I'm pretty sure that I got the number sequence one wrong. I always over-analyze those.

Your IQ Is 135

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

Today we had a work meeting at Churchill Downs.

Even though I grew up here in Indiana, and have spent 24 years living here, I've never bothered to go to this track.

I wouldn't even have gone today if they hadn't made me.

Being around horses reminds me of things I'd rather not be reminded of.

Anyway, I took some pics.

This was display stand, made up to look like the track and stands, just filled with hundreds and hundreds of little crystal figurines. It was very cool, and it looked very fucking expensive.

We had our meeting in the new "luxury box" addition to the place. I guess a lot of people are mad that the spires no longer stand out above everything else anymore. I guess I can understand their feelings.

I ended up staying to watch one race, then I went to work and caught up on some stuff.

Just wanted to say that I'm pretty embarrassed over how incredibly fucking boring this 'blog has become.

What am I, a fifteen-year-old kid, with nothing to say but mundane bullshit about my boring life?

Today I wrote about a cheeseburger for fuck's sake!

I need to do better than this.

I need to find something that stirs the passions within me. Something that gets these creative juices flowing. Something that enrages me, or makes me deliriously happy. Something that I care about and can't shut up about.

Have I become so accustomed to the turmoil in my heart that I've become jaded by it? Have I grown so complacent that nothing affects me? Am I a robot?

No, no, and no.

I sit here on nights like this, with this gorilla flicking boogers into the back of my head, and I want to start typing and just keep at it until my fingers are bloody nubs. Until everything I've been holding back for all these months has been released in one colossal fit of honesty and brutality and ...

But I don't.

It's not that I have nothing to say. I have plenty that I could say.

I just need to find something else.

Man I'm tired.

Today we had a working lunch meeting at the Hard Rock. Probably only the third or fourth time that I've eaten lunch at work in the past 10 years..

This is not because I'm an anti-social asshole, as conventional theory holds. It's because when I eat I get tired, and when I eat in the middle of the day it just wipes me out and pretty much makes me useless for the rest of the day.

The food at the Hard Rock was okay. Just basic stuff I guess. I had a cheeseburger that was underdone and it came with like a dozen fries. I also sampled some potato skins and this pineapple-chicken-bbq quesadilla thingy that wasn't too bad. Potato skins with cheese and bacon are perhaps the 20th century's greatest contribution to mankind.

Or maybe not. I still like them.

My drink choices at the Hard Rock were, as expected, pretty limited, so I had a couple Guinnii. Pretty damn good stuff, that Guinness.

After work I stopped by Rich O's to meet up with RealTrainGirl and MisunderstoodGirl. While I was waiting I had an NABC Blonde Abbey.

While I was waiting some more I had a couple more Guinnii. Yummy.

Anyway, the girls finally showed up and MisunderstoodGirl and I got a kick out of listening to all of the train lingo that was being slung by RealTrainGirl and ChefDude.

I've been helping MisunderstoodGirl set up her own 'blog so we talked about that for a bit, and I offered to host her pictures because the free account she has at JournalSpace doesn't allow pictures.

I think I'm going to go to sleep now. Big day tomorrow. Going to the track.

Also, I missed her today. It was probably because of the Guinness.

Got my hair cut after work yesterday, and the lady was telling about this unusual problem she's having with her swimming pool.

She went to clear off what she thought were leaves stuck to the inside of the pool near the filter housing, and when she touched them, they took off swimming across the pool!

Her "leaves" were actually bats.

That's right, bats.

She had about a dozen of them inside her swimming pool!

I've never heard of bats being able to swim before, but a quick googling tells me that some of them can indeed do it.

So Dina, that's something else for you to worry about when you're lounging around in the pool.

You're welcome.

I suppose I should really consider thinking about maybe starting to get ready for my trip to Orlando.

I'm just not very excited about it. I've never been there - never been to the state of Florida at all in fact - but I just cannot imagine it comparing well to Las Vegas.

An awful lot depends on whether there are any good bars and/or touristy areas near the hotel. I'm not planning on going to Disney World, I hate lines way to much for that.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens. Maybe I'll surprise myself and have fun. I did in Portland after all.

I wish I would have chosen to fly down there on Saturday instead of Sunday. That way I'd have all day Sunday to goof around. Maybe rent a car and go to the ocean or The Everglades or something. As it stands I probably won't bother with a car unless there's nothing to do at night around the hotel.

I'm supposed to fly back home Thursday night. I guess that, if I'm really enjoying myself, I could see about returning Friday instead and burn a day of vacation.

Fifteen. That's how many people asked me about my last entry. Specifically, that's how many people asked me about number 9.

A lot of people seemed to think that I had embedded a signal in there somewhere. A lot of people seemed to think that my hidden signal was directed at them.

So I'll make it clear.

The Consonant Of Doom is a K, though a hard C will also work in a pinch.

Not M. Not D. Not L. Not even J, though that one hasn't been too lucky either.

