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Today was a good day.

You already saw my pictures, probably. I’m glad I finally got that done. I’ve found a few more, mostly older pictures (closer to high school age), so people checking out my Facebook profile can remember who I was. I’ll get those up in a couple days.

But, yeah, work went well. I was busy every minute of the day, today, but about 4 minutes before I was scheduled to go home, I finished up my major project. I sent off the email and turned it over to the engineer. He’ll have to review it, and my editor will have to review it (did I explain this already?). Anyway, it won’t be done by the end of the day tomorrow, but I think the people interested will be pretty impressed with what we managed to do nonetheless.

But, yeah, I got a ton accomplished at work, and I know for a fact that it’s quality work. That’s a good feeling. Especially knowing I managed that even under a major rush. So, woohoo for me.

Then I got home and played with my baby some, talked with T– some, and then I suggested a new recipe for a leftovers dinner — meatball grilled cheese — and it turned out so good. And after that, I beat Overlord. And after that, even though it was already time for bed, I somehow convinced myself to go for a walk anyway. D– came over to walk with me, and I just got in. I’ve been pressing it a little harder lately, so my legs are a little sore, but it’s the good kind.

That’s all for today. Hope you’re well. Keep in touch.

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My busy week at work continues, but it’s getting better.

I took some loaves of bread that T– made to work for a bake sale today, and they were a big hit. I also got some serious praise from the editor in my writing group, who’s been reviewing the work I’ve done so far this week, on my major project. It’s the first time I’ve actually turned in a writing product since they hired me, and it’s good to hear that they’re impressed with the work I did.

T– was going to come to the bake sale, and bring AB to show off to my coworkers, but the bake sale sold out early (T–‘s friendship bread sold for $10 a loaf!), and we had some weird security stuff going on, so we settled for just meeting for lunch. We had Whataburger, which was a fun break from an otherwise harrowing day.

I got through it, though, and I’m about a quarter finished with Section 7 (out of 13). We might still make Friday, which is our deadline, but I’m doubtful. I’ll be done by then, but after I finish writing a section it has to be reviewed by my editor (the one who praised me today), and by the engineer, and that takes time. I’m guessing the engineer will probably work all weekend so we can submit it as finished first thing Monday morning, but that’s just a guess.

Anyway, that was work stuff. For the first time this week, I was able to leave work on time. I got home and T– made some spaghetti and meatballs with the a new meatball recipe. I told her they were the best I’ve ever had in a spaghetti-based environment. I think she took that for a joke. It was really good, though.

After that, she took AB to class at church, and I went to my office to do a little work, and then play some Overlord. That latter was a mostly frustrating experience, and I didn’t stick at it long. T– got home and I helped her with some chores, then I headed out for a walk.

I tried repeatedly to call D– to get him to join me, but his phone was apparently acting up. He finally received one of the many messages I left, and I backtracked half of my walking route to get back to his place. We drank some wine and talked, and then I headed home. All told, I got my hour walk in, but it took ninety minutes because of the stop. Not too bad. He was watching the OU/Miami game when I got there, for an added bonus.

Anyway, it has been a long day, and I’m exhausted, so I’m heading to bed. I hope everyone’s well.

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Tuesday, September 11th
Yesterday I worked late again, getting home with just enough time to eat a sandwich T– had waiting before we headed off to our marriage seminar class. That started at 6:30. It involves sharing time (think of a support group setting, albeit with a less frightening affliction), which is not my forte. We were told last week that the sharing’s not compulsory, but last night it was. We were told last night that it won’t be in the future. We’ll see.

Anyway, the class itself still seems like a pretty good opportunity to me. T– and I tried to work our way through His Needs, Her Needs a couple years ago (when we really should have been going to all-out counseling), and we didn’t make it halfway through. We’re in a better position to benefit from the low-level techniques it offers, at this point, and I think the peer pressure associated with the support group atmosphere should help us follow through. We’ll see.

But, yeah, that ate up most of the night. Afterward we stopped by Braums on the way home, with K– and N–, and then got home around 9:00 to let D– off the hook (he’s babysitting AB for us every Tuesday for nine weeks — what a guy). Then T– read some on Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and I went to the office to work on my manual. Yay for overtime, I guess.

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Hmm. I’ve got to either get caught up (so I’m writing 2-3 paragraph entries again), or start living an interesting life. Otherwise, nobody’s going to read any of this.

