Diary of a LAN Manager

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!" It has occurred to me of late that I've spent most of my life knocking around like the proverbial bull in a china shop, leaving hurt feelings and destruction behind me as I go. If I go back and analyze conversations and situations I've been in, I can see how some people I've been around could easily believe I'm a jerk. I cannot make any excuses for my behavior. To say that I didn't mean to be rude or hateful isn't sufficient. To claim cluelessness is to deny that my behavior was my fault. I have no way to make any of it right, nor is there any reason for anyone to believe that my future behavior wouldn't be just as offensive to some. I'm trying to make amends. I just don't know what else to say or do.

Like a bad penny.... We used to scuba dive as our hobby, a hobby which eventually led to the procurement/construction of a small dive trailer to haul four sets of gear and four cylinders. It was a simple but elegant design - a box on a single axle frame, with the beginnings of a mural painted on both sides, and dive flags at either end. The kids had helped paint it, with Stephen taking special pains with the sharks. When we moved to Nashville, we sold it. We didn't dive as often, and we had no place to store it. Nearly ten years have passed since that October in '99 when we came up here, and I hadn't thought much about the trailer. I thought I had seen it the last time we went to Greenfield, but I wasn't sure. Then Saturday my mother-in-law called to say the neighbor across the street had our trailer for sale. The neighbor was asking a certain price, and we offered a little less. She called back later to say it was ours for the picking up. Sunday we made the trip to fet