Thoughts on my last post...

After I pressed the "post" button for yesterday's entry I walked away from it feeling like I'd written a really bad entry. I don't mean "bad" in the "I'm angsty!" sense, I just meant it felt badly written and confusing. I asked roho if he thought the same thing after reading it, and it sounds like I'm not the only one who feels it was a little difficult to read. After pondering this situation for a little while I think I figured out why that post seemed so incoherent and disjointed: One, I was trying to recap about five days worth of events in one entry, and that's always difficult because so much has to be condensed or is outright forgotten. Two, I actually wrote it over three separate time periods during the course of Friday morning, so I don't think I really had a good "flow" with the way my writing came out. I had started writing it in the morning when I got in to work and then had to stop to address some work-related issues sometime around 8:15. I went back to writing it up around 9:30, which of course had to stop when my ten o'clock staff meeting rolled around. After I finally got out of my meeting I came back to it a second time, finishing it sometime around 12:15 PM. It makes sense that things would feel a little... off... because of this.

I didn't get out of work as early as I had expected to because I had a number of problems come across my plate in the afternoon. I think it was sometime around 1:30 PM when I finally got out of the office, although I'm not entirely sure because I never really got a good look at the clock. The trip home to the apartment was a quick and easy one because the rush-hour traffic hadn't really started yet. I got home within 40 minutes and said hello to Roho before checking up on Ra and trying to see how he had been doing. When I went to look at his water bowl I found that he'd moved one of his toys. I was surprised and suspicious to say the least, and I was right to feel that way... when I lifted it up I found a small amount of vomit underneath, which of course needed to be cleaned up. Out came the paper towels, the tepid water and the peppermint soap again. It's amazing just how good that soap really is! I should find out who makes it and post it here so that anybody who needs to clean pet stains up or deal with stains in general on their rugs and upholstery can give it a try. It seems to work miracles when Ra or Cailet get sick.

After I'd cleaned up that mess and gotten the carpet somewhat dry again I reclined on the couch and watched TV for a few hours. At one point Roho went off to take a nap since he was still fighting off the effects of the stomach flu he seems to have contracted sometime Wednesday night, which meant I pretty much had control of the TV. It still strikes me as remarkable how little there is that plays on cable, even in this day and age of digital cable that delivers something like 140 channels and 30 music selections. Ugh! I wanted to watch a DVD but couldn't decide which one to choose, so I ended up defaulting to the local FOX affiliate and watching the continuing live coverage of the military action in Iraq. I'm still not sure what to make of this whole situation. On one hand it seems we weren't kidding that Iraq had failed to disarm: by treaty Saddam wasn't to have missiles that had over a 93 mile range, but the multiple launches on Kuwait indicate he still has a good portion of his old stockpile from 91 with distance capabilities of 300+ miles. So yeah, we're sort of vindicated there because he's proving us right... but we had to invade his country to get him to break them out, so... I dunno. I guess time will tell on this whole matter. I still don't have a feeling that we're doing the entirely right thing with our actions, especially when it seems a good portion of the world is telling us we're overreacting. On the other hand, sometimes doing the "right thing" makes you the unpopular kid in class, but you have to go ahead and do it anyway.

Politics are never simple.

Around 5:00 PM Roho and I gathered our things and climbed into his car to make the trip down to Midway airport to pick up points. We figured that since he would be arriving around 6:15 we'd have an hour and a half to get down there to collect him, which seemed like plenty of time to combat rush-hour traffic. Boy, were we wrong. I knew as soon as we got onto I-294 and it was stop-and-go 10+ miles before the toll booth that we were in for a long ride, and I wasn't too far off. It took us over 45 minutes to travel something on the order of 28 miles! And then, strangely... the traffic disappeared. There was no major accident, no construction, no mass exodus at a particular exit. The traffic just all disappeared, and suddenly the highways were moving smoothly again! I couldn't believe it. We made it down to the airport sometime around 6:48 in the evening, and were surprised to learn that Points had just arrived because his flight had been delayed. We did a quick round of introductions, got back to the car and made our way through the neighborhood streets to I-55. It's amazing how much Midway has changed since I was last there. It still has the feel of a podunk airport, but it's gotten a lot bigger and a lot cleaner with regards to the parking and baggage claim areas. I'm sure if I ever fly out of there again it'll be an interesting experience to go through the terminal area.