Of course, I choose “get caught up.” No one is surprised by this.

Friday, September 7th
Late Thursday night (after a couple Jack and Cokes), I sent a ransom letter to B– and E– insisting that they come over Friday night. If I can dig it up, I might post the attached picture here. Maybe. I did a successful job of looking like a serial killer, and I don’t really think I want to share that with lots of people. You never know, though.

Anyway, on Friday they graciously accepted, so after I got off work on Friday, I went home to play with AB for a little while, then D– showed up to hang out, and then B– and E– got there around 6:00. We all talked a little bit, I got a call from K– saying he could come have dinner with us (N– was in Norman for a work thing — more on that later), so it was shaping up to be a real party.

B– and I went to Pizza Hut to order the pizza, which gave us a little time to get caught up. There’s been a lot going on, workwise, for both of us. Mine has been better than his. Poor guy.

By the time we got back, K– was arrived, and among us we devoured two large pizzas. Delicious. Then K– headed home to pack up an overnight back (more on that later), while the rest of us watched the first episode of Dane Cook’s Tourgasm. I’ve been watching through it, and T– sat through a couple episodes, and she thought B– and E– would like it. I’m not really sure if she was right or not. D– completely hated it, but he hates Dane Cook. Dummy.

Anyway, 8:30-ish K– got back and B– and E– went home so B– could get some sleep and/or get back to work. Poor bastard. Then (now it’s later), D– and I drove K– down to Norman. I’m glad D– came along, because (A) the drive back would’ve been pretty dull, alone, and (B) Mustang.

But, yeah, N– had a conference sort of thing for work that included lots of lectures Friday night (and a fancy free dinner), and then a hotel room and two tickets to the OU game Saturday morning. All paid for. She’d driven down there right after work on Friday, and they didn’t really want to drive two cars home in the post-game traffic on Saturday, so we agreed to drop K– off. Probably left a little before 9:00, and got home around 11:00.

We debated the various merits of Can’t Hardly Wait, Empire Records, and Almost Famous, settled on Can’t Hardly Wait, and then about a minute into it we swapped it out for The New Guy. Excellent choice, I must say. D– was up for watching more after that, but I’m getting old. I went to bed around 1:00.

Saturday, September 8th
Saturday was game day. I woke up to rain, so I didn’t have to mow. Instead, I went to Wal-Mart with T– and AB, then got home and turned on the game. It was a fantastic game, but it’s been a long time since I’ve tried to watch an OU game by myself. T– was there, but she wasn’t really watching. She kept wandering into other rooms, taking care of the baby, that sort of thing. Not that I’m complaining. But it’s a very different experience in a social environment. K– and N– were at the game, like I said, and D– was spending the afternoon with some friends, one of whom was celebrating a birthday.

Of course, the game made up for it. It was an amazing game. Dad kept calling me, he was so excited about it, so I had to skip as much as possible with the TiVo to get caught up, just so I could answer the phone. But, yeah, that was fun.

Then T– and I spent most of the evening just hanging around the house. We grabbed some Taco Bell, watched some TV, and just kinda let the day go. In the evening, finally done with his other friends, D– gave me a call and asked if I was free to go out. We hit the Blues bar downtown for a couple hours, which was a lot of fun. I got in around 1:30, and then (stupidly) stayed up two more hours playing Overlord. It was fun, though. I finally figured out what the arena was for, and put it to good use.

Sunday, September 9th
So, yeah, shame on me, I didn’t wake up in time for church. T– made some lunch, and we spent a couple hours discussing AB’s development and some things that have been frustrating us (and how to fix them), and that ended with a trip to Barnes and Noble that proved highly rewarding. We’ve long been recommending the book On Becoming Babywise as a great model for taking care of and training a newborn, but we’d already gotten past the scope of the book. Turns out there’s a Part 2 that covers where AB is now. On the drive home, just reading through the Table of Contents, it seemed like the book directly addressed everything we were having trouble with. So, yay. T– ended up reading through it for most of the evening.

It’s not evening yet, though! I mean, within the narrative. Shortly after we got back from the book store, D– came over to watch AB while we went to the dollar movies with K– and N–. We went to see the third Pirates movie, which none of us had seen yet (D– was horrified at that). It was pretty good. Better than the second, but I thought the resolution of the plot was lame. The movie was fun to watch, but I didn’t like the story. Whatcha gonna do, though?

