Random Access

Wednesday – 14 May 2008
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Check.
Houston Hobby Airport. Check.
McCarran International Airport. Check.
In-N-Out Burger. Check.
Six-hour drive to Salt Lake City. Check.

In other words: We are back behind the Zion Curtain.

The vacation was great. We both had a good time. And, let’s face it: Getting a chance to get out of Utah – and head to the Right Coast – is always a bonus. The chance to hang with the family-unit added a few extra points to the score, too.

We had lunch with Kris at Cracker Barrel before heading to the airport; somehow, SaraRules had never eaten at Cracker Barrel before. Back to her place to pack up and get under way for the Great Western Migration.

The flights weren’t bad. On the FLL-HOU leg, we watched Road to Perdition. Wow. How is it that I have owned – OWNED – this movie for months but not watched it?! Unglaublich! I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Since my old laptop was… old… I never watched movies on it. (No DVD player in that one.) So, watching movies on Defiant is a relatively “new” thing. Something brand-spanking new was the idea of watching the movie with the subtitles. This made understanding some of the more quiet parts of the movie much easier. While watching Road to Perdition, I think that the young lady sitting next to me was watching/reading the movie with us… but trying not to look like she was. Added bonus: We shared the flight with a polygamist family. (“It’s not a compound. It’s our home.”)

The HOU-LAS leg of the trip wasn’t hellish, even despite the baby that started screaming about halfway through the flight. Screaming. Banshee wailing. The flight was full and as people were boarding, there was an older Vietnamese (I’m Ivory Soap sure) couple that wound up having to sit apart from each other. The gentleman turned to ask if I would mind changing seats with him. I declined as:

1. I had boarded early enough to choose the seat I wanted.
2. I was sitting next to SaraRules
3. While she is willing fly, SaraRules isn’t overly fond of it.

So, I wasn’t about to abandon her. Tough noogies, Mister.

The drive from Vegas to Salt Lake wasn’t bad. We drove past a moderate-sized brush fire just north of St. George. There were a few minutes before we got to Cedar City when I thought that we might have to stop for the night, but after getting out to top off the tank and get something to drink, I was fine for the rest of the drive. And, other than those things, the drive was rather uneventful.

Stray Toasters

• I neglected to mention that we watched Memento a few days ago, a movie which I have only had a couple of weeks, but also had not seen. I also greatly enjoyed that film.
• Hilary Clinton pretty much swept the West-by-God Virginia primary. Who would have expected that?!
• Rotary iPhone Dial
• Darlin’, it’s better down where it’s wetter: Under the sea!
• passed this along to me the other day; it made me chuckle:



• Why I Started Punching Jerks Again
• Who needs (or “needed”) eHarmony when you could just use the 1939 marital rating scale for wives?
• Mormon Church Goes After WikiLeaks
• And another covet-inducing ‘Clix:

  

  

• Prince Ali!
  Mighty is he!
  Ali Ababwa
  Strong as ten regular men, definitely!
  He faced the galloping hordes
  A hundred bad guys with swords
  Who sent those goons to their lords?
  Why, Prince Ali!

/lunch

Namaste.

Tuesday – 13 May 2008
It’s been a good vacation, but it’s almost time to return to the Land Behind the Zion Curtain.  *blah*

Our flight leaves in a couple of hours. We had breakfast/lunch at Cracker Barrel with Kris. And now, we’re getting the last of our things together to get ready to roll out.

Next stop: The almost-Left Coast.

Namaste.

Monday – 12 May 2008
The ‘rents left this morning, on the way back to Tarheelia.

After Kris got back from the airport, she, SaraRules and I headed to Miami and South Beach.

(click image for gallery)

It was hot and humid. So, naturally, our first stop was a bar called Wet Willie’s. After loading up with frozen drinks, we took to the beach.  We walked along the beach and into the surf, which means that SaraRules and I have done coast-to-coast beaches in just under four months.  After we were done on the beach, we walked along the streets, ate at a restaurant called Puerto Sagua (1, 2) and checked out some shops, including the KidRobot store.

