Here's a little poem I wrote, upon being laid off last year.

A Status Report, with apologies to Dr. Seuss.

Would you like my “stat” report?
Here’s all the news both long and short:
I did not work on Miramar.
I did not drive there in my car.
I wrote no rules in MSL.
I stayed at home, talked to myself.

I parsed no English
Synth’d no French.
No Arboretums opened I.
No Parthenons crashed on the fly.
No ATNs to strain my finger
Just a day at home with Jerry Springer.

Now Marina, Doug, John Keefe and me,
We’ve won the right to be job-free.
So when I think of algorithms
I’ll give not a damn what you do with ‘em.
That’s all there is for BGS,
Which—sans the “G,” makes lots of sense.

Dear Diary.... Why is that expression used? Who is the diary? The diary is inanimate; one hopes someone, somewhere, will read and find the notes. Much more so on the Internet, where it's all open to public exposure.Tomorrow is Father's Day. Tonight we're heading to my parents' house for dinner after Mass. My parents just got a new enclosed outdoor deck installed, and this will be our first chance to put it to use. But this brings to mind.... What IS Father's Day, exactly? We know that a woman started Mother's Day in rememberance of her own mother (and later regretted it, when it became a commercial boondoggle). But what about Father's Day? No idea. History Channel doesn't even see fit to bring it up. It seems more like an afterthought. "Well," someone in the Hallmark boardroom says, "We have Mother's Day already, what other parents can we honor, and make money from the honor?"I don't know that our society even understands what a father is anymore. It seems to run the gamut, from "sperm donor" to "my dad's gay companion" or even "my mom's wife." And we have serial fatherhood. It's the predominate form nowadays. Even I never had the pleasure of knowing my "biological father," Donald M. Clements. He booked off to Florida shortly after I was born. So today and tomorrow I honor my step-dad as father; he put in most of the work, and deserves the credit.