I went home last night and didn't want to sit around and do nothing, so instead I went for a walk at around 11:00 for, I dunno, forty minutes. Then I was almost tired enough to go to bed, so I read for a while. Oh, I went back to the park in Bellevue that I found the other day. It's circular -- and has a guard posted. Clearly I live in a wealthy area.

Today I slept in and went to the gym, then over to the house of a couple from work who were having a BBQ. At least they (and everyone else around here) call it a BBQ, I call it a cookout. I don't get it. Anyway, it was fun to see their house and six cats and meet their friends. They were all fresh from a Gay Pride parade through the Capital Hill (I think) area of Seattle, so they were all in a good mood with lots of stories about the event and previous years' parades.

After a fun three hours I headed to work to get some things done before I head off to Columbus, Ohio (wheee!) for the Origins convention. I'll be gone from Tuesday morning until next Sunday, so don't expect to hear from me unless I happend to find someone with a computer and Internet connection.

But that doesn't seem likely in Columbus, Ohio, does it?

Talk to you soon.

I've been meaning to post about this for a while. Outside my apartment there are a lot of bamboo plants (is that the right word?). They're fairly bushy, but as Summer has progressed and the sun has been out more, the plants have shot up these enormous stalks. Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants on the planet, so one day they looked like bushes and the next there were these five-foot tall shoots towering above the bush. Very cool. I noted them every time I walked out of my apartment and their rate of growth is pretty remarkable. Eventually they get so tall that they're scraping the ceiling of the suspended apartment they grow under -- a good 8 feet off the ground. Cool.

Then, one day I walk out and they're all gone. The landlord cut them all down. Bummer. I really liked them.

Now, however, they're growing back and are already a few feet above the bushes. I really like them. It's fun to watch them grow.

Wow, that sounds lame, but it's actually pretty damn cool.

I'm gonna go find something to do.

Like Spam? The email kind.

Here's a map to show you how all those spam companies are connected.

This falls into the real reason why you really shouldn't give your email address to all those annoying places that ask for it. Give it to one, they sell it, and then everyone has it.

I went an bought a bunch of books for research purposes last night and then stopped at an evil Starbucks near my house to look through them and enjoy some tasty water -- I don't drink coffee. After that I was going to sit around at home and read through more of the books, but instead I decided to go for a walk...and I found this huge park in the middle of Bellevue that I didn't know existed. It was pretty cool. I definitely have to check it out when the sun's out. Which, it wasn't at 10:30 when I started my walk.

Cool.

I'm still stressing about some things, but at this point I think it's self-perpetuating. I think there's a problem, so I stress about it. I'm really sick of having this big ball of stress in the pit of my stomach. Blech. Boy, I say, boy, deal with it!

Normal stuff happening here. But today is the two year anniversary of when I started working out consistently. I had been working out in early '99, but then stopped until June 27th of '00. On that first day I did the following:

Day 1 Roughly 1 hour.
25 minutes on the stationary bike at 70 rpms
15 minutes of walking laps
Weighed 366lbs.

And I distinctly remember being pretty tired by it.

A year later:

Day 200 Roughly 1 1/2 hours.
Stretch
80 crunches
30 minutes on stationaty bike at 80 rpms, 5 minute cool-down
Lift weights, high reps/ low wieghts
Weighed 312lbs.

A year after that (that is, today):

Day 377 Roughly 2 1/2 hours.
5 minute warmup on bike
Stretch
40 minutes on stationary bike (crosstrainer or treadmill), alternating between 70 rpms and much faster at intervals
Lift: Chest, Tris, Abs (alternate days I do Shoulders, Back, Bis or Legs)
15 minute cool-down walk
Weighed 314lbs

Yep, I haven't lost any weight in a year. Bummer, but I'm showing some progress, I'm in much better shape, and I'm incresing the number of times I work out. Typically I go 5 times a week and now I'm trying to do something on the other two days of the week, too. Either walking or riding my bike.

That's the update.

Sunday after writing in my blog I went to pick up Joe vs. The Volcano on DVD. It's a fun movie. Very goofy, but a great fable. I've watched it twice since then.

Outside of that I've been working and going to the gym. I'm not sure when I'll post next, but I'll be celebrating two years of consistently going to the gym as of June 27th. If I remember to bring in my log book I'll share with you my first workout and then tell you what my workout is now. It's pretty cool to see the difference. And, who knows, maybe it'll motivate some of you to get to the gym!

