I went to Barnes and Noble Booksellers to find a copy of Terry Goodkind’s “Wizard’s First Rule.” What I found was shocking! A paperback copy of this 1995 book is $7.99. SEVEN DOLLARS AND NINETY NINE CENTS. This is shocking to me. When did a paperback book get above FIVE dollars? When did this happen and why wasn’t I notified? I’ll tell you why. I’ve been buying books from discount places since I could earn a dollar. Book catalogs, like the SciFi Book Club, and online retailers like Amazon. So, instead of paying $7.99 plus 7% tax, I bought the book, brand new, from Half.com, including shipping, for $5.69! Now that’s shopping. Oh, and Katie got some books for school too.

Well, I’ve settled into a routine now. Work has consumed my daily hours to completion. If you check the Schedule link on the main page, I have updated it for two weeks in a row with my times and locations. As you can tell, this week is kind of different. My routine will get later and later until Friday, yet the tasks at the various locations will stay the same, cementing my routine hypothesis.

Routine is a good and bad thing. I can go to work and come home and feel that I’ve had my day, yet living with my wife, as married people are wont to do, means that a whole new day starts at 17:00. I don’t usually talk about my internal thoughts on my own life, but this work and marriage thing isn’t easy. I will leave you with this thought. I must consistently break my routine to keep it.

I have this terrible love/hate relationship with the petroleum industry. I love the fact that I am lucky enough to have a car and love even more that its reliable. Part of this stems from the excellent care it received from its previous owners, my parents, and part is the fact that I continue the trend. This makes me happy. It makes me sad when I start the car and realize that I have started the ticking timer to the next time I have to get gas. My last check of local gas prices has them at $2.69/gallon for regular unleaded gas. Now, I realize that Middle East politics factor into the price of gas. I’m realistic about that part. I have less faith in “possible” disruption issues from tropical storms that I have heard on CNN, for example. I look at it like this. Every economy has ups and downs, its in their nature. Gas prices, a result of a myriad of factors that I cannot name, were due to go up just on the assumption that the price was unnaturally depressed. Everyone else in the world pays a premium on gas except us. How long were we going to live in this isolated bubble with sub-$2 prices?

There is one factor that I would like to speak to: globalization. Situations around the globe that American media was unaware of or didn’t care about are finally coming to light. China’s weird growth, fueled by government subsidies, is one example that comes to mind. This has directly impacted gas pricing because of fears of scarcity with a competing market to the US gobble-machine. (I made that phrase up, in case you didn’t notice.) I’m on the waiting list for the latest Tom Friedman book at the library, so I can’t cite him, but I have personally noticed an increase in world news and an increase in the scrutiny of third-world situations. Information about these places is more prevalent than ten years ago, when gas was hovering at the single dollar range. All this impacts what brokers think about pricing for a barrel of oil. And don’t forget the tax-on of both local and national governments. Gas is a watering hole in the Ghobi, everybody has to come to it sometime. I keep forgetting that and I shouldn’t. I wonder how much it would cost to convert a Chevy Tahoe to biofuel?

I don’t normally condone linking to random sites unless they really are entertaining, so trust my judgement on this one.

AIMfight is a creative implementation of a meaningless value within instant messaging: how popular am I right now? The score is determined by how many people are online that have your screen name in their Buddy List and how many other people are in their Buddy List. What I like is that my dad has a higher score than anyone on my Buddy List. Way to go, Ralph!

I just got a nasty email from someone purporting to be our flat friend of the subject line in this blog. Now, obviously, this name is fictitious. It was designed to beat various algorithmic spam programs. But, what if we said he was real?

What if…I am Sergeant P. Flatware? I would like to propose that I adopt this new handle because it rocks.

So, after a serious bout with the stomach flu, I am back in action. I originally was supposed to start at IKON last Monday, but I was sick and didn’t get there until Thursday. I have now completed three days of work and I can safely say that it hasn’t changed since the last time I went, in 2000.

-I worked at a very nice industrial company in the area who make industrial air conditioners and had a strange experience on Friday. I came in in the morning and it was so cold in the room I could see my breath. It was cold. So my supervisor calls someone and then, it happens…they start trickling in! The guy she calls wanders over and smiles at her while lifting the gigantic cover, saying something about the arctic. Then, another guy comes over and they start talking a little while pulling out patch cable from inside the unit. Let me mention that this thing is as large as half the wall, 20 by 30 feet at least. Now, while they are looking closely at the detachable LED screen on the front, two more guys wander over and now there are FOUR engineers in front of this thing. I’m doing my work and occasionally glancing over and overhear another person talking with my supervisor about the air conditioner. I join that conversation and learn that this is their flagship model and while it may not have all the features it was supposed to have, it is kinda reliable. Did I mention they MANUFACTURE this air conditioner in the building? This is their product, in-house assembly and everything. Three hours later, it has become almost sauna-like in there and the four engineers, shaking their heads most of the time, have left for lunch. Unfortunately, the machine was left in a state of disarray, which I could care less about, and is emitting a high pitched whine, which I do care about. Again, I overhear that the whine is an alarm. Something is wrong and its upset. I’m getting upset as well, with this blatant disregard for my comfort. Did I mention that for the past three hours I have been binding an air conditioning manual…this particular air conditioner?

They eventually fix it, but it takes a series of two-man teams to do it…and these are the guys who made it! I thought I was on Candid Camera for a moment. I felt like taking the manual over and handing it to one of them. Just a subtle reminder, guys.

-So, I came across this tribute to the NES game Paperboy which I really enjoyed playing for hours on end in my youth. If you haven’t played the game, click it anyway to see some wacky people up at an ungodly hour.

-I’m looking forward to playing WoW again this week. SmkViper has insinuated that he will take me on the “Kill VanCleef” quest soon and that excites me.

-I’m also concerned about the waste that I see generated at work. I had forgotten that office waste is ignored, for the most part, and home waste is what is important. Well, I cringe when reams of paper are tossed because of a mistake or cosmetic blemish. I’m not placing blame on any specific individual, just thinking about taking responsibility for it myself. Any thoughts about recycling office waste are appreciated.