I tried to get us home in as quick a manner as possible. kestral had asked if we were all doing our usual tonight, and we told her that it seemed like a good idea. We were going to be squeezed on time so the plan was adjusted that we would meet up at Bumpers so that we could all beat the cover. Could I get us there before 8:00 PM? I thought so, and made my best effort to do so, although I had to break a few minor traffic laws in my attempt. I made really good time on the tollway, but unfortunately because of the traffic lights we had to navigate afterwards we got in about a minute too late to avoid paying the cover charge. What stung me the most about it is that the bouncer who was examining IDs and accepting cover told us he recognized us so we didn't have to produce our driver licenses... but we still had to pay the charge!

We shot pool for about an hour, and it turns out that Points had been something of a pool god some time ago, but hadn't played in a number of years. He still made Roho and I look like total losers, though that's really not such a difficult job....

After pool we went to our usual restaurant hangout and ordered dinner. Points managed to work our poor waitress into hysterical laughter, and I was surprised by how many of our little jokes she caught. She went from Stephen King's "IT" to Dexter's Lab, a connection I certainly hadn't expected anybody to make. The conversation was light and pleasant, and each time the waitress came back we gave her a good giggle. Finally we finished, paid our bill and drove home where it was time for quick introductions to the various pets and then bed. I slept pretty well, although Ra started kneading my throat sometime around 6:00 AM this morning, which I think is why I had a very vivid dream that the Care Bears were trying to strangle me.

I have a very frightening imagination.

Today's plan is to wait until aureth shows up, and then go to BD's for lunch. Anything after that will be totally unscripted, but I'm sure we'll come up with something enjoyable to do. I'm on call this weekend, as I mentioned before, and tonight is the night we do the big data center shut-down so they can hook in our new power grid. If anything goes wrong it is very likely I'll have to go in. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea for me to zip in there anyway, I could show the gang all the great new toys we have installed. Hmmm, field trip to my workplace, anyone?

You are like a hurricane

Thoughts on my last post...

After I pressed the "post" button for yesterday's entry I walked away from it feeling like I'd written a really bad entry. I don't mean "bad" in the "I'm angsty!" sense, I just meant it felt badly written and confusing. I asked roho if he thought the same thing after reading it, and it sounds like I'm not the only one who feels it was a little difficult to read. After pondering this situation for a little while I think I figured out why that post seemed so incoherent and disjointed: One, I was trying to recap about five days worth of events in one entry, and that's always difficult because so much has to be condensed or is outright forgotten. Two, I actually wrote it over three separate time periods during the course of Friday morning, so I don't think I really had a good "flow" with the way my writing came out. I had started writing it in the morning when I got in to work and then had to stop to address some work-related issues sometime around 8:15. I went back to writing it up around 9:30, which of course had to stop when my ten o'clock staff meeting rolled around. After I finally got out of my meeting I came back to it a second time, finishing it sometime around 12:15 PM. It makes sense that things would feel a little... off... because of this.

I didn't get out of work as early as I had expected to because I had a number of problems come across my plate in the afternoon. I think it was sometime around 1:30 PM when I finally got out of the office, although I'm not entirely sure because I never really got a good look at the clock. The trip home to the apartment was a quick and easy one because the rush-hour traffic hadn't really started yet. I got home within 40 minutes and said hello to Roho before checking up on Ra and trying to see how he had been doing. When I went to look at his water bowl I found that he'd moved one of his toys. I was surprised and suspicious to say the least, and I was right to feel that way... when I lifted it up I found a small amount of vomit underneath, which of course needed to be cleaned up. Out came the paper towels, the tepid water and the peppermint soap again. It's amazing just how good that soap really is! I should find out who makes it and post it here so that anybody who needs to clean pet stains up or deal with stains in general on their rugs and upholstery can give it a try. It seems to work miracles when Ra or Cailet get sick.

After I'd cleaned up that mess and gotten the carpet somewhat dry again I reclined on the couch and watched TV for a few hours. At one point Roho went off to take a nap since he was still fighting off the effects of the stomach flu he seems to have contracted sometime Wednesday night, which meant I pretty much had control of the TV. It still strikes me as remarkable how little there is that plays on cable, even in this day and age of digital cable that delivers something like 140 channels and 30 music selections. Ugh! I wanted to watch a DVD but couldn't decide which one to choose, so I ended up defaulting to the local FOX affiliate and watching the continuing live coverage of the military action in Iraq. I'm still not sure what to make of this whole situation. On one hand it seems we weren't kidding that Iraq had failed to disarm: by treaty Saddam wasn't to have missiles that had over a 93 mile range, but the multiple launches on Kuwait indicate he still has a good portion of his old stockpile from 91 with distance capabilities of 300+ miles. So yeah, we're sort of vindicated there because he's proving us right... but we had to invade his country to get him to break them out, so... I dunno. I guess time will tell on this whole matter. I still don't have a feeling that we're doing the entirely right thing with our actions, especially when it seems a good portion of the world is telling us we're overreacting. On the other hand, sometimes doing the "right thing" makes you the unpopular kid in class, but you have to go ahead and do it anyway.