After that we grabbed some Subway and went back to the house to relieve D– of his duties. Then we watched the Cowboys beat the Giants in heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat, these-idiots-are-going-to-lose-the-game style. N– left early because she had to wake up early Monday (wimp), but K– stayed for the whole thing. It was awesome. I’m excited about the team this year.

And, yeah, T– read her new book through most of that. Sounds like it’s got some very helpful stuff in it. I’ll read it as soon as she’s done.

Monday, September 10th
Then yesterday I started my week of much-overtime, for the project I mentioned last week. (I did mention it, didn’t I?) It’s pretty brutal work, but I think we can get it done by Friday, and that will be a major weight off all our shoulders. I only stayed at work about an hour late yesterday (although I took some stuff home with me to work on), and then got home in time for D– to bring us pizza.

His mom was in town on her way to visit his grandma, and she always likes to see us when she’s around, so they picked up a Falcone’s pizza and some cannolis for all of us, and we all had a great time. They left a little before nine, and I went to do some work in the office.

Oh! Before they got there, I decided on a whim to do some work in the garage, so I got a lot of the messy corner cleaned up, and it’s about ready to put cars in there again. I’m looking forward to that.

Now, on a parting note, I just want to say that the phrase, “Then (now it’s later)” is one of my favorite things I’ve ever said on this blog. That is all.

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Okay, that’s another long week without updates. The sad fact is, I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t really do much on computers at home. I’ll play a video game if I’ve got hours to burn up, and I update our finances regularly, but I don’t really do a very good job of doing the daily sort of chores on my computer at home. I do that stuff in between work projects at work.

I don’t think I’m admitting anything particularly damning there. I have a pretty gappy sort of a job, where how busy I am, at any given time, is entirely dependent on breaks in the engineers’ meeting schedules. If I’ve done my work (and I’m a remarkably fast worker, when it’s just a bunch of work for me to do on my own), and everyone I’m supposed to be working with is in meetings, then I’m looking at free time, no matter how packed my schedule is.

Anyway, sometime in July I got into the (good) habit of posting regularly in evenings, following my daily walks (another short-lived good habit, but more on that later), and in the process I stopped doing my blog posts while I was at work. Probably a good thing, because a blog post is a little more dedicated personal time than, say, paying an electric bill, but if I did it daily the blog posts didn’t take that long.

(Oh, yeah, I’m stuck in a nothing-to-do-until-I hear-back-from-any-one-of-four-different-engineers gap right now, that’ll probably carry right through to the end of the day. So here I am.)

Anyway, I haven’t been writing much at home, and what I said about not doing chores on my home PC compounds depending how much of a chunk of home time I’ve got at once. Weekends, I barely do anything (not even the finances). Holiday weekends, less still. So you lost me for five days straight after my last blog post. Of couse, I can only blame laziness for the two days since that.

But here’s my roundup:

Thursday, August 30th
Work, as predicted, was awful. But I also predicted having a pretty good weekend following that, and that came through as well. In fact, in spite of the somber tone of my justifyin’ and excuse makin’ up above, I’ve had a really great time since last I posted.

Thursday night was the final preseason game for the Cowboys, and it was against the Vikings. I don’t think I explained last week why that was a big deal, but B– is a big Vikings fan, and the Vikings also picked up Adrian Peterson (amazing OU running back) to start for their team this season, so all of us were really looking forward to the game. We even convinced B– and E– to come watch it with us.

So, after work, T– and I packed up the baby, hit Wal-Mart for me to get some Cowboys gear (can you believe I didn’t have any? I got my first ever jersey) and then we headed over to K– and N–‘s place. B– and E– and D– all showed up a little while later, so we had quite the party going on. Vikings put in Adrian Peterson for the first play, he ran for, I dunno, six yards, and then they took him out for the rest of the game. Cowboys had their third string in from the start. That was kinda lame. But the group was fun, and we all had a good time.

T– took the baby home relatively early, as they were both pretty tired, and the B– and E– followed a little while after that. D– had agreed to drive me home, so we stayed through the end of the game. There was some talk of going to watch Transformers (mixed in with making fun of K– for having to work on Friday), but then D– and I left and just went driving. We talked about hitting a bar, but it was midnight on a Thursday. Everywhere was closed. We talked some, drove around for a couple hours testing out the new car, and then I finally got home around two in the morning. I crashed.