Work is good and I now have two parties to go to this weekend. One is Saturday at the house of one of our sculptors, the other is a cookout Sunday down in Capitol Hill. They should both be fun. Lots of cool people going to both. I'll let you know how they go.

Um, I keep thinking there was something else I was gonna post here and I've completely forgotten. So instead I've written this, wasting your time and mine. Woohoo!

Later.

I did some big chunks of writing here last week and then took the rest of the week off. I hope some of you are continuing to check the site. It's a good way to keep up on what I'm up to.

Actually, I didn't have too much to say for the rest of the week. I went to the gym Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday -- and I'm happy to report that I've actually lost some weight in the past week or so. I'm happy about that and hope I can continue to do this well moving forward. I've been stuck at about the same weight for a year and it's been awfully frustrating, but now I've added more days as well as more intense sessions to my routine. If this keeps up I may have to take a job at the gym! I laugh at that now, but if I have to keep increasing the length and intensity of my workouts, well, it looks a bit daunting.

Other than that I went to see Minority Report Saturday night with some people from work. It was excellent. I highly recommend it. The previews played it up as an action movie, but it's really more of a speculative, hard-boiled detective story (maybe not so hard-boiled). Regardless, it's very good. Lots of twists. Other than the story, which I'm not going to talk about, I really appreciated the thought that went into the technology of the film. Everything from the "mouse-gloves" to the retina scanners to the weapons to the phones were well thought-out and executed.

Despite all of my "revelations" last week, I've still been having a hard time with not having any close friends here. It stresses me out a lot and I really have to work on 1) either getting some friends, or 2) relaxing about it. I was so stressed at the end of last week about it that I couldn't sleep well and was making myself naseous. That was pleasant. As a result I think I made some bad decisions with regards to some people here at work, but, it's too late to change that now. Recover. Move forward. Adapt. Hopefully they understand my position and can forgive my insistance.

Once again I have to give serious thought to moving back home to take a job there. Given the paragraph I just wrote above, it seems like a no-brainer, but I really like what I'm doing here. It's just so damn hard to feel alone all the time.

Thanks to everyone from everywhere that wrote me last week. I thanked you all individually, but I want to thank you here, too. It means a lot to know I have such great people pulling for me.

See you next time.

A Peek Into My Psyche, Part the Second

The secondary title to this is, Everything is Not My Fault. I'm really going to work to explain this so it makes sense, so work with me.

Yesterday I wrote about the fact that no one is harder on me than I am. Today I'll expand on that and explain the other major effect that's had on me.

What it really breaks down to is that in any situation that I'm involved in, if something goes wrong I take responsibility for it. Re-read that line because that is the key to everything in my life. The key to how I handle every interaction. Every relationship. Every job. Everything.

As a quick example; I made a friend recently. We got along amazingly well. We clicked in a way that I haven't clicked with someone in a long time. I was excited to have a new buddy. But after doing a half dozen things together in the first month of knowing each other -- it stopped. No more phone calls, no more dinners, nothing. This stressed me out to an unbelievable extent and -- you guessed it -- I blamed myself for messing it up. I figured that I'd done something to "deserve" being shut out of my friend's life. We talked about it and nope, nothing wrong. But we still didn't really do things together. Another month and a half passes. More stress. Finally, this past Monday I vented to someone about it and she said, "It's not you."

This may seem like a really simple thing to say, but for some reason it really struck a chord with me. I felt better about venting and went back to work. Later, at the gym I thought about why I was so stressed and thought more about "It's not you", and suddenly something clicked. Call it whatever you want, but I'll use the word epiphany because it's appropriate. I realized for the first time ever that I am not responsible for everything that happens to me.

I want you to think about that. Really think about it. It's crazy isn't it? To think that I could control every aspect of my life so completely that if something went wrong that it's somehow my fault. That's how I thought of things. I walked through every day of my life trying to make sure that everything was perfect because if it wasn't it was my fault.

Someone doesn't want to date me? It's because I didn't try hard enough to make them happy. Or because I wasn't attractive or interesting enough.
Someone doesn't want to be my friend? It's because I did something wrong.
Someone doesn't do a task correctly that I've given them? I didn't explain it to them correctly.
Someone doesn't believe some fact that I've told them? I may have faulty information.

