Current mood:	blank
Current music:	Barenaked Ladies - Call and Answer

Nope, not dead . . .
 . . . it just feels like it sometimes.

Been a rough coupla weeks to start the new year.  Stress at work has been super high (along with the hours I've been working), we'll see if the recently announced (second) slide to the schedule and my workgroup's shuffling of responsibilities/priorities has any effect on that.

On a positive note, I got new tenants into my Philly house, who seem to be working out well to date.  Got the before and after (repairs) pictures from Chris on Fri - wow.  Not as bad as I was fearing (Remember, I've spent plenty of time cleaning a fraternity house), but still fairly disgusting.

Why I love my dad, reason # 63,294 - with me being super stressed out, he quotes me Rudyard Kipling's "If" (explanation: Kipling is one of my favorite poets, and If one of my favorite poems):

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!