I'm glad you got out of going to your BF's family reunion, I bet you dodged a whole bunch of stress and misery with that one! I remember you mentioning it before, it sounded nuts! Hopefully you enjoyed having the house to yourself for a few days!

I talked to my mom last night, she gave me date for the reunion she's going to - but doesn't actually know her *plans*. Like, she can't tell me if she'll want to visit before or after that date! She's just been too busy to figure it out, and then asked if I have plans in the same time-frame. Maybe I'm being over sensitive, but I hate this - I feel like the expectation is that I'm just going to keep a week or two totally open for her, which isn't going to happen.

Thanks for the tips on the open source projects, I may look into it! That's funny though, I didn't think about how unorganized they probably are! I'm just having trouble thinking of other places that might let me jump in and do IA for free.

I have no idea about my boss - I think it just gets back to what I said originally, he's a bad manager. He thinks he's a great manager, he thinks he cares about everyone, he specifically said in that meeting that he wants everyone to have the chance to do what they like and are good at (!) - but he just doesn't get it. I feel like I could tell him 1000 times... he doesn't get it. Plus, when I do things like the pre-research for his consulting trips, it makes his life easier. It lets him look good, since he can walk in and already have the context and background, so I'm sure he doesn't want to give that up.

That's really crazy that the pottery place is giving away people's work! What on earth are they thinking? I wonder if it's just one person who doesn't get it, or if it's everyone who works there? Is there someone you could complain to - it seems like that really shouldn't be happening! And, sorry that your piece got broken, what a bummer Did it break because they took too long to fire it? Or was it just bad luck?