Politics are never simple.

Around 5:00 PM Roho and I gathered our things and climbed into his car to make the trip down to Midway airport to pick up points. We figured that since he would be arriving around 6:15 we'd have an hour and a half to get down there to collect him, which seemed like plenty of time to combat rush-hour traffic. Boy, were we wrong. I knew as soon as we got onto I-294 and it was stop-and-go 10+ miles before the toll booth that we were in for a long ride, and I wasn't too far off. It took us over 45 minutes to travel something on the order of 28 miles! And then, strangely... the traffic disappeared. There was no major accident, no construction, no mass exodus at a particular exit. The traffic just all disappeared, and suddenly the highways were moving smoothly again! I couldn't believe it. We made it down to the airport sometime around 6:48 in the evening, and were surprised to learn that Points had just arrived because his flight had been delayed. We did a quick round of introductions, got back to the car and made our way through the neighborhood streets to I-55. It's amazing how much Midway has changed since I was last there. It still has the feel of a podunk airport, but it's gotten a lot bigger and a lot cleaner with regards to the parking and baggage claim areas. I'm sure if I ever fly out of there again it'll be an interesting experience to go through the terminal area.

I tried to get us home in as quick a manner as possible. kestral had asked if we were all doing our usual tonight, and we told her that it seemed like a good idea. We were going to be squeezed on time so the plan was adjusted that we would meet up at Bumpers so that we could all beat the cover. Could I get us there before 8:00 PM? I thought so, and made my best effort to do so, although I had to break a few minor traffic laws in my attempt. I made really good time on the tollway, but unfortunately because of the traffic lights we had to navigate afterwards we got in about a minute too late to avoid paying the cover charge. What stung me the most about it is that the bouncer who was examining IDs and accepting cover told us he recognized us so we didn't have to produce our driver licenses... but we still had to pay the charge!

We shot pool for about an hour, and it turns out that Points had been something of a pool god some time ago, but hadn't played in a number of years. He still made Roho and I look like total losers, though that's really not such a difficult job....

After pool we went to our usual restaurant hangout and ordered dinner. Points managed to work our poor waitress into hysterical laughter, and I was surprised by how many of our little jokes she caught. She went from Stephen King's "IT" to Dexter's Lab, a connection I certainly hadn't expected anybody to make. The conversation was light and pleasant, and each time the waitress came back we gave her a good giggle. Finally we finished, paid our bill and drove home where it was time for quick introductions to the various pets and then bed. I slept pretty well, although Ra started kneading my throat sometime around 6:00 AM this morning, which I think is why I had a very vivid dream that the Care Bears were trying to strangle me.

I have a very frightening imagination.

Today's plan is to wait until aureth shows up, and then go to BD's for lunch. Anything after that will be totally unscripted, but I'm sure we'll come up with something enjoyable to do. I'm on call this weekend, as I mentioned before, and tonight is the night we do the big data center shut-down so they can hook in our new power grid. If anything goes wrong it is very likely I'll have to go in. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea for me to zip in there anyway, I could show the gang all the great new toys we have installed. Hmmm, field trip to my workplace, anyone?

You are like a hurricane

Saturday follies....

I woke up sometime around 8:30 this morning and lounged about in bed for a while before I got up and logged on to the computer. I did my usual skimming of web sites and e-mail while I waited for the doorbell to ring. I had promised Ed, the maintenance man I've written about before, that he could use my pickup to move some weight-lifting equipment from his old residence to his new apartment. He was due to come by here sometime around 10:00 AM to pick up the keys, but he didn't show. I waited around to see if he was simply running late but after noon I decided he wasn't going to make it and stopped worrying about it. I had a nice shower, grabbed my razor to touch up my beard a little and then waited for the Cornwuff to arrive.

aureth made it up here safe and sound, just as we expected, around 12:30 or so I think. Our stomachs were all crying out for tasty food so it wasn't long after he arrived that we made our way out to the cars and drove up to BDs for lunch. points hadn't been to one before, but Mongolian Barbeque places are all very similar, so he knew the general method behind cooking and eating at one. We were greeted at the door by Steve, who I believe is one of the shift leads, and were seated up in the bar area at one of the tables. That's a place I've not had the pleasure of sitting at before, so it was a rather unique experience. The booth was a standard "L" shape, and the table in front of us had been cut so that it was a triangle, with the 90-degree angle turned in to face the bend in the "L." I presume this was done to allow foot traffic to pass unfettered between our table an the bar itself to other portions of the area, and it seems like a pretty decent idea. It just made our dining experience rather unique in that regard.

