Guardian Angel,

I should probably write you a letter, a thank you note, or in some other way acknowledge your presence, because clearly you've been present. I've kinda had my head screwed on loosely recently, and that's left me open to some inconveniences, as well as dangers. So thanks.

When I parked inside the Diocesan-affiliated senior home parking garage last night for All Saints mass, thanks for putting little old Laura in front of the home entrance as I made my way out of the Cathedral. You see, the door to the garage I had parked in had closed for the night….apparently Catholic senior citizens like to go to sleep at 6PM. Who knew? And to get to the garage I had to get into the building, which would have been impossible as everyone was either asleep, away, or had bingo games to attend to. Never had I wanted to get into a retirement home 40 years before eligibility so bad. But Laura – a nice, attentive and caring little lady no taller than my elbow, with glasses as thick as Joe Paterno's – was there to help let me in and show me the way down to the garage. She even gave perfect instructions on how to get the garage door open. So thanks for putting her there. And if one of the cars I saw in the garage is hers, I also say a special prayer for everyone on the road in Seattle.

When I rushed out to Microsoft after Mass to file some forms prior to my departure today, thanks for keeping safe my laptop that I had forgotten and left behind in the first floor copy room. Even though computers are to the Microsoft campus like golf trophies are to Tiger Woods' living room, it's nice that you kept it safe there for me to come back later to get. It's surprising that when I left campus the first time I didn't notice that my backpack was 5 lbs lighter than it should have been. Of course, that happened to me once in the Minneapolis airport as well, so you've had practice on helping me out with the "left my computer behind" problem before. I know the real reason you let me forget it last night was so I could double dip into all the Halloween candy that people had left outside their offices. Which reminds me, I'm gonna be asking for your help on a cavity in a couple of months. Just a heads up.

When I was driving home from Redmond yesterday at night, pitch black outside accept for the street lights running over my car, thanks for keeping all the cars away from me as I forgot to turn on my headlights for half the trip. I was tailing a couple of the cars as I normally do, and when I got back to my apartment it dawned on me that they couldn't see me. It must have been you in the car that pulled up to me on the bridge looking like maniac and pointing to my front lights, which at the time were as off as Tony Romo in the playoffs. For the benefit and safety of all Seattle, I was able to turn them on for the rest of the trip.

And when I approached the Broad and Denny intersection on my way back out to campus to pick up my computer, and everyone else on the road had pulled to the side except for me, thanks for letting me swerve to miss the oncoming fire truck. I swear to your Boss that I was paying attention to the road. I had the green light, but I didn't find it odd at all that opposite facing cars remained parked at the light. By the time I fully noticed a 5 ton red truck with enough lights and sounds to make a 4^th of July picnic jealous, I was 20 yards away from testing my airbags, with no option to stop. I missed it by 5. If it was you who gave my car some extra acceleration, I'm much obliged. Much obliged indeed.

I know it might be tempting, but I beg you not to take a vacation. Yeah, you've put in some overtime, but I'm sure the Big Man notices this stuff. And I'm gonna need you a little more now than I did before. Colombia is full of graceful people, beautiful spirits, colorful cultures, and Spanish. In approaching the language I'm sure I'll end up unintentionally: trying exotic foods I thought were chicken; getting on public transportation that's going in the exact opposite direction I want to go; and insulting people I thought I was greeting. A little intervention might not hurt.

Hey, at least I won't have a car down there.

Regards,

Dan

I have a horrible problem – I can't concentrate on the moment. I'm always thinking ahead of what I need to be doing tomorrow or thinking behind to things I did yesterday but very seldom thinking on the present and what I need to be doing now. And so I am now, having just left my friends in Houston after we all attended a wedding, thinking about how I miss them already in spite of the fact that I have a lot of work to do on the way home. Screw work.

I'm blessed. Wes and Alisha got married this weekend, and I was one of Wes's Groomsmen. I hadn't seen either since we left the GSB in 2006, but it didn't seem like that long when we were catching up. It's clichéd, and true. The same for a lot of other friends – Christine, Tim, Arvind….despite losing touch I've never lost interest in how they're doing. It was so good to see everyone that it made me pine hard for school again, to live with everyone in Chicago, to keep everyone close. I never fully appreciated it when I was there, but I had an incredibly strong support network while I was in school. These types of reunions remind me of that, in retrospect.

And so I get a bit depressed when I have to leave these reunions because it's like leaving school again. Even if it were an option, I wouldn't choose to go back to school. Life needs to move forward. But I wish I could drop everyone in my pocket and take them with me. It always a bit painful to say goodbye to them.

Roots and Wings

A personal highlight of the trip was when I filled in and gave a dinner toast for Wes and Alisha during the rehearsal dinner. Wes was unaware he was supposed to ask one of his best men to prepare a toast for this night, and when he dropped the bomb that he needed one neither Tom nor Kristan wanted to take away from what they were going to say at the reception the following night. So I stepped in. I was really happy with what I was able to give them, especially on such short notice. To the best of my knowledge, here's what I said.

