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Metro bus transfers kick ass. I sat across from Rick James on the bus this morning. This guy was a spitting image of the SuperFreak himself! We were like the only guys in the front of the bus and he just sat there and stared at me and my "Hell Below, Stars Above". I slept terribly last night. No surprise that there were (once again) no dreams, but I still was feeling bad from this 36 hour stomach funk I have going on... I swear, night before last was the closest I have ever come to calling an ambulance for myself. I thought I had appendicitis. Last night was just a lot of uncomfortable tossing and turning. I woke up in a foul mood this morning. I decided to hang at the house for a few hours and get myself together (hence the late entry... just got into the office). I found this old portable CD player and decided that I'd carry it on the bus since I was not feeling well enough to ride in today. I threw some batteries in this player that I barely remember purchasing and smiled when the disc skipped and the player printed "sorry" on the screen... wtf? Some engineers just have a little extra development time I suppose... speaking of too much free time, what is this all about? Strange. I stopped by the jewelers to drop my watch off to get the battery replaced on the way into work and the punk-ass wouldn't take it because they weren't done unpacking all their display case jewelry. I do not understand this at all. It's going to be a day or two before I can pick it up anyway and I probably wouldn't pay until then... it takes 1 minute of your time to accept my watch and take my phone number to call me when it's ready. So much for customer service. Mark this down as a the number 1 reason to wear a Timex and not a TAG... I bet WALMART would have taken my shit... 24/7. Ridiculous. I am going to buy a new portable MP3 player this week if I can find one I like. It has to have at least 128MB (or be expandable to that) and I would like one that uses a filesystem I can mount under Linux, but this is not a deal breaker. Any suggestions? So anyhoo, I started my day in a bad mood and feeling bad... now I feel much better. The Toadies get me so fucking pumped... I love that band. I am soooo ready for the weekend. Bring it.

Pressed Against The Sky (Toadies)
If this is a dream I'm happy you're having it with me
I will stay and savor the way you move me
Don't want to miss one detail, one sweet smile from your lips
One kiss sets me adrift

Chase the stars as they fall down and light up where you are
They are yours for the keeping
Trace the curves of the sheets
A riddle of desire when I watch you sleeping

Pressed against the sky, eyes wide open...
______________

Trouble sleeping... again.

"Disappearing" (Brian Andreas)
The day he first told me he
was starting to disappear I
didn't believe him & so he stopped
& held his hand up to the sun & it
was like thin paper in the light &
finally I said, you seem very calm
for a man who is disappearing &
he said it was a relief after all
those years of trying to keep the
pieces of his life in one place.
Later on, I went to see him
again & as I was leaving, he
put a package in my hand.
This is the last piece of my
life, he said, take good care
of it & then he smiled & was
gone & the room filled with the
sound of the wind & when I
opened the package there was
nothing there & I thought
there must be some mistake
or maybe I dropped it & I
got down on my hands &
knees & looked until the light
began to fade & then slowly
I felt pieces of my life
fall away & suddenly I
understood what he meant
& I lay there for a long
time crying and laughing at
the same time.

If you have about 8 minutes to kill and you want to laugh hard enough to pee out your eyes, watch http://www.boost-o-holics.com/video/humor/4me2p00p0n.wmv">this video... Star War's fans, please don't be offended. This is just some damn funny mockery. I have a new favorite lunchtime Mexican restaurant... Irma's. Yummy. I'm surprised I haven't been there before. It's in an old house... on a corner over by the Chenevert/McKee/Ruiz area. I'm suffering from a severe case of P.L.N.S. (Post Lunch Nap Syndrome).

Other than the obvious, the big problem I have with getting up at the ass crack of dawn to start my day is that it seems to drag... the clock ever slowing as the day progresses. It's barely 10 o'clock and it feels like 4:00. What was it I said about the guy eating a bullet? Forget it. Hand me the gun. I just got some juice from Sean on the progress of "Xtracurricular". He and I have been shooting comments back and forth on the tag-board and IM, but basically they just got the drive array online for the HD edits and already are close to a terabyte of data. Some of the VFX sequence shots are laid out online (presumably for status updates as progress is made) now. Be sure to stop by the Whoopass site for updates and check out the "Xtracurricular" trailer (you'll need Quicktime and Flash to visit). My stomach is still bothering me. I think I am going to try to get out of here early today. There is a dinner party at 6:00 that I was planning on attending, but if I don't feel better soon it's going to be a night on the couch.
ps. I fixed the problem that kept me here late last night. Damn you multicast MLS.

Thanks Sean for this oh so cool link: Digital Porn... which, uh... doesn't appear to be working right now. Try it later. It's not what you think. In the mean time, Faith says go here. I can't believe the bank downtown doesn't open until nine. Of course, I am not usually coherent by nine and never wonder about these mysterious rules. Thank you Corporate America.

"Early don't eat breakfast. He thinks its a conspiracy put together by the cereal people." - Adele (Kalifornia)
I was up most of the night with these incredible abdominal pains. I couldn't sleep. I just laid there in pain... like someone was twisting a knife blade in my stomach. I was thinking it may be appendicitis, but it subsided enough for me to sleep around 3:00 and although my stomach still hurts, it is no where close to what it was last night. Very strange... despite the fact that my stomach is hurting, I'm hungry. I suppose that's a good sign? Maybe I'll feel better after eating. I would tell you how happy and excited I am to have to opportunity today to get up at 5:00 to be in the office now, but I just don't even know where to start.

