Today was better.

It's funny, how small things can make or break your day. Like the inclusion of laughter. This morning, I missed the first train, however it turned out to be ok. Who's riding along on the 8:14 as well as me? Why, it's SkaCore. I haven't spoken to him since last Friday, so it was good to just shoot shit at 8 am, while everyone is grumbling, reading the paper, or asleep on the train (which is what I'm usually doing). At the transfer in Secau-sucks, we got stuck on the open-end of the train, which gave us a nice view of the caboose, along with a healthy dose of that clean, meadowlands air. mmm, exhaust.

No boss-man at work today, so I was on my own trying to get paper maps of the SEPTA system into a digital format. I didn't get done as I wanted to today due to the crap-tacular laptop that decides to crash about every 20 minutes. I feel like Sisyphus, everytime I get close to completion of a section of the importation, the computer comes crashing down around me, and I have to start from scratch again. I can't wait till 1) they order new computers or 2) I get sick and tired of this and bring in my own laptop. Interesting news from work: Our shipment of GPS receivers came in, so for the next week or so I should be testing receiver strength from inside a bus in the urban canyons of NYC.

I was talking to the front-desk ladies today, and found out that I'm older than one of them, yet she's married and already has a one year old kid. It freaked me out a little bit, that here this woman (I thought she was older than me from her looks, and her attitude, but not from her maturity) and she's got a kid, and all these other aspects going on. They asked me if I was married. Do I look like I'm married? I don't even think I'm capable of that at this point. I'm constantly amazed at the various viewpoints of people that I continue to meet. This girl's ideal future, is that she gets fired, so she can go on welfare. To me, that doesn't seem right. The point of welfare is to help out those that cannot hold a job or having trouble finding a job but need to support themselves and their families. It is not for those who just don't want to work. That's what the lottery is for.

Everytime I go to mandarin class, I learn a little bit more about Chinese culture, and find out how much I don't know outside of things that I encounter everyday. We were talking about how one pronounces the year. Before the new millennium passed, I know a majority, hell, practically everyone, said the year as two separate numerals, with 1995 being pronounce as "19" "95" or 1864 as "18" "64". Why don't we do that with the current year...saying "20" "05"? I think, we'll start doing it again with 2010. Just a weird inconsistency I was thinking about tonight on the ride home.