My daughter Bonnie tells me that I need to include more personal information in my blog rather than just posting links to articles and such. Well, I’m trying to write a speech right now and I’m blocked, so I thought this might loosen my mind up a bit.

On the whole I would say that my life is pretty fortunate right now. Things are going fairly well at my job, my girlfriend Jennifer is just about to start one of her own, and once she does we should be able to finally pay some bills off and accumulate some savings. It was a beautiful Memorial Day weekend, sunny and not too hot. I spent a portion of the day today at Hopkinton State Park, walking and playing with Bonnie and watching all the families there playing, laughing, and having fun.

There is an essay contest in Vanity Fair magazine that I’m going to try to enter. First prize is a week in Tuscany. I have a month to work on my essay, and it is only 1500 words, so I should be able to create something worthwhile in that timeframe.

Long weekends are great, but the compressed work week almost makes it not worthwhile. Why do we try to squeeze five days of work into four? Why don’t we rather just accept the lost day and move on? Sometimes I wish we functioned on a more European work system. Five to six weeks of vacation are typical in Europe, and they aren’t living in abject poverty.