Tom's Diary

Dear [J],

Hi there.

Hey, you have any more pics of you that you could send?

Just watching “Back to the Future III” on the Sci Fi Channel. Going to bed soon.

This weekend, will probably go out to the book shops downtown. And will have dinner with some friends at the Old Country Buffet on Saturday night. It’s a weekend tradition.

Was also considering going roller blading at an indoor skating rink on Saturday afternoon. But not sure about that one. I haven’t gone in a while and am a little rusty.

And then, there’s always the work-related reading to do. Since assuming this new assignment on our company’s web site, I have much new technology to master.

Would you care to talk on the phone sometime?

Well, I’m off to bed. Talk to you later.

Tom

[LisaK],

That’s great that your sister has email. I will send her a few lines.

Wow, she lost both the hard drive and the main board in her PC? What happened? Did their house struck by lightning?

I’m sure Joann will be tickled to hear from you.

Talk to you soon.

Tom Hesley

Hi   [Tamara].

Do you know when Lorri and Jack are getting married? Some of the Philly crowd was wondering.

Nice to hear that you still have a job, and will have it, for a while at least. They’ve been doing all kinds of reorganizations at my workplace. And some folks were let go. But these things happen so often nowadays that I’ve grown numb to it. But preparing for other work is probably a prudent thing for you to be doing at this point. It is a good idea anytime, to broaden the skill set. You never know when you might need it.

[Rick], [Jack], and  [Aggy]  say hello. Have you exchanged any email with [Rick]?

Well, about home offices: In my humble opinion, as long as you can find everything you need to find in under one minute, then it doesn’t matter how “messy” things are. I have to keep things reasonably ordered however since I spend so much time here. If a place is in disarray, it makes me less interested in working in it. So, I like to keep it pretty tidy.

I don’t know at this point about completing the MS training. My new assignment has me learning HTML 4.0, Active Server Pages, Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), and a whole new product package. Understanding these topics will take several months. So, I doubt I will be able to get back to Windows training before March. And by that time, Windows 2000 will be just around the corner. So maybe, I’ll pick things up with that later next summer. But at this point, I have no idea what will happen.

Does your husband have email?

Did you get your camp pic yet? Did you order one? I got mine last Friday, and if you need a copy, I will scan it in and send it to you. Let me know.

Well, gotta go for now. Take care of yourself. Say hi to Lorri, Jack, and your hubby for me.

Tom Hesley

Hi   [LisaK].

Glad to hear that all is well. All is also well here at this end. Well, for the most part it is. I caught a cold last Tuesday. First one I’ve had in almost two years. And it is a doozy. I’ve been sleeping much of the day, the past couple days. But it is clearing up, slowly bur surely. Hopefully, since I got this now, I won’t get sick over the Christmas holiday. That is the silver lining I suppose.

Heard from Joann today. She’s dong well. Do you have her email address? If not, here it is:
djag235@aol.com

On the floods of Floyd, we didn’t have any high waters in this immediate area. However, just east of here, in New Jersey and Delaware, they had a lot. Some of the low-lying places in Philly (like West Philly) got some too. Nothing too serious, although for a couple days last week, the skies were very dark gray for the entire daylight period. That was somewhat strange, but nice however. After seeing the sunshine for so many days straight this summer, a break of gray was most delightful.

I’ve been enjoying the cooler weather by taking some long walks around this big city. I very much love the city life here. Best move I ever made.

Did you ever get your sister   [Beebee]   onto email yet? If you ever do, be sure to send along her email address.

Work is going well. I’m in the process of switching over to supporting portions of our company’s web site. Some of it is new to me, and so lots of book reading fills my weeks at present, and will probably continue to do so for the rest of the year. Much of the time on this job (about 20%) is spent reading. But I love reading while on trains and busses. So that is generally no problem for me. I’m looking forward to the new system. Supporting the old one is getting, well, OLD!

Telecomputing is great. Sometimes though, I think it would be nice to actually go out somewhere to work each day. And occasionally, I get the urge to find work here in Philly. But then I hear people say how much they’d like to work at home, and I’m reminded of just how big a blessing the privilege is. And I stop thinking about local work.

