04/03/00 - I'm reading the Hobbit now (just passed the mid point this morning) and I went to Subway for lunch. There is a commonality, believe it or not. Subway is running a Tae Bo promotion. Tae Bo is this dancing fighting exercise craze about which I know exactly as much as I've told you. Tae Bo backwards almost sounds like hobbit and hobbit backwards almost sounds like Tae Bo. See, I told you there was a connection. What else did I learn today? K C Mastepiece flavored Lays Baked Potato Crisps aren't worth the paper on which they are printed... at least I'm fairly certain it was paper of which they were made... that's how it tasted to me. No wonder they're good diet food... if that's all you can eat you're going to drop weight like it was on fire. Why do I eat crap like that? 100 years ago people would pay money to see freakshows in which geeks (actual definitionL: one who eats chicken heads etc.) eat the crap we now, as a nation/people/some-big-group-word, pay huge somes of money annually to eat. Ray Krock (or who ever the McDonald's founder was) made silly big bucks feeding us crap. And the crap has gotten worse. And what beats triple fried pork sandwiches is their "healthy substitutes": K C Masterpiece flavored powder sprinkled on paper and sold for $1 as a healthy potato chip. Why haven't I learned a lesson? Maybe I feel my time is worth more than my body; I eat this crap because I can get at it quickly. No wonder people fall for Tae Bo. The only piece of this whole issue with which I'm completely comfortable is the time I'm spending on the Hobbit.
04/04/00 - Tired. The kind of tired that clings. Velcro Tired. Stare straight forward but don't see anything tired. Taking abreak to make coffee. Scott donated a freezed dried can of Irish Creme to the cause. Now I am taking a quick break. Ok, back from break. As well as starting a fumigatingly strong pot of freeze dried Irish Creme I checked yesterday's important baseball game. The Braves won. Maddux is tied for the most wins in the Majors. Galarraga is at the top of the homerun chase. Things are looking good on the baseball front. I'm still tired. The window stayed open last night. That was nice... and probably the only time we'll do that all year. The Hobbit is still the Hobbit. A group from work played LaserTag last night... fun. I bought fried chicken from a chinese restaunt... not bad, but not good. I guess all my talk about crappy food is bunk even to me... I love fried chicken. And sloppy tired I remain.
04/05/00 - Good Morning. The Richmond weather as I type is sunny with a nip in the air. I know it's a nip as oppossed to a chill or a shine or something else because the damn thing bit me at 6:15am as I went shod in flp-flops out to walk the dogs. I now accompany them out into the backyard between 9pm and 7am to ATTEMPT to keep them quiet. Anyway, right out of bed this morning I hadn't raised my body temperature or bothered to cover much and was nipped by a nippy wind quite literally from head to toe. Now that my body temperature has risen and I'm mostly caffeinated I find it quite pleasant. The way Summer is coming this year this could be the last nip until October... ug, October seems so far away. Hannah will be 2 months old (that's practically driving age these days) in October. I'm certain there was another subject on my mind this morning but I've forgotten it (having failed to pen it into my spiral green memory I keep in the shirt pocket)... speaking of shirts I iron a piece of this one... that's the first time in a while I've taken the time to do something like that. But what's the use of having the shirt if I don't wear it and even I don't wear SUPER wrinkly shirts.
04/06/00 - The Hobbit has been read. I remember Thorin's death being more cathartic... I guess that's a function of reader age. I also remember Frodo's sailing over the sea being pretty cathartic, too. We'll see how it is when I get there... I'm still in the first book's Prologue. I spent a few moments yesterday updating a few web pages... not much difference should be seen by those viewing the pages. It is in this way that many software companies make money: "We've made substancial changes behind the scenes but users shouldn't notice any difference." Oh a better metaphor: Putting a new engine in your car doesn't change the way it drives... unless maybe you double the engine size. Generally speaking we're talking about the difference between something's user interface and inner workings. There are probably lessons in tolerance to learn here but that's too boring even for me this morning. These days without real topics are becoming a drag... a big weight... as frustrating as an engineless car. Boring as a meeting. Did I mention I was in a meeting a few days back that was SO BORING I actually began to notice how it felt to sit. Have you ever been so bored it's actually amusing to try and identify the sensations of sitting? That's bored. Bored, Bored, Bored.
