I've been working at this contract job for six months now and have settled in pretty well. Yesterday afternoon one of the other writers stopped by to discuss an interesting problem. I spent an hour at day's end working on it and some more time thinking about it in the evening. It's still difficult to become involved in long-term projects, but the work that I have is challenging enough. The funding for my current contract runs out at the end of the month, so it's time to have a converation with my manager about a renewal.

We had a nice party for Krista last night, telling stories of what we remembered about that snowy night when she was born. Krista asked Sandra to tell the story about how we got Marley. In turn, Krista told the story of how they got their cat, Smokey.

One of the kids asked me if I knew why their AOL connection wasn't working. I had started work on it last week before I got sick again. I hope to get back there in the next few days. It should be as simple as reinstalling the AOL software, but experience has shown that few things are as simple as they should be.

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has reviewed the Microsoft AntiSpyware software I mentioned. He spent more time testing it and he's not as favorably impressed as I had been. It's better than nothing, but, when dealing with the bad guys, better than nothing can lead to a false sense of security.

Friday the 13th falls on a Thursday this month.