Friday, August 31st
Friday morning I mowed, after two weeks without it. It was quite the ordeal. I didn’t bother doing it the smart way, either. I just kept cramming the mower into too high grass, letting it die, and then backing up and starting it up again. Rinse and repeat, for over an hour. That was no fun.

I spent some of the afternoon playing video games, then some of the evening watching TV with T–. Most of that time I was on her laptop, because I decided to finally update the ID3 information on all our mp3s. We have a lot of music, and almost all of it has either no meta information, or completely wrong information. I never much cared about that, but it was really undermining a lot of the usefulness of her iPod, and I hated to see that opportunity wasted, so I decided to put in the hours to get everything up to date. I ended up working on that all weekend.

A little after 10:00 that night, Mom and Dad got in. At that point, I pretty much expected them to just crash, but we sat up talking until easily midnight, maybe later.

Saturday, September 1st
I was planning to wake up pretty late on Saturday, but didn’t really make it. I got up a little after 8:00. I blame the waffles.

Mom and T– went shopping, looking for ideas for new furnitures for Mom’s redecoration. Dad and I stayed home with AB, talked some, and I showed him the new version of Heroes of Might and Magic (well, new to us — it’s over two years old at this point, so antique). Then the girls got back, and D– showed up, and it was the men’s job to go buy groceries and liquor for lunch. S– called to say she was coming over early, so we waited for J– and took him along.

Wal-Mart gave us all the groceries we needed. We were standing in line, unloading a cart full of groceries (mostly soda), when D– noticed that the only meat in the basket was a bunch of chicken breasts. He insisted that it was wrong to say we were “having a barbecue” if we were only cooking chicken. He was horrified at that, so he talked Dad into grabbing a package of brats. Whatever.

Then the liquor store. Now, for some of us (mostly me), the idea of us having to “buy groceries and liquor for lunch” is completely normal, but in case it sounded weird to you, I should point out that we were trying out a recipe for Friday’s Jack Daniel’s dipping sauce. So, y’know, that was where that came in. I did end up having a Jack and Coke while I was grilling, but that’s no great sin. It was after noon, anyway.

The dipping sauce turned out great, as did all the food. B– and E– came for that, too, and K– and N–, and we had my parents and my sister’s whole family, so it was a full house. Everyone had a good time, though. Around 4:00 Mom and Dad had to leave.

After that D– and I headed over to K– and N–‘s to watch the season opener for OU football. T– said she was just too exhausted after the day’s work hosting the party, and I can’t really blame her. The rest of us went to get snowcones, though, on our way up to Edmond, and while we were waiting on the snowcones K– noticed a restaurant in the parking lot there called Ron’s Burgers and Chili, or something to that effect. He mentioned it, and D– and I mentioned that we’d both heard really good things about the place, but never been there. So K– checked the hours (it was after 6:00 by then, but we’d had a late lunch), and then we went to their place to watch the beginning of the game.

At 7:15 we paused the game (thank Heaven for TiVo), and went for chili burgers. N– went next door to Mr Sushi (or Sushisandesyo, as the Japanese would say), because she’s a girl. I tried some, and it was foul. Whatcha gonna do? The chili burgers were amazing, though. Best I’ve ever had. Yumm.

Anyway, then back to watch the absolute thrashing that was the rest of the game, and I could go on a rant about not going ahead and scoring one more touchdown at the end of the game to set a school record, but I won’t. Not here. Ask me about it anytime, though, if you want to hear me seethe.

After the game, it was late, so when D– dropped me off…well, naturally I stayed up catalogueing my mp3s. It was the only reasonable thing to do. I think I got through the M’s before sleep called me.

Sunday, September 2nd
D– joined us for church Sunday morning, which was a pleasant surprise. Afterward, we went to Jason’s Deli for lunch by an equally surprising consensus among the decision makers (read: girls). Then as we were closing that up, K– asked if I’d be willing to help him check out some grills at Lowe’s or Home Depot. He has a natural gas hookup right on his back porch that would be perfect for a grill (and he’s thought that since the day he moved in), but he hadn’t gotten one yet.

So a quick lunch stretched into an all afternoon commitment, but it was a fun one. We hit both places, and K– found the grill he wanted at Lowe’s, and then we had to make arrangements to get it moved (he borrowed a truck from a friend from OC), and then we decided to install it. Initially he had intended it to be more a research outing, intel gathering style of thing, but somewhere along the way he decided he wanted to do a Labor Day cookout on Monday, so that’s what we worked toward.

