Tonight on the Apprentice, Tana couldn't find beads on the island of Manhattan. Where is Peter Minuit when you need him?

Walking around the Mall at Green Hills this weekend I noticed that the store next to Brookstone had been replaced with a black wall and an ominous looking cherry tomato logo. It can only mean one thing, Nashville is getting an Apple Store.

So why do I care?

I used to be a Mac guy. A virulent, hard core, dedicated Mac user. The obnoxious kind, with the T-shirts, web page graphics, and the magazine subscriptions. I was an evangelist. I was in love with Janie Porche and Ellen Feiss. There was no step three.

The first computer I had at home was an Apple IIc, which later was replaced by a Mac SE, and then a Mac LCIII, and then a Power Mac 6100, and finally a Power Mac 7500. I drove to Knoxville from my home in South Carolina to be the first one in line when the UT computer store opened to buy the 7500. I wasn't the only one in line.

I cut my teeth on System 7, MacOS 8, flirted with MacOS 9...but I made the switch to PCs well before time that MacOS X finally shipped. By the end of my college career I was working in the architecture school's print lab, it was the first year it was open and the PCs were faster than my now aging Mac. I finished my thesis on those computers and never looked back. When I started my professional career, everything was PC, since the workhorse software that architects use is firmly dedicated to Wintel. I didn't fight it. My switch to the dark side was complete.

But I miss my Mac sometimes. And with the resurgence that Apple has seen over the past few years, and the new hardware offerings that call out my name, it's hard to stay faithful. Perhaps I've already switching back..., I mean, I've got an iPod, but that's more of a cultural thing than a computing statement. I use iTunes, but mostly because it's easy and now I know lots of folks in the music industry who would be upset with me if I didn't. I know that the Mac Mini would be perfect to play around with...but I just got a new laptop and I realize that having more than one computer is simply time-wasting endeavor. But I'm torn.

Bottom line, if you see me hanging around the Genius Bar waxing nostalgic, do me a favor: slap me and lead me to the Dell kiosk.

Every year for the past few years I've been involved with an organization called Rebuilding Together. As the website says, it's mission is "to preserve and revitalize houses and communities, assuring that low-income homeowners, from the elderly and disabled to families with children, live in warmth, safety, and independence." We go and do what we can in a day to fix up houses in disrepair for deserving families. Each house is sponsored by another organization, the house today was sponsored by AIA Middle Tennessee.

My job today was to clean and repair an existing mailbox and provide a coat of much needed paint. I also served as a runner back and forth the Home Depot and did my best to offer unsolicited general supervision.

I also took pictures. Enjoy.

Last night I took the opportunity to consolidate all of the digital pictures that I've taken since I got my first digital camera. I brought them all into Picasa, I've discovered that I like it better than the Adobe Photoshop Album that I had been using. Now that Ludicorp has been bought by Yahoo I've given up hope for direct Flickr/Picasa integration, but it made sense to go that direction with my photo organization. I only really use Flickr for taking pictures with my camera phone, I guess I'm more of a do it yourself kind of guy, but I think it's a great idea. I do wish that Picasa sorted photos by date (rather than by folder) like Flickr and Adobe Photoshop Album does. I haven't played with the tagging features to know how they stack up.

In all, I've taken about 5400 shots with the various cameras since Christmas 2001, which currently takes up about 5.8 gigabytes on the hard drive.

Suprising Statistic of the Night: Suprisingly as it might be, only 350 of the 5400 pictures are of the Abbydog.

Added a new feature this weekend, a daily photo page. There are a lot of these out there that I enjoy looking at, and now that my hard drive is filling up with pictures, I figured I'd share some of the better, more artsy ones. Today marks day three of this exercise, I'll do my best to keep going with it.

Each photo has it's own comments section if you're obliged to say something, the Atom-formatted feed is here.

Completely unrelated to yesterday's post regarding sushi, this week I was given a new pet, a betta named Clementine.

Clementine resides in a glass vase shared with a lily plant on my new desk. From what internet research I've done, this may not be the best environment for her. I've read pages upon pages telling me that this arrangement is bad for the fish, the plant, and our national security as a whole. Be wary, readers, that I promise to remain vigilant to make sure that Clementine has only the best of what cubicle living has to offer.

(Also know that I realize that Clementine is actually a male betta.)

On the advice of Muffy, and the review in the Tennessean, tonight I ventured down to Bodeli Sushi, the new Cool Springs sushi bar with the conveyer belt. This style of sushi joint, called kaitenzushi, was pretty interesting, fast, and enjoyable if only for the novelty of it. Actually, I kind of felt like a country tourist visting the city to just to ride an escalator.

Video here. (Of the sushi conveyer, not me riding an escalator.)

The accounting system is brilliant, the plates are color coded and you're charged based on your stack of plates at the end of the end of the meal. Here's my damage for the night. (Gold plate - $3.50, Red plate - $2.50, Purple plate - $2.00, Lime plate - $1.50.) The sushi was good, but it wasn't the best...I've actually had better in Williamson County. At the end of the meal I just wanted to take my empty plates up to the cashier to settle up.

Bottom line, if you have been to the airport and have ridden the moving sidewalk, go to RuSan's or Peter's Sushi in Brentwood. Unless you have guests in town who've never been to Bodeli, then go, get separate checks, sit so they can't see the sign on the wall which explains the pricing. Then stack your empty plates on theirs.

One minor note, leave your camera at home. I was scolded as we left, the manager instructed that I couldn't take pictures of the restaurant. But I had to document this sign.

Taken by a co-worker at one of our hospital renovation projects. I sure hope they don't get confused about what gets loaded where.

Helped a friend move some furniture yesterday from his grandmother's house in beautiful Humboldt, Tennessee. On the way back we witnessed a Uhaul trailer lose a tire coming down the Tennessee River Bridge. I guess he buys tires at Sears.

Tim Morgan: it'd have been cooler if I had dotted the I with the flash.
College Roommate: so... still no girlfriend, huh? :-)
Tim Morgan: Uh. Yeah.
College Roommate: seriously. find one. when you have time for stuff like this, you need to meet someone. anyone.

I bought a new toy this weekend, expect higher quality dog blogging and a lot less room on my hard drive.

In a previous career, my father served on the front lines of the human resource industry--he worked at a temp agency. His responsibilites included many things, most notably interviewing people who came in off of the street to find jobs for them. One story always stood out:

Each applicant had to fill out an application form that included fields for previous work history, references, and the reasons for leaving their last employment. Once a man walked in who had worked as a short order cook for Waffle House for seventeen years. Think about that, that's probably hundreds of thousands of orders for pecan waffles, patty melts, eggs over easy, and of course, hash browns scattered, smothered, and covered. It's a pretty stressful job I would imagine. Think of hours standing next to a hot griddle, the temperment of the waitresses as they yell out orders one after another. Think of going home every night smelling like breakfast. Enough for someone after a period of time to say, take this job and shove it. Imagine my father's surprise when he read the man's reason for leaving his job.

One word was written on the form. "Jellypacks."

My father couldn't let that one go without an explanation. Seems that the uppity-ups at Waffle House corporate had attempted to abandon the time honored practice of calling out the order by developing a system whereby plates were set out and the arrangement of the condiment packets on the plate would tell the cook what had been ordered. For instance, a ketchup packet laid face down on the side of a plate might mean hash browns, diced and chunked or something like that. A packet of grape jelly in the center of the plate might mean eggs over medium. I've never seen this in action, I don't know if it's a current Waffle House policy.

At any rate, if I'm ever in a position where I'm asked my reason for leaving my last employment, I'll surely have an answer. "Jellypacks."