Everything was my fault. I was wrong. I didn't try hard enough. I didn't get it done. Literally, I took the responsibility for everything in my life on myself.

The other person was never a factor. The other person was never mistaken, or messed up, or shallow, or was just plain wrong! (Or, like my friend above, just had their own life to live and things to deal with.) Instead, it was always my failing. And remember from yesterday when I said that all I pay attention to are the faults in what I do? Well, if someone doesn't like me, or does something wrong, or is mad at me it's because I didn't do something right. I look at the situation and say, "Okay, there's a problem. What did I do wrong?" It never occurred to me that it might be the other person!

Now, I'm not saying I'm going to go around blaming everyone for my problems, but from this point forward I can at least say, "You know what, I've done my best, and if this isn't working, well, maybe it's not me. Maybe there's something else at work here." I've never done that before. Never. Again, I want you to think about that. That's nuts! No one can live like that -- and yet, that's what I've done for 32 years. Can you even begin to imagine the immense pressure I put on myself? Can you imagine how many things happened everyday that I blamed myself for? Can you imagine what all those little "failings" did to my ego and self-confidence?

Nothing good.

Well, you know what? You and I have probably had a disagreement of some kind (no matter how small) at some point in our relationship. And when that happened I probably said it was my fault -- or at the very least -- I blamed myself. Think back to that instant, visualize it, then visualize me saying, "You're WRONG!" Ha! How's that feel? I'm not the one that's messed up, or made a mistake, or has incorrect information, or whatever -- YOU ARE! Not everything is my fault. It's not and I can't keep living like it is.

You don't want to date me? Fine, you're missing out.
You don't want to be my friend? Too bad for you. I rock.
You don't know how to do something correctly? Fine, listen to me this time.
You don't believe what I've told you? Well, I know I'm right.

Whew! Even typing this is liberating in a weird way. And ultimately, I hope you enjoyed reading all this as much as I enjoyed writing it. These are realizations that I probably should have made years ago, but I don't care. I made them now. I'm glad I made them now. I like the person that this screwed up way of looking at life has made me. I know that I'm a better person than most of the people in the world. That's not egotism, that's fact. I've been in situations where lesser people would have caved and done something immoral, opportunistic, mean, cowardly, or cruel. I am a good friend and I have good friends. I know that. There's no one who can say differently. I'm a good son and brother. I love my family. They've always been there for me -- even when I didn't think I had any right to fall back on them -- and I've always been there for them.

And, I like me.

And I thank all of you for liking me.

I think -- actually -- I know things are going to be different for me in the future. I've gone through a paradigm shift and you're all coming with me.

******************

I want to add a short note to thank all of you for emailing, calling, or talking to me about these posts. I really appreciate it. I think I've done a good job of communicating how important this has been to me. To some of you it may seem like these are pretty basic things, but they're not to me. This is an immensely different way for me to look at the world and I wanted to let you know about it. This won't solve all my problems, but it will solve how I look at them -- and it will make me more capable of handling anything else that happens in my life. Hopefully you'll see the difference, but if you don't, at least you'll know that I do.

A Peek Into My Psyche, Part the First

When I was a kid my parents were very low pressure about everything. Their attitude towards raising my sisters and I was pretty simple, but damn effective. At its most basic level it broke down to, "Do your best." Whether we're talking about dating, friendships, schoolwork, or a job the only advice they gave was that. I don't remember ever getting a talking to because I didn't have my homework done, I don't remember them ever pressuring me to do anything, all they would say is, "If you're doing your best, then that's all we can ask of you."

This, of course, resulted in incredible pressure on me (I can't speak for my sisters) because I never thought I was doing as well as I could. I always thought I could do better than I was, even if I'd done my best. I knew, given time and more experience with a topic or activity that I could do better than I was doing currently. That continues to frustrate me to this day. I think I should be able to do anything I put my mind to -- very, very well -- the first time I do it.

Because of this, I've always downplayed my achievements because I'm never happy with them. I always think that I haven't mastered a skill because there's always something more to learn, something more I could add to it, something more, something. Those of you that know me well probably can't think of many times that I've said, "I'm completely happy with what I've done." Instead, you're probably more familiar with me picking apart everything I do to find (not the faults) but the areas I can improve on. I don't celebrate my victories, no matter how small, I zero in on the imperfections and make note of them so that I can do better next time. And, of course, next time I do the exact same thing; I find the new problems with whatever I've done. I may have improved on the things I didn't like last time, but now I have a whole new crop of "imperfections" to concentrate on.

