Warm Glass

Making glass jewelry and small pieces such as bottle stoppers and purse hangers has become my addiction. I wake up each morning and do as much as I can before I have to go to my real job as a project manager. After work I'm back cutting, grinding and fusing glass. I dream about designs in my sleep, I have no finger nails anymore from grinding glass everyday, I choose to miss working out sometimes because I have to feed my creative passion to make something colorful out of glass. At the moment it is a hobby with a dream to make it a fulltime labor of love; to have a shop in an arty part of the world.

Ugg!

I'm really old now!

Slow realization

It's finally starting to sink in. NETg is being eliminated. We are all going to be laid off eventually. There will be no NETg essence left. SkillSoft is showing no interest in keeping anyone with any knowledge or history of any of our clients. I have been given a 3 month transition contract, my lay off date is August 14th. I'm in shock. Not because I have a lay off date, I am in shock that SkillSoft is removing everyone. They paid millions to eliminate a competitor. My initial thoughts are that they are not concerned with getting anything else from the deal. I am shocked and saddened - what a waste of good talent, knowledge and history.

End Of An Era

Today the sale of Thomson NETg by SkillSoft Corporation was finalized. There has been a death in the learning family.

I was originally hired by Knowledgenet, and soon after, they merged with Thomson NETg. NETg (National Education Training group) had been acquired by the Thomson Corporation previously. The merger seemed pretty easy from my view point and everyone on the NETg and Knet sides were professional and wonderful to work with. Today after the sale was announced the farewell e-mails started, people who had been with the company for 8, 9 and even 12 years had been immediately laid off by SkillSoft. Almost all of the sales team are gone.

Nude

This is another one of those English language rants...which is strange because my parents thought my English was mediocre, and my spelling even worse. They'd be shocked to see that now I have quite a strong opinion on the subject. It is strange that as I grow older I find myself shocked by the grammar and word usage of professional journalists. I think it has a lot to do with my experience with the difference between UK and US English.

Nude and naked!

In the largely unknown and nonexistent Dr C Dictionary of terms, rants and pet peeves "nude" is a noun and "naked" an adjective. Well, that is how I believe the two words should be used.

It annoys me when I hear of people talking about a nude body, meaning a body with no clothes....It's a naked body, as in "neckid as a jaybird!"

I found this wonderful Webpage;
A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude. http://cgd.best.vwh.net/home/naturism/wnl-0102.htm


On another note, I got my SPAM filter working...geeze, I was filterless for a month. There's a lot of SPAM and crap out there. Luckily I don't have to look at it anymore :-)

The World's Shortest Fairytale

Every now and then I get an e-mail that just tickles me.

The World's Shortest Fairytale
Once upon a time, a girl asked a guy, "Will you marry me?" The guy said "No" and the girl lived happily ever after and went shopping, drank martinis with friends, always had a clean house, never had to cook, had a closet full of shoes and handbags, stayed skinny, and was never farted on.
The End

Test from Treo

Stuff

Happy Chinese New Year! I like the look of the boar year, it could be a pretty good one. http://www.theholidayspot.com/chinese_new_year/more_zodiacs/boar.htm - A year of goodwill to all. An excellent climate for business, and industry in general will prevail. I hope so. Since I will be involuntary changing companies this year, I'm all over anything that is positive towards business. Also after a negative end to the last year I also want to believe that everyone will be safer, healthier and happier this year.

Last week I played my first game of Wii bowling...I sucked! However, when we moved on to golf, I faired a lot better - I'm sure it has something to do with those golf lessons from my Dad when I was 12. I ended up just one over par and it made me want to go out and pay the real game. It probably won't happen, there is more of a chance that I'll buy a Wii...if they ever become available to mere mortals like myself.

I love Bill Maher!!!!! It was a joy on Saturday morning to scroll through Tivo and see his show listed and ready for me to view. I love the guy!

