The Final Blog ...

Greetings. This will be my final blog, or at least from Dallas. My next blog will likely be in Austin.

Last night I had my gaterhing, or farewell party, at a local Tex-Mex restaurant. That was fun. Of the 40 people I invited, about 30 showed up, some only for a few minutes but most for dinner. I think everyone had a great time talking with those they did not know. I felt better about being the host/guest of honor at this party, verses the graduation party that I had about 2 and 1/2 years ago. My parents and I got there about a half hour early, so I could at least start my dinner. It was a lovely dinner too, which for me was three crispy beef tacos, with the standard rice and beans. The chips that dotted the tables had a certain flair to them as well, and they were hard to resist.

It was good to talk with people, those that came up to me, and those that I went around and spoke to after I finished eating. Over all, it was very encouraging, satisfying, and uplifting to see that many people there, but also to know that I have a special relationship with each person there. Toward the end, it was somewhat sad. However, now that the party is over with, I feel like I can move to Austin without any trouble. In other words, now that I've said "See you later," I refuse to say (goodbye), I can move on. And, that's how I should feel I think. I'm still sad about leaving Dallas, no doubt, but there are better things ahead.

On a slightly different note, I received my new Nokia 6682 phone yesterday. I am in the process of getting things up and running on that phone, so that I can install some screen reading software on it, called Talks, which will speak all parts of the phone to me, and I can interact more with the phone. The previous phone I had, I could only dial a number. In recent years, I've begun to want to do more. Picture not being able to see simple things on the phone display, like who called or if there were any missed calls. This Talks software will give me that ability. Plus, I figure that if I'm going to a new job where I might be called after work, by colleagues or friends from Dallas, I want to know who's calling me. Anyway, I will also be able to send and receive text messages, and could do email or web browsing on it, though I'm not interested in the email and browsing at the moment. This particular phone is one of those newer camera phones, and that gives more flexibility, since there is a freeware application I can put on the phone which acts as a color identifyer and light probe. I find the color identifyer application a particularly interesting use of the camera phone. For those interested, you can find a link to the light and color identifyer application on the Computers page of my website.

So long for now and I'll write again when I'm up and running in Austin.