And those of you who asked about A - I suppose I can understand your guess, but that is a vowel.

Man I'm bored right now.

1. I can juggle. Not chainsaws or cats or shit like that, but balls and stuff. I could probably do bowling pins.

2. I can solve most puzzles in the Rubik's Cube genre. I've been meaning to put a section about these puzzles on this site, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

3. When I drink a Guinness, it does usually mean something. You get one guess what that is. Get over it if you don't like it.

4. Back in my day, women with belly-button rings and/or tatoos were sluts. I have a hard time getting passed that sort of biased thinking. I'm an old dog after all.

5. Twice in my life I've developed crushes on the wives of my best friends. This either means that I'm an asshole or that I'm normal - I haven't decided yet.

6. The first girl I was ever involved with for any length of time cheated on me. So did the second. And the fourth, fifth, and sixth. The third killed herself. These facts just might explain why I have some slight intimacy and trust issues.

7. A banana milkshake from Polly's Freeze is my all-time favorite treat in the universe. My cat Happy thinks so too.

8. For whatever reason, whenever I see a cat I simply must pet it. I've been known to chase cats around the parking lot at the Gas'N'Stuff for an hour just so I could pet them.

9. A long time ago I determined that a certain consonant sound, when appearing at the beginning of a girl's name, was enough to signal certain doom should I try to have a relationship with said girl.

10. In this 'blog, I hold back about 90% of what's going on in my head.

(response to message)

How did you get the people out of the way long enough to take that poster-pic? It's a high traffic area.

Cool site, but the set-up aggravates me. no direct comments, etc...

As far as taking the picture went, it's amazing how quickly people will get out of your way when you threaten to take their picture and put it on the Internet. Plus I took the thing after work one day last week so it wasn't that crowded.

I had a much simpler 'blog navigation setup originally, but several people complained that they wanted the ability to see the posts in either ascending or descending order. That's pretty much why things seem so complicated. You do have a lot of choices to make though. I think most people just keep hitting the "previous" link until they run out of new stuff. A lot of people will also switch to ascending ordering almost immediately. I always do that when I'm reading my old entries.

I don't have individual comments for my 'blog entries because I don't have the time to screen comments before they get posted, and I've seen enough abuse dumped on other bloggers via their comment forms that I just decided to pass on the whole public comments thing.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

This poster hangs at Rich O's. I really like it. It's just so busy. Everywhere you look there's something going on, people having fun. Each little section is its own scene, unencumbered and uninfluenced by the goings-on of the scenes elsewhere.

This is kind of like the scene at my niece's graduation party yesterday.

Except that there wasn't quite as much beer. And instead of people making beer, there were people swimming and talking and pitching horseshoes and playing volleyball. And instead of workers and pagan characters and smiling buildings and royalty, there were a bunch of people that I hadn't seen in several years. And instead of hops growing all over, there were eighteen year old girls hopping all over the volleyball court.

Just to briefly list the relatives that I hadn't seen in a long time (or ever) that showed up yesterday:

• My cousin Durenda and her husband Kevin (two or three years)
• My cousin Lynette and her husband Bill (maybe a year, maybe two)
• My aunt Susie (about 6 years!)
• My second cousin Taylor (never in her twelve years of life)
• My cousin Michelle and her husband Barry (13 years!!!)
• Three more second cousins - Michelle's kids (never seen before)

Most of the regulars were also there, with the exception of my cousin Jeff who wasn't returning any calls, and Dan "Holy Shit" Kruer and his wife Chris who had other plans.

So I guess my sister has been holding out on me. She does have hot friends. At least one anyway, and I'm now hopeful that she'll "remember" some others. Some that aren't married.

I spent about the first hour on the deck by the pool talking with my sisters and my cousins and my aunt. At one point I realized that I was completely surrounded by estrogen and decided to escape before, as Neisha warned, I started getting cramps and developing uncontrollable urges to ask people for directions.

I pitched a dozen or so games of horseshoes. The first game I lost with my cousin Mike. The next ten games I won with a coworker of Kenny's or with my friend Eric, then I lost the last game with Kenny.

By then it was dark, and I sat for a bit talking with Eric's wife Terri while the guys tried to pitch one final game of horseshoes by sense of smell or something. I don't think that worked out very well for them, but no paramedics were called so it could have been worse.

Let's see, to drink I had a half-gallon of NABC Blonde Abbey. That's a lot of 7% beer to drink but it was spread out over several hours so I was okay.

Once I left Dina's I drove down to Rich O's (even though I was filthy) and had a diet coke while talking with RealTrainGirl and MisunderstoodGirl, and some dude that looks like Buddy Rich, and DooRagGirl.

I guess I'm a little sunburned. I don't look that red by I can definitely feel it in my face. It will probably start to peel, further increasing my already undeniable sex appeal. Today I get to mow my lawn so I'll probably look like a tomato by this evening.