Just do me already.

I see you nearly every day, and you get bolder and bolder each time I see you.

Would you please cut the crap and just have your way with me?

I promise I won't struggle. Unless you like that kind of thing.

To leave the parking lot at work in the morning you have to push a button. Once you push the button you have to open a metal gate and then walk across the street.

Because pushing the button and opening the gate is hard or something people are in the habit of checking behind them, and if anyone is following closely, holding the gate open for them.

Notice I said closely.

This morning I was a good 20 yards away from gate (crossing the tracks for those familiar with where I'm talking about) and this lady up ahead decided to stand there, holding the gate open, until I arrived.

Now the lady was obviously trying to be nice and polite, but what she was also inadvertantly doing was asking me to speed up, perhaps jog a little, to get to the gate and be all grateful and shit.

I was 20 yards away. She was being polite to the point of rudeness.

I didn't speed up to grab the gate and thank her. I did the next best thing.

I stopped, bent over, and pretended to tie my shoelace.

This took about 20 seconds, and when I stood back up I was pretty miffed to see that she was still standing there holding the gate!

Great, so now I not only had to run up to the gate and be all grateful, I also had to apologize for "tying" my shoelace.

I didn't do those things either. I patted my pockets, pretended to have left something in my car, turned around and walked the other way.

I was glad to see that she was gone from the gate when I returned with the "forgotten item" or I may have had to kiil her.

After, of course, I thanked her for being so damn polite and patient.

Today I wrote a letter.

Probably not a very good one but a very long one.

The topic: private.

The contents: private.

Although I have this 'blog, and I sometimes post crap that just seems way too personal about myself, my life, and the people in my life, there are some things that need to remain private.

This letter is one of them.

I'll have it ready if I ever need it, though some things should probably be said in person.

I think the reason I mention it here is to say how exhilarating it was, after so many weeks of wrapping things up in metaphors and obscure references, to be able to simply write something both true and comprehensible.

I've read that a lot of real writers, when asked why they write, answer the same way.

You don't write because you can. You write because you must. To not write would be to deny who you are.

Now of course I'm far from being a real writer, but I do seem to have this itch that can only be scratched by stringing words together and giving them some permanence - whether on paper, a computer file, or the Internet itself.

This letter I wrote today was freeing. I was able to say what I wanted without fear of repercussions because I had already decided to never send the letter..

It was a lot like my old journals that only I ever read. In those journals is the real me (at least the real me back when I wrote the things) - not some watered-down version of me so tempered by a desire for approval and acceptance that the "me" is nearly unrecognizable.

An example of the real me from 1991:

Evangeline Lilly from Lost.

Wow.

Not all is doom and gloom with me.

I had a few of my friends smell my Monte Carlo last night to see if they could detect the carcass odor.

NotGeorge said he couldn't smell anything.

ElPresidente and his wife both think the smell is simply the musty smell you'd get from too much moisture. I think they're wrong, but at least it means that the smell isn't as disgusting as it used to be.

CoffeeDude refused to smell my car. What's up with that I wonder.

dra-ma
n.
1. The quality or condition of being dramatic.

re-al-i-za-tion
n.
1. The act of realizing or the condition of being realized.

vul-ner-a-ble
adj.
1. Susceptible to injury.

out-gun
v.
1. To overwhelm or defeat.

shit
n.
1. Something considered disgusting, or poor quality, foolish, or otherwise totally unacceptable.

re-treat
n.
1. The act or process of withdrawing, especially from something hazardous, formidable, or unpleasant.
2. A place affording peace, quiet, privacy, or security.
3. A period of seclusion, retirement, or solitude.

in-ev-i-ta-ble
adj.
1. Impossible to avoid or prevent.

My beer selection tonight was fairly tame: two Belhaven's and two Piraats.

Other than that I spent some time with LaptopGirl, NotGeorge, CoffeeDude, and MisunderstoodGirl, talking about kites and paper and stuff.

None of that is relevant though.

What is relevant is that drama is inevitable, and I have chosen to do what I can to limit that drama to myself.

Man it sucks that my entries have seemed so tortured lately.