We headed back to Kris’ place… and took naps.  Two-and-a-half hours’ worth of naps.  Let’s see…

• Sun
• Alcoholic frozen drinks
• A good lunch

…yeah, we were FAR beyond “due” for naps.

SaraRules was kind enough to go gallivanting with me, in search of a local comic book shop.  I picked up a few ‘Clix.  At a GREAT bargain.  I got a few rare and super-rare pieces for $1.00 (USD), each.  Yeah… good haul.  We also went for dinner at the nearby Steak ‘n Shake.  Friends and I back home would make the local SnS a late-night dining and gabbing hang-out.

Back to Kris’ to hang out with her and watch the Celtics-Cavs game.  (Cavs won.)

Tomorrow, we chase the sun.

Namaste.

Sunday – 11 May 2008
Happy Mother’s Day

<< Rewind <<
Yesterday was Kris’ graduation; she received her Master of Law degree from St. Thomas University in Intercultural Human Rights.

(click picture to see the gallery)

The ceremony was nice. There was also a posthumous awarding of a Juris Doctor degree to a student who passed away last year. This was the second time in a week that I have seen this – last week a Bachelor of Arts degree was awarded posthumously to a student at SaraRules’ graduation.

After the ceremony, we went to lunch at Texas de Brazil, a Brazilian steakhouse. Sweet Mary, mother of Christ, it was a meatfest. A few of our party hadn’t been to this style of restaurant before, so they weren’t quite prepared for the onslaught of food. They learned. Oh, how they learned…

Back to Kris’ for random naps. Later, we went to the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe and Casino. (For : As SaraRules pointed out, it’s the one where Anna Nicole Smith died.) The casino was mostly slots. Since neither of us are really fans of slots, SaraRules and I wandered around the area. Lots of shops, tons of restaurants, more clubs than you can shake a stick at and an art gallery. And tons – TONS – of people-watching fun. Too many fashion faux pas to mention. (Ah, the joys of being in South Florida.) All-in-all, it was a nice way to spend the evening.

> Play >
So far, it’s been a quiet day. SaraRules and I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (I didn’t see Dr. Doom, so I’m feeling a little jipped.) I caught online, who often references the scene where Mola Ram pulls a worker’s heart out through his chest:

Me: Mola Ram just pulled the guy’s heart out.
Me: Thought you’d want to know.
: kalima, yuktitay
: rough translation: this gonna hurt, bitch.

Yep. Favorite brother-in-law for a reason.

Not sure what’s on tap for the rest of the afternoon. There’s a rumor that we may visit a beach at some point. We shall see…

Namaste.

A few finds during some lunch-time surfing:

• 2008 Webby Award Nominees and Winners
• Yelp – Salt Lake City
• Passive-Aggressive Notes
• Refacing Government Tender
• Epicurious.com
• IM Iron Man – a review of the movie… as done over AIM.  (Potential spoilers.  You have been warned.)

/lunch

Namaste.

Monday: Coda
I had a quiet night in. I watched a couple of episodes of L&O: TNG L&O: SVU and last week’s episode of CSI:, which included a cameo from MythBusters’ Adam and Jamie. And, I read a bit more of Guards, Guards.

Stray Toasters

• How did I not know that there’s a fourth Terminator movie, starring Christian Bale, coming out next year?
• A tip of the hat to for the inspiration for tonight’s post’s title.
• It’s going to be in the 80s in Florida this weekend.
• , click here.
• 
• Another from the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: The Wii Pole-Dancing Game Is Really Coming
• Hugh Laurie (you know… the guy who plays Dr. House on House) is on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I’m not really sure that I could have pictured him as Perry White in Superman Returns.
• 

Namaste.

Friday – 25 April 2008
Last night was very low-key. After work, I paid a visit to my four-color crack dealer. There were a few books – and one figure, Scarab Assassin – in my hold… so I treated myself to a box of plastic crack. I pulled a couple of decent figures:

• Accomplished Perfect Physician
• Rip Hunter

Not a bad take, I have to say. In fact, it was better than a couple of the books. Especially Countdown to Final Crisis: 01. If you’re going to wrap up a year-long, weekly series… you’ve got to bring your “A” game. The only – ONLY – thing that could pull this out of the fire (and NOT make if feel like a complete waste of time/money) would be if they pull out all the stops and answer a LOT of questions next week in DC Universe 0. If. Big “if.” Right now, I’m not sure how likely that is to happen… but I can hope, can’t I?

