Yes, I totally missed it. Well, sort of.

My birthday was November 12...over 2 weeks ago...and I didn't even have a peep about it on my blog.

That night, I was treated to a free dinner at Buca di Beppo. Yep, a free $90 meal for Scott and myself. The service was impeccable and the food was just right, so it made for a very pleasant evening. $90 for two people...it better be good :)


The day before my birthday was Veterans Day and that meant the mail was all held up as people flocked (well, arrived in a panic for not mailing earlier) to their local post offices to send greetings and goodies my way. My parents' gifts arrived on my birthday and I was able to open it right after the Buca dinner.

Then it was Friday the 13th and I was happy to see no bad luck befall me. That Saturday, Scott had planned a dual party for Battlestar Galactica and my birthday, so while attendance was limited to 6 guests, the event was intimate and we had way too much food. The guests brought several desserts and drinks, so there was food for several days to come. Mind you, we were still working through the Buca extras :)

That was also the day a gift came from both my sisters. It was a candy apple that would make any dentist jump for joy. I know people say "an apple a day keeps the doctor away," but one of these apples a day would literally kill you by means of diabetes. It was a green apple with caramel, colorful chocolate candies, and white chocolate drizzled over the entire concoction. I started eating it the 15th and it took me three days to get through it. Here's the 'scene of the crime':

The birthday cards from friends, aunts/uncles, and family finally caught up with the system on Monday and by Wednesday they had all arrived. Gifts flowed in and people made my special days feel special for over a week! I ran out of room on top of my fridge to display them all.

Then there was work. I have barely been able to keep up with it all. From the time I joined my company full-time until today, I have been very busy. It's not atypical for me to come in at 8:30 and leave at 6. Then I get home and do a bit more. Then I wake up and reply to the last emails of yesterday or the first of today. We have clients on every continent except Antarctica and our product is in three languages (developing the 4th now!) already, so there is always an email waiting to be answered. Evey day I receive a whole new workload.

I barely have time to come in and pour a cup of coffee (a new habit since starting here) before the requests start pouring in. We're really moving!

Then, on the weekend, I also spend about half a day keeping the workload from overtaking me on Monday. Not that I mind...we're on the launchpad and counting down to liftoff! With business moving this fast already, I think our next investment should be in cloning technology so we can make a few copies of the team we have in place to handle the incoming business :)

So yes, life continues to be great fun. I continue to mystery shop and this brings in free meals and services...and enough cash to enjoy a few extras each month. Since I started in July, I have completed nearly 100 shops and have earned nearly $1100 in cash and have gotten nearly $650 in products and services paid for. These days, I actually have recruiters from around the US calling me specifically asking me to complete shops because I have been identified to be reliable and trustworthy. Imagine the relief you'll feel at the end of the month when an additional $275 cash shows up in your Paypal account.

Let me know if you're interested in mystery shopping- I can help you learn about it :)

I think that catches you up for now. Tomorrow's Thanksgiving and I'm heading East to NJ for dinner with Scott's family.

My company goes through many PDFs. We have them for contracts, business cards, brochures, and customer reports. That's a lot of paper savings and it serves our "going green" efforts well. I joke that I am the CRO - Chief Recycling Officer - at my company.

I've recently received some PDFs that need just a word or two edited here and there. it's nothing major, but because the files include background images, Adobe cannot read them easily and so I get errors when I try to use the Touchup Text Tool which is usually very handy.

I went out to the net and searched for other products which would allow me to perform what appear to be simple edits. That's when I found Infix PDF Editor. It works!

In fact, I was able to edit documents I had given up on after hour(s?) of frustration. It's a handy product that really works. It's intuitive so it looks like a typical editor and you don't have to set up any fancy settings for it to distinguish between text and photos. It's so easy that I can easily compare it to a Word document editor.

I know it also has support in 20+ languages and the ability to make just about any file a PDF, but I have not needed to use these features.

Installation is quick. The program is just a fraction of the size of a typical Adobe install. I recommend it!

Check it out: http://www.iceni.com/infix.htm

I received an email that I just could not wait to share with you, dear reader:


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In the Opinion section of Philly's Metro newspaper today, I found a story that really resonated with my thoughts.  I could not have written it better, so I defer to the voice of John Nichols:

Thursday’s shooting at Fort Hood — which left 13 people dead and 30 others wounded — was indeed a tragedy. Another: The incident inspired an all-too-predictable outbreak of Islamophobia.

News reports named the man who used two handguns in the assault on his fellow soldiers as Major Malik Nidal Hasan. Hours after the incident, and hours after news anchors and politicians cited his religion as an explanation for the shootings, a family member told reporters Major Hasan was indeed a Muslim. But that was hardly the only relevant detail about the major.

For instance, according to Sen. Bailey Hutchison, a senator from Texas, Hasan was preparing to deploy to Iraq. Several reports suggested that the major saw a deployment to Iraq as his “worst nightmare” and recounted how he had treated — as a psychiatrist at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress — victims of combat-related stress and was upset about the war.

No one knew on Thursday whether stress, fear, anger over mistreatment, mental illness or a warped understanding of his religion might have motivated Major Hasan. The point here is not to defend the soldier or his alleged actions. Rather, it is to question the rush to judgment regarding not just this one Muslim but all Muslims.

It should be understood that to assume a follower of Islam who engages in violence is a jihadist is every bit as absurd to assume that every follower of Christianity who attacks others is a crusader. The calculus makes no sense, and is rooted in a bigotry that everyone from George W. Bush to Pope Benedict XVI has condemned.

But that did not stop right-wing Web sites from exploding with incendiary speculation about a “Jihad at Fort Hood?” and a “Terrorist Incident in Texas.” Fox News host Shepard Smith asked Sen.

Hutchison on air: “The name tells us a lot, does it not, senator?”`

Hutchinson’s response? “It does. It does, Shepard.”

Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, declared that, “Our entire organization extends its heartfelt condolences to the families of those killed as well as to those wounded and their loved ones.”

Those are sentiments that are worth noting, especially by news anchors and senators who are in a position to inform the discussion of a horrific incident — rather than to inflame it.


— John Nichols is a correspondent for The Nation magazine.

My two cents:  How sad it is for Sen. Hutchinson to be so closed-minded to think that a certain name means terrorism.  So should someone with a German last name be condemned today for wars gone by?  I most agree with the comments regarding Catholics and crusades because as pious and mighty as Catholics prop themselves to be, there was a very dark time in their history where they fought in the name of God for such earthly possessions as land and wealth.  How can we possibly think that all people of Islam are terrorists?  As a Catholic, are you automatically killing people in the name of God?  Then please stop believing and spouting this ludicrous assertion that all Muslims are terrorists.  It's childlike and immature!