IT Insights Blog

Black is the absence of visible light; an achromatic color; a symbolic representation of evil, or mourning, or authority (think religious or judicial robes); a philophical boundary; the most common hue of the printed word; and even a longstanding racial and ethnic identifier. That's a lot of responsibility for a single word to shoulder. And somehow or other, in recent years, black has also come to represent huge savings.

The United States has often been described as a place where the possibilities are limitless and anything can happen for those willing to work hard. Most of the credit for our boundless horizons goes to our unique political system and rule of law.

Coming up on Friday, it will be Take a Hike Day, sometimes also known as National Take a Hike Day here in the United States. With many of the various official and unofficial days that crowd the calendar from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, it's sometimes difficult to know what to do, or how to behave, to participate in the day to the fullest extent intended by its organizers. We may feel the noble impulse to take part, but we're uncertain of how to proceed.

Life is full of surprises. It's not that there's one surprise after another, all day every day, of course. Most of the time, we have a general idea what to expect out of each new day and there aren't a whole lot of crazy variations or breathtaking revelations. Humans are creatures of habit and we actually spend a fair amount of time building predictability and familiarity into whatever constitutes the daily routine for each of us.

Here at TestOut Continuing Education we've only been doing what we do (selling IT training solutions to working professionals) for a few years. We're under the umbrella of the larger TestOut Corporation, however, and TestOut has been a force for IT training and education for more than a quarter-century. TestOut was born on Nov. 11, 1991, so on Saturday the company will have completed its 26th year in operation.