It's been 3 or 4 weeks since Kelly and I have had a free weekend, but we planned to have a quiet, relaxing one today. I stayed in bed until 8:30 or 9 AM, I think. Kelly was already up when I finally pulled my way out of bed. The weather was warm--the first really warm morning of the year. We decided to take advantage of it. We grabbed the basketball and headed over the local park to shoot some hoops. I was terrible at first, but slowly managed to get my game back. Kelly was very good, but as she pointed out, she had a hoop in her driveway growing up.

After, Kelly went to the gym and I did some reading and worked on the computer. Around 12:30, we headed to lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. We'd invited A.J. and Denisse. A.J. was off playing tennis and our lunchtime was too early for Denisse. I had a good chicken salad sandwich, but it was way too much food for me.

We walked back to Kelly's, collected her laundry and then headed up to my house. At 4 PM, we took Zeke to his regularly scheduled vet appointment. He got his shots, and impressed Kelly (and the vet) by his strength when he tried to keep himself in his carrier once at the vet. Everything is good, but he needs to lose some weight. He weights about 16.5 lbs and should be around 13 lbs. Much of the weight gain is due to his special diet. Beginning this afternoon, therefore, I started him on "meals" rather than leaving his dry food out for him. He gets 2/3rds of a cup in the morning, and 2/3rds in the evening.

We were supposed to stick around from 5-8 PM to wait for the cable guy to "cap the line". We spent some of that time reading parts of The Last Lecture to one another. Sometime around 4:30, I noticed a cable truck across the street, but no one ever stopped by. By 6 PM, I was a little impatient. I checked the cable, and wouldn't you know it!--they had capped the line--and I now only get the local channels, as I requested. I was annoyed enough, however, to call Comcast and ask them why I had to stick around if no one had to come in the house. They didn't have an answer for that, of course.

We celebrated by driving up the lake and taking a walk around it. Usually, we walk around twice, but there were dark clouds looming close by so we kept it at a single loop. From there we headed to the grocery store to do the shopping.

At home this evening, I made french bread pizza, which turned out okay. We watched last night's The Office and we both agree that the show is going downhill. It's depressing.

I wanted to take the telescope out tonight. Saturn is visible and it would be great to get a look at it, but it was still cloudy when I last checked.

Kelly and I got back to Washington early this morning, around 1 AM. It was raining when I left or L.A. and it was raining when I returned. I stayed at Kelly's last night and got home this morning. I worked from home today because (a) I got in so late last night and (b) I have to work tonight beginning at midnight. In between various work task, I managed to catch up with a few things that I couldn't do when I was gone last week. First, I canceled my cable, finally. Well sort of. Turns out it costs the same to keep Internet service and local channels as it does for just internet, so I did that. It cuts my bill by more than half. The cable guy is coming Saturday evening between 5-8 PM to cap the line.

I also called the vet to order more wet and dry food for Zeke. I headed over to pick it up early this afternoon. I also made an appointment for Zeke on Saturday at 4 PM. I called an electrician about some work I need done and have been playing phone tag this afternoon, but hope to get him out Saturday as well. And I even managed to squeeze in a haircut.

And speaking of haircut, with all of the rain we've gotten my yard is overrun by long grass. But I have to wait for it to dry out before I can cut it.

I have to return the cable boxes at some point, and then we're transferring my Tivo unit and service to Kelly's house. Probably do that next week.

A lot of junk mail over the course of the week, but some good "live" mail too The latest issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN as well as the June issue of F&SF. I got my HHonors Silver card for 2008/09 in the mail today. The bill from my accountant was there too, along with my AOPA Pilot magazine.

I'm off to bed now (yes, it's not even 6 PM) because I have to be up at midnight to do a server upgrade.

(I realize that I have not yet caught up on Saturday or Sunday yet, to say nothing of comment on the nebula award winners, but I will as soon as I have a chance to breathe.)

[Posted on Monday, October 22]

We all kind of slept in on Sunday morning. We headed up to IHOP for breakfast at around 10:30 AM and afterward, I dropped AJ and Denisse off at the metro station so that they could head home.

