Week Three

I am writing this entry late Sunday night -- to be precise, Monday morning. Monday is a learning day where we must sign in at XXXXX (where training is held) and practice what we've supposedly learned (operative word being "supposedly").

Today, I accompanied a New York Jewess/(she thinks she's a princess) to Athens, Georgia, ostensibly for antique shop browsing. This being Georgia, Sunday, and the Bible Belt all stores were closed so we were relegated to eating Belgian french fries and touring a small part of the University of Georgia campus The campus is old and beautiful -- so much so that I found myself whistling the Cornell University alma mater: "on the banks of old Cayuga ..." One thing that stood out in my mind was how lush the flora was on campus, and how the students had not trampled the sundry flower beds across the campus.

Back to the motel (Residence Inn), I hooked up with the nerdiest of all of these nerds, one former Indiana farmboy, YYYYY, who now resides in Orlando, Florida. I accompanied him to the nearby Arby's for a Sunday evening nosh prior to the requisite studying. Seemingly innocuous and emotionally solid, I discovered that his ultra-conservatism ("don't get me started!") masked a bitter hypocritical, more-than-likely closet-queen full of self-hatred and dogmatic, practiced opinions. His Arkansas joke -- the one that eviscerates Bill and Hillary -- was the catalyst that caused the theme song from The Twilight Zone to play imaginarily in my ear. I think I'll keep my distance.

Time to go to bed, but since I just started this blog tonight, I will return tomorrow to share more of my journey into geekdom, my trek through techie hell, my ... well, more later.