It’s 9/11/2007. That means six years since the event. On a selfish note, it also means six years since I last had a girlfriend. Well, I did go on one date last year and two this year so I may be making progress. Not really, but that’s what I tell myself.

I’m not a big fan of crowds but I don’t hate them as much as my friends who live out in the sticks. I’m only slightly annoyed, for example, by all the yoots who are out on the streets because it’s 90+°F out today, eating at the sidewalk cafes and just generally getting in my way during the walking part of my commute. But I do mind when people invade my street. That’s why the annual watching of the swifts (going into the chimney on the left of the school) is such an annoyance at times.

Last year, for example, I saw an old neighbor who I hadn’t seen since grade school! But you’ll forgive me for being annoyed. Tomorrow, for example, I’m going to play golf and that means I can’t come home until after 8:15 or so because there won’t be any parking until then. Fortunately it’s only for a few weeks every year.

I woke up several times last night and I overslept my alarm. My alarm is a bit too complicated for my own good. 5:50AM I start listening to NPR. 6:00AM the buzzing starts. I stop that and put it back on the NPR. When they get to local news I finally get up. Like I said, too complicated.

The way to work was filled with my worst nightmare: drivers who don’t stop at stop signs. Oddly enough, I made it to the light rail early and I made it to work early.

The Audubon bird person who was here today is a guy I see every year and we were talking about his girlfriends for some reason. He doesn’t look that old but was telling me he had a girlfriend who was 21 years younger than him. I was worried until he told me he was in his 50’s. At least I don’t have to call the police.

I had another golf lesson today and there’s too much to remember. Stand like this, hold your head like that. It’s all fun still, fortunately. On the way out, a guy parked his golf cart behind my car, across the way so it was hard for me to get out. I was going back and forth, like you’d do while parallel parking, when the guy started yelling at me. I can’t remember exactly what he said first, but he did say, “something something fucking ass something I told you to stop.” I got out of my car and told him I hadn’t heard him. He yelled some more. I asked if I’d actually hit the cart. He said no and yelled some more. So I told him to quit acting like a fuckhead and drove off. The only thing I can think of is that his wife outplayed him today. I’m not sure why else you’d park so a guy can’t leave the parking lot and then start yelling at him.

More “Structural Integration” for me today and boy did it hurt like hell. This isn’t supposed to be as bad as old-school Rolfing, and I can’t imagine what that would be like.

Every year the Vaux’s Swifts come back and roost in the chimney of the school across the street. The birds are only a little annoying. You can’t wash your car for a month, for example. The real annoyance is the people who come to watch the birds. There usually aren’t huge crowds until the middle of the month but there sure are a lot of people this year. It wouldn’t be so bad if I was able to just either stay away from 6-8PM or hide during that time, but I get dragged outside every weekend by a friend.

Not much else has been going on lately. I got a Network Accessed Storage device from a friend and filled it full of 500GB hard drives. That means I spent $500 on computer crap that doesn’t work quite right. The joys of technology.

Dave the Trainer was away at Burning Ham for a week and now that he’s back, he needs to make some money. He already has my money, but he won’t get any more until he works the time I paid for. Well, “works” means makes me do stuff, but you know how the personal trainer thing is.

Somehow I seem to have scheduled several doctors appointments for this week so I’m ditching work on a short week. This still isn’t making me feel guilty.

I meet people from time to time who love their jobs. I find them to be a curiosity, mostly. But after I had a meeting with my boss’s boss today (who seems to be kind of wondering what to make of us), a co-worker asked, “Is Windows programming what you really want to do?”

She has pointed out that she has the out of having kids and taking care of them instead of playing nice with Megacorp and taking whatever they dish out. I don’t have that option. And, honestly, Windows programming is NOT what I want to do, but it beats not having a job.

I think I have to find some different reading for the commute to work. I subscribe to a couple of magazines and I figured I could work on the unread stack while riding on the light rail. But I only really have ham radio magazines that I go through quickly and Men’s Health. Men’s Health does have a lot of articles on, well, men’s health, but it also has a lot of articles on boobies and such. I find it rude to be reading such things on the light rail next to other people. Perhaps I am uptight. Anyway, I suppose if I read a novel on mass transit it could very likely be text about boobies and such. At least I will look more studious from far away.