Stray Toasters

• I rediscovered Indexed last night.
• 
• Guillermo del Toro to direct The Hobbit movies; that should prove “interesting,” at the very least.
• 
• From Men’s Health and WebMD: The 10 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating
• Sleazy proposed new Dungeons & Dragons license seeks to poison open gaming systems

That’s it for now…

Namaste.

Thursday – 24 April 2008
I dislike being sick.

This isn’t to say that I know anyone who enjoys being sick, but I am just asserting that as a preface to the following:

I started feeling a little “off” yesterday around lunchtime. While it wasn’t doing somersaults, my stomach felt a bit queasy. I finally decided to go to lunch around 1:00. Since I was working in the north office, I figured that I’d just go home, take a nap have something light to eat and then head back to the office.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men…” as the saying goes.

I got home and had a difficult time falling asleep. It felt as though as soon as I did, the alarm went off. BAH! I was also feeling a bit cold. I figured that a hot soak would help. It did. Kind of. But I still wasn’t feeling top-of-the-line when I got out, so I crawled back into bed.

Three-and-a-half hours later, I felt a little better. Not great, but enough to function to head back to the office long enough to gather my personal belongings and head back home. Which I did. On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things that would be considered “bland food.”

I got home, put away the food and took up a position on the couch. I watched S.W.A.T. and most of Law & Order before it felt like I needed to spend a little “quality time” in the sanfac. (Bonus points to those who know where ‘sanfac’ comes from.) The chills that I had felt earlier began to give way to sweats. Yay! When I felt up to it, I decided to have another hot soak session. That seemed to help a bit. After finding something comfy – and warm – to put on, I put on some soup, grabbed a Gatorade and resumed my post upon the couch. I watched a bit of David Letterman and Jonny Quest. I don’t remember seeing the end of Jonny Quest…

…I don’t really remember much of anything until The Snorks came on. I checked the clock. 6:00 AM. Hm. Okay. I ignored The Snorks – and pretty much everything else – until the alarm went off at 6:35. I headed for the bedroom, turned off the alarm and sprawled across the bed. I fell asleep again. When I finally woke up, I noticed something: I was feeling much closer to baseline “human” than I did last night. I started milling around the apartment. There was a definite improvement in the way I was feeling. A definite fringe benefit of my metabolism (“ferret on crack,” as puts it) is that I don’t tend to get really sick very often; and when I do get sick, I don’t tend to stay sick very long. And, to be honest: Last night/this morning was one of the times I was very glad of that. I’d say that I’m feeling probably 85-90% of normal.

Tonight, I’ll probably wind up on the couch again, watching CSI: and generally taking it easy. I think I can handle that. Besides, I have Jell-O! “There’s always room for Jell-O.”

Stray Toasters

• loonybin88 pointed out this article to me yesterday. My response: “It’s a fucking bear! DUH!” Let me first say that I feel badly for Stephan Miller’s family’s loss. But… IT WAS A BEAR! No matter how many safety precautions one takes, at the end of the day it’s still an animal that acts on instincts; the bear may have just been playing, as far as it was concerned. The consequences of its actions, however, have now raised a quandary as to what should be done with the bear:
  • Should it be put down? In my opinion, “No.”
  • Should it be released into the wild? I don’t think so… are its survival instincts refined enough to deal with being returned to its “native” environment? I don’t know.
  • Could it possibly be donated to a zoo? I don’t know, but this seems like the possible “best of both worlds” option to me.
• I have discovered a new (to me) comics-related blog: Living Between Wednesdays
• One of the last things you feel like doing when you’re sick is check your mail. I didn’t check mine yesterday. Had I, I would have found my Green Lantern John Stewart Minimates figure. That would have been something to smile about yesterday.
• Wait… I did have something that not only made me smile, it downright made me laugh: invited some folks to dinner at Jitterbug and a showing of Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night. When I got her message, I told her that I wasn’t feeling well and would have to take a raincheck. That spawned the following messages:
  

  applevenus: Sorry about your herpes.
  applevenus: Spydr says sorry about your herpes.
  me: I’ll get some ointment.
  applevenus: Ha. Ha. Ha. Have fun.