04/10/00 - "How to rear end a Mercedes with a smile on your face." Several coincidences over which you, by definition, have no control, must align. First the day must be gorgeous; a nice early spring day in the lower 70s with no humidity and skys obscured just enough to cut the glare and create an interesting view through the open sunroof without threatening rain works well. Good music must be on the radio and enough traffic to make you want to lob eggs must surround you. The net result of these factors is a good bad mood... enjoyably rotten... just like the eggs would be. Anyway, the last coincidence must be the Mercedes whose back bumper taunts your grill just inches away. Actually, it doesn't have to be Mercedes, just keep the car in the story synced with the car in the title. Where were we? Oh, yeah, going nowhere with a pompous car driven by a snooty driver AND behind you is someone likely angry too. Here's the skillful part: Stop quickly, get hit from behind then jam your car into the Mercedes. Yes, you'll get a ticket, too, but isn't that price worth the effort? If you're on a really narrow road you could detain those behind you for months.
04/11/00 - I have rendered my email program useless for what looks like it could be a long time. I asked my old mail to be sent to an archive file on a zip disc. The folder I'm watching is archiving about one message per second and I have THOUSANDS of messages to archive... lovely. The problem with software is this: (and I believe I've made this point before) Boneheads like me write it. Programmers are those without the brains to start their own companies. That's right. Good programmers get a million dollar idea, become something other than a programmer and leave the rest of us to toil with things like archiving emails... which we do any which way we feel like doing (and, truthfully, occasionally luck into the best method but most not) thus software does things just not in the best possible way. Computers do things at a rate of Billions of times per second (bips)... now "things" in this case doesn't mean "scramble the eggs" or "clean the bathroom". "Things" means "add 1 and 1". The secret is you can scramble the eggs or clean the bathroom by doing many things back to back. This is a subject for people with less of a life than I have so I'll skip to the end. A good program does the fewest possible things to accomplish a task and still be practical. Let's go to an obvious simile. You are driving from Washington, DC to San Francisco, CA. A good route would be due west. A bad route would be due east. The best route might be a little longer but much more scenic. Heck with a conclusion. I hope my email is ready for me now.
04/12/00 - Mmm, Mmm.. I have my extra huge Starbucks coffee and am seated in my most favorite place on the cusp of writing about a smoking Cadillac. Ok, it's a damn lie that this is my favorite place but we'll gloss over that bit of untruth and get back to sipping coffee and smoking Cadillacs. It's not like I pulled out some paper and rolled a car to light up and puff away. I don't smoke anything. I have had a cigarette or twenty in my almost 30 years but I hated every one (the stupid things guys do for chicks is my excuse... that and too much Southern Comfort and ginger ale). Regardless there is a smoking Cadillac somewhere in this narrative... I think it was somewhere near Granite and Grove. It looked like something out of a music video or perhaps a commercial wherein the car (driven by a professional driver; don't try this on your way home from daycare with the baby) skids on all four tires over a salt flat somewhere in south eastern California) but instead of the hip, hot Acura it was a mid 80's big white Cadillac driven by who knows what profession of person headed somewhere very real and separate from the pictures which flash across my TV and represent a shadowy fictional land in which cars smoke commonly for mundane reasons. The smoking car pulled in behind me and I feared the stoplight ahead knowing I'd soon be breathing the stench ridden, non-fictional air polluted by this fantastic vehicle. But at the same time I enjoyed the scene of a car made almost heavenly by a garment made of soft, white smoke. To my delight and chagrin the Callidac turned left onto what might have been Granite leading me to suspect I initially saw the behemoth somewhere east of where I reported seeing it several lines back. Regardless (once again, that word) I pondered the effect fiction has had on my reality. Why something as bad for me and you and its owner as a smoking car causes a little joy and undo ramblings in my head and on my web page is a testiment to entertainment's ill impact on my life. It was strangely beautiful for no other reason than (in fact, contray to reason) because I'd seen similar, yet positive and impressive, fictional scenes. I scratch my head. I think I've just loosely proven to myself, among other things (like really long sentences are indeed difficult to read... even for their author), violence on TV and movies leads to violence in real life... am I becoming a liberal? God help my mother.
