'Blood alone moves the wheels of history'

Today marked the end of our old computer system at work. I got to design the final front page using it. Big deal. Now that system goes the way of Windows 3.1 and Adobe PageMaker. Tomorrow's a bigger day though: The switch to the new system. This will be my third fundamental change in newspaper software in two years (fourth fundamental change in three years). It'll take some time to get used to it. But I'm not so worried about myself. There's something a lot more daunting about the fact that everyone is making this switch at once. When you're the new guy coming in to a room full of knowledgeable people, there's always someone there willing to help or teach. But starting tomorrow, we're all the new guy. A few people know more than others and can help out, but for the most part, we're all just feeling this out together. So that should make for an interesting week. And a long week. And a busy week. But hopefully not a bad week. Get back to me in five days.

And the bonsai tree naming game is still open. Not that I'm not satisfied with John Wayne and Steve Martin. But I gotta keep my options open.