Once again Sara was waiting tables but we didn't get seated in her area because we were five persons strong this week. She came over to chat with us for a few minutes, and she seemed amused that we had again managed to "escape" having her as our waitress. roho and seemed to take great pleasure in telling her that we would be coming back with another large crowd for a party-dinner in November (the next MFF) and I made sure to let her know that we'd be asking for her to be our waitress when the big event comes. I think that made her happy because her eyes lit up at our praise, and she confided to us that several of the employees had tried to make neutrally buoyant forks but had failed. frysco or chebutykin, do you have any pictures of that little endeavor? They want to post them on the cork board down by the receptionist.

In preparing today's bowl I embarked on a slightly different procedure for preparation... I put my choice of meat in (shaved beef this week) my bowl and then went straight to the spices station. I added in my garlic, lemon pepper, cayenne pepper, black pepper and crushed red pepper with a dash of seasoned salt, letting it all sit on top of the meat before I went to the vegetable table and added my selection of peppers, onion and broccoli. Then it was back to the spice section to add in my sauce (lemon water) and oil (olive). I thought that having the spices directly upon the meat might influence the taste, and I wasn't disappointed when I finally got to taste my concoction. While I was having my bowl prepared I chatted with one of the grillers, whom I haven't learned the name of yet (I'm terrible with remembering names). I asked after the whereabouts of Joe, one of the grillers we normally bantered with. It seems Joe won't be working at BD's anymore... he won't be working anywhere for quite some time. Sadly Joe was recently busted for his third D.U.I., which means he's off in jail and will be there for some time. I feel bad for the fellow because he seemed to be a generally decent guy and was always fun to talk to, but at the same time this was his third offense. He should have gotten the hint after the first one, and if that didn't sink in his second one should have made a number of warning bells go off saying "This is unacceptably risky behavior and I can't afford to have this happen a third time to me."

Some people are slow to make such leaps of logic, I guess.

After lunch I got in the car with Aureth and drove back to the apartment while kestral, Roho and Points stopped over at GNC to see if any of the Atkins bread had been restocked. Aureth and I lounged about and talked while we waited for the rest of the group to return, and when they did we killed a number of hours by listening to music, working on computers (Roho's PowerBook now talks on our LAN and runs basic clients like SSH and web browsing thanks to points, and then later we looked at jenwolf's machine to see if we could determine the problem. When we turned it on Points immediately commented that the bearings were dead, and I had to agree, the disk is an old SCSI drive but it had gotten far too loud to be healthy. There was also the horrible plinking sound of heads crashing on platters, and when the SCSI card reported back the device wasn't ready we knew the drive was toast) and playing games on the PS2. We all had a hand in a Fur Fighters "Fluff Match," which is cute-speak for a "Deathmatch" where all the players are engaged in a free-for-all attempting to kill off the other players as many times as possible. It's one of those things that's pretty mindless but also a lot of fun, but ends up having one major drawback; in the case of our game the drawback was how small the screen gets when there are four players (each player gets one-quarter of the TV screen assigned to them). I finally was left with sore eyes from squinting and begged off, and the rest of the gang eventually decided to lay off the game as well. I loaded up Bloody Roar 3, another favorite fighting game, and let Roho and Aureth have at one another for a while. Bloody Roar 3 is an interesting game because it's fairly popular in the mainstream culture as well as the Furry subculture. But think about it for a minute... a game where a bunch of were-creatures (moles, leopards, tigers and more, oh my!) fight one another with kung-fu moves, and the female ones jiggle cutely? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see why that one appeals so much....

I spent some time online after the Fluff Match trying to give my eyes something different to deal with for a while. Liin was on again so I was happy with my choice to slip online, and spent considerable time talking with her again tonight. Eventually it was requested that we step out to get a bite to eat, so I wished her a pleasant evening and slipped back offline to go across the street with everyone else. We received the same waitress as last night, and when she saw us walk in I'm told her expression was one of amusement, shock and horror. Pity I didn't get to see it.