Things are not really as bad as a quick reading of my 'blog would make them seem. I'm actually more shocked than anything else. I really didn't expect to be in this situation ever again.

If I had to pick a single word to describe the last three months: fascinating.

If I had to pick a word to describe the last two days: overwhelming.

All that talk about balance and road trips and serial killers was simply an attempt to solidify my resolve. To remind myself that sometimes the right thing is not the easy thing.

Sometimes it's pretty damn tough.

I've been though this before actually. A long time ago in Omaha I found myself struggling with nearly the same situation. At that time I was able to make a clean break, to get the hell out before things progressed to their inevitable conclusion: Drama and pain.

This time around I cannot simply pack up and move to Seattle. I can, however, still do what's right. I cannot change the past, but I can prevent at least a small part of this particular future.

My friends at Rich O's will either understand or they won't - I can't even explain my actions without making things worse. Not that anyone would believe me anyway.

Everything that was wrong is now right. Everything that was right is now impossible. Nobody is more surprised than I am, because that which I've been fighting and denying, and which everyone else has been assuming and awaiting, is actually coming to pass. Despite my best intentions, I'm human after all.

This really blows.

For the better part of a decade I was content. Not over-the-top happy, but content.

Now that contentedness has given way to this terrible blend of vulnerability and uncertainty and shock, and I don't like it one bit.

I'll say it again, this really blows.

(I've edited the hell out of this entry, trying to make it a litle less gloomy. I've had little success though, because it is a gloomy subject after all.)

Still playing with CSS, I've made some of the letters that begin pages/sections stand out.

I thought this was a really good idea at first, but now I'm second-guessing myself.

I suppose I'll leave it like this for a while to see if I get used to it.

I wrote back in July that something had died in my Monte Carlo.

I tried several times to locate where the odor was coming from but I had no success.

Last night, feeling a little bored with myself and my life, I dedided to start driving the Monte Carlo more often. Sure, I'm trying to keep it as nice as I can, but I also get very little enjoyment out of it since I'm totally paranoid about door-dings and such. So I end up driving it one or twice avery couple of months, and I've put maybe 1000 miles on it since I inherited it.

Anyway, the smell of death is still in the air of my Monte Carlo. I think it's lessened over the past couple of months, but it's still noticeable.

I should probably start saving my money up to have the thing torn apart so the carcass of whatever it is can be removed.

I suppose I could say that last night was pivotal, but as this belief stems from a drunken realization instead of anything substantial, I'll probably just continue to wait and see. Perhaps I still have some common sense in reserve.

I arrived at Rich O's unfashionably early, having failed once again to decipher VigilanteGirl's flirtatious ramblings, and was surprised to see GeneralElectricGuy sitting in the living room area. I grabbed myself a Belhaven (very smooth and creamy on tap) and joined him and what turned out to be one of his coworkers.

I hadn't seen GeneralElectricGuy since the party last month, and I don't know him very well, but he seemed a little subdued. Later I guessed that this was simply because his friend CheeseGuy was doing enough talking for ten people.

The three of us talked about widely varying topics for a couple of hours, interrupted occasionally by TallLady trying to interject controversial topics into the mix. I finished my Belhaven and decided to try a Bell's Amber.

That was a waste of time. It sucked. Watery with orange peel flavoring.

So I went back to one of my favorites - a Piraat. Yummy but I knew it was way too early to be drinking the strong stuff. I'd have to pace myself.

At one point LaptopGirl joined us, and almost immediately declared that she'd be leaving after one beer. This makes twice in a row and so now I'm starting to get a little paranoid. This is also about the time I finished my Piraat and switched to Guinness.

CoffeeDude came in fairly late in the evening. This was quite cool because I hadn't seen him in over a month and I was actually becoming a little concerned. Everything's fine though - our schedules just haven't been overlapping.

Through all of this CheeseGuy kept up a steady stream of words, and once he and GeneralElectricGuy left the place seemed eerily silent. One pretty cool thing was that CheeseGuy paid my tab. I don't think that's ever happened before at Rich O's.

