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This Thursday past was the American holiday called "Thanksgiving." This is the time each year when we gather together to give thanks for what we have, a time to reflect on the good things in our lives, a time to count our blessings . . . and a time to eat turkey.

This year, Julie cooked dinner for her family. She did a wonderful job putting together a feast suitable for a small army. Everything turned out great! Turkey, and dressing with all the traditional trimmings for 12. We thought that with a 28 pound turkey, we would be eating turkey sandwiches for at least a week, but we finished off the last of the left-overs today. It is, therefore, on a full stomach that I sit reflecting upon what I have.

I am thankful for computers, the internet, and most of all: the flat-rate pricing thereof. These are the tools that will empower me to build a knowledge base which will ensure my success -- just as soon as I decide what I want to do when I grow up. Thanks to computers with voice output, I have so many options available to me that it is difficult to choose one.

Without internet email I would not have found my friend, Guy,. I would not have been published by Netly News, nor written a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. If not for the world wide web I wouldn't have read Doyle or Dickens, and I would be reading neither the New York Times nor TIME Magazine. For these things, I can't find the words to adequately express my gratitude.

On this, my 29th day of leisure, I am grateful for the rather generous, albeit belated, severance package from my former employer--the previously mentioned carrot. I am still on the payroll through the end of the year, but I am especially thankful to at last be free of that job. The rest and relaxation (R&R) has done me some good and I'm looking forward to a little more of it next month.

After getting away from the computer for the last couple of weeks, I have a renewed appreciation for cable TV. If it wasn't for Nick At Nite, TV Land, and the Sci-Fi Channel, I don't know what I would have done. Thanks to cable TV I was able to relax and do absolutely nothing.

One must also be thankful for a roof over his head, clothes on his back, and food on the table. These are things that cannot be taken for granted. Nor can I deny that I am in good health, and as far as I can tell, of sound mind. These are the things for which we must be thankful each and every day.

While I may not be rich or famous -- and I'm not likely to be -- I've got it better than most people in the world. I am thankful, most of all, just to be alive and free.