Honest
I ran over to a coworker's office to ask if he wants to head out for lunch. He said yes. I stand there for a second looking at one of the magazines on his desk and he comes right out and tells me he doesn't have time to chat because he has to concentrate to get something done. Man, I wish every one would do that. If I'm being my typical goofy self and not catching the signals of "go away and let me work" then just tell me you are busy. I can appreciate that. I'm so bad at picking up signals.

Retirement
I'm screwed. Greenspan says every one is screwed for retirement in the coming years. As soon as the baby boomers start dropping off the employment roles, it is all down hill for the economy. I could have told you this. He wants to raise the retirement age. How about Death? I've always said I am going to work until I drop. I've been hearing for my entire life that baby boomers are going to get screwed when they retire. They have been paying in to the system for their entire lives and now they are going to have to take it on the chin when their turn comes. There is just not enough money or planning. There has been a distinct lack of balls on the part of politicians for ever to do anything about it. It is just all going to blow up in our faces over the next couple of decades. I heard that in the nineties every retiree had two people working to pay the social Security bill. In the next decade, that will change to one to one. I don't have a better answer. The Japanese and most of Europe are in the same boat. It is definitely the second world war that caused the problem.

PDF
People keep asking me how to generate PDF files. Business keeps demanding the format and not providing an answer. Well, PDF995 is a $10 program that works like a print driver to generate PDF files. You hit print, select PDF995 as your printer and it prompts you for a PDF file name. It doesn't get any easier. Adobe Acrobat costs something like $300 and the only thing most people get out of it is the printer driver. If you don't mind a pop-up add after you generate a PDF, PDF995 is free. The users cannot tell the difference really.
Linux has a printer driver and a whole slew of utilities for generating and editing PDF files built in.

SP2
Microsoft just came out with the official release of service pack 2 for Windows XP. It installs a bunch of useless icons all over the place. It installs an automatic update feature that I will put on my laptop at least. It also puts on a firewall. The last is the one that will cause the most problems. Once you activate the firewall, it will start firwalling your applications.It is like putting a fence around your computer. It prevents things from getting out that should get out. For example. VPN (Virtual Private Network) also know as RAS (Remote Access System) may be affected. The way you set the firewall to let software be accessed is pretty straight forward if you have ever worked on port forwarding stuff. You go to the new security control panel and put a check mark next to the service you want open, or add a new one. Or, you can turn it off if you already use a firewall.
I do not like the fact the firewall can be turned off remotely. Microsoft wanted to allow support organizations to have the ability to make changes through their network. Makes sense, but that means there is a loosely guarded hole in the wall. It is just one more thing to remember to deal with.