At one point NotGeorge came in and joined CoffeeDude and me in what was basically just sitting around sipping our beers.

I got home at about 11:30, realized that the thing which I've feared most may have come to pass, and spent the rest of the night staring at my ceiling.

When I first moved back to Indiana in 1998 I had a hell of a time finding a barber that wouldn't completely butcher my hair.

After maybe a year and a half of horrible haircuts given by perhaps a dozen different barbers I finally found a lady that cut it the way I wanted.

I told her then that at long as she could keep from butchering me she'd be the only person I would let cut my hair.

For nearly six years I've held to that promise, but lately I'm begun to question my resolve.

I'd guess that since March of this year, at least 50% of the trips I've made to my barber have been a complete waste of time.

She's been closed.

Today it happened again.

It's not like I'm showing up at the crack of dawn or on a holiday or right at closing time. I got there at 11:00 AM on a Friday. Every business in the world - except apparently my barber - is open at 11:00 AM on a Friday.

I really should have called first, but I didn't.

When you feel like you have to start calling businesses to see if they're open at 11:00 AM on a Friday it just may be time to find someone a little more consistent.

I just noticed that two days ago was the one-year anniversary of my starting this 'blog.

WooHoo.

Other anniversaries coming soon are 11/12(bad) and 11/14(good).

Today VigilanteGirl offered to give me a perm. As unlikely as that would be, even less likely would be her reasoning for giving me said perm.

"Because then you'd look hot," she said.

Maybe, in a dark enough room, to a drunk enough observer, while surrounded by lepers and zombies, I might at times be considered not ugly enough to scare children, but I'm enough of a realist to know that about the best I could ever hope for would be simply average.

Not really worth a second look, but also not worth gouging your eyes out to prevent accidental viewing.

Anyway, back to the hair. It's an interesting story. Okay, it's a story. Okay, I'm just killing time here.

Back in June I was in Las Vegas for a work thing. I may have mentioned the trip a couple of times in this 'blog, but one thing I didn't mention was what the hell was going on with my hair after I returned.

When I'm in a strange city like Las Vegas, where nobody knows me, I can afford to come out of my little protective shell a bit. I always figure that I'll never see any of these people again so what does it matter if I make an ass of myself.

Another thing is that it's kind of like taking a little vacation from myself, and I need those too as I can really be annoying sometimes.

During this last particular trip, fueled by Pyramid Tilted Kilt Ale, I dropped a line on one of the Rio's waitresses. Just a stupid line like you'd hear at just about any bar in the world, but this particular time it sort of worked.

By "sort of worked" I mean I didn't get slapped or laughed at. I got invited to go swimming.

After I'd quickly purchased, and changed into, the world's loudest swimtrunks and Hawaiian-style shirt, RioGirl and I went to the pool and soaked and talked for a couple of hours.

By the time RioGirl had to start work, my hair, toweled off but not combed at all, was completely dry. That's when RioGirl said the magic words.

"You should leave your hair like that. It looks good."

Never before had the words "good" and "hair" and "looks" been used to describe me before. I was sure she was joking.

When I got on the elevator to go up to my room (lucky 13013) I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror.

I looked like a completely different person. In my outrageous clothes and my snazzy new shades and with my fashionably mussed-up hair I looked quite hip and young.

For the next three days I went to my conference as my normal boring business-casual self, then at night I'd transform into YoungHipDude, minus the swimming gear but sporting towel-dried no-comb-shall-pass hair.

I felt that my hair looked really cool like that, and I decided to bring YoungHipDude back to Indiana with me.

Since my return I've never touched a comb or a blow dryer. The first time VigilanteGirl saw my mussed up hair was also the first time she ever said more than two words to me. I felt validated. I bought this gel shit that I smear in my hair, then when it dries I just use my fingers to soften it up.

As my hair grew out I've had a few haircuts since June, and I can no longer get the same look. I either look too scraggly or I look boring like I always have. I guess that the haircut I had just before my Vegas trip was some kind of magic haircut - one that was somehow perfect for the mussed up look - and now I'm back to normal haircuts that are only perfect for the straight-hanging short hair I've worn for years and years.

