Today is one more reason that I really like the company I work for. Today we invited a law professor who specializes in Middle Eastern affairs (legal and political) to speak to us at a brown bag lunch. About 75% of the company showed up to hear his talk and ask questions. We've had these discussions from time to time and I like the fact that we take time out from work to talk about tough issues and learn something that is not at all related to our particular jobs or our industry. (I work for an internet company.) Since I knew almost nothing about the history of that region before, I learned a lot. While I didn't 100% agree with the point of view that the speaker expressed, I definitely learned and thought about our country's policies in the Middle East. The speaker was really pushing for the stopping of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip areas. I know nothing about the conflict other than that it exists and both sides send suicide bombers, kill civilians, and assassinate leaders. He made a convincing argument for his position but did not really explain the reasons we might not want to follow his suggestions. So I would want to hear the other side first before I decide what I think and feel about that issue.

Excellent! The changing colors thing worked thanks to the very good instructions by Marcus (who is, I assume, the creater of the blogback stuff). For someone who works at a web company, I am woefully under-educated in how to write HTML. Other programming languages - sure, I know C, Java, LISP, but I haven't taken the time to really learn HTML. Of course it seems that I can figure stuff out when I need to, but still, sort of pathetic not to know it already.

I added a comment thing to my template today. Seems very cool. I will change the colors eventually since I think the black writing on dark blue background is hard to read. Gotta be one of Nielsen's top ten worst things to do on the web. Which is not to say that I don't greatly appreciate the person who went to all of the work to create the comment thing and share it.

I'm in this weird stage at work where I know I am going to be hit with a ton of stuff to do but at the moment I don't have anything to do. So I can ruminate. I've been emailing my sister daily, generally several times a day and it always makes me happier. I am not a phone person, never have been, even as a teenage girl. Email is good, as are face to face conversations. And letters sent through the actual mail. Throughout college I wrote letters to my grandmother (the only person who would write back to me). Now at work I'll walk to someone's desk before I'll call them. I don't know why that is, it's just always been that way. Trissie's emails are always fun to get even if they just talk about everyday events. She has a way of phrasing things and an outlook on events that is just fun to read. Also, it is good to feel connected to my family since I don't live near any of them. Although I am driving down this weekend. It seems that recently the only time I've seen them is at funerals (it's been a very bad year). So this should be refreshing. I am dragging down birthday gifts for 1 brother, 2 sisters, 1 neice, and my dad. August and September are big birthday months in my family. Actually, I am still trying to find a gift for one of the sisters and waiting for the gift I ordered for my brother to arrive.