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.