So that's the story of what's been going on with my hair.

Now stop asking.

Today I scheduled a couple of trips for work.

The first trip will be to San Antonio in a couple of weeks. I haven't been there since Basic Training in 1983. I'll try to make it to The Alamo and see what develops for any other non-conference activities.

The second trip is to Vegas, Baby!

I'll be there for a week at the end of November. I'm really looking forward to this one as I can always fill my nights with shows and fun.

Maybe I'll even get some of my favorite beer, Pyramid Tilted Kilt, while I'm there!

There are only a few things that really piss me off about other people.

Oh sure, I get annoyed a lot, but to really set me off you have to (a)treat people like shit, and (b)do it on purpose.

Once example of this is when you take for granted someone that you ostensibly care about, then whine and moan when they don't ask "How high?" every time you ask them to jump.

A little bit of attention can go a long way for people that don't have the highest self-esteem to begin with, and to ignore them until it's convenient for you, then to expect Pavlovian responses every time you ring a bell, is just flat out rude.

I watched this situation play out today for about the millionth time, and finally the mistreated person spoke up about it.

Yay for her.

Today I went and bought one of the new Sony dual-layer DVD burners.

My main goal with this purchase was to get a drive that would burn anything and since the new drive does indeed work I accomplished that goal.

The ability to burn to two layers is just a bonus, and not really much of one as blank dual-layer media costs about $10 each.

This morning I removed the stupid SP2 from my computer and surprise!

I can burn DVDs and CDs again.

Wait, scratch that.

I can now burn CDs again. DVDs now will not only not burn, they can't even be read by my drive.

Suspecting that SP2 had managed to irrecovably fubar my DVD burner, I went ahead and used goback to add SP2 back to the system, and decided to go out and buy a new DVD burner.

gor-geous
adj.
1. Dazzlingly beautiful or magnificent.
2. Wonderful, delightful.

poof
interj.
1. Used to indicate a sudden vanishing.

After Friday's near-perfect evening I knew that Saturday had its work cut out for it.

As it turned out Saturday was a good night as well, though for different reasons.

My night started out with a quick visit to where VigilanteGirl works to semi-apologize for not calling her the night before as we'd semi-arranged. I think that we also semi-arranged to see each other in the morning but I'm only semi-sure about that.

I arrived at Rich O's right at 8:00, way too early but I keep saying that and it keeps happening.

The played was packed with strangers but I was able to grab a seat at the bar before too much time had passed. I ordered myself an NABC Beaks's Best, remembering how good it had been the night before.

It was still quite good, but I'm thinking that the Beaks's may not be a good choice for the first beer of a session. It was a little bitter.

I'd barely started into my beer when LaptopGirl came in and, not seeing any better prospects, she grabbed a spot at the bar next to me. (LaptopGirl hates sitting at the bar.)

Lately I've been hesitant to write anything complimentary or derogatory about LaptopGirl in this 'blog for fear of unwarranted extrapolations. Tonight I'm still a little hesitant, but I'm also a little tipsy so I'm going to say that she is one very pretty young woman and leave it at that.

Too bad she's got that conjoined-twin thing or whatever going on with her neck. (ha ha inside joke)

While I amused myself with LaptopGirl's attempts to find anyone interesting at Rich O's I enjoyed a Delirium Tremens, a very nice Belgian that I think has less alcohol than the other Belgians I've had lately.

Fairly early in the evening LaptopGirl left for greener pastures and I was left to enjoy a couple pints of Smithwick's. I'm growing more and more fond of this beer each time I drink it, so it will probably be going away soon.

At one point I tried to call VigilanteGirl (who's also waaaaay out of my league) to invite her to Rich O's but I got her voicemail instead. After waiting for a half-hour or so without hearing back from her I went home.

sur-prise
v.
1. To encounter suddenly or unexpectedly; take or catch unawares.

de-li-cious
adj.
1. Highly pleasing or agreeable to the senses, especially of taste or smell.
2. Very pleasant, delightful.

Because of my computer problems I'm writing this entry late on Saturday night.

