Friday I travel down south to Porto Alegre to teach the seminar "Total Transformation." I hope to be back Sunday. Francisco works at the Rio-Sul airline and gave me a hefty discount on the airfare. Took the people here a while to get it all figured out though.

The second edition of the 36-page handout is at the copier. Should be ready tonight. Perhaps after I've done several of these seminars (this will be the second one), I can catch all the errors, do the revisions for a final format, and print up the handout for all future events.

With all that, you probably won't hear much out of me until Monday.

Yesterday was Brazil's equivalent to Labor Day, Dia do trabalhador, national holiday when most people are off. As it also happens to be wife Vicki's birthday, we threw a surprise churrasco, or barbeque, for her. Some 35 people in all for the whole afternoon. The stragglers left about 7 p.m.

The kids played on the soccer field and playground in our closed community. The adults hovered near the grill and swilled soft drinks between sentences.

I took a few pictures and hope to get them posted somewhere on the web soon. (Lots of old pics here.)

We took a plate to each of the two guards at the entrances to the community. Tadeu, at the main entrance, had not been able to take his lunch, so he was salivating even before I left. Was a real labor day for him, but not much fun, so the food brightened up his day a bit.

Makes one feel good when a good deed turns out to be just what the person needed.

On a discussion board, someone asked, "What kind of person are you?" Here's my answer. How about you?

I was timid as a child, Brazil has helped me to be a more outgoing, demonstrative person. I plan new projects, love ideas that are useful, but can get myself into many commitments that I'm unable to finish.

I have the critical, perfectionist eye. On the one hand it's losing it's eyesight; on the other, as an editor, I pick up all the little mistakes.

Am foward-looking, what's past is gone forever. The present serves to step forward. One of my work principles is to help people think and analyze for themselves.

And words. I love words, probably because I have loved the Word so much.

Below is what I salvaged from the ashes of the other site. Forget that one, what with antville to cheer our day!

Monday, April 22, 2002, 07:55 a.m.

Remember those ink spots the psycho(logist)s use to bring out your subconscious thoughts and feelings? I did a poetry challenge recently where the challenger gave us five or six words that had to be included in the poem. I found the results surprising.

What were the results, you ask? You think I'm going to tell and reveal my subconscious lurkings?

April 20, 2002, 5:50 p.m.

I ought to mention that the Morrock site, along with my Affirmatives column, will remain indefinitely. So you can read to your heart's desire all the goodies I've posted.

Saturday, April 20, 2002, 04:57 p.m.

Here's my first toe-dip into the blog waters. My Affirmatives column at Morrock died along with the entire site, which is a shame, since the digest was a really good news and information site.

But I've been needing to shave off a few things from my agenda, so I guess that's one less.

Yesterday was my "day off," so to speak, but it was more productive than today. One of those days when you come to the end and wonder what it was you did that day.

However, I did revise and reformat my Total Transformation course (warning: in Portuguese), after I gave it to some 53 participants in Ribeirão Preto, in upper São Paulo state. So that was a big job there. Not too bad a day, at that, I suppose.

I was on another blog site that just didn't come up to snuff. So here we go on this one. Later, I'll add a few of the items I took out of the old house before it burned down.