Some weeks disappear right before your eyes.  This past one sure did.  Busy? No.  Distracted perhaps.  The waiting game with the new company has been a bit unnerving to be honest.  I'd hoped to hear back today or tomorrow about the next interview date.  I didn't hear today.  Please continue to hold.  ARggghhhh!!

I've spent much of this week reading a new book: The Data Warehouse Toolkit: Practical Techniques for Building Dimensional Data Warehouses (1996) by Ralph Kimball.  It's a seminal work on the subject and I'm hoping it'll help with the background I need to work with KALIDO (should I get the job).  If not, then I'll use it as the first of several geared toward independent study of theoretical data structures and practical data modeling techniques.  Maybe that'll help my resume a bit - don't you think?

It's actually not as boring as it might sound.  A little bit of business restructuring sense, a dash of interviewing skills, add a touch of presentations and the ability to synthesize vastly disparate data sets and business models and squeeze out some cohesive, simple, and easily understood goals and accesses system paradigms and perhaps if it's tweaked just so in the proper way, it could become globally useful.  

I GUESS THAT'S WHAT I DID THIS WEEK - I WAS "JUST BEING". Thursday I had a great quiet dinner with Brad to discover if there was enough mutual interest to see each other again.  I'm guessing not since I hadn't called him back, and since he's not called either.  He's a doll - a really nice guy.  And sometimes it's hard to let just a few minutes (a couple of hours) determine the future -- but you know how it is when you just get that feeling that "he's not the one".  I got that feeling.  I hate when that happens but have regretfully become more and more accustomed to that than the other "oh my god, he COULD be the one!!!!" freak-out feeling (you know the one) that make you completely panic and loose all sense of reason if not your composure.  That hasn't' happened so long I'd be lying if I said I remembered the last time.  

I went with Mikel and Morgan (a friend's 15-year old son) to the beach on Friday.  He's such a good kid - and he's got the whole world to conquer now too == he's just come out to us and his family.  Way to go Morgan.  Now he has to deal with his twin brother who isn't expressing the same feelings -au' contraire'.  That family is planning a move to Hawaii sometime in October and they have so many new experiences awaiting them they seem to bounce back and forth between trepidation and enthusiasm.  I'll wish them the best of luck and in thinking of their situation , I have spent too many hours thinking about whether or not I could handle a 15-year old living in the guest room until he finishes high school (or his GED) and goes off to Florida for Flight School.  Mikel's been thinking about that and may propose to help out if its appropriate (that is to have him stay with him).  I on the other hand felt maybe I had more adequate space (and since I live across from the high school) might be able to offer a more traditional approach to a home lifestyle.  They haven't asked me to consider this but I think after having my nephew visit and then hearing of this young man's challenges and hopes for direction of the future, it got my parental genes kicked hard.  Perhaps just thinking these thoughts will be enough to let John know he probably would've  succeeded in getting me to be a parent - if he'd just waited a while.

I think the young man is set on living in Hawaii then coming back to the states for school in a few years.  Good luck to all involved with that.  He's such a good young man.  He deserves the best.

Since Mikel has a show to open on Friday night, Morgan and I did a double-header at the theater after dinner: We saw the Princess Diaries and Rush Hour 2 back-to-back.  And we were good, I got him home before 12:30am and his mom never had a chance to worry.

I read most of the late night Friday and Saturday starting really early at the coffee shop in town.  A lecture at the MFAH on their single most popular and recognized painting : by Bouguereau called The Elder Sister.  The Houston annual Shakespeare Festival kicked off with Romeo & Juliet and I was sitting there relaxing and reading as it began.  A very good (albeit modernistic approach) production.  Sunday, more Data Warehouse reading (really it's NOT THAT BORING <g>) and dinner in alone.  Spent today reading chapter after chapter taking breaks for two wonderful television movies: Philadelphia (1983 with Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, and Antonio Banderas) and Ghosts of the Mississippi (1996 Alex Baldwin & Whoopi Goldberg).  After watching these two films; both about prejudice and the legal system. I recalled the conversation I had with Morgan over dinner on Friday where he talked of his mother asking him to try not to be so "effeminate" as a gay man.  His mom's pretty open-minded but statements like that don't serve to foster a sense of his having an ability to be whatever he wants /needs to be.  I think the gay spectrum of butch-nelly is something each of us needs to find our place within.  And for me, being able to pull from the whole spectrum (when appropriate) may be to your advantage.

As Martin Mull sang, in his only released single: I used to be Plastic, Now I'm Elastic, I'm flexible.

Rigidity won't last - it's just waiting a chance to be broken.

I'm patiently waiting for news of the changes a coming.  Some things are out of our immediate control.  In these cases often being passive is the strength we need.

I'll be having lunch with Richie on Tuesday; Kyle (and a bud maybe?) will be here on Wednesday and Thursday (to see King John with me), the Russ and Dennis stop by for the weekend (and see La Cage A Follies which Mikel is in on Friday).  If I get the word for the job, this could be the busiest week of the past two years getting ready.  It's nice to have people coming by - I LOVE visitors and hope that the rest of you will plan on popping over soon.  Like maybe before I leave for Europe!!!?!!!?

I finished the Grove Press Reader in time to pick up the Data Warehouse book !!!

Last Updated: 08/06/01

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