Most of the rest of the day was a very lazy one for me. I finished watching Season 4 of The Shield and naturally, immediately wanted to watch season 5. Fortunately, season 5 and 6 are available on the iTunes store, and in fact, it was far cheaper to buy them from there than order the DVDs online. So I downloaded all 21 episodes that make up seasons 5 and 6 and I watched the first 4 or 5 of them.

I cleaned up the house a bit, but didn't end up doing any laundry, as I'd planned to do. I called Doug and left him a message. (He called back but it was after I'd gone to bed.) I also called he11o_sunshine and we spoke for 10 minutes or so. But I was pretty tired, having been up so late last night. I ended up climbing into bed at around 7:30 PM.

I was supposed to go back to the convention for day 2 today, but I didn't. I got to bed late last night and I had a lot of errands and chores to do, so I decided to stay home. I stayed in bed late, watching episodes of The Shield, but eventually managed to get out of bed and shower. I got in touch with A.J. and Denisse and we agreed to meet for lunch. I headed down to their place at around noon and I was at there front door just after 1 PM.

We went to the Guard for lunch, where I managed to have a Monte Cristo sandwich. You don't see those in too many places, and I love those sandwiches and it was quite good, but truth be told, their fries were even better!

Afterward, we wandered around Georgetown, stopped in at Haagen Dazs for Belgium Chocolate shakes, and then walked down to the waterfront, where we debated politics and economy endlessly. We walked back to A.J. and Denisse's and shortly thereafter, I headed home.

I had lots of laundry to do and I managed to get through most of it, watching more episodes of The Shield in between loads. My ribs were acting up so I decided to take a pain medicine, even though they've been making me feel nauseous. This time it seemed to work a little bit better.

The annual rental property inspection of the house is tomorrow and I have to meet the inspector here at 5 PM. I have a presentation I'm giving at 3 PM but still hope to get out of work a little early to ensure that I get home in time to meet the inspector.

No work today as it is a federal holiday and that meant I could sleep in late and be lazy all day long. And that's more or less what happened. Kelly headed home after lunch at TGI Friday's. I planned to get the house cleaned up a bit, do some laundry, and head to the gym for my upper body workout. Instead, I lay down on the bed to pet Zeke and ended up falling asleep for nearly 3 hours. When I finally work up, it was around 5 PM and the day was mostly used up.

I am looking forward to the Yankees/Indians game tonight. And I may manage to get some laundry done between now and then. Maybe even a few odd chores. I do wonder how I'll sleep tonight, however, having slept in late and taken a lengthy nap in the afternoon. I guess I'll find out.

Spoke briefly with Dad today. And had a longer video chat with strausmouse earlier this afternoon. (He had the day off too.)

Now let me see if I can't get a few things done before this long weekend is all over.

I was up at 8 AM, ran up to IHOP for breakfast (for the first time in a while) and then spent the rest of the day on chores. I did every scrap of laundry available in the house and it is finally all done. Every last bit of it.

I decided my bedroom needed some rearranging. It has been the same layout for 4 years now. This started with the fact that I decided to flip the mattress. I then decided I wanted new bedding. I ran out to Target for that. When I returned, I decided to rearrange the furniture in there and that too is done now. I also vacuumed the house. Thoroughly. And got rid of a ton and a half of trash. And cleaned the kitchen. Really, it was a busy day today.

I fell asleep last night listening to the Yankees game on the radio. I heard the amazing 4 run comeback they made with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th but eventually fell asleep sometime during the 13th inning, so I didn't know they ended up losing the game until this morning. They are in a back-and-forth battle in today's game against Toronto too. The road to October is paved in excitement!

My shoulders and neck are a little sore from the arms and shoulder workout yesterday, but not nearly as bad as I thought they might be. And the soreness in my legs has almost completely vanished.

Warm today. In fact, I finally turned on the AC a little while ago because, even with the windows open, it was well over 80 in the house. Supposed to be beautiful weather tomorrow. Glad I got a lot of my chores done today.