I'm conscious of it. I've often said I have a pretty deep perfectionist streak. I may not be the most orgainized perfectionist (see, there I go again), but I make note of all my mistakes, faults, and areas that need improving and concentrate on those rather than saying, "Damn, I did a good job. I started with nothing, no knowledge or skills, and now I've done it. Good work!" I'm constantly in competition with myself and I always know I can do better. But, how can I be better than myself? My answer is, I can't, so I can never win and I'm never happy with my performance. I beat myself up over the smallest failing and latch onto what I need to improve on as opposed to looking at the result as a whole and congratulating myself. As a result, I don't have very good self-confidence.

(All of this relates directly to the effects I've had on myself and doesn't take the effects of others into account. Add my psyche to all the negative comments from people -- "you're fat, you're ugly, you're stupid, you're slow, you're not good at this" -- that I've heard over the years and, well... You see how easy it is for me to hear things like this and say, "Ah, this person is telling the truth. I have these doubts about my abilities or myself and they've just confirmed them. They're not being hurtful on purpose, they're being honest. I really am fat/ugly/stupid/slow/no good." I believed that garbage not because they were right, but because it played into my knowledge that I wasn't perfect. Again, never building up and constantly wearing down whatever ego and self-confidence I had.)

When other people achieve something they sing their own praises, they feed their ego by playing up their successes, and point out their victories to anyone who cares (and often, those who don't). In this way they build up their ego and self-confidence. After a while they believe they're really that good, even when they fail they find something good about what they've done. Or they find someone or something else to blame for their shortcomings. Regardless, they believe they can do anything and their ego and self-confidence follows right in line.

I've never worked like that. I find the faults and stick with them. Not because they're faults, but because I want to know how to improve for next time. And I've done this for so long that I never think anything I do is all that remarkable. I take the faults and blame myself for not doing better. Nothing is ever good enough. Nothing is ever perfect. Nothing I do ever pleases me, so I never sing it's praises (or my own) and allow whatever successes I have to whither on the vine, starved from lack of attention. Instead I downplay my achievements and rob myself of praise from myself and others. (After all, why should I believe that someone else's praise is honest and earnest when I can see the faults in the project? Clearly, they're not being critical enough and just saying kind words to make me feel better.) Which means I've never built up my ego. That I don't believe in myself. That my self-confidence is lacking, not because of what others say, but because I can't let myself succeed.

That stops now. I've figured it out and now I can fix it.

Stop back for Part II tomorrow when I clue you into the fact that not everything is my fault.

I went out for Thai food at Chantanee with Matt from work and at dinner I said I might see a movie. So I grabbed a Seattle Weekly and we decided to go see The Bourne Identity at 10:20. We had some time to kill, so we watched an episode of Buffy (he'd never seen any). The movie was good, but we didn't get out until about 12:35. And then we had to walk back to my place and I gave Matt a ride to his place. All in all, I didn't get to bed until about 1:30. Ugh, too late.

Oh, hey, we apparently had an earthquake Sunday morning. I slept right through it, but I hear it was about a 3.2. Funky. My first earthquake and I slept through it. Nice.

So, I was stressing this morning about this whole friend thing, but then I talked to one of my co-workers, just to vent about it, and it was great. I felt so much better. She's one of the cooler people here, but she's married (and admits to being pretty boring) so I don't get to hang out with her much. She was very cool and helpful, even if she did only listen to me vent. So, I'm headed back uphill. We'll see how it goes.

Other news? Um, right now I'm going to the store and then to the gym. Does that count?

Okay, this is completely cool and totally subversive; get your own metal Bill of Rights to set off airport metal detectors.

Heh, heh. I love it.

Okay, so my post Friday was a bit cryptic. Let's just say I'm not having the best of times right now. I feel like I'm busy all the time and have no meaningful contact with people out here. And the people I do like are either married (hence, boring) or too busy with their long-established friends to bother with me. It's frustrating and very difficult. I'm really getting tired of being alone. As if you couldn't tell that.

I went to the gym Friday, Saturday, and today. Watcha whole heck of a lot of Buffy -- all of the rest of the second season DVDs since Tuesday. Good stuff. Yesterday afternoon I went to the house of one of the guys from work and played a couple games of Talisman. That was fun. I don't think I've played that in, umm, a dozen years, maybe.

