, when the politicians of Chicago, fearing that we might be left out of a terrorist attack, attempted to give the air of being important by having fighter planes circle the city for two weeks. But even before then, I could never get excited about people doing acrobatics in an airplane. I just have to wonder how the pilot is managing to keep his lunch down.

Anyhow, so after that, we started back on our way to the office, when we spied a very cool exhibit outside of the new Millenium Park that is still being built. The exhibit is called Earth From Above and has all of these arial photographs taken of various places in the world, like of a huge fruit drying complex in Turkey, where the different colored fruits are laid out in tidy squares. From above, the mosiaic it creates is so bright and colorful. Unfortunately it started to rain, but I am going to use the chatless Saturday morning to check that out.

Tonight I did some tidying up around the ol' apartment, made some fried rice, drank some wine and made a huge mess that I will clean up tomorrow.

Sorry if you came here expecting the Friday Five and got a detailed description of my day instead. I''ll see if I can't find something to replace those five thought provoking questions tomorrow.