04/13/00 - Pornography. And issued by the goverenment for the use of every adult and child in this country. About what, pray tell, am I writing? The Quarter. The 25 cent piece. Lincoln on the penny: clothed. Jefferson on the nickel: clothed. Roosevelt on the dime: floating head. But Washington on the quarter: naked as a baby. I suppose he could be wearing a strapless dress but I doubt a government that can't make up its mind regarding the sexual orientation of its military personel is going to put a cross dressed likeness of George Washington on currency. Ok, let's attack the situation logically: I bet the artwork on the coin is modelled after a bust. Do you think George removed his shirt when the bust was made... possible but I'm going to say "no". The artist, having made a pretty realistic set of shoulders (shoulders do come in sets, right?) must have at least had a model at some time by which the artist learned to render shoulders. So it's likely that the shoulders are actually not those of George Washington but instead those of some 18th century model... ie another person. Which leads to this conclusion: the bust on the Quarter is not wholely George but a Frankensteinesque composite of George and a model. How completely unimportant an hypothesis. I might be able to sell it to a supermarket tabloid, though. I'd still like some clothes on George, though.
04/14/00 - A great fear, like a shadow from the depths of hell, has fallen over our hero (that's me). Tricked by some evil force (and therefore free of personal responsibility) our hero left the house this morning without the heavenly protection from evil tree pollen... our hero left home without taking his daily dose of Claritin. Each sound of wind to him brings shivers because on that wind ride the hosts of the devil... on the wind ride yellow clouds of misery... eye blurring, throat itching, phlegm growing hordes of paralyzing pollen particles. They creep, and crawl and cling to carpets. They torment by attaching to the very tissues that relieve clogging nasal passages. What penurious person with held the panacea? Damn the horrid cruelity of the evil force responsible for our hero's plight. Can he withstand Satan's evil scourge if it strikes him unguarded, unaided by God's wonder drug? Or will the scourge, unsuspecting his frailty, leave him be? The answers, like those to all great questions, lie in the future and will be found when their time is come. Knowing nothing can help him but his own resolve and perhaps the damp weather our hero prepares to do what great heroes throughout time have done when faced by daunting obstacles: drink coffee, sniffle every so often and work.
04/17/00 - A busy morning it has been. My boss is out with a tooth problem... ug. The office has been saunafied this morning. Taxes are in the mail. The phlegm living in my sinus made me an interesting offer: "How would you like it if I read to you in your sleep?" I never thought about before but maybe I could conquer a new area of knowledge by absorbing it subconsciously at night. But then I thought... how is he going to see the book? I don't want a book up my nose. Plus he wanted, as payment, bourbon stuffed up my nose... do I really think drunk phlegm can be trusted to impart critical information to my impressionable subconscious. So after a few seconds of thought I turned him down and sent Calritin in with eviction papers. Last I saw of Mr Phlegn he was headed down the shower drain... looking rather green. Well, that's pretty much been my morning. Did I mention I mailed the taxes?
04/18/00 - Things on my desk (roughly) from left to right: Left Speaker; clip boad with work papers; CRT;keyboard; scrap pages from "The Little Zen Calendar"; Post-It notes bearing phone numbers and notes; a weak cannon made from an old soda bottle; a coffee can of dirt; Blistex with a fake finger on the top; the Right speaker; a cup of pennies; another cup of pennies; a cup of chop sticks; a cup of pens; a cup of thumb tacks; a beer coozie with my tooth cleaning stuff; a CD rack bearing a lamp, Jar Jar Binks, a few pictures, rose petals from Kara, a pack of gum and a CD; Phone; mouse pad and mouse; coffee mug; couple scrap pages of notes; Dental plan information; print out of a program I'm rewriting; assorted Legos; dental floss; 1 piece of bubble gum; Girl Scout cookies is an Almond Roca tin; Kasugai Roasted Hot Green Peas; clothes pin; planner; stapler; dictionary; 2 packets of Texas Pete; staple remover; 3 CDs; Magic 8 ball; 2 3.5" Disk holders of junk; Chinese watermelon seeds; picture of Kara from Dublin; selected pages from "The Little Calendar"; "The Little Zen Calendar"; leftover wedding bubbles (not from my wedding); 2 3.5" disks; a pen/highlighter; a rack containing napkins, Post-It notes, paper clips, audio tapes, tape, inter office memo envelopes and a motivational note pad.