• Details interview with John Waters
• For SaraRules and other fans of Pinkberry: The All-Natural Taste That Wasn’t
• Caffeinate With Care: Small Shots Do a Brain Better Than Large Blasts
• 
• Maureen McHugh’s Brilliant short stories available as free Creative Commons download
• BoingBoing has an article entitled Creepy/catchy “It’s Not a Compound” remix, featuring this video:

And it’s snowing. Again.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 23 April 2008
It’s grey-ish with a good chance of rain today. But, considering that I heard the words “chance of snow” earlier in the week, I’ll gladly take rain.

I received a late-afternoon call from Bret. A bit of a surprise, but a very pleasant one. It’s a uncertain whether or not we’ll be seeing him next week, but we made tentative plans for October… if not sooner.

Last night’s Scion game was… abbreviated, but we managed to get the new storyline moving. Globe-trotting. Saving the world. All in a day’s work. I also took dessert to the game.

Not pie…
Not s’mores brownies…

S’mores Brownie Pie

Oh, no he didn’t!
Did he just say…?
He couldn’t have!

Oh, but I did….

That’s right, kids: The next step in dessert evolution.
And it was good.
Double-plus good.
Squared.

Thanks to for sending me this:

(Click image to see the entire photo set)

Songs to get the day started:

• ABC – The Jackson Five
• Superstition – Stevie Wonder
• Boom! Shake the Room – The Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff

I believe that I will introduce a few coworkers to Munchkin today.

And with that…

Namaste.

Saturday – 19 September 2008
I got to Cedar City last night without any problems. That’s always a good thing. Shortly after I got in, we made a run to the local Wal-Mart – I wanted to verify that I could actually find Steak-Umm sandwich steaks. Back in the day, Steak-Ums were a staple of my summertime diet. Now that I know where to find them, they may have to go back into the lunch/dinner rotations.

Today has been lax. And that’s not a bad thing. The only bad thing is that, once again: SaraRules’ complex has bollocks-ed up their ISP again. So, there’s NO access there. No matter, I knew that SaraRules had a meeting at the MFA grad house and that I could use the Interwebs there! (And I’ve been using it like a fiend!) I played a bit of City. *taps vein* I teamed up with Perry and a few others and we ran an AV mission against Requiem. There was a lot of dying on our parts – as we didn’t have a healer on the team – but we muddled our way through it. Selah.

Tonight, we’re going to another round of SOAPFest plays.

Stray Toaster
I got a call from earlier today. She let me know that she ran into one of her neighbors this morning. At a rather unexpected place. The neighbor even asked about me, saying that she hadn’t seen me around in a while; explained that we broke up a couple of years ago, but that we’re still good friends.

I found the call amusing, since I ran into a different neighbor a couple of weeks ago… but he didn’t seem to remember me.

Oh, well.

And with that…

Namaste.

So far, the day is cruising along nicely. The lunchtime workout was good:

• Leg Raises: 3 sets/20 reps
• Bench Press (dumbbell): 3 sets/12 reps, 60 lbs
• Pull-downs: 3 sets/10 reps, 130 lbs
• Rows (T-bar style, with a barbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 55 lbs
• Tricep Press: 3 sets/12 reps, 70 lbs (Body Masters machine, facing away from the pulley system)
• Core: 4 sets – 2 sets/full extension, 45 secs.; 2 sets/elbows, 30 secs.

Today’s pre-workout weight: 176.8

We followed the workout with a trip to Subway. Oven-roasted chicken breast. With pepperjack cheese. On Italian Herbs and Cheese bread. Tasty.

Stray Toasters

• Thanks to , I have three new icons:
  • 
  • 
  • 
• sent a me a link to “The Day After the Marathon”
• Here’s the trailer for the upcoming Iron Man videogame

• From BBC News: NY tower plans found in rubbish
• What Would Tyler Durden Do? had (they were “asked” to take them down by Paramount) cast photos from the upcoming G.I. Joe movie. The last three lines of the lead-in were classic:
  

  You may note that almost every one of these sets has a shot from the back. This entire movie is asses. It’s like a two hour Hot Buns contest.