I finally did it. I was up at 4:20 AM, had some breakfast and then caught the first Yellow line into work in order to hit the gym this morning. My plan now is to make MWF strength training days and TThSa cardio days. Today was great. I did nearly three full groups of chest and back before coming closer than I ever have in my life to passing out. It happened when I was doing dead lifts. I'd backed off my weight on just about every exercise I did today, in order to get back into the swing of things. But for some reason, I figured that 80 lbs dead lifts would be fine. In fact, they felt fine doing them, but toward the end, my legs began to feel a little wobbly. I figured it was that I was nearly done with my workout and getting tired. When I finished the set, I was light headed and a little dizzy and nauseous. I sat down on the floor and tried not to move. Bernard, who was working with someone else asked me if I was okay. I smiled and nodded but I felt that if I moved I might not be able to maintain my balance. After about 5 minutes, I was able to get up and walk into the locker room. I sat by my locker a few minutes debating whether to attempt a shower or not (I could just imagine passing out in the shower.) Finally I did shower, and after that I felt much better. I know now that I need to ease my way back into some of these exercises and I will be more careful going forward.

As it turns out, my probably was minor compared to someone else at the gym. At about the time I was feeling light-headed, there was a loud crash of weights. Someone who was doing free standing squats was not on the floor face down. Someone nearby said it was a groin injury. By the time I got out of the shower and came out of the locker room, the paramedics were there. So an exciting day at the gym today.

And an exciting Yankees game last night. I couldn't stay up for the whole thing but I stayed up long enough to see Jeter's 3-run homer, which ultimately allowed the Yankees to win the game. mabfan called me during the early part of the game and we traded some baseball stories for a while.

I did manage to get a fair amount of the garage cleaned out yesterday. Lots of trash for the garbage men to pick up today. There's still more to be cleaned out over the next couple of weeks but I made a good dent in it and I feel pretty good about it.

A handful of meetings today and then I'm meeting Kelly after work.

I slept in this morning, getting up at just about 10 AM! I watched the Red Sox pound the Yankees late yesterday afternoon, and then watched a couple of movies before going to bed. It was pretty late when I finally got to sleep, which explains why I slept in so late this morning.

Tivo had recorded Singles, the one Cameron Crowe movie that I somehow never managed to see, so I watched it this morning. As always, good cast and great music. I watched Real Time with Bill Mahr afterward and he had me rolling in the aisles.

Thinking about getting started cleaning out the garage today. There's a ton of junk in there that can be gotten rid of and I need to start somewhere. I want to get it done before winter when it's too cold to be out there for any amount of time. I'll probably work on it slowly, over the next couple of weeks.

The weather cooled off today. In fact, it was downright chilly last night. It's not cold today, just cooler, much more like fall than summer.

Big Yankees/Red Sox game tonight at 8 PM on ESPN, but I'm not sure I'll be able to watch it. I'm planning on getting up at 4:20 AM for the gym and that means getting to bed pretty early.

Up at about 8:30 AM and I headed out at once to get a haircut, which I've been needing for some time now. (See the before and after images below.) It was nice, I walked right into the haircut place, and was taken right away. No wait. It's not the best haircut I've ever gotten, but it's shorter and that's all that really matters as far as I'm concerned.

Before

After

I came home, grabbed the empty gas container from the garage, and then ran to the gas station to fill it up with gasoline. I needed more gas for the lawn mower. When I got back home, I popped some Boston onto my iPhone (hoping for their defeat later this afternoon) and listened to their self-titled album one and a half times while I mowed the lawn. It was the first time I'd cut the grass in a long time and there was a lot to cut. It took a little over an hour (and that included getting some kind of metal wire wrapped around the mower blade, which I had to cut off with wire-cutters). But the yard is done now, front and back, and I feel much better.

While I was mowing, the Water People came by to read my meter. I have an inside water meter and usually, they just leave me a note and I can phone in my reading using the automated phone system. This is the first time since I've lived here that the meter people caught me at home and were able to take a reading directly.

After mowing, I took a well-deserved shower, and started the first of what will probably be a half dozen loads of laundry. I also called AJ & Denisse to see if they wanted to come over this afternoon to watch the Yankees game with me.

I plan on getting some writing done today, and there are probably a few more errands I need to run, but as of noon on Saturday, I feel pretty good about what I've gotten done today.