So, sometime around 5:00 we all ended up back at K– and N–‘s place, reading through the directions of the propane-to-natural-gas conversion kit and trying to figure out how to connect a 3/8″ hose to the 1/2″ pipe sticking out of the wall. Still, with surprisingly little difficulty we got his grill set up and attached and tested, and it worked great. We went to Falcone’s for some New York-style pizza, and then Johnny’s for some delicious-style gelato, and then to the dollar movie to watch Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard. D– was the only one watching it for the first time, but it was still a really good movie. T– stayed home with AB, but I promised to take her out to a movie tomorrow to make up for it.

Monday, September 3rd
On Monday, I slept late. When I woke up, T– and I ran to the grocery store for the week’s shopping, then K– came over to help me drag a two-month-old pile of branches out to the curb for Big Trash Day (which was Wednesday), and he took AB home so T– and I could go to the movie. We went to see Stardust, which was even more fun watching with her.

As soon as that ended we headed over to K– and N–‘s for the cookout dinner. D– showed up a little later. We had inch-thick steaks and grilled veggies, and grilled Bananas Callypso for dessert. It was all perfect. For his first try cooking on his new grill, it went as well as it possibly could have. After that, we hung around and talked for a while, then finally headed home and let the long weekend come to an end.

I spent an hour or two working on the mp3s, and mostly finished up that process before heading to bed.

Tuesday, September 4th
Work on Tuesday was pretty brutal. I spent most of the day chasing down info for the project of the engineer who I’d neglected during all the day-long meetings of the previous week. I also learned yesterday that I’ll be spending full-time on that same project next week (including overtime), because the deadline for the manual has been bumped up from “before the end of the year” to “close of business next Friday.” That is a significant change of pace.

Anyway, I went home from that exhausted. Tuesday night we started a two-month marriage seminar at church based on the book His Needs, Her Needs (which my Dad highly recommends). The class went pretty well, and I’m pretty optimistic about the rest. There are about eight couples, including K– and N–, several families from our small group, and T–‘s chiropractor and his wife.

On that note…she’s been trying to talk me into trying out the chiropractor for a while. I periodically wake up with just severe lower back pain, but I just kind of thought of it as one of those things that comes with having a back. I’ve never had a great deal of faith in the chiropractic practice, since I’ve never known anyone who seemed to get fixed by it. It didn’t seem to have any more long-term effect than, y’know, a massage. But T– insisted I was wrong about that, and I just happened to get some bad back pain in the last week, and, hey, my insurance covers most of it, so why not try?

So I made an appointment with them while we were chatting after class on Tuesday night.

After that, we went home, watched some TV, then went to bed. There were weird noises, and I just wasn’t comfortable for some reason, and, basically, I didn’t get any sleep all night. Pretty much the same thing for T–.

Wednesday, September 5th
So, when the alarm came on and I shut it off, I crawled right back into bed and told T– that I was staying home for the day. She had to do some work and had had trouble finding a babysitter, so I offered to watch AB while she went to work, and that somehow justified my skipping a full day. I dunno.

Anyway, I got up around 9:00 when she left, and I played with AB all morning. It was fun. She didn’t eat well when she was supposed to, but she was laughing and smiling and we crawled all over the living room, exploring. I put her down for a nap that she didn’t really take, and I went to try to take one which she prevented (by way of crying), and so I finally got up and took her out of her crib and tried to feed her again (and she still didn’t eat well), and basically I kept doing that until T– got home and took over.

After that, I tried to take a nap but couldn’t get to sleep, so I played some Overlord. Best use of an afternoon I’ve made in some time. At 4:25 I remembered my 4:45 chiropractic appointment, so I headed down to the clinic. He took XRays and did a preliminary adjustment, and asked a lot of questions that all had the same answer: “Well, it comes and goes, but sometimes my lower back really hurts.” He said it would take some time for the results to come back, and made an appointment for the same time next day to discuss my treatment.

I rushed home from there and picked up T– to meet K– and N– for dinner at Arby’s (we’ve seen a lot of them in the last seven days — it’s been nice). Dinner was okay, but not a patch on last week. We expected D–, but he never showed.