• Truly, truly, truly outrageous!
• From Campbell’s Condensed Newspaper: Think twice before taking pictures in public

*ZOOM*

Thursday – 17 April 2008
NBN Thursday in the valley. Sunny, trying to be warm.

Today has been pretty good. I have been trying to figure out a (better) way to build a list with checkboxes, pulling data from my database. Slow-going, but it’s coming along. It is also “Sushi Wednesday.” I had a Seattle roll along with Ika and Ebi (shrimp) Nigiri.

There is construction on 33rd South. There’s a deep trench running down the middle of the street. On the way to the restaurant, Joe asked what they were doing. I responded: “Laying pipe… and in this case, it’s not a euphemism.” A little later Mike showed up and asked,”What are they doing out there,” to which Joe quickly retorted: “Laying pipe,” at which we just ran with the joke:

“Laying pipe.”
“Yep, lots of men… laying pipe.”
“Pipe so big they need heavy equipment to lay it right.”

Hilarity ensued.
Stray Toasters

• I hung out with last night. She was having an issue with pools of water collecting on the carpet outside her bathroom. (Hm, that sounds vaguely familiar.) She called maintenance to look at it; the guy did what he could, but noted that he would have to check the apartments above hers for signs of leakage. (That sounds familiar, too…) After he left, we went out for dinner. Aside from the plumbing issue, it was a nice way to spend the evening.
• Two Minutes and 42 Seconds in Heaven
• By way of Markin’ Time: Coolest Fighter Jets… EVER!
• Superman and Superboy: Newsarama takes a look at the ongoing cases
• I just received the following email from my mother:
  

  Slap Your Co-Worker Day Is Coming!

  

  Do you have a co-worker who talks nonstop about nothing, working your last nerve with tedious and boring details that you don’t care about?
  Do you have a co-worker who ALWAYS screws up stuff creating MORE work for you?
  Do you have a co-worker who kisses so much booty, you can look in their mouth and see what your boss had for lunch?
  Do you have a co-worker who is SOOO obnoxious, when he/she enters a room, everyone else clears it?

  Well, on behalf of Ike Turner, I am so very very glad to officially announce tomorrow as SLAP YOUR IRRITATING CO-WORKER DAY!

  There are the rules you must follow:

  • You can only slap one person per hour – no more.
  • You can slap the same person again if they irritate you again in the same day.
  • You are allowed to hold someone down as other co-workers take their turns slapping the irritant.
  • No weapons are allowed…other than going upside somebody’s head with a stapler or a hole-puncher.
  • If questioned by a supervisor [or police, if the supervisor is the irritant], you are allowed to LIE, LIE, LIE!

  Now, study the rules, break out your list of folks that you want to slap the living day lights out of and get to slapping…..and have a great day!

• D&D Ability Score Quiz
  • Strength: 12
  • Dex: 15
  • Con: 13
  • Int: 15
  • Wis: 15
  • Cha: 15
  • Special Abilities: Sarcasm
• Young Me / Now Me

And that’s a wrap… for now.

Namaste.

Monday – 14 April 2008
Another week begins.

Alarm clocks are a necessary evil. That said, the day started with me hitting snooze more times than I had intended. After the hygiene rituals were observed and the car was packed, I began my journey back to north-central Utah. The drive was uneventful. And there weren’t any monkeys to speak of.

I got into the office and checked my email. Among them was one from Friday morning, asking me to submit my time card. *blink blink* Then, I checked the timestamp on the email: It was sent roughly two minutes before I submitted my time card, which means that I was already on the system and preparing to submit it before the email was sent. *sigh*

<< Rewind <<
Yesterday afternoon, SaraRules and I headed to the MFA house so that she could do some work… and I could use the connection there to make my way to Paragon City. We were both successful in our endeavors. Nefer-Tem is now a little less than 2 bars away from Level 50.