Dinner for me consisted of two scrambled eggs and two pieces of ham steak, which were absolutely delicious. Everyone else seemed to enjoy their meal as well, which is par for the course with the restaurant. I'm lucky to live so close to such a fine little eatery.

We had planned to go bowling with an acquaintance of Roho's after we ate, but he wasn't feeling good and none of the rest of us really wanted to go without him. One, we'd be leaving Roho and Kestral at home and feeling unwell without company and two, none of us really knew this fellow beyond Roho. A quick phone call later and the bowling game was called off, which was somewhat disappointing as it's one of the few things I can do this weekend without worrying about missing a support call or being tied down in a place where I can't respond to it within my allotted timeframe. Aureth decided that he was going to head home so the rest of us carpooled back after wishing the Cornwuff a good night. We got back to the apartment in short order and while the others sat down to watch Iron Chef I dropped online to tend to some work-related matters on my ergo keyboard. I would have loved to join everyone else out in the living room but that would require using my laptop, and my wrists positively scream when I use that device. With luck my IMAK gloves will help reduce the pain of using the laptop, as well as the pain of having these wrists at all. They're due to be delivered on the 26th, so I'm hoping that everything is okay with their sizing when they arrive. I would hate to have to send them back and wait even longer to get some relief.

Oh, one last thought... I weighed in last week on Friday, and then today. I've lost four pounds in the last seven days. Atkins really is an impressive diet for achieving weight loss -- while it certainly can't work for everyone, it seems to be doing a pretty decent job for me and many of the other people I know who are on the plan. I think I'll stay in the Induction phase for another week or so because I've got a roughly average resistance to ketosis. Once I've shed a few more pounds I'll start looking into going into the next stage of the diet plan. A bit more freedom in my dietary choices would be nice for sure.

Why don't you tell your dreams to me

Saturday follies....

I woke up sometime around 8:30 this morning and lounged about in bed for a while before I got up and logged on to the computer. I did my usual skimming of web sites and e-mail while I waited for the doorbell to ring. I had promised Ed, the maintenance man I've written about before, that he could use my pickup to move some weight-lifting equipment from his old residence to his new apartment. He was due to come by here sometime around 10:00 AM to pick up the keys, but he didn't show. I waited around to see if he was simply running late but after noon I decided he wasn't going to make it and stopped worrying about it. I had a nice shower, grabbed my razor to touch up my beard a little and then waited for the Cornwuff to arrive.

aureth made it up here safe and sound, just as we expected, around 12:30 or so I think. Our stomachs were all crying out for tasty food so it wasn't long after he arrived that we made our way out to the cars and drove up to BDs for lunch. points hadn't been to one before, but Mongolian Barbeque places are all very similar, so he knew the general method behind cooking and eating at one. We were greeted at the door by Steve, who I believe is one of the shift leads, and were seated up in the bar area at one of the tables. That's a place I've not had the pleasure of sitting at before, so it was a rather unique experience. The booth was a standard "L" shape, and the table in front of us had been cut so that it was a triangle, with the 90-degree angle turned in to face the bend in the "L." I presume this was done to allow foot traffic to pass unfettered between our table an the bar itself to other portions of the area, and it seems like a pretty decent idea. It just made our dining experience rather unique in that regard.

Once again Sara was waiting tables but we didn't get seated in her area because we were five persons strong this week. She came over to chat with us for a few minutes, and she seemed amused that we had again managed to "escape" having her as our waitress. roho and seemed to take great pleasure in telling her that we would be coming back with another large crowd for a party-dinner in November (the next MFF) and I made sure to let her know that we'd be asking for her to be our waitress when the big event comes. I think that made her happy because her eyes lit up at our praise, and she confided to us that several of the employees had tried to make neutrally buoyant forks but had failed. frysco or chebutykin, do you have any pictures of that little endeavor? They want to post them on the cork board down by the receptionist.

In preparing today's bowl I embarked on a slightly different procedure for preparation... I put my choice of meat in (shaved beef this week) my bowl and then went straight to the spices station. I added in my garlic, lemon pepper, cayenne pepper, black pepper and crushed red pepper with a dash of seasoned salt, letting it all sit on top of the meat before I went to the vegetable table and added my selection of peppers, onion and broccoli. Then it was back to the spice section to add in my sauce (lemon water) and oil (olive). I thought that having the spices directly upon the meat might influence the taste, and I wasn't disappointed when I finally got to taste my concoction. While I was having my bowl prepared I chatted with one of the grillers, whom I haven't learned the name of yet (I'm terrible with remembering names). I asked after the whereabouts of Joe, one of the grillers we normally bantered with. It seems Joe won't be working at BD's anymore... he won't be working anywhere for quite some time. Sadly Joe was recently busted for his third D.U.I., which means he's off in jail and will be there for some time. I feel bad for the fellow because he seemed to be a generally decent guy and was always fun to talk to, but at the same time this was his third offense. He should have gotten the hint after the first one, and if that didn't sink in his second one should have made a number of warning bells go off saying "This is unacceptably risky behavior and I can't afford to have this happen a third time to me."

