3 crashes so far tonight but they all seem to be of the connection variety so... are those really crashes then? Maybe just fender benders?

My goodness I am tired tonight.

After tonight I probably won't be online until I get to the Philippines which is Saturday evening locally. That makes it 3:00 AM Saturday morning for Mistress and Jan. I wish I could give everyone a better idea of when I will be online in the Philippines but last time I flew internationally I slept for 18 hours once I landed. I am sure I won't be so lag-headed this time but it is still hard to be precise.

Itinerary overview:
Leave Phoenix at 8:15 amon Friday morining
Arrive Honolulu at 11:45 am Friday morning

Leave Honolulu at 1:20 pm Friday afternoon
Arrive in Manila at 6:05 pm on Saturday night

WHERE DID FRIDAY GO?!?

It is 6 hours and 30 minutes to Hawaii from Phoenix and then another 10 hours 45 minutes to Manila. I am flying west which means I lose time as I go instead of gaining it by flying east. I like to fly but something tells me the I will be looking forward to getting off the plane after 18 hours.

I need to come to terms with the fact that there is no iPod battery on the market that will last for 18 hours. I am going to have to amuse myself the old-fashioned way by getting a book. Ack! The old kind with pages and ink. How will I ever cope?

I will miss you both this week and if I don't see you before Saturday or Sunday... whichever it is... have a wonderful new year's celebration and please be careful.

499 lines later

I had to do 500 lines for Mistress last week. 500 lines = a major screw up on my part. I turned in the first third to her so she would know that I have been working on them when I asked for more time from her. It was probably not necessary since she would have probably let me have the time either way.

When I turned in the rest of the lines I only turned in a total of 499 lines. Mistress doesn't miss a thing most of the time. I like having such high standards to meet. It is a challenge and I also hate having such high standards to meet because I hate typing lines.

For whatever reason, this time I felt totally ridiculous having to type all those lines. Anyway, Mistress did the math and found that I came up short. She told me and watched me squirm for a while and had me do even MORE lines despite all my whining and begging:

[1:37] Jacquelin Mazi: 10 of them... you may begin now typing them here

She really made me happy right then. To know that she is kind and merciful, yes but more that she is fun.

In the Philippines the team I will be working with will be selling into Australia and will work Australia time, which is a pretty common thing in offshoring. You have to be available when your customers are awake, right? So while I am there, my workdays will start at noon and end at 8:00 pm. If I go eat and such and login to SL at 10 :00 pm, that is 9:00 am on the US east coast. Good for seeing Mistress (I hope) and probably bad for ever seeing poor Jan. Ack! We'll work something out, I promise!

It is starting to sink in that I will be away for so long. I am watching Lucy do the things she does and have a new appreciation for her and of course the same is true of Mr. Gackt but it runs a bit deeper (as one might expect).

This will be a busy few days for me. I need to get a few vaccinations and other things taken care of before I go and I need to review the material I will be training. I have been given ownership of the content that I train but realistically I will need to use the existing materials which is good and bad. I am always much more comfortable training something that I created.

I am still looking forward to going of course. I am just at point where I am appreciating what I have while I have it. I am assuming that access to SL will not be a problem in the Philippines.

Oh my goodness typing lines is awful. Monotonous, humiliating, boring use of my time that could be spent a million other ways. Oy!

I saw Bekkers today:

• I had forgotten how solitary her SL existence is...
• ...which maybe is why no one sees much of Bekkers anymore?
• I never call people by their last name but with her I do for some reason.

I got Mistress a Christmas gift that I felt was appropriate. I had never seen her spend money on herself so trying to pick something for her was a challenge. It occurred to me that she might like something to accessorize some of her things so I got her an attachment for her favorite slave (by default but I'll take what I can get).

Once it is attached I need to speak a line in chat that will let me use IM. So far it is very aggravating. Frustrating might be a better word. I can only IM for 30 seconds after I type the phrase. I am hoping that she will set it to a longer period that I can IM for although if I know her she might not and if I know SL, her options are probably limited.

We met a girl named Desire today. She seemed very nice and I am looking forward to seeing what happens to her.

I need to finish a little over 100 more lines. I worked on them today at work since there was really no one at all to train today. I had completed a lot of lines - well over 150 - when the computer I was using crashed.

I am beginning to sound like a parrot who can only say one thing: "My computer crashed."

I promise that it is more annoying for me than for anyone else.

I talked briefly with Subzero again tonight. We need to get to a place where we are more comfortable chatting with each other. There were longish gaps in our conversation and I found myself at a loss for words which for me, is a rare thing.

Here is what holidays are like with my in-laws (most of whom are really very nice):

• 7 out of 10 adults are smokers.
• Of the 7 smokers, 6 of them smoke heavily.
• If you go outside to escape the smoke, it is either to the back yard where there is a...
• ... festering, green, half full (I am such an optimist) swimming pool or...
• ... to the front yard, where my father-in-law keeps a fire pit burning with wood he has claimed from a random construction site.
• There will be about 4 people I have never seen before and will never see again
• There will be 4 kids (all boys) who range from 8 to 18 and who are all very nice kids
• The food is usually very good when it is freshly made (before the smoke can sink in to it)

When you leave, you are smelly and feel just filthy, you are more tired than a few hours with family should cause you to be and you are aching for a shower. Merry Christmas!

An opportunity for learning tonight:

[0:18] Jacquelin Mazi sighs lightly to herself: "My usual 'meeting place' Sim has vanished.... I don't think to return..... so therefor I don't have a decent place to meet with you subway...... I am not excited about the idea of bringing anyone to my home until I am more positive about them"

[0:19] SubZero Felwitch: I understand Mistress

[0:19] Jacquelin Mazi: perhaps my gackty one can impress me and take us somewhere quiet hm?

[0:19] Emilee Gackt nods quickly and scrambles [for] a LM...

I should have been on my toes and OFFERED to TP us somewhere instead of having Mistress have to ask me.

(Thank you Blogger for having me double space all of a sudden)