After that, K– and N– went home so K– could play with his new HD TiVo. We went back to the house, and probably watched some Dead Zone. If not that, then I played some Overlord. Or, in all likelihood, both. I got to bed early, though, and we set up a fan in the room for some white noise. It did the trick. I slept like the dead.

Thursday, September 6th
Hmm. I already told you about my big bombshell schedule change for work. That was the big news for yesterday. T– took AB to the doctor for some shots, and she said AB handled it like a little trooper. So that’s good news. After work, D– offered to bring us something for dinner, but he had to work out first so it was going to be late.

That worked out for me, anyway, because I had to visit the chiropractor and then run another errand before going home. Chiropractor said that I have two pinched nerves at the base of my spine, and rated my condition as serious transitioning toward severe, and it’s going to take twenty-four office visits to fix it. Ugh. He showed me some XRays, but for all I could tell, they could have been stock photos of a spine. Anyway, he did an adjustment, I agreed to pay a whole lot of money, and then I ran by Blockbuster before heading home.

D– showed up a little while later with boneless buffalo wings for all, and we ate and watched Simpsons and King of the Hill. After he left, T– and I watched a Dead Zone, and then realized with surprise that the night was already over. I played half an hour of Overlord, then headed to bed.

And now it’s today, and I’ve burned a significant portion of my afternoon, but I’ve still got an hour left until I get to go home. I’m going to see if I can find something useful to do. Everyone have a good weekend.

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Meanwhile, our heroes….

Ugh. I thought I was two or three days late on posting. Maybe four. But no. It’s worse than that.

I have a sore ankle tonight. That’s why I’m not walking right now. Not sure how it happened, but I noticed it walking out to my car after work today.

Work? Work has been awful this week. I’m in all-day meetings all week. Monday I had free (no meetings, that is — I still had to work a nine-hour day), and Friday I have free free. It’s my RDO. It comes on the Friday before a Monday holiday, too, so I’m looking at a four-day weekend (Kris’s dinnertime request notwithstanding).

Anyway. Last weekend was a lot of fun. I’m trying to remember back that far. I don’t really know what happened last week. I finished reading Calvin and Hobbes, I know that for a fact. And then…I dunno, I had pretty short evenings. I don’t remember if I was feeling tired, or if I was busy. Oh! I did play some WoW with Mom and Dad. Most of Tuesday night and most of Thursday, too.

Then Friday night I’d set aside to go help B– drown his sorrows in some of his expensive whiskey, but he ended up taking a nap or something, so I watched some TV with T– and then went over to D–‘s to check out some cool new video game he’d gotten.

Then Saturday I helped T– with some chores in the morning, then went over to K– and N–‘s for the afternoon while T– took AB to one of her Saturday crops. I introduced K– to my favorite new game, Overlord, and watched him play for five hours or so. It’s that sort of a game. It’s fun and funny. Apparently at some point it gets challenging, but I’m not really there yet. It’s quite unique, though, and I enjoy that.

Then at 6:00 we headed to B– and E–‘s for their long-awaited housewarming party! It was worth the wait, too. I may have mentioned before, but they have done a TON of work on their house since they got it. N– mentioned that she was jealous of it. I can’t blame her. They’ve made a really cool home.

E– decided to pick up some meat for the guys to grill (we made it a team effort, too, all four of us out on the patio giving B– instructions). So we had hamburgers and hotdogs and chicken and all manner of grilled vegetables. There were also two cheesecakes courtesy N–, and chardonnay champagne to boot. We all had a really good time, got thoroughly smashed, and discussed very private matters in a public sort of way, into the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday, somehow, I made it to church. Got three pages of “Royal Holiday” written during the sermon, then picked up D– for some lunch at Schlotzky’s. He’d left his car at B–‘s place (N– drove us all home), so he needed a ride to pick it up. We took him to lunch, then came back to the house to pack up a few baby things that we’re loaning to B– and E–, and then we went over there (and, yeah, woke B– up for our short visit). I introduced HIM to Overlord, too, and dropped off the stuff, and we chatted for a bit before he chased us out of his house so he could get back to sleep.

That evening, we met K– and N– for dinner at Casablanca American Grill, a new-ish restaurant here in town, and had some delicious dinner. I’d been meaning to take T– on a date, and she picked the place. I had my filet mignon for the year, and it was well worth it. Yumm.

Afterward, we went to their place to watch some Psych, and then finally got home 9-ish. I don’t remember if I walked or not. For most of the last week, I didn’t.