"Wes and Alisha, it's such an honor to be here, and I feel very blessed to be able to celebrate this time with you and everyone else.

"First, I want to address something to your parents.

"Jeffery, Mimi. Cathy and Clint.

"The two most important things parents can give their children are Roots and Wings.

"You give them Roots to ground them. To give them a family to lean on and a home to come back to. You give them Wings when you encourage them to take on new challenges in life, teach them to love new adventures and show them how to build a life of their own.

"Wes and Alisha, we're very lucky in that within these next two days we get to celebrate both your Roots and your Wings. Tonight we celebrate your Roots because we celebrate family and friends. Family who have traveled from Indonesia and Virginia. And friends who have come from New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. All to be here to share this moment with you.

"But we're even luckier tomorrow because then we get to celebrate your Wings. Celebrate your new life together, celebrate the challenges and adventures you're going to embark on and celebrate the life you will lead as one couple.

"And in this new life, when times get hard and you go through some tough challenges, you'll have each other to lean on. But also remember that you'll always be able to fall back on your Roots as well.

"So everyone, please raise your glass with me and help me toast Wes and Alisha's Wings, and their new journey together."

I started on the South Beach Diet two weeks ago.  The diet is separated into 3 phases, each being progressively more liberal in the types of foods you're permitted to eat to achieve different objectives on the diet.  The first phase prohibits the most, and included in its "off limits" list is all alcohol, including wine.  There happens to be a lot of benefits to drinking wine, red wine especially, but for Phase 1 it's all off limits.

I'm pondering this:  10 days ago, during Mass, after I received Holy Communion I went to receive the Blood of Christ.  Catholics believe this is wine that is actually turned into Christ's blood during Mass.  Right before I took a sip though, I hesitated very, very slightly because I momentarily thought, "Wait, I'm not supposed to drink wine."  Having that thought really concerned me.  What does it say about my faith?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

• Too much of an Also-ran, Me-too feel to it.  Maybe that's just because of all the hype surrounding MySpace, but you almost feel as though nobody will see you on Spaces Live because they're all over on MySpace.  Not that I suggest running with the cool group just for the sake of running with them is a good thing, but the community feel is nice over there.
• Visually easy to see the layout.  Nice and clean feel to it.  Almost a bit sterile though.
• LOVE the photo-view.  Kicks the S*(&^*t out of MySpace's photo uploading. 
• Thanks for killing my creativity - honestly, your backgrounds selection leaves a lot to be desired.  When will I be able to but up my pics as a backdrop?  A lot of your themed stuff is cheesy, and the list of colors you provide to customize the space is quite limited.
• Your add-ons are cool.  At first I couldn't find any of this, and I really thought the options involved in building a nice space were too limited.  But putting Tetris, movies, other html stuff on adds a lot to the way you can personalize the space.  If I ever got a video camera I'd probably start using Soapbox too.  Thanks for bringing in a universal player so I can play some stuff off of YouTube.
• Blogging and editing is simple enough.
• You REALLY need more third party support - such as pimp-my-profile.com
• Though I don't use it yet, I like how everything links to everything else - from being able to buy books off a book list, to getting movie tickets, etc.

My FIRST impressions of MySpace (btw, my site over there is http://www.myspace.com/dannymac76)

• I was a bit intimidated at first because I saw a ton of different, very creative spaces out there.  Then I learned how to create my own layout.  VERY nice.  Personalization is a big seller.
• You are the New York to Spaces Live's Kansas City.
• Community is huge.  I just added Robin Thicke to my friends, and I'll probably try to add Usher later today.  Everyone is using MySpace.
• Though you can create different backgrounds, for about 95% of them it becomes really hard to read the lettering that's on the actual page.  You can change this with text boxes, but with all the different shapes of them, it comes off looking very messy.  It's like my bedroom floor when I was growing up - crap lying all over with no apparent order to any of it.
• Your photo input sucks.  No ability to group into albums?  Seems like almost a no brainer.  This is a BIG minus.
• Easy to blog.  I like how it only appears in a title on the front page, and then you can link to the rest of the blog.
• Overall, the editing experience needs to be better - confusing, and the final output is typically messy. 

Granted, a lot of the grievances I listed above are probably solvable, I just haven't learned how to yet.  But if I had to give a grade as to who has a better site, I'd go with Spaces Live - it's easier to input and the output is nicer than MySpace.  Plus, I'm a big fan of creativity around photos.  BUT, MySpace is the place to be because everyone and their mother is over there now, so that will probably win out. 

BTW, on a side note....do you get the same impression as I do that about 70% of the people who have a Spaces Live account are Microsoft employees trying to promote the site?  That, and whole bunch of people in South America.  Anyway....just a thought.