Went out for drinks with Kelly after work, which was a lot of fun, so I just got home a little while ago and I now have to wait for the laundry to run so that I have clothes to take with me to Morro Bay tomorrow. I'm getting up at 4 AM so it's going to be a long day. You may not hear from me until pretty late in the day tomorrow, but never fear. As the beloved governor of Cali-forn-ia says, "I'll be back."

(I did finish up The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time this evening, and I'll have more to say about it later.)

I'm already looking forward to my long Labor Day weekend, which starts tomorrow. I have a 6:30 AM flight to LAX, followed by a 3 hour-ish drive up to Morro Bay. I'll be spending just about 3 full days with Dan and Megan and I can't wait. The last time I saw them was nearly a year ago.

I still have a lot to do. The lawn could use some mowing, especially in the front yard. I don't know if I'll get to that today. I have a bunch of laundry to do, as well as some other minor errands and chores. And I have to get up at about 4:30 tomorrow morning. At least I don't have to stay up late to watch the Yankee game tonight. The game is on at 1:05 PM ET.

I'm back home early in the morning on Tuesday and I've taken Tuesday off, so that I can rest and get the rest of my errands and chores done. More than likely I'll cut the grass on Tuesday. I don't think I'll have time to do it this evening.

Incidentally, I upgraded my flight to LAX tomorrow, but hadn't yet upgraded my flight back. But I just had a bunch of miles dumped into my Mileage Plus account so I'm going to upgrade that flight as well. I was originally planning on using some upgrade credits for that flight, but I'll save those for shorter flights.

I meant to be up at 7:30 but I didn't get up until 8:30, thanks to a case of insomnia last night that kept me from falling asleep until sometime after 3 AM. Nevertheless, I got up and started right in on some chores, vacuuming, sweeping, running some laundry, cleaning the bathroom, usual stuff for a Sunday morning.

I started The Best Time-Travel Stories of All-Time edited by Barry N. Malzberg this morning. I'll read that until my Amazon books arrive.

Part of what kept me up last night is that I think I finally worked out what has been preventing me from writing a story that I've been wanting to write for more than a year now. I've made at least a dozen false starts on the story, but last night, it occurred to me to turn the time-line of the story on it's head and I think now it will work much better that way. It was Damon Knight's book, Creating Short Fiction, that helped untangle this knot. I finished the book yesterday and it was great; I'd recommend it to any one who wants to write. He really helps you to see the structure of a story and when you can see the structure, you can see what's wrong with it.

I've got an Orioles game early this afternoon. They're playing the Twins.

I allowed myself to sleep in until 9:30 this morning, which is a rare late morning for me. The house is more or less a mess, but I've felt lazy today and haven't done much about it. I have some grocery shopping to do, as well as a ton and a half of laundry, not to mention countless other little tasks. So instead, I've spent the morning reading and updating my 2007 budget with stuff that I missed while I was away in July.

We have a softball game tomorrow after work, which I am looking forward to. In the meantime, I'm trying to decide what I want to do for the rest of the afternoon. At the moment, I'm leaning towards: (1) head downtown to get something to eat. (2) Walk around the Mall for a while, find a spot to read, and sit there for a few hours reading. (3) Head back home, do the grocery shopping. (4) Start some laundry and take out the trash.

I'll let you know how the second half goes later this evening.

My freshly cleaned laundry was delivered a short time ago, so I jumped in the shower to wash away all of the ichiness from my previous clothes. I noticed that the acoustics in the shower are amazing. I did what I consider to be my best-ever acapella version of "Basin Street Blues" and it sounded terrific, if I do say so myself. Chalk up another plus for Starwood hotels: good singing showers.

And speaking of Basin Street, now that I'm all cleaned up and in fresh clothes, I'm heading back out. First stop on my list is 221B Baker Street and I will give you a few hours to figure out why. No Googling allowed. Scouts honor.

Hours since I have slept: 9

I don't think the weather could have been more perfect for baseball today. Game time temperature was 82 degrees with a strong, steady breeze of about 13 MPH. The sky was bright blue with some scattered clouds here and there. Best of all, it was not humid!