Monday, I spent most of the day honing my programming skills. Specifically, I wrote a script to cheat at a really cheesy, free, multiplayer web-based flash game that I’d encountered while at work on the previous Friday. Over the weekend, K– and I were discussing that “we” had figured out how to control HTML objects from within a Python script, and I was forced to point out that it was all him.

So I took some of his sample code on Monday, read through it and modified it until I understood what was going on, and used this cheesy little online game as a project to learn through. It’s been a blazing success, too. I’m tearing up. I’m more excited about the skills I picked up, though. Web-manipulation through Python is terribly useful. If you can’t immediately guess why, you’ll probably just have to trust me on that.

Monday night, T– didn’t feel like cooking and I didn’t feel like eating leftovers. I suggested P. F. Chang’s. She went out and picked up a cheap but amazingly good pizza from Mazzio’s for dinner. It was good. Sometime later, D– and I went for a walk together.

Tuesday, yesterday, was my first all-day meeting. It was just awful. Basically, it has nothing to do with me, so I have to just sit in the meeting all day, nine hours straight (with a thirty-minute lunch break in the middle), and listen to engineers argue about things that aren’t going to change. About a year from now I’ll be responsible for maintaining the documentation that will be generated after this meeting is over, but I can tell you for a fact that almost nothing discussed in these meetings will have any impact on the product I receive. Ugh.

So, yeah, I didn’t enjoy yesterday at work, or today, and I won’t enjoy tomorrow. But I get Friday off. So that’s good.

Yesterday I came home in a bad mood, and T– asked me why, and I told her all about my meeting and then I felt a little better. Then I played with AB for a while, and she giggled for me (finally), and then I felt a little better. Then D– came over and we finally had a leftovers night, finishing off some of the food in our fridge (which was way better than “leftovers night” makes it sound). D– had hurt his knee somehow, so he skipped out on our walk, so I went to the office to pay our bills and play Overlord instead of going by myself.

Then today, well, same as yesterday at work, but about halfway through the day I decided what I wanted to do for dinner. We often get together with K– and N– (and usually D–, too) for Wednesday night dinners, because K– and N– go to the church right next to our house, so it’s convenient. But, we have to find somewhere pretty quick and pretty close, because the earliest they can get over to this part of town is 5:45, and church is at 7:00. We’ve generally gone somewhere Mexican.

But, as I may have said more than once, I’ve been craving Changs for a week, so when I got out of meetings at 4:40 today I called everyone involved (including B– and E–, but B–‘s in Dallas for some reason, so couldn’t make it), and told them instead of going to some Mexican place, they should head to my house. Then I went and picked up a bunch of Changs and brought it back to the house for everybody. The timing was almost perfect, and the food was SO good. Then I prevailed upon all to hang out at my place and watch a movie (Blades of Glory), which turned out to be hugely fun. We laughed and had a good time.

So…yeah, today has been a really good day. Really, all week I’ve managed to have good enough evenings to make up for just awful days. Tomorrow’s looking encouraging, too, because there’s a Cowboys/Vikings preseason game, and then no work to follow. If I can just make it through the day, I’ll be in really good shape.

Anyway, sorry for the long silence. I hope everyone’s doing well. I’m off to kill a few unicorns, and then I’m heading to bed.

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Journal Entry

Is it really only Monday? Ugh. I’ve got get that best-seller sold.

Today went pretty well. I think I’m finally feeling better. I did have a sore back from scooping water yesterday, and we had several awful things come up at work, but they were just things, y’know? I got two pages written on “Royal Holiday” (that one’s turning into a novella), and I read some Calvin and Hobbes, and by the time I got home I was able to forget work, so those are all good things.

T– made chicken parmesan and spaghetti for dinner, which was delicious, and we played with AB some, and I played some Civ and put the door back up over the cabinet under the kitchen sink, and then we both read while eating ice cream, and then I headed over to D–‘s for our walk.

Only, he didn’t really feel like walking after going to the gym tonight, and it was muggy enough that I was easily convinced to skip most of my walk (I still had half a mile walk there and back again), and instead I watched him play Civ for half an hour. That was fun. He started a war and lost it, and his economy went to pot. Poor guy. “That’s what you get for trying to play Civilization as the Native Americans,” I told him (only with more racial slurs, probably). And then I went home.

An odd sort of day. I didn’t really accomplish anything. But I’m feeling better, so that’s got to be a good thing.

