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.

Just when I manage to convince myself that I am indeed losing weight through some mysterious means some guy at work puts up a picture of me looking like a lardass.

Saturday night, while we were waiting for GeneralElectricGuy to show up, LaptopGirl talked about a turtle that wouldn't stay where she'd put it. I said I wondered how annoyed animals (cats, dogs, turtles, etc.) must get when people just pick them up and carry them around.

Like the other day I was going to take a nap on the couch. Buddy always takes a nap with me, and when he didn't come when called, I went and picked him up and took his ass to the living room.

How would we humans feel if there were some higher (or at least much larger) form of life that would just pick us up whenever the mood struck? I don't think we'd like it very much at all.

I can't remember if this conversation happened before or after the conversation that LaptopGirl and I had about whether I was weird or not.

I actually prefer the term "eccentric" as it just seems classier.