Take Responsibility

After the mass and reception for Matteo's memorial we followed Flora and her family home. There we were with the inner core of Flora's friends, the people who knew her, Matteo and Gill. Flora spoke about Matteo and told some funny stories and we looked at photos of a party of when she came to visit with Matteo. At the house there were two very good friends of Flora. We were sure we had never met, but Flora showed photos of us all at the same party. I really felt bad that we spent so much time going over the story of Matteo's death. There was no peace in that house, everyone was incensed. All the things Cindy, Kevin and I had notice about Gill's attitude and actions were also noted by everyone else. And what was more scary were the stories everyone had about how many other poor choices Gill had made over the years; no child car seat, leaving him alone on a high balcony, throwing him so high when he was a baby...it was tragic to hear.

With inheritance from his rich father Gill had employed a lawyer in an attempt to get sole custody of Matteo. He had disagreed with every decision Flora had for Matteo. Everything had to be decided in front of a judge. Thousands of dollars have been spent having a judge make the overall decision. One thing in particular Gill disagreed about was the choice to have Matteo attend a Catholic school. Recently Gill had joined a Spiritual Life church and we presume he was planning to establish himself as a more spiritual person than Flora so Matteo could be placed in a non-Catholic school. I believe the sole reason was to hurt Flora and gain control over her. At the mass Gill took communion - I was sickened.

There were several people at Flora's house who urged her to pursue charges against Gill. There was even talk about a restraining order, I lost the thread of that reasoning, but since it was suggested by people who work with her, I can only presume they have heard more "Gill" stories than me. At that time Flora was very reluctant, she said that the only good thing to come out of Matteo's death was that she wouldn't have to deal with Gill anymore - she was so tired of him, his controlling and manipulative ways. I can't say I blame her, but we all encouraged her not to give up and do it for the sake of Matteo and any other child Gill may have charge of in the future. Kevin and I left Flora's later in the evening and drank a couple of bottles of wine between us - I think we needed the Scottish/Irish method for grieving by then. Cindy stayed behind and we heard that Flora started going through Matteo's clothes. As expected she was very upset. My concern after hearing that was she was moving too fast.

Funeral Mass

Last Saturday there was a Mass for Flora's son Matteo, there we continued to see Gill in acting mode. He looked as if he was enjoying the attention. At one point he was walking down the isle and then remembered something, he clicked his fingers and turned around. I looked at Cindy, we couldn't believe it, it was like he was planning a wedding or some fun event.

St Francis Church was beautiful, it was next to St Francis school where Matteo attended. The streets were tree-lined and the place had a small college town feel - it must have been a nice place for Matteo. The priest who conducted the mass was a short round man in a brown monk's habit and had a very warm and calming voice. He almost broke down part way through the mass. The people we were standing with were all crying. There were so many people there. I had never been to a funeral mass before, but I have to say it was very nice. The music and things that people said about Matteo were beautiful. It was a very nice and spiritual way to say good bye to Matteo, and if there were no extraneous circumstances about his death, I truly believe that most people who attended would be able to move to the next stage of the grieving process. But the devil was at the mass too - Gill got up and talked about himself, how his grandfather had died 20 years ago, his father 22 months ago and now Matteo. He babbled on about airplanes because Matteo loved planes, but his emotion was so forced. This wasn't about him, it was about Matto and Gill's self-centered mind just couldn't comprehend that.

In the gym behind the church they had food and drink. Flora looked better than the day before, she seemed please to see so many people. There was an imaginary line in the room between Flora's family and friends, and Gill's family. At one point Gill's sister spoke with Flora. We heard afterwards that Flora had told her that her brother had killed Matteo, Gill's sister replied that she knew that. Yet there he was in his own happy world, mingling with people like it was a cocktail party. Cindy wanted to find Gill's mother so she could ask her if she knew what her son had done. I never heard if she did. We did hear that Gill's mother told Flora not to feel guilty. We have no idea what that meant, or what story Gill told her.