Off to bed.

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Journal Entry

Woke up late this morning, and the whole day went that way. I’ve felt like I was running behind ever since I got up.

I spent most of the day at work wrestling with silly little thing. N– got us some tickets to an OU game through her work, so that should be fun. Then I met T– for lunch at Rib Crib.

When I got home, I played with AB for a while, which was a lot of fun. I also flipped through one of my old scribblebooks, and picked out a dozen old pencil drawings I did that I’d like to preserve. I’m going to try to figure out how to work our scanner, then see how much time I want to waste in Photoshop trying to make them look right. Given my proficiency with the graphic arts, that’ll probably end up being a lot of time, and they still won’t look right. Alas.

My favorite of all my drawings is, “My First Mob Hit.” If I can just get a good scan of that one, I’ll be satisfied. I have a couple others that some friends have complimented, but that’s the only one that holds dear meaning, close to my heart. Well…that, and the one with the coring knife chopping off some dude’s thumb….

Oh, and the Heroes of Might and Magic-style beholder preaching at Levy Church of Christ. That one makes me giggle.

Anyway, had some dinner, ran to Blockbuster (Wild Hogs and Chris Rock’s I Think I Love My Wife, which I’ve heard is really good), and then spent some time watching According to Jim. I’m probably going to go read, now, and skip my walk. So what! I can skip my walk if I want to. Okay, fine, I’ll walk! ‘Night.

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Journal Entry

Nothing terribly exciting to report for the day. I considered some fun ideas for the story I mentioned last night, but I didn’t do any writing on it.

Actually, I’ve remarked before on a recent difficulty motivating myself to write, and that persists. I’ve been able to commit a handful more pages of the Auric-meets-Queen-Sera story to paper in my scribblebook, but I can’t even make the time to type that up. That’s more than a little frustrating.

Anyway, I spent most of today at work working on work, but I did leave to have lunch with D–, which ended up not really happening because he got caught in some errands (not that I begrudge him that). But I ended up eating a burger at Coits, and then after I was done he showed up and we talked for a few before I had to head back to work.

I spent most of the afternoon fighting nodding off at my desk. I don’t know why, but I just felt extraordinarily lethargic there. I was falling asleep at the wheel on my drive home, and then had a pounding headache by the time I got into the house. Then AB was fussing and T– needed help making dinner, and I didn’t really get to take a nap until around 7:00, and I wasted that one by taking it on the couch. I never get good rest on the couch.

So, a frustrating evening, really, and I’m sure T– could have used more help than I gave her, so probably frustrating all around. D– came by around 8:30, and we went for our walk a little early. We spent the whole time talking shop (writing stuff, I mean), and then I just got home. Going to get another DVD burning, and then I’m off to sleep.

(237.4)

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Wednesday, July 18th
I spent nearly the entire day at work yesterday filling out paperwork for the contract transition. It was wild. I had set aside yesterday to get that done, but really figured it would take maybe an hour. It took six. And that made for a very long day.

Got home, and our friend Vicki was in town for work and she’d stopped by to hang out with T–. That was pretty cool. It’s always fun to see Vicki again. We chatted for a while, then got a call from K– and decided to go hang out with K– and N– for a couple hours. Vicki wanted to spend some more time with AB, so she offered to watch her for us. It was very kind of her.

We picked up some Subway on the way over, and had dinner with K– and N–, and then watched the first episode of the new season of Psych. That was fun.

Then I dropped T– back at home, and remembered that K– needed me to help him pick up his car (and I’d forgotten to do that while we were there), so I went back to his place, and dropped him off at his car. We got to talk some, which was nice. Then I got home and found Vicki still there, which was a pleasant surprise (I’d kinda figured she would leave right when I dropped off T–). So I got to talk with her some more, and to say goodbye before she left.

That ended up being around 10:30, and I had to work this morning, so I skipped my walk last night. I also haven’t gotten any writing done for the last couple days. I’m hoping to jump back into it, maybe over the weekend, but we’ll be in Little Rock so I’m not sure how successful it’ll be.

Tuesday, July 17th
Tuesday really wasn’t interesting. Same as Monday, but on Tuesday. I played WoW, and went for a walk.

Oh! T– experimented with making chicken fried rice using Rice-a-Roni instead of rice, and I think we were both really surprised just how well it turned out. Awesome stuff.