Some people are slow to make such leaps of logic, I guess.

After lunch I got in the car with Aureth and drove back to the apartment while kestral, Roho and Points stopped over at GNC to see if any of the Atkins bread had been restocked. Aureth and I lounged about and talked while we waited for the rest of the group to return, and when they did we killed a number of hours by listening to music, working on computers (Roho's PowerBook now talks on our LAN and runs basic clients like SSH and web browsing thanks to points, and then later we looked at jenwolf's machine to see if we could determine the problem. When we turned it on Points immediately commented that the bearings were dead, and I had to agree, the disk is an old SCSI drive but it had gotten far too loud to be healthy. There was also the horrible plinking sound of heads crashing on platters, and when the SCSI card reported back the device wasn't ready we knew the drive was toast) and playing games on the PS2. We all had a hand in a Fur Fighters "Fluff Match," which is cute-speak for a "Deathmatch" where all the players are engaged in a free-for-all attempting to kill off the other players as many times as possible. It's one of those things that's pretty mindless but also a lot of fun, but ends up having one major drawback; in the case of our game the drawback was how small the screen gets when there are four players (each player gets one-quarter of the TV screen assigned to them). I finally was left with sore eyes from squinting and begged off, and the rest of the gang eventually decided to lay off the game as well. I loaded up Bloody Roar 3, another favorite fighting game, and let Roho and Aureth have at one another for a while. Bloody Roar 3 is an interesting game because it's fairly popular in the mainstream culture as well as the Furry subculture. But think about it for a minute... a game where a bunch of were-creatures (moles, leopards, tigers and more, oh my!) fight one another with kung-fu moves, and the female ones jiggle cutely? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see why that one appeals so much....

I spent some time online after the Fluff Match trying to give my eyes something different to deal with for a while. Liin was on again so I was happy with my choice to slip online, and spent considerable time talking with her again tonight. Eventually it was requested that we step out to get a bite to eat, so I wished her a pleasant evening and slipped back offline to go across the street with everyone else. We received the same waitress as last night, and when she saw us walk in I'm told her expression was one of amusement, shock and horror. Pity I didn't get to see it.

Dinner for me consisted of two scrambled eggs and two pieces of ham steak, which were absolutely delicious. Everyone else seemed to enjoy their meal as well, which is par for the course with the restaurant. I'm lucky to live so close to such a fine little eatery.

We had planned to go bowling with an acquaintance of Roho's after we ate, but he wasn't feeling good and none of the rest of us really wanted to go without him. One, we'd be leaving Roho and Kestral at home and feeling unwell without company and two, none of us really knew this fellow beyond Roho. A quick phone call later and the bowling game was called off, which was somewhat disappointing as it's one of the few things I can do this weekend without worrying about missing a support call or being tied down in a place where I can't respond to it within my allotted timeframe. Aureth decided that he was going to head home so the rest of us carpooled back after wishing the Cornwuff a good night. We got back to the apartment in short order and while the others sat down to watch Iron Chef I dropped online to tend to some work-related matters on my ergo keyboard. I would have loved to join everyone else out in the living room but that would require using my laptop, and my wrists positively scream when I use that device. With luck my IMAK gloves will help reduce the pain of using the laptop, as well as the pain of having these wrists at all. They're due to be delivered on the 26th, so I'm hoping that everything is okay with their sizing when they arrive. I would hate to have to send them back and wait even longer to get some relief.

Oh, one last thought... I weighed in last week on Friday, and then today. I've lost four pounds in the last seven days. Atkins really is an impressive diet for achieving weight loss -- while it certainly can't work for everyone, it seems to be doing a pretty decent job for me and many of the other people I know who are on the plan. I think I'll stay in the Induction phase for another week or so because I've got a roughly average resistance to ketosis. Once I've shed a few more pounds I'll start looking into going into the next stage of the diet plan. A bit more freedom in my dietary choices would be nice for sure.

Why don't you tell your dreams to me