04/19/00 - I got on the bus this morning. I didn't really do that, but let's pretend. Why? Because the bus is more poetic than the car. What kind of believable hero drives a car? The real people's hero steps from a city bus... life is not easy but the goodness remains. The hero's gum wrapper goes in the trash can not on the sidewalk. And the day is always grey or frigid or boiling and, if it is springtime, it's raining... life is not easy but the goodness remains. And life has moved in the same several square miles for as long as human memory has clung to our hero. But the hero doesn't complain; in fact, the hero smiles because, while the ground is the same, each moment is a new place. Which may explain why the bus is more poetic... on the surface it may seem old and unfun but if one can carpe the moment and see not the routine but the granduer of that which never was before and never will be again one can easily find the obviously wonderful anywhere. I seem to have lost the hero but I'm sure he's having fun.
04/20/00 - Uncorked. Glug, glug, glug... and... nothing. So I'm staring at the brass lamp's green shade... why? Well, it's there. It seems, in general, to be the reason for most actions. Why did you get up this morning? The day is here. Well dammit all. There must be a better reason. I just have yet to see it because I'm so used to falling back on the old standard... forest for the trees... you know the old saying, too. You know what? I'm stopping here for the day. I can and I will.
04/21/00 - Happy am I to report April seems to be creeping along. Time seemed to be getting away from me but I think I might have discovered a way top slow it... I don't get paid until the month's first day. Waiting for a paycheck is a good way to slow down time. Have you read Catch-22? I haven't finished but there's a character who loves to be bored because time moves so slowly; same principle, I guess. I just had a talk with a former boss who is probably the happiest person I know. He discovered a new word which is: ShStuff. Allow me to define it: ShStuff (n) a collection of things which are cumbersome, annoying, frustrating, in the way but necessary enough to remain undisposed. Example: There is so much ShStuff in the fiscal records I can't find the few items I need to verify this payment. It's almost a compound word but then again it's more of a redirection from one impolite word to a less offensive choice.
04/24/00 -
It is. I am.
Monday. 3pm. Cloudy. Warm.
April 24, 2000.
The dogs are home.
The dogs are home.
I work;
so do they.
Do you know where you are?
The dogs are home.
The dogs are home.
They are.
04/25/00 - I'm sitting here sweating in a sweater... how appropriate. My nose is running and my coffee cup is almost dry. Most moments I'd rather spend goofing around rather than working (but I'm mature enough to resist the urge... most moments). Anyway, I really feel like getting to work this morning. I've got a good, fun challenging task to tackle. So, on with the show...
04/26/00 - Two relatively short days so far this week... if measured by the words in my journal for those days. Actually, the days themselves were of pretty standard length... roughly 24 hours from tip to tail... crown to rump... crest to trough. And the words for today represent a great effort. I doubt this entry will contain many more... but in no way should the paucity of words be construed as a short day's measure. This day like the last will measure 24 hours from bumper to bumper.
04/27/00 - Wow... just realized I haven't written anything fun today. I have a feeling I'll be able to say that when the lights are turned off at bedtime. Ahhh... bedtime. Only 9 hours away. Perhaps I'll make the theme this week: Ultra Short Entries.
04/28/00 - I'm a good 15 pounds heavier than I should be... actually, there is little good about my extra 15 pounds but that's not the issue right now. In the past I was a runner or great stature... ok, maybe not great but I was good. The past has past and I now have trouble covering a distance I once would have considered trivial. My neighbor Brad caught me about 2 weeks ago and asked if I'd like to run. I would like to run; I do like to run... but I don't without external motivation. We've runa few times in the last few weeks and I'm still not feeling good about it. Last night, however, was an adventure. The sky wqs cloudy when we started but about 25% through the run the cloud flushed themselves. It rained like I haven't seen in a long time. The pleasant spring warmth became chilly as my clothes became heavy and clingy. The rain kept coming. The noise. The water. The greying of everything. It was, for a moment, like being back in college. Running then was business but it was a business I enjoyed and running in the rain was a testament of commitment and solidarity with my best friends and teammates. If I hadn't been so fat and out of shape I could have run forever last night.