My aunt and her sister-in-law went back to Japan today. They’re incredibly goofy and easy house guests but now I get my “office” back. My mom must have felt a little relief because she wanted a Jack-in-the-Box breakfast croissant for dinner. Easy, inexpensive, and no clean up.I’m not sure I did anything today. I thought about doing some more yard work or some plumbing, but none of that happened. My excuse is that I’m waiting for my back to get better. Plus, I want to see how my structural integration is going to take. So far, my back feels good, but why push things?

There’s a fancy Korean restaurant in our neighborhood and I’ve always been a little leery of going in there dressed in my usual slovenly garb. But yesterday I noticed that the place had changed a little. Even though the dishes were still about $15, every table had little kids sitting at it. The parents weren’t dressed real well, either. So we went there for dinner tonight. Turns out the food is still great.

So I went for my first “structural integration” session today. I’m doing KMI, which is sort of like Rolfing but different. Holy hell it hurt. Nothing that I couldn’t bear, but there were times that I was just thinking, “When is this going to be over?” And the worst of it was the oddness of some of the sensations. For example, there was the loosening of the fascia around the neck that pulled on things connected to the other side of the neck, making it feel like I was being choked. Most of the things felt like the “nerve pinch” you got when you were a kid. Anyway, I actually feel a lot better now so I’m guessing there’s something to this.

I also had a golf lesson today. I’m not good, but I am getting noticeably better. Noticeably to myself anyway.

Oh, and my buddy Keith is making me help him count the Swifts going into the chimney again this year. There are already about 1700 birds going in the chimney and the people are gathering to watch it. Sheesh.

I’m beat and at 10PM some old classmates called and wanted me to meet them. I think most of them are in from out of town but I could barely keep my head up. I had a golf lesson today and then spent a lot of time afterwards trying to screw up what I’d just learned and get some awesome blisters. Yow. I can’t even think of anything else.

I got to work this morning and my eyes were feeling a little scratchy. Once in a while when I rub my eyes I have trouble with my contacts. Today I popped one completely out and lost it. Having one in and one out made my computer screen unreadable, so I took the other one out. I took mass transit to work so I figured it would be no big deal. Unfortunately squinting at the screen gave me a huge headache, so I went home early.

For some stupid reason I trust my Mac weather widget to tell me how hot it’s going to be for the next five days. It’s sometimes wrong. I thought it was going to be around eighty degrees but it was closer to ninety. So wearing long pants for the first time this week and an undershirt were both bad ideas. Instead of walking home from the light rail station, I decided to take the bus. In the middle of the day. Not rush hour. Basically, the words, “FREE CLINIC,” came to mind when I rode the bus. While I was tortured on the light rail by a high school cheerleader sitting across from me, the bus was full of people who didn’t have the access to bathing facilities or the ability to use soap.

After getting home I was rewarded by stomach upset, as is described in the Pepto Bismol song. I was tired and decided to take a nap upstairs, where it was probably over 100°F. Anyway, it didn’t make me feel all that much better and I missed the barbecue at my sister’s house.

And that was my Thursday. Sounds like Friday my manager is going to confront us with the bad reviews he got from us. Genius.

I drove again today because we were supposed to go golfing. One of the guys I go golfing with is leaving the company to move to Idaho of all places and we were going to golf with him today. He forgot his clubs and then the other guy bailed because it was too hot. In all honesty, it was way too hot to golf today, about 95°F. I used the time to go to the gym since I didn’t go yesterday. I think after two weeks away from the gym I’m back to being a pile of blubber and I’m going to be very sore tomorrow.

I spent some time at the gym talking to a woman who is applying to med school instead of diligently working out. Courtney asked me what her name was and I didn’t know. Courtney then told me that I’m supposed to know the names of the women I’m trying to date. Heck, she’s about half my age. OK, so she’s probably 24 or 25 and doubling that would make me 50, but I’m a lot closer to 50 than I am to 25.

So I had this great idea to redo my network. Re-misconfigure my network is more like it. Nothing physical, just packets running back and forth. Basically, it’s killed five of my days. Now it’s late and I’m still at this nonsense. And I didn’t even make it to the gym.It’s not like I got a lot of sleep last night, either. There was a total eclipse, and I woke up in the middle of the night. Twice. The first time I figured I’d better check out the window and the moon was still full and incredibly bright. Too early. The second time I got up the moon was just a sliver but I realized my glasses were in the room my mom was sleeping in. So much for that bright idea.