I've been good about sticking to the gym and increasing my output and it looks like it's paying off. I've lost a few pounds recently and feel pretty good about that. I'm very happy that's working because I was getting frustrated about that, too. Frustration seems to be theme in my life lately. Yeah, so what if I'm whiney? That's what I use this site for, to get things out of my head when I need it.

I have to figure out some way to meet people. Maybe some classes somewhere or volunteering. Doing what I don't know, but I'll at least look around.

Now I have to do some work. See ya.

Someone tell me again that I'm going to make some friends.

And that someday I might actually meet a woman that wants to be more than friends.

Again I have done something interesting! Woohoo! I'll get to it. Monday I worked, then went to the gym. My leg is fine and hasn't acted up at all lately. Although, admittedly I've been careful about overworking it and switching off on the different machines, but it's been good nonetheless.

For dinner that night I made tuna sandwiches -- and I read this in a book and wanted to try it -- with yogurt instead of mayo. I thought it was a little odd, too, but I had to give it a shot. Besides, it really cuts down on the number of calories. Cool.

I picked up my bike from its tune up and even went for a ride on Tuesday evening because I wanted to see how that would work. It was fine, although I think I picked one of the hilliest areas in Bellevue to try it out. It's fun, but a lot of work. It's weird to think I haven't ridden a bike in over a decade, but you never do forget. I'll probably be biking or walking every day that I don't go to the gym from now on so that I increase my output of energy. I need to get over this plateau and they only way I'll do it is by working uot more. We'll see how it goes.

Wednesday I was invited over to dinner by one of the guys from work. I just helped he and his girlfriend move into their new place a week and a half ago and it seemed cool, so I said yes. A number of people from work were invited, but I was the only one that actually accepted and showed up. She works for WotC and all of the people at dinner either worked there or had worked there. It was fun. Good food, too. Italian. I left at about 11:00 and watched some more Buffy when I got home.

I'm watching all the Buffy stuff as product research. It's a lot of fun. And it's priced at a reasonable rate for what you get. Especially if you bother to figure out how much time the lack of commercials saves you. I did. About 14 minutes per episode, multipled by 22 episodes is 308 minutes, which is 5 hours and 8 minutes. Is that amount of time worth $45 to me. Hell, yeah. And I can watch them again whenever I want. Woohoo!

Tonight I'm headed to the gym because I skipped out yesterday in favor of the dinner party.

Hopefully I'll have more fun stuff to tell you soon.

I posted Sunday afternoon and then went out and did something interesting. I was thinking of going to see Bad Company, with Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock, but then remembered that the SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) was going on, so I checked the schedule, printed out a map, and headed over to the Broadway Performance Hall to see A Dream in Hanoi. I showed up a few minutes early and didn't have a ticket so I had to wait in line behind the only other person who didn't have a pass already, until a man walked over and asked, "Who's here alone?" A bit skeptically I said I was and he offered me a ticket for $6.00 instead of $8.00 because he had a number of extra tickets -- all of which were being sold to a group of attractive young women. Fine by me. We all went in, paid him, and watched the movie. It was an interesting glimpse into how cultural differences can clash over something like the interpretation of a character or how to put on a play. Very cool.

Monday was a busy day at work as I started work on the next expansion to one of our games and then went to the gym. My shin is feeling fine and hopefully whatever problems I was having are all done now. I hope so, I really missed hitting the gym. After work I stopped by the bike store and picked up my bike, which I dropped off Saturday for a tune up. $45 dollars later I have a clean, fresh, and tuned bike. Tonight I'm going to go for a ride or a walk depending on how the ride goes. I haven't been on a bike in maybe a decade or more and I'm not sure how it'll go.

I picked up the Buffy, The Vampire Slayer Second Season DVD set today -- for product research, believe it or not -- so I'll probably watch a couple episodes tonight.

Seth posted a couple of things on his blog today. The first thing I liked was the cartoon about selling babies. Damn funny! I have to get a copy of that from him. The second thing that caught my interest was The Century Club. It got me to thinking about the countries I've visited. Just for fun, I'll list them here (in chronological order of my visit):

United States
Belgium (to be fair, airport only)
Cyprus (both Greek and Turkish sides)
Greece
Turkey
England (again, airport only)
Netherlands

I think that puts me at about 8% of the way to being a member of the club, and only 2.4% of the way toward visiting the 314 countries they list as "countries" -- and some of those are pretty iffy.

