Microcosm: the situation at work. Last Friday, the woman who had been hired to start Monday called and said she wouldn't be coming in. This was not only a heaping bad piece of karma on her part for putting us in an impossible situation but left us wondering how to manage with our lead agent about to leave for a ten day holiday abroad. On Monday, the lead agent took an unexpected day off to see her doctor about a small problem she'd been having with fainting. She was admitted the next day for immediate bypass surgery. She's out of intensive care now, but she won't be able to work for at least a month. My last month, as it happens. So we're two agents short, and work is intense, but someone else starts this coming Monday so I have hopes of actually finishing some of my projects before I leave the office for good. I need to, for instance, write up a memo on how to use the modem and access our internet account. I can only hope this other agent turns out to be less technology-phobic than the rest of the crew.

Macrocosm: the airlines and my career. This week has solidified my conviction that I need to get out of travel. Monday morning the Federal tax of 10% was reduced to 9%. No warning, just a bunch of weird fares with cents instead of an even number, and a useful format for figuring taxes rendered completely unusable as it hadn't been reprogrammed. That's not bad, just inconvenient; I mean, I'm all for reduced taxes. But then we got faxes advising us several more airlines had jumped on the bandwagon and would only allow agencies to earn 8% commission. That was a bit of a downer. To top it off, on October 1st we suddenly discovered there was a mysterious new segment tax. Yes! The government is now charging $1 per flown segment. The two letter code for this is ZP, which my boss Betsie promptly dubbed the Zapato Tax. Wearing shoes? That'll be one buck. Ugly tie? A fiver. Golf pants? Double the fare. God knows what they'll decide to tax next.

Thus, work was nonstop bad craziness all week with two agents out and fares going up and down like rubber balls. I only lost my temper once, thank you very much. I don't know why people get mad at me for high prices; I don't set them, I just sell them. I still like doing what I do but the airlines are making it awfully hard to have any fun at it. They're busy trying to get us out of the ticket market, so I think I'll just heed the warning signs and get into something else. I really like web design and graphic design, and I am moving to the Bay Area, after all, so I'll probably pursue that once we settle in. It's got to pay better than travel; maybe I'll go back to earning enough to buy my own tickets again.

Meanwhile, in the metaverse of online diaries, I'm super bummed out about the number of journals on hold indefinitely, including my grate pal (ObMolesworth) Nigel E. Richardson's really triff Countdown to the Big Four Oh. Countdown has been aborted due to the heinous weasels at his former place of employment getting the wind up their backsides about him writing less than flatteringly about Soulless Corporation Life. If you want to find out what happens next, write to him, eh? Beyond that personal blue note, there've been numerous dropouts from Archipelago, the web ring I administer. People do stop and start diaries but this has been a rather sudden cluster of such activity and it is kind of a drag. It's enough to make me change the rules on joining. I've gone from requiring 7 entries to 30 as some sort of evidence a hopeful diarist is serious about writing. Thank goodness most of the crew are still there, much more faithful than I have been lately about getting things posted. If I can get two entries done each weekend from now until I hit the road for the west coast, I'll feel like I've met my obligations. And I do feel obliged to my readers. They want to know what's going on in my life for some reason or other. I reckon the least I can do is be consistent.

Some cheering news is I've gotten Kim Huett's RUB Productions web site up and running for his debut in the world of independent music distribution. If you like interesting, cutting edge music from Down Under, check out his web page which is also my first commerical design. Buy some music from him, he's got excellent taste.

And lastly, I thought I'd just mention I'm still packing. To my infinite horror, I've been so good at giving away or recycling stuff I don't positively need that I've got a house full of things I really want to keep. Therefore, I have to pack virtually everything I own. I've been coming home after a hard day at work and spending a hard night packing. My back hurts a lot from lifting and bending over sticking things in boxes. I bought some expensive but oh-so-clever special cardboard inserts and have thus gotten around having to wrap endless ranks of coffee mugs and glasswear. Next up is sitting around wrapping approximately 50 delicate plates from Japan, circa 1939, that I foolishly took out of storage when I moved here thinking I was going to be entertaining. Back they go, never to be taken out again unless we buy a house. The cats continue to be highly amused by the variety of boxes to climb into, the dog seems a little worried about all the activity, and I have learned to really hate my own prediliction for acquiring ceramic plates. Oh, well. The process is well underway and by the time the movers show up I'll be relatively relaxed instead of frantically throwing things in boxes. So it's a good thing, really.