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I spent most of my day either here or on my way to and from said "here". Henry and I road tripped to what ended up being Antiquapalooza. My father and his better half have a tent set up in Warrenton for what must be the single most decadent display of arts, crafts, and antiques that I've ever seen in one location. Everyone knows about Brenham and the spottings of this sort through out the historic Texas "Hill Country", but this was just obscene. One could start at 8 aye emm sharp with a packed lunch and canteen and never see it all before midnight. If EL were with me, I might not have been able to get here to leave. She would have loved it. The wildflowers were in full bloom and the Bluebonnets were brilliant along US-290 and it was a beautiful day for feeling lonely. Friday night I took Barrett to see Negrodamus. I always new Paul Mooney's comedy was borderline militant toward "the white man", but sitting at a stageside table 3 feet from the man confirmed it. His show was great and despite it all, I seemed to have survived. Yesterday I finally caved and purchased an iPod. It really was a series of long-time-coming little things that built upon one another. The straw that broke the camels back was my trying to purchase music online and being forced to upgrade to the new iTunes (presumably to update the DRM encoding) to do so. I don't usually purchase entire albums, but more so songs that I like from albums. The only reasonable way to get an MP3 product from a digital purchase when the RIAA is assprinting every byte is to burn the song to audio CD and then re-rip it to MP3. This works great when you can access the CDBB on the stage two rip, but if it is a single song, then you lose all the ID3 info unless you actually type it in yourself. This will simply not work for me, so I buy them with the DRM embedded and live with it. Now, with said iPod, my license authorization is carried over and I can forego MP3 CD's and just use the player. This sequence of events coincides the timeframe Jason's grandmother purchased him an iPod adapter for the model stereo I have in my truck, but he does not own. The details are really inconsequential at this point, the underlying message is: free adapter for said new iPod. Urs and Sandra are in town visiting. They are not staying with me, but at Sam's a few blocks away. It is bittersweet seeing them... I miss them and they are dear friends, but they were our dear friends, not just mine. Seeing them reminds me of the times EL and I had with them before they moved back to Europe. Seeing their little girl reminds me of how much she would have loved to be here with her. It's all quite emotional for me. I would have stayed at my father's longer today, but today is Urs's birthday. There will be a carnivorous feast tonight and I'm almost certain beer and whiskey will be involved. Too bad it's a school night. I have an appointment tomorrow morning with a new potential client. Oh, btw, I took Urs for Meatcake last night and it was delicious. It wasn't as good as I've had it before, but still nice. As I am typing this, I just realized that I eat out entirely too much. I've probably treated friends and coworkers to $500 in lunches and dinners in the last two weeks. That isn't really SOP for me, but I think it's because I've been making an effort to leave the house and do things... with people. I'm terribly lonely most of the time and meeting for a meal is a normal and easy thing that just happens. Being a hermit might be easier now that I think of it. Seeing all those happy couples browsing antiques today definitely stung a bit. I do however, have to attend the birthday gathering this evening for Urs. Just like always, I'll do my best to be "ok". I'm going to start going to the gym again. I'm in the worst shape of my life. I'll likely not ever get back to that 7% body fat sixpack I had in my mid to late 20's, but I'll just be happy with having more energy and feeling healthy. Also, I ordered a 2007 issue of the Federal Aviation Regulations. I plan on writing the FAA this week to request a reprint of my license and eventually get back behind the yoke of an aircraft. It's not much more than a whim at the moment, but it's a step toward doing something with my time.