I finally made it back to the gym Saturday morning (and again on Sunday). I was happy to see that I had lost a couple of pounds and my shin mostly behaved itself. I talked to one of the trainers and he said my shins hurt because I'm walking incorrectly. My thought is that I've been walking incorrectly for years and my new shoes are trying to correct that. So, I'll take it easy with the walking. I'm happy to hear I can still hit the gym regularly without experiencing annoying pain.

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I haven't been spending quite as much time at work, and the time I spend here tends to be a lot more productive. Right now I have to design a game based on a license and it occupies a lot of my mind. Y'know, I go through the day normally and interact with people, but constantly in the back of my mind I'm thinking about the design of this game. It's okay with me, but I have this constant furrow on my brow and people always ask me what's up. It's kind of funny. I've come up with a couple of good ideas, so that's good.

I've spent a lot of time this last week working on a couple of our different games and it's gone well. I was here very late Thursday proofing some of the dials for the new DC game. It took a long time, but ultimately I think it was worth it. I left at 1:30 Friday morning and was back by 9:00, but, hey, so what?

Friday night was the second dinner night that I and a couple of people from work are having. We had a good time and some excellent food and drinks. I think I'm starting to like wine. It seems odd, but I'm happy about it. I always wanted to enjoy it, but haven't before the last month or so. Too bad I don't know anything about wine, otherwise I could pick out my own. Oh, well, maybe I can check some things out and do some learnin' on my own.

I'm kinda strapped for cash at the moment because I found out that I was supposed to be paying for my electricity for the last 6 months and instead it was billed to the aparment manager. So, there goes $450 that wasn't budgeted. Happily, I'll be getting a bonus at the end of the week! Woohoo! I can use it.

It looks like I won't be headed back to the Midwest in July like I thought. Instead, I'll make it back in the first week or two of August (during and after GenCon). So, I'll get to spend some time with friends and family then. That'll be good.

Nothing else too exciting happening. I'll update when I have something to say.

I've been sleeping a lot better than I have in months -- and I wasn't even aware that I wasn't sleeping well. Apparently if I'm not horribly overworked I only need about six or so hours of sleep a night. This weekend I caught up on sleep and both Monday and today I woke up between a half-hour and an hour before I needed to without any prompting. Cool. I can get into going to bed at 12:30 and waking up at 6:30. Woohoo!

I borrowed a CD from someone at work and am listening to it now. It's Risotto by Fluke and has some good techno on it. I recommend it. Especially the first song, Absurd. I think they used it in the "XXX" preview (the Vin Deisel vehicle).

Oh, my shin is getting better, but still isn't healed completely. I hope to go to the gym tomorrow, but I won't be surprised if I don't make it back until Friday. I hope it's better tomorrow.

Now I'm off to have some dinner and fill my evening with all sorts of exciting crap.

I'll let you know what I come up with.

Quick update. Gotta go soon.

So, my friend was fired on Friday and I decided to be sure to see him Saturday which I did, but, man, was it a busy day. I got up early to help another friend from work move, then drove back to Bellevue from Seattle to pick up Kev and buy comics. He was tres bummed, but eventually started talking -- which was a good thing. When we were done I dropped him at home and then went to work. I talked to the handful of people there and picked up Matt. He and I went shopping for food and a grill (Woohoo!), then went to my place, put the grill together and prepared all of the food for the first Dinner Night! Kev was supposed to come, but didn't think he'd be very good company, so it was just me, Matt, and Carrie. We grilled BBQ chicked, had salad, brie and bread, and talked the night away. When the food was gone we watched Fight Club until the wee hours of the morning (really it was only about 11:30). Carrie left, I drove Matt home, and then I went home and crashed (um, in bed, not in my car).

We had a great time and I hope we actually keep this going for a while.

Today I did laundry, wrote an article for work, and had sushi with the rather large handful of people that were working today.

Tonight!...I have no idea what I'm going to do. Maybe go see a movie.

Oh, I skipped the gym Friday, yesterday (although I moved lots of stuff), and today. My shin still hurts, but is feeling better. Maybe tomorrow I'll be back at 100%.

Let's hope.