I went to get a massage earlier this week and I found out that my sister has a list of nutjobs. #1 is the TMJ specialist she goes to. #2 is the massage guy. #3 is me. Well, the massage guy told my sister that she’s the Queen Of All Nut Jobs. A promotion, like how the Head Honcho at the gym is now the HMFIC.

I wasn’t really feeling all that peppy at the gym today and even at the start of the workout I was feeling a little lethargic. It was “Jackie” which meant, row a bunch, more thrusters than you want, and then a bunch of pull ups. My triceps are still shot from all the pushups we did on Monday and the “half moons” yesterday got my core tired as well. The idea is to do better than you did the last time, but at some point I just had to say, “Meh, that’s good enough.”

Which is what I have to decide at work around 5PM or I’ll be there forever. Yeesh. 7 hours of meetings in a day and they expect me to get work done?

I’m trying to find some software so I can draw my bathroom. You’d think it would be easy, but I can’t seem to find anything cheap and easy. Real architects use software that’s hard and expensive, but I’m just going to make some cheesy drawings for myself. Like I said, you’d think it would be easy. Oh, how I long for the days of MacDraw.

I also wish there wasn’t so much going on at work. There has to be some sort of happy medium between being bored and being so slammed that I use lunch to hide from my email. I suppose it might be easier if I were more competent, but for some reason I think that it wouldn’t really help. What would really help is some sort of mind control tricks so people who are convinced of the wrong thing will see the light. You know, so when they try to violate some fundamental law of physics, I don’t have to argue with them. Faster-than-light travel is fine for the Sci-Fi Channel, but it sure doesn’t work with computer parts. And when other peoples components are broken, no amount of fixes on my part are going to make the whole thing work. You get the idea.

Just wanted to say, Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives is not something I should be watching before dinner. I saw some people talking trash about his cooking show, but I’ve never seen it. Triple-D is the shiznit and that’s all I need to know.

Watching the barbecue show gave me serious cravings for the brisket at the Willamette General Store in West Linn and I finally made it back there today. I think the brisket could use some more smoke, but I really shouldn’t try to improve on something so tasty. They’re a Trager dealer and they also run the grills and sell smoked meats and sandwiches. Funny thing to sell at a hardware store. If they were any closer, I’d be much fatter. Fortunately, they’re 30 minutes away and that’s when I’m driving like a maniac.

It’s the Head Honcho’s birthday today. He’s catching up and in two more years he’ll be my age. (But then I’ll be two years older. My plan is not really working.) In any case, getting older sure beats the alternative.

I may be the silliest person at the gym, but I’m not the most talented. I can stand around looking pale with the best of them.

But to get serious madness, I have to get help from the animator Nick Childs of Muledick fame.

That’s right. I’ll be the guy at the gym with the medals around his neck.

I wasn’t feeling all that peppy this morning. I woke up several times during the night, and then my neighbor started watching the final Olympic basketball game at 7AM. Or at least he opened his window and started hooting and hollering at 7AM. I didn’t feel all that great. I did sort out a couple more boxes of junk and cut some of the neighbors bushes that were hitting our garage. There was also weeding and pulling of ivy involved, which is a lot more than I thought I’d do when I got up.

My mom wanted to go to the Thai restaurant and we risked walking in the rain because there was a break in the weather. Unfortunately the Thai restaurant (E-San in NW) decided to close on Sundays. So we tried the new pizza restaurant (Mangia Pizza) and it was expensive but good. Pretty much just like everyone else was telling me. And that is the extent of my day.

Today I was invited to two things going on at the same time, a wedding reception and a 25th Wedding Anniversary. I made it to both, fortunately. I think there was a lot of stuff going on this weekend, as it’s one of the last weekends of the summer and the weather was great. I went to the reception first (fashionably late due to conversations about my bathroom remodel) but didn’t leave right away because there were fewer people there than most of us expected. I can’t abandon a guy in the middle of all that.

Besides, the place the reception was being held was the same place that one of our gym members works. She’s been missing lately, so I figure I should post her picture just to remind people what she looks like.

Of course she told me she’s been busy, working 10-hour days, etc, and she was even working on a Saturday. But we should remind her that the Head Honcho of the gym is welcoming and is not a frightening man, unless of course you’re smaller than him and challenge him to a wrestling match. (No, not me, my primary means of self defense consists of running away and hiding.)

Somehow I get sucked into all sorts of surveys. Phone surveys, intarweb surveys, and sometimes even focus groups. I’m stupid about it because I’ve been paid money to attend focus groups so I guess that’s one of the reasons I answer the questions. I’ve watched several TV shows for surveyors and usually they’re awful. I kind of liked Hawaii but they never got ahold of me for my comments, which would have been, “It’s frigging Hawaii. Where are all the damn Asians?”