Steph and Kim decided to have a Taco Fiesta for dinner last night. Chicken and beef. Hard and soft shells. When dinner was done, we played Buzzword: The Not 5s (the roommates) vs. The 6-7-8s (honorary roommates). The 6-7-8s won. Barely.

Mark and Lish came over a little later. Mark asked our opinions about the Ballroom Dance Concert (he’s the director of that program); we gave him feedback. Then… it was time to play 3-way Slayer HALO. Selah. (Mark pwned both of us. Repeatedly. I need to practice.)

I showed Steph how to make the s’mores brownies. Lish said that he might try making them himself… and that he wanted to get a chef’s torch, so that he could toast the marshmallows. Ah, pyromania. A little later, Darillyn and Lish played shot glass checkers:

Lish won both games. However, Darillyn came up with a number of “Unintentional Porn Overheard in…” quotes.

> Play >
I found out that I need to add some more systems to my db and tweak the UI to be able to select from any/all systems.

Workout
Back in the saddle again:

• Leg Raises: 3 sets – 1 set, full extension; 2 sets, bent leg (lowered to only 45°)
• Bench Press (dumbbell): 3 sets/12 reps, 60 lbs
• Pull-downs: 3 sets/15 reps, 130 lbs
• Rows (T-bar style, with a barbell): 3 sets/12 reps, 55 lbs
• Tricep Press: 3 sets/12 reps, 120 lbs
• Core: 4 sets – 2 sets/full extension, 45 secs.; 2 sets/elbows, 30 secs.

Pre-workout weight: 175.6 lbs.

Stray Toasters

• There was an interesting discussion about Emperor Popetine Pope Benedict’s visit to the U.S. on The Diane Rehm Show this morning.
• Secret Invasion: Who do you trust?
• 
• Conductor Hero?: Touring game rocks concert halls
• 
  While I’m not overly taken by most of the figures, the Warrior Isis figure is nice.
• Microsoft: Vista feature designed to ‘annoy users’
• Scotty Doesn’t Know
• …and I don’t know what I want for dinner. *blah*
• Sillof’s Workshop

Quotes of the Day
As I mentioned above, Darillyn made some special “Unintentional Porn Overheard in…” quotes while playing checkers with Lish:

• “I can’t reach that with my face”
• “I was so waiting to jump you there.”
• “You get confused about a lot of things, but I’m not going to point them out.”
• “Hold on, I can’t get him out – he’s sticky.”
• “I got it out this time.”
• “You just jumped me. It’s my turn.”

Checkers and alcohol. Who knew?!

Namaste.

Sunday – 13 April 2008
The Ballroom Dance Concert, Swing, Swing, Swing!, was fun. More fun than I expected it to be.

After the concert, we came back to the apartment and watched The Last Man on Earth, the first adaptation of Richard Matheon’s I Am Legend, starring Vincent Price. Granted, it was… dated… but it was a much closer take on the story than the recent Will Smith.

Today’s been quiet and lazy. We caught the last part of Silverado… which I have never seen. Next up was Die Hard: With a Vengeance – not the greatest movie, but it has one of my favorite dialouges:

Zeus: Why do you keep calling me Jésus? Do I look Puerto Rican to you?
John McClane: Guy back there called you Jésus.
Zeus: He didn’t say Jésus. He said, “Hey, Zeus!” My name is Zeus.
John McClane: Zeus?
Zeus: Yeah, Zeus! As in, father of Apollo? Mt. Olympus? Don’t fuck with me or I’ll shove a lightning bolt up your ass? Zeus! You got a problem with that?
John McClane: No, I don’t have a problem with that.

Then the power went out. At first, we thought that it was just in the complex. Turns out that it hit a good portion of town. SaraRules, Tyler and I suspect zombie polygamist aliens as being behind it. Of course, that didn’t stop us from going to Dairy Queen for chocolate dipped cones and an Arctic Rush.

Stray Toasters

• Tonight, I’m teaching Steph how to make s’mores brownies.
• sent new pictures of Bit. You can see a few of them here.
• Charlie Daniels apparently has… an issue… with the way The Devil Went Down to Georgia is used in Guitar Hero III.
• By way of Intelligent Gamer: African Americans and the video game industry.
• Intellivision

Now, it’s time to see if I can find a workaround for getting to Paragon City.

