Yesterday I went to Wendy's and paid for my meal with a crisp new $20 and received a raggedy old $10 bill in return. I was quite surprised to find that the $10 bill was the old $10 bill - it had been quite some time since I had seen this $10 bill (maybe 5 years now?). Given how the old bills were to be taken out of circulation when they reached a bank, I wondered how this $10 bill had managed to survive and still remain as legal tender. Did some lone bachelor clean his sofa and find it tucked away? Did a man in his late 40s, who finally could fit into the pants he wore in college, reach into the pocket and find this $10 bill tucked away ... change from a long night of partying years ago? Either way, this bill is obviously a survivor.

I have a soft spot for survivor and fighters, so now I'm torn into not spending this $10 ... just to keep it for the sake of keeping it. It's by no means in good condition (I used to collect coins and bills when I was younger. As well as Beanie Babies; I actually still have like 30 Beanie Babies in my closet from when i used to sell those suckers on eBay), but now it holds some sentimental value for me.

. . .

Today was the first time since I've started working at Barnes and Noble that I got almost nothing done. Starting to feel a bit burned out last week, I started to move my Tabulas development time away from my room (since I spend roughly 8 hours a day for my job in my room) so I could have a change of scenery. It did wonders the first week when I started working at Barnes and Noble. Their wireless internet isn't free, but $20/month for wireless is something I'm willing to shell out to get a change of scenery - the productivity boost is worth that to me.

Another tip for developers: the best $10/month I'm spending is on a remote SVN server. I'm currently hosted at CVSDude.org, and the ability to remotely sync Tabulas development is awesome since I work on my tablet from home, my Stinkpad from Barnes and Noble, and theoretically I can also work from my Powerbook (although I hate the Powerbook). It's also a remote backup facility in case my servers die and my compuetr physically explodes on the same day. The peace of mind is well worth it.

. . .

Thought I'd share this for the few of you who don't know: middle clicking links opens tabs in Firefox; middle-clicking the tabs in FF closes them. This speeds up browsing incredibly. You can also have multiple homepages load in tabs in FF by using the '|' to separate URLs in your homepage preferences page.