On Friday I arrived at Rich O's and did my customary survey of the parking lot for the cars of anyone I know. I saw no familiar vehicles, so I was surprised to see LaptopGirl sitting at the bar. After a short time some people left and some other people (thanks, TallLady) changed seats so I sat at the bar and pretended to be keeping LaptopGirl company while in actuality she was so buried in a map of some hiking trail that it would have taken someone a lot more interesting than I am to get her attention.

Speaking of interesting, while I was drinking my first beer of the night, a Smithwick's, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and was delighted to see my old friend Eric and his lovely wife Terri!

Their company was exactly what I needed - not because I felt that I was lacking in companionship, just because they're good people who I knew would understand me.

Shortly after Eric and Terri arrived LaptopGirl left and sure enough, I was immediately interrogated. The difference between this occasion and every other time I've been questioned about how I'm feeling was that this time my words were taken at face value. What a relief it was to not be pitied!

Anyway, while I talked with my friends we all had some Piraat Belgian Ales. I've already written about how much I like this stuff. I don't think Eric and Terri shared my enthusiasm, for they both switched to much tamer beers (Guinness and NABC Beak's Best) for the next round.

At one point during the evening we were joined by NotGeorge and, after Eric and Terri left, NotGeorge and I spent some time talking about what perverts we both were. I had a Beak's Best myself and it was probably the best glass of that particular beer I've ever had.

Friday was one of the more enjoyable nights I've had lately. Everything was perfect. The company and the beer all flowed and blended together to form a night that relaxed and stimulated me at the same time.

My lack of entries over the last few days was not caused by a lack of things to say.

Well, may be a lack of topics played a small part, but a much larger part was played by Microsoft and their XP service pack 2.

I must have tried a half-dozen times to get that damn thing installed, and once I finally did, I realized that both my DVD burner and my CD burner had become inoperative.

At this point I've tried just about everything imaginable to get my burners working again, with no luck whatsoever.

I'd now like to state, for the record, that Microsoft sucks, SP2 sucks, and I suck for installing SP2 without completely backup my system up first.

Okay, I took all of the orphaned images and moved them into a new gallery.

That was 15 minutes of my life I'd like to have back.

I'm always seeing these cars and trucks with "Mile 0" decoractive plates on them.

Actually, I'm always seeing VigilanteGirl's car and yesterday I saw some dude's truck with "Mile 0" decorative plates.

The plate on the dude's truck cleared up the mystery for me.

Under the "Mile 0" it said in small print "Key West, Florida."

So now I know what these plates mean and I can finally get some sleep.

bril-liant
adj.
1. Marked by unusual and impressive intellectual acuteness.

What a dumbass.

When I redid the site layout - specifically when I switched to a two-column layout - I had to shrink all of my CGI galleries from 15 down to 12 images each so the thumbnail bar would fit on a page.

In my haste, however, I forgot to tell the images that they were being reshuffled.

Without getting too technical, I've managed to take one-fifth of all of my favorite images and make them virtually inaccessible except via the cumbersome All Images page.

I can't correct this until I get home.

wan-der-lust
n.
1. A very strong or irresistible impulse to travel.

So I've been thinking about taking a trip.

I've got all these skymiles to use up before Delta goes out of business, and there are places I'd really like to see.

I'd like to travel to New England and across the Northern states to get those colored in on my map.

I'd like to visit the Southwest because it's very cool there. Actually anywhere with some mountains would be nice.

I also need to make it to Hawaii someday. That trip, after all, is what I've been saving my miles for. It just seems a little too depressing to go to Hawaii by myself, and there's no one I'd care to go there with.

Hell I might as well think big and envision a kind of world tour. My previous out-of-country trips were all during the first Gulf War and there was no time for sightseeing.

The thing is, after spending the first 18 years of my life in a total of 2 houses, I then spent the next 15 years never staying at any one place for more than about 21 months.

I've now completely shattered that pattern. This December will mark my 5th anniversary in this house.

