It's Brand New! That Means It's Better! Right?

This is a remarkable project. On May 2, the New York Times invited people all over the world to take photos of...well, all sorts of things. Dogs, and birds, and people, and bridges, and all sorts of things. It's remarkable to look at, and a great time suck, as if we needed more of those.

***

On Wednesday, I leave on a 48 hour journey to Williamsburg, Virginia, to chaperone my son's school trip. If you had any lingering doubts about my sanity, that should resolve them.

***

I've been commenting over here, Steven Goldman's non-baseball blogplace, but I feel the same way I tend to feel when I blog on things political here-just a kind of nauseous aggravation. If I want that, I'll go to work.

***

Speaking of work, our Brand New Program is rolling out steadily, which means lots and lots of more work, with no extra pay. Not to mention that wages are frozen until 2011 at the earliest, with future increases to come based on the success of the Brand New Program. Now, naturally, you would assume with a Brand New Program that dramatically increases my workload, I'd be getting a machine, or a new process, or some new people, right? In order to ensure that the Brand New Program is a success?

You'd think that. But you'd be wrong.

Look, I have a job. I get it. Lots and lots of people don't. I try to remind myself that I'm not deathly ill (yet), and that 99.999% of the people who live or have ever lived would dance with glee if given the prospect of living my life. I haven't had to go to war, or expel a baby through an orifice that doesn't seem big enough, or bury anyone (lately), or be assaulted, or get in a car accident, or be committed to a mental institution. Yet.

I get it, I'm blessed.

But the same way I can see that my immediate coworkers appreciate me, or the same way I see my family accepts me, warts and all, or the same way I can know my wife loves me and not comprehend any of it, I know I am blessed-intellectually-I can do the math. As humans go, generally speaking, I have it pretty close to perfect.

I just don't feel it. I don't grok it. I'm not getting it on the level where it sinks in.

You dig?