Yes, the class reunion was wonderful. We saw folks we had not seen, in some cases in over 20 years. I ran into Janie. She and I attended the Primary school together in first and second grades. And you know, she doesn’t look a whole lot different. Jeff and Lu Ann were there, along with Karen P and John W. They had lots of food, both hot and cold. About the only flaw in the whole evening was that Bellwood lost to Tyrone. Ah well, nothing is ever totally perfect, right?

Well, going to get back to the TV. Star Trek 4 is on tonight. Love that movie.

Take care, and do write soon.

Later.

Tom

Hi Joann.

Glad to hear that all is well. All is also well here at this end. Well, for the most part it is. I caught a cold last Tuesday. First one I’ve had in almost two years. And it is a doozy. I’ve been sleeping much of the day, the past couple days. But it is clearing up. Hopefully, since I got this now, I won’t get one over the Christmas holiday. That is the silver lining.

Heard from LisaK the other day. I have to write back. She’s doing well. Do you have her email address?

Well, going to get back to the TV. Star Trek 4 is on tonight. Love that movie. Take care and do write soon.

Later.

Tom

Dear Fran,

Great. Glad you got the pics okay.

Oh, nothing’s going on here. Just busy working.

Went to Neshaminy Mall today to pick up a book order. Ate lunch there, at Friendly’s too.

The weather is quite enjoyable today.

However, I caught cold a few days ago. So I think, that for the rest of the afternoon, I’m going to take a nice long nap.

Nice to hear from you, and we’ll talk again soon.

Later.

Tom Hesley

Howdy again [Brandon].

Yes, I am primary support and therefore, have to work, through the night, on New Years Eve.

Okay, I will make other arrangements for 12/29. 12/30, and 12/31. For the rest of the time, 1/1/2000 through 1/7/2000, I will plan on staying with you. Will talk to you more, as this draws closer. We should definitely plan on seeing a couple movies and maybe getting a Friday night bash together at Frickers or something. I’ll look into it.

Later.

Tom

[Brandon],

I need to come to Dayton to support CA for Y2K. Was wondering if I might stay in your spare bedroom during my visit?

I will be arriving on the afternoon of 12/29, and will be staying until the morning of January 8th. If you can accommodate me for all (or part) of this time, let me know. It will be great to see everyone again.

Later.

Tom

Ho Jo.

Just sent a letter off to Diane. She had sent one to me yesterday. She says that she’s going to Bland’s Park this weekend for a festival or something. Anyway, she’s doing well.

Now all we have to do is get Mom online.

As far as coming back home forever goes, I will probably do that once I retire. But of course, that is 26 years off. But hey, I’m a countin’!!!

Tell Tyler that I said, “Hello!!”

Well, talk to you later on. Be good.

Later.

Tom

Hi Diane.

Thanks for the compliments. I haven’t sent tapes like that to anybody for a couple years now and miss doing it. The reason I stopped it that I do not have lots of space to set up the audio equipment used to record those tapes here in my little apartment.

Sounds like you’re coming up to speed very well with computers. It is good that you’re near Christine. She knows much of the basics and can (and probably has) helped you to understand them better. But in computers, get used to feeling ignorant. That sensation never really goes away if you’re work in a progressive company (as you seem to be). But you do, eventually, get used to the feeling of being ignorant and not knowing enough. After a while, you come to expect that and it ceases to be as humiliating and draining as it tends to be when someone is first starting in computers. So, I guess that the bottom-line message here is to hang in there and keep studying. It does get better.

Beautiful weather here yesterday and today as well. A bit cool, but beautiful nonetheless.

Keep walking too. Keep your fat consumption to a minimum (<= 20 grams per day) and you’ll definitely loose more weight.

Have fun at the park over the weekend. But be sure and take your sunglasses if you go during the day. The sun is going to be VERY bright this weekend since the humidity will be so low.

I’ve been in touch with Joann and Kenny via email. They have figured out how to use it. Really nice talking with you all. It sure will be nice to get Mom online.

Well, time for me to get going. Take care, and will talk to you soon.

Later.

Tom