Not that I want to move or anything. I'd just like to get away for a while. Ideally for several weeks, but even a long weekend would be refreshing if I could spend it away from the places and people that populate my everyday life. Just to have a change of pace, you know.

I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. My vacation days are already taken up each year by the Derby City Classic pool tournament. In a couple more years at my job I'll get another week of vacation so maybe then I'll get that chance to go out and enjoy my own company again like I used to.

These days I get all caught up in other things and other people and the time I do spend by myself is spent doing the same things over and over.

Sometime I miss the old days where I was answerable to nobody but myself.

Sometimes I miss me.

claus-tro-pho-bic
adj.
1. Relating to or suffering from claustrophobia; Uncomfortably closed or hemmed in.

potential
n.
1. The inherent ability or capacity for growth, development, or coming into being.

Tonight wasn't the most comfortable night I've ever had.

Rich O's was fairly empty. I started out sitting in the living room area with some of the regulars, but when more people joined us I felt a little crowded.

I moved over to the island area thinking this would allow me to drink my beer (a Rogue Dead Guy Ale) in peace.

(Belushi) But noooooooooooooooo! (/Belushi)

All of the regulars followed me to the island area and continued to yap amongst themselves.

Somehow I managed to suffer through the evening with my Dead Guy and my Alaskan Smoked Ported (Yum!) and after those two beers I left.

I went to meet MysteryLady in order to decipher the cryptic voice message I'd been left earlier. Instead of clearing things up I'm now afraid that I've managed to blur the situation.

I had to be a little forceful I'm afraid, reminding her that this arrangement (such as it is) was all her idea and that she'd promised to be able to deal with it.

The alternative is simply too risky and now I seem to be the only one who realizes that fact.

Found out this morning that my niece Bethany has been nominated for Homecoming Queen!

My sister is very excited.

My question is, "Why even bother to vote?" I haven't seen any of the other girls but I already know that Bethany should win.

I mean, who could compete with Beffie?

a-dor-a-ble
adj.
1. Delightful, lovable, and charming.

pu-trid
adj.
1. Decomposed and foul-smelling; rotten.
2. Extremely objectinable; vile.

When I got to Rich O's last night I nearly turned around and left immediately. PutridPipeGuy was really stinking up the place with that dogshit or whatever it was in his pipe. Pipe smokers try to act like they're soooo sophisticated and stuff but that effect is ruined when the paint starts peeling off the walls and even the cockroaches start evacuating the premises.

Anyway, I didn't leave. I sat at the bar and started out with a Dead Guy Ale from Rogue. I've had this before and I really like it.

After what seemed like an eternity PutridPipeGuy and his entrourage finally left. This meant that Rich O's was effectively empty becuase everyone smart had already fled the aroma.

As for me, I ended up having a couple of Piraats. This is a very good beer that, as I stated in my RateBeer review, would probably kill me if I ever had more than two in one sitting.

Eventually MisunderstoodGirl appeared in the living room area and I moved over there. We talked for a while about travel and moving while I tried to ignore the idiots holding a political debate at the end of the couch.

At about the time I finished my second Piraat LaptopGirl came in looking, I guess "comfortable" would be the word. I ordered a Smithwicks and after MisunderstoodGirl left I spent a pleasant hour or two talking with LaptopGirl until someone more interesting came over and I realized two things:

1. I had drank too much.
2. I was no longer needed.

I left pretty abruptly because I knew that if I didn't I'd be there closing out the place with LaptopGirl and I'd probably be sleeping in my car if I didn't get home fairly quickly.

I wanted to say something about today's 9/11 anniversary, but there isn't much I can say that hasn't been said by writers much more talented than I.

Some in this country try to dismiss it like it wasn't a big deal. I'm sorry to tell you but you're quite wrong. Sure, terrorism happens all the time all over the world, but anytime 3000 people are killed I assure you that it is a big deal.

At the other end of the spectrum are the people who obsess over the tragedies and forget that terrorism is not the only problem facing the United States and the world today.

I guess, like with a lot of issues, I'm somewhere in the middle. I feel that 9/11 was certainly one of the defining moments in history. When that second plane hit, and we all knew that we were under attack, I saw the looks on the faces of the people watching with me. Everyone went from being very concerned to being angry and fearful.

