TGIF

What a day this has been, what a rare mood I'm in...okay, I'm stopping there. It's Friday, as you can tell from the photo of Sgt. Joe Friday (for those of you young 'uns, he was in a TV show called Dragnet, eons ago). Actually, it's a darned good picture of a not so attractive guy. Certainly the best photo I've ever seen of him, in fact, I'm almost certain it's very doctored to enhance his looks. That's kind of sick if you think about it. It's not like he was a heartthrob or anything. Anyway, he represented Friday for me tonight so there you are.

So, what happened today you ask? Well, one of my teams at work was voted Innovative Team of the year. That was a big deal because they not only got a trophy, they each got money out of it, very cool. I was very happy for them because they did some phenomenal work over the past year, resulting in internal programs being productized and now being sold in the market. What a cool graphic this is, innovation being represented by the leap from a 200 year old, wooden wagon wheel to a 747 jet aircraft. That's quite a jump, or maybe I should say a quantum leap!

It was also our annual incentive payout so everyone was pretty happy about that and of course how does America celebrate any special event, but with food. In this case, it was strangely healthy mexican food (OK, except for the sour cream and guac). Then one of the staff was talking about the 3 1/2 week trip he just returned from to India and Nepal. He is quite the photographer so already had some excellent shots to show us of his elephant safari into the game preserves of India. He got some amazing shots of Bengal tigers, rhinos and crocodiles, all from the back of an elephant. They even slept in a tent out in the wild, no thank you very much.

He also stressed how amazingly impressive the Taj Mahal was. With all the beauty and intricacy of the exterior, I asked about the interior. All there is inside is a replica of the tomb of the builder's loved one (it's a replica because they were afraid the real thing would be vandalized so it's located underground). The whole situation reminded me of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, amazing exterior and an empty, blank interior. Ed said this memorial was much bigger and much more beautiful than he could have imagined. It's pristine beauty definitely stands out in the overcrowded and very dirty environment that pervades the rest of the country. I'm sure it is well worth seeing but I'm afraid it's way down my list of places I really want to see. Although riding an elephant on a photo safari does sound very interesting and exciting. He told a story of one trip where all the elephants formed a circle around a tiger (remember this is all in the wild) and the tiger, feeling cornered and threatened did something completely out of character and attacked one of the elephants (they never do this) and bit it's trunk. He admitted it was a stupid thing to do and they never did it again after that. I didn't hear if the elephant dumped off the tourists when it was attacked but they probably would have deserved it if it had.

So tomorrow, early in the morning, we are heading over to Long Beach, Washington, to our
beach cabin. We need to pick up a birthday present I left at a store there "on hold" so we can bring it home and hang it in the bedroom. It was one of those rare times when we actually agreed on art that we liked. It's supposed to rain but I choose to think it will look like this. I know, you wish you were going too, maybe some other time...