the weekend, etc. ahh, my vacation is over. how sad!

saturday, balu, roy (his friend), & i went on a shore dive off of palm avenue in lauderdale-by-the-sea.. completely amazing. it really surprised me how much we managed to see - hamlets, yellow-tail snappers, goatfish.. all things i typically don't see on shore dives. it was awesome!


i saw one of these - it's a baby of the yellowtail damselfish.
read more about them here.

then it was home for a nap! sunday, hm, what did i do? well, all that last-minute stuff i had to do before i went back to work. and our diving buddy bill came over for dinner before he had to pick his wife up at the airport, so we had an excuse to make a nice dinner - spaghetti squash with pesto. bill brought apple pie & ice cream. :)

today was the first day at the new job. the drive this morning wasn't as bad as i thought it'd be, so that's happy news. the new boss (or team leader, i guess i should call her) took me and the three nice ladies i'll mostly be working with out for lunch at sublime. it's been there for years and i hadn't yet been there, so it was a nice treat. what a change - a restaurant where i can order ANYTHING I WANT. honestly, deciding was a bit hard.

work was as i expected it - the folks there are really nice and it seems like a good environment. we'll be expanding into an office space they're presently remodeling for us, so in the fall i'll be working in a 50ish-person office instead of the 10ish one i'm in now. i'm just getting settled in, but am excited about what i'll be doing there.

i had a job a couple of years ago that, honestly, when i walked in the door on the first day, i had a bad feeling. the whole place.. you could just tell that the people who worked there weren't happy. and it turned out to be valid - it was a horrible place to work. so i was relieved to get none of those vibes today.

other than that, all quiet on the southeastern front. the cats are settling down - the big oaf dog left yesterday. i really liked having a dog around, even if he made me feel guilty by sleeping in the hallway outside our bedroom doors at night.

ok, tired, must go lounge and watch seinfeld.  ¶ 5:23 PM