I continued to see that mad/scared look everywhere for several weeks after the attacks. People on the streets and in the stores that on September 10th had nothing in common with each other now had all endured the same horrible events and were all trying to do the same thing.

Trying to go on with their lives until all of the shock and grief and fear had subsided to the point where they could go on with their lives.

For most of us the memory of that day no longer haunts us constantly. We can think about it, for a while at least, without welling up or clenching our fists.

For a while at least.

One of the reasons I first decided to learn some CSS was to have the ability to wrap text around images.

Now I've finally got that ability. You can see examples on some of my cats' pages.

Also today I added a couple of little mini-forms, one on the main page and one on the FAQ page, to allow short messages or questions to be sent to me.

Okay, I suppose I'll just go ahead and declare the barenada.com version 4.0 redesign complete.

Of course one never really finishes with a website. It's an ongoing evolution.

And then there's the fact that I just hacked away and deleted about 700 files that I hope weren't being used anymore.

I also want to see about putting in a mechanism to change the color scheme (such as it is) on the fly.

Oh yeah, I also want to standardize my image borders.

And then I want to finish my email-based 'blog system.

Maybe I'm not as done as I initially thought.

As what's left of Hurricane Frances spirals and dumps rain to the East of me I can't help but feel a little gyped that what was such an awesome storm has only provided me with some wind and clouds.

Sometimes I wish I lived along the Gulf Coast so I could experience one of these incredible storms in its full fury.

Then I see the reports of all the devastation, injuries, and deaths, and I have to be grateful that I don't live anywhere near there.

I know that, were I in Florida when Frances hit, I'd have been one of those idiots that refused to evacuate and instead held a deck party.

I'd probably have gotten a Darwin Award out of it.

Since I decided about a zillion years ago - or it may have been last Thursday - to do a complete site redesign I've spent nearly all of my at-home time sitting at this computer.

I think I'm almost finished, but along with the inevitable bugfixes and layout tweaks I still have a couple of bigger decisions to make.

First, do I even bother with the Pronto pages? I still get hits against these pages even though they haven't been updated in years and years, but converting all of those outdated pages to the new site format seems like a really daunting task.

The other four sections (gross exaggeration alert!) that the old site had were the humor page, the page about my Monte Carlo and my dad, my resume page, and the page which shows the states I've been to.

These four single-page sections (there it was again) would be pretty easy to convert to the new format. I suppose I've just gotten a little burned-out from using Dreamweaver and Fireworks over the last few days and so I'm currently limiting myself to bugfixes and layout tweaks.

First off I need to catch up on what happened Thursday and Friday.

Thursday I broke one of my new resolutions and did something stupid for a stupid reason.

How do you suppose that worked out?

Not very well, that's how.

Friday when I got to Rich O's all of the regulars I know were crowded into the living room section. There was clearly no room for me so I ended up at the bar.

At one point I realized a couple of things:

1. Some seats had opened up near my friends.
2. None of them had even bothered to invite me over.

Now I know I've been a little moody lately, but c'mon. I suppose this should tell me something but I'll probably continue to play dumb.

Tonight (Saturday) I went bowling, of all things, with my sister Dina's family.

This was the first time I'd been in several years and the rust was quite evident. I bowled two games, each of which saw a score that was barely half my old average. I think my 9-year-old nephew beat me the first game.

Back to Rich O's to drown my sorrows, I had a Three Floyd's Pride & Joy English mild ale.

I liked it. It could have used a little more malt to balance it out but I'll definitely have it again.

Tonight I had a feeling.

I just knew that if I went to Rich O's that things would be pushed back into balance.

I was right.

Oh yeah, I have four days off work. That's very cool and I really need the time off because I'm sick of getting up at 6:30AM every damn day.

un-fair
adj.
1. Not just or evenhanded; biased.

Sure, my brain may get a lot more use than its opponents, so it should be able to hold its own in a fight, but c'mon, it's two against one, and the other side is trying extra-hard because they know this could be their last chance for victory.