Namaste.

Friday – 11 April 2008
Greetings from southern Utah. I got special dispensation to work from home today… so I decided that since I had everything that I needed for today’s work on Defiant, I would beat Friday afternoon/evening traffic by leaving Thursday night. It seemed to work pretty well.

Today, I’ve been working on my database front end and I found a/the error in coding that’s kept one section from working properly. One small, simple thing. It’s been dancing at the edge of my awareness for the past day or so – I’ve been tinkering with things around it, but not that one item – but I finally found it, changed it, and now it’s working. Now I can move on to the next piece of the puzzle. This whole project – warts and all – has been a fun challenge.

I went to the gym before going to lunch. Details below.

SaraRules got in from work, picked me up and we met some of the other MFAs – and Matt, director of their program – for lunch at a place called “Grumpy Joes.” The restaurant is a small, very unassuming place in a little strip of shops. If you blinked while driving by it, you’d miss it. Literally. We did, in fact.

It’s run by an older couple; the gentleman, known only by his (last) name: Farina, is a riot. Seriously. He was taking our orders and would stop to tell a story or a joke/funny comment. And did he ever take a shine to SaraRules. She walked in the door and he walked over and hugged her. She also got special attention from him throughout the meal.

The food was pretty good. It wasn’t Spago or Tavern on the Green, but neither did it purport itself as such. It was more like home-cooking. I think that we’ll have to go there again before SaraRules leaves Cedar.

Workout
A little before lunch, I headed to the Gold’s Gym to get in a workout. I needed it; I’ve been slacking a bit on my exercising. The Gold’s here is kind of… small. But, it’s a gym. And I was able to get in a decent workout:

• Recumbent Bike: 1.6 miles, ~100 rpm (roughly 7 minutes)
• Decline Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 155 lbs
• Curls (dumbbell, Hammer grip): 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs
• Lateral Raises (forward rotation): 3 sets/10 reps, 10 lbs
• Rows: 3 sets/10 reps, 120 lbs
• Tricep Extension (dumbbell, overhead, standing): 3 sets/10 reps, 45 lbs
• Tricep Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 80 lbs
• Core: 4 sets – 2 sets/full extension, 45 secs.; 2 sets/elbows, 30 secs.

Post-workout weight: 171.0 lbs

I forgot to weigh myself at the gym. In fact, I completely spaced it off until I was just about to step in to the shower. So, today’s weight, while accurate, doesn’t reflect the added weight of gym clothes.

Stray Toasters

• I am beginning to grok:
  • CSS layout > HTML tables

  …and how to implement them.

• After seeing Kevin Cronin on Don’t Forget the Lyrics a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been more apt to listen to the various and sundry REO Speedwagon selections in my iTunes folder.
• Firefox Logo Spied in Deep Space
• Someone in SaraRules’ apartment has a copy of the April 2008 issue of Cosmpolitan. In it is an article entitled: “21 Things Every Guy Wants to Hear” Laughing, SaraRules pointed out the following, saying that she saw it and thought of me:
  

  #19: “A man wearing anything dressier than jeans and a tee shirt is trying too hard.

  *blink blink*

  Fortunately, I also know her sense of style and fashion, so I know that she doesn’t agree with this. For laughs, I read the other twenty items. Given that Rocky is her favorite movie, I told her the following reminded me of her:

  #21: “I want to march down the aisle to the theme from Rocky.”

  …to which she retorted: “The theme? Can you see me marching down the aisle to that? No. Now, the slow, romantic theme, maybe. But not really.”

• For :



• Discuss among yourselves: Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone
• Coldfinger….
  She’s the girl, the girl with the polar touch
  A penguin’s touch
  Such a cold finger
  Beckons you to enter her cave, frozen
  But don’t go in….
• 
• Mother saw warning signs in son who planned shooting spree
• tomarrow != tomorrow
• Murdered Pregnant Women: The Racial Divide
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Mom Brings Baby Along to Candy Store Robbery

Time to get on with the weekend… in the words of .

Namaste.