Tonight I watched a new show called Captain Cook’s Extraordinary Atlas. The main protagonist was an 11-year-old girl and so I thought it was a kid’s show. But the rest of the show was very dark and scary, so I have no idea who the hell the audience is supposed to be. I’m remembering how I was at that age and I would have had nightmares for years if I saw this show. But other than that, it was kind of weak. It’s like after reading something like Harry Potter and getting really sucked into the story and then reading some weak wizard story that was marketed to suckers who wanted more but didn’t really deliver.

In other words, it wasn’t worth it. It felt like a PBS show at times, then a WB show, then ABC kids, and finally it just didn’t satisfy any of the expectations. Oh, well, I’m sure someone will like it.

My work email is being upgraded tonight. If this goes as well as any IT operation at every company I’ve worked for, it could very well be a disaster. It’s probably going to be a good day to go to work and make sure things are working, and not a good day to hide like I was planning, darn it.

It was pointed out to me that the yoots at the gym might not have ever been exposed to such wonderful bands such as, “Oingo Boingo,” and they might be worried about the songs I was singing along to. I believe this because I was eating a very unhealthy lunch today and along with the so-called “food” we were listening to some sort of awful music-ish radio station. It was as empty as the calories in my hamburger. Looking at the the playlist on their web site, I think the worst of the songs was by, “Michael W. Smith,” followed in horrendousness by, “The Backstreet Boys.” Ugh.

I also had a salad but that wasn’t enough so we went to Sonic where I ordered some sort of fried ice cream thing. That, too, probably wasn’t anything that could be classified as “food” but I ate it all anyway. It’s just been that kind of week at work. Oh, the things I do to avoid going back to work after lunch.

If I had any choice, I’d go to Grand Central Baking and have another BLT. They only make them when they can get heirloom tomatoes and they also use very tasty and peppery bacon. It’s a wonder I can see my shoes to tie them.

Whatever goes on at the gym is pretty much what I can talk about, since I really shouldn’t talk about work. Everybody knows that all jobs suck and that’s why they pay you to show up. In any case, it’s all work, gym, and sometimes remodeling the house and I’ve got little else to talk about lately.

I must be going to the gym too much since there’s pictures of me on their blog. Silly pictures. And today I was feeling kind of puny and wasn’t really all there. I should probably get more sleep and not let work stress me out. But, like I said, (suck) + (money) = (life in general).

Some time in the past month or so, I decided to race one of the women at the gym to see who would be the first to get a muscle-up. She’s very competitive, so I decided to make it a secret race and never told her about it. Good thing, too, because she would have kicked my ass.

In yet another stolen picture from the gym, here’s pasty old me, The Head Honcho, and the woman who I was in a race with but who wasn’t in a race with me.

This is all a lead-in to say I got my first muscle-up today! It was a surprise to me and everyone else, so I had to do a second one so The Head Honcho could get a picture. The Brains Behind the Gym decided the pictures were no good so I did it a third time for more pictures. And, since I was feeling rather full of myself, I did it a fourth time at the end of the workout. I was told to take a break for the rest of the week to avoid tendonitis or something. It’s a good thing I did it today because I was supposed to get one before The Head Honcho’s birthday next week.

I was even late to the gym yesterday. Lately I keep getting panicked customer calls at work after everyone else has left. Since I’m the only one there, it’s suddenly my problem. There are days when I’m the first one to leave and I’m trying to make that EVERY day, but when everyone goes missing at noon it’s hard to precede them. I guess I’m just not trying hard enough.

I was going to mention some of it, but every time I thought, “This is the cheesiest 80’s song I have,” I found another that was much cheesier. Back when I worked at Verinform, I almost killed my boss walking back from lunch when I talked about how the 12″ remixes of Spandau Ballet was too repetitious and how I felt justified in buying another copy of their “Best of” album that had the non-lengthened music. He was laughing so hard he had to stop walking to catch his breath.

One of the things they do at most Crossfit gyms is to take pictures of the workouts. You can imagine how many pictures there are of me making weird faces. The pictures of last Saturday are something I wouldn’t pay any money to see: it was on its way to another 100°F scorcher and I was working out with my shirt off. There’s even a picture of it. Like I said, I wouldn’t pay to see that sort of thing.

In other news, I heard that school is about to start and kids’ soccer practice begins next week which really means that I’ve pissed away my summer yet again. Hooray.

I spent a lot of time this weekend swearing at computers. We had all sorts of trouble yesterday trying to get an old copy of WindowsXP onto a brand-new computer. I’m hoping my friend (who is the contractor) figured things out. Today I decided to update the horrible Gateway I had running the web site with a horrible Dell. The experience was, well, horrible. I’m not a big fan of either company but the best computer is a free computer and you know how that can just mean more work.

Today it was only 82°F, but it was a humid so I spent most of the day reading yet another mystery. I really should make it out of the house more, and I should also take more books to used book store, and I should clean up the upstairs more. Etc. But it’s hot (or at least it was) and I did do a bunch of weird computery stuff. So I’m lazy without being lazy, or something like that.