This turned out to be one of the quickest O's games I've ever attended with a game time of just over 2 hours (2:20, I think). The O's lost, but generally, it was a good game and a lot of fun to watch. It's also the last O's game I'll see until I'm back from vacation.

The last of the laundry is finally done so I can finish up my main packing effort. All of my travel documentation has been collected and organized so I am finished up with that effort as well. This evening, I'll be doing house-cleaning: vacuuming, sweeping, scrubbing, etc.

I also made a relaxing pool-side playlist for me to listen to while I am sitting by the various pools and beaches.

I completed a whole bunch of work-related tasks today and feel pretty good about where things stand with me about to head off on vacation. I also got several more travel-related tasks taken care of today.

I picked up my suit from the cleaners.

I contacted the local police and filled out a "vacation patrol" request form. This means that the police know I will be out of town and will be keeping an eye on the house.

I called vickyandnorm and left them a message regarding a question about hotel-to-airport transportation in Rome.

I got rid of just about everything in my refrigerator and emptied out a bunch of other trash (tomorrow is a trash pick-up day).

I've still got a number of things to take care of tomorrow, and I know that Saturday will be a busy day, cutting the grass and cleaning up the yard a bit. But Saturday is also supposed to be somewhat cooler than it was today--it hit nearly 100 here with the heat index. It's a good think our softball game was rescheduled.

I'm also more than 420 pages through American Prometheus. I'm going to squeeze in a little more reading tonight and then lights out.

I was up at 8 AM this morning (after going to bed close to 1 AM last night), headed out for breakfast and started reading Joe Haldeman's collection of short stories, None So Blind. I've spent a good portion of the morning reading it, in between various chores, and I'm about 70 pages through the book. I especially enjoyed the story "Passage" so far and was very pleased, since I wasn't expected to enjoy that one so much.

Took care of a bunch of email stuff this morning. I've got a ton of laundry to do in preparation for the trip to L.A. tomorrow, not to mention some chores around the house. I finally shaved off the gotee and light stubble I had accumulated over the last week or so, getting sick of it, as usual, just as it was beginning to become something substantial. I guess I just like clean-shaven better.

It's overcast right now, but up in the 70s, and I plan on sitting outside for a while in order to get some more reading done today.

Back from grocery shopping. I also went to get Zeke some more of his canned food. They were completely out of the small cans (which is the first time that has ever happened) and so I had to get him some of the larger cans. But I was told they should have the small cans soon.

When I got home, I unloaded the groceries and then did a little cleaning up of the back yard. I'd been meaning to clean out the recycling bin for a while now, and I got that taken care of, as well as getting rid of a bunch of trash.

I took care of four bills that needed to be paid

I spoke to Mom, wishing her a happy Mother's Day. I spoke briefly to Dad as well.

The laundry is underway. It looks like I've got 4 or 5 loads to do.

And I spent about 15 minutes on the phone with customer service for a service issue that I needed to get cleared up. I hate being on the phone with customer service because try as I might to explain things in the very simplest terms, using as few words as possible, and as clearly as I can, I inevitably have to repeat myself two or three times.

I just finished cutting the grass, 15 days after the last time I cut it. It was very long in places, and I'm surprised that the City of Riverdale didn't leave a note for me telling me to cut the grass, but perhaps they were too busy with their recent election. Anyway, both front and back yards are now all done and hopefully won't need cutting again until I am back from L.A.

Next up: grocery shopping and laundry.

I finally cut the grass for the second time this year this evening. I was nervous to do so on two accounts. First, the last time I cut the grass, it snowed a few days later and I want no more snow this season. Snow's over folks. Second, I'd but off cutting for quite some time (25 days to be precise) and the grass in both the front yard and back yard was rather long. Plus it had rained last night. Anyone who has mowed long, wet grass knows how tough it can be.

But I'm pleased to say it is all done! It's likely I won't be able to wait another 25 days before cutting the grass again, but at least it's finished for now.

I'd like to get a haircut this evening but I'm not sure I'll have time to do it. It can probably wait until Sunday. I still have some house cleaning and laundry to do before he11o_sunshine arrives tomorrow morning.