This is a bad year to be a senior executive in Houston, eh? First, ENRON's Baxter whacks himself with a headshot while sitting in his Mercedes and now, announced today, El Paso's CFO, Charles Dana Rice, whacks himself last night in the head apparently at his home. I am not going to comment on the ENRON suicide because there may have been some shady and shiesty stuff going on there and the guy just shot himself rather than go to a pound-me-in-the-ass penitentiary. However, I do have a word to say about this El Paso CFO's death. Actually, three words... WHAT THE FUCK? The report says the guy had health problems. Here's an idea... instead of blowing your head off, how about you just quit your job and spend time with your family? Which brings up my other point of contingency (besides what I feel was a poor way to relieve all that stress)... when you're looking down that barrel and your sweaty fingertip is on the trigger, stop for one second and put your own problems aside and think about your family. Be a fucking man. Yeah, your situation might suck for one reason or another, but do you love you wife and kids enough to just deal with it another day? How about another week? year? I bet that if your situation is soooooo bad that your contemplating axing yourself, they would step up to the plate and support you in getting some help. I bet that if you thought that killing yourself was the only way out of a job that was killing you, that they would support you in quitting your career and doing whatever makes you happy and healthy again. What kind of chickenshit thing is this to do? Shoot yourself and leave your family to deal with your residual problems, rumors, media, pain, etc. I just don't understand. I'm sure the myriad details behind the scenes tell a different story, but whatever it is... suicide is not the answer. On another note, the problem that kept me at work until after 8 this evening required that I capture some data to analyze tomorrow. The gigabit Ethernet sniffer that I need is locked in a guys desk that already left for the day, so he's meeting me at 6:00 a.m. mañana. I'm tired just thinking about it. Sweet dreams... I hope they come back soon.

Eight o'clock and I'm still in the office. Yep... this is Monday.

Sam came to my rescue. He used to race mountain bikes in Switzerland and when he heard I had a flat, he drove down to my office and changed out the tube for me. My hero! Of course, him having a history of mountain bike racing is irrelevant here, but it definitely played into the efficiency of repair. He removed the old tire, repaired, and replaced like a Formula 1 pit crew. Thank you Sam! Afterwards, we drove down to Bombay Palace for lunch. I just realized that Penny's birthday is Saturday. She is the most amazing little lady in my life.

Hell yes it's Monday! I was beginning to wonder. I woke up rested. I was in a better than average mood considering it was, after all, morning. It's a beautiful day outside. My commute to work was going outstanding... then, it happened... the Monday morning validation... I got a flat tire. P H U C K. Yep, that was it. My little reality check... my little reminder that this wasn't just any day, this was Monday. It just warms my heart.

Yaaaaaawwwwwn! Monday morning. Bah-humbug! As I rub the little sleep boogies from my eyes (sexy, eh?), let me address the couple of emails I received last night. I wasn't drunk... and I wasn't depressed. I'm just a little confused by female behavior. The comment about finding someone that "just gets me" stemmed from a debate last night with a friend surrounding why people play games, why dating is ridiculous these days, and more specifically, why I don't do it (date). I am not in mourning over some lost love. I'm not about to drink a gallon of bleach. Relax. I would however, consider myself damaged goods in a sense. I've been lied to and cheated on enough in my life that my faith is somewhat injured. So, if I occasionally spill some silly, mushy shit from my gray matter on this page, don't assume that means something terrible has happened. If something terrible happened, I'd spill that here too. My heart's not broken... just bent. Am I a little more wordy than usual this morning. Maybe it's the almost 8 hours of sleep last night subsequent to the 14 hours yesterday? What the hell is wrong with me? Mornings still suck. I need to go to work... grrrr!

ps. still no dreams last night

"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why can't I find someone that just gets me? Is that to much to fucking ask? Here's some original artwork by me... goodnight.

In the Absence of Sun (Duncan Sheik)
For all the good you say it does
It seems no better when you've had your say
You may believe it's just because
The words get colder when you've gone away

I thought I understood
What I was to you...

I don't want to feel this way
I don't want to say I'm just a friend
I don't want to wait around here
'Cause you don't want to feel no pain again
We just lie about it...
As we become shadows of ourselves

Some may fear committed lives
I sure am one of them without you
Does it come to you as some surprise
I laid the ground beneath to doubt you

Was it ever girl
Something you could hold...

I don't want to feel this way
I don't want to say I'm just a friend
I don't want to wait around here
'Cause you don't want to feel no pain again
We just lie about it...
As we become shadows of ourselves

I don't want to look away
I don't want to be the one denied
It ain't no fault of mine
'Cause someone, somewhere told you lies
But we don't talk about it
We just become shadows of ourselves
______________

I am surprisingly tired. I thought that I would be wide eyed after all the sleep last night, but I'm so ready to curl up under a fluffy comforter and drift away to never-never land. I am not really ready to write about it yet, but I am am really in a state of discontent right now. I think sleep is probably the best legal alterative to get my mind off things. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and everything will be better... maybe this is just a bad dream.

"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." - T.S. Eliot
Much better now... A nice meal (prepared and presented well) at a local restaurant and 4 shots of espresso later, I am alive once more. I went for a short 3 or 4 mile ride to force the sleepiness away before hand. I am dreading going back to the office tomorrow. I was talking to Sean on the phone a few minutes ago and the subject of vacationing came up. Like an iron skillet in the face, I realized that the last real vacation I had was December/January (millennium) of 1999/2K. I have been out of town on business. I've been on weekend road trips. I have NOT been on a vacation in in like 25 months! I know I was talking about vacation the other day (reference), but I guess I never stopped to think about how long it's been. OMG! Sean got his deck control issues worked out, so post is back on schedule... check out the details. I am so absolutely and completely bored at this exact instant. Somebody save me.