1. I think the “title” field should be at the bottom. I know what I want to say, but I don’t have a title yet… does that sound backwards?

2. I’m in a ubuntu kind of mood right now. This comes over me every now and again and I have this laptop that always gets sacrificed. Last time it might have been Fedora Core, come to think of it. And then after a while I’ll get bored with that, or I’ll realize I ::gulp:: need Windows on that system for something or other… and then I’ll have to go looking for my XP disc again.

3. OMG, is it really Thursday? I’m taking today and tomorrow off, going up to **This content has been redacted by the Federal Information Privacy Administration**

4. Ha, did I really do that? I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it’s all this rain. Seriously, we need rain for drinking and showering, and oh yeah, GROWING OUR OWN FOOD SO WE DON’T GO BROKER THAN WE ALREADY ARE ::ahem::

5. Do I sound different? Maybe it’s this haircut. Does it make me sound dashing and debonaire? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. And for sake of full disclosure, I had to look how to spell debonaire.

6. It only took me a minute into this post to realize I was going to just have to get out my numbering pencil and yes, come up with thirteen things. If this post turns into Thursday Three, however, you can file a complaint to get a refund — just click on the tip jar over yonder ::pointing:: and put in a negative number.

7. I just learned about Linked In — I must have heard about it before, but I was talking to this guy at work and he got me thinking about the olden days — I’m having a 20-year anniversary of when I left company XYZ and went to work for this small group of dudes. Anyway, that conversation led to the whole Linked In thing and I now have two whole contacts, I think! They should have a system like that for pretend people such as myself ::pointing:: and all of his alter egos.

8. And I just now added numbers to this post, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t come up with a title, because now of course the title has to be Thursday Thirteen #whatever-the-heck-we’re-up-to, because otherwise my special Mister Linky pinging thing won’t work right. Hey, don’t blame me! :)

9. I’ve had it up to here ::pointing:: with WordPress. I need to do the new upgrade, but with all the umpteen blogs I’ve got going, it will take me a whole day. And that’s just the first one, and then the second and third and fourth will just take a few minutes once I remember what the heck I’m doing. It’s just a matter of getting myself up off the couch. Or is it into my working chair? Oh who the heck knows anymore.

10. I went running in the rain yesterday. OK, it turns out it was just misting, but I was prepared for rain, which means I had resigned myself to the notion that my beautiful shoes were going to be ruined. OK, maybe not ruined, but at least dampened, a bit, which they were. Now they’re hanging on my lovely unfinished coat rack. Of course I realize that if any of my coworkers do a google search for “running shoes hanging on a lovely unfinished coat rack” I’ll be totally screwed.

11. You know those store cards that give you discounts if only you’ll let them track your ever purchase and steal your privacy forever? And you know how they give you one you can put on your keys because your pet store is like the most important thing in your life? Yeah, and do you love them as much as I do? Yeah, I thought so.

12. I’m going to do it, I swear I am. I’m going to take all of my ideas and turn them into cash. Who’s with me? Click the tip jar ::pointing:: for more information, and put in a positive number this time, the more numbers the better — you’ll see what I mean when you’re done. Be sure to leave your e-mail address for goodness sake, so I can make sure you get the information. God, wouldn’t that be awful if you sent me your thousand dollars (just a random number I pulled out of the air, you could send more or even very slightly less) and what was I saying? Oh yeah, you WILL get the information.

13. OMG, I almost forgot about this. And I’m going to write a story about this, I think. I’m adding it to my list of short stories, and Finn, this one just came to me while I was getting my truck fixed the other day, which is why I didn’t send it to you. What would happen if you went to the auto service place and hung out in the waiting room all day? How long would it take for someone to realize you aren’t getting your car serviced and kick you out? Do you all see major motion picture written all over this one? Yeah, I don’t too! :)

OMG, what a relief. youngest daughter’s hamster HAS BEEN FOUND!!!

I went down to the basement last night and not far from the treadmill I noticed this pile of chewed up newspaper on the floor. I knew exactly what it was.

But how? This was from newspaper stuffed up into an abandoned forced-hot-air heating duct, because when I use the treadmill at 5 in the morning, the noise was traveling right up that conduit into my youngest daughter’s room and waking her up. Getting the picture? It seems that Mister Hamster went into that duct — on the second floor, mind you, and had to have fallen about 8 feet down to where the newspaper was stuffed in from the basement.

Now this hamster has been missing how long? Five days? And Sunday night I had run on the treadmill and I know there was no pile of newspaper shreds then. So he must have been in that ductwork for like four days before he finally chewed his way out — and then fell who knows how far onto the chair below or the floor?

I ran upstairs to get the Havahart trap, loaded it up with more peanut butter, and called to Wifey so she could see the pile of shreds. And while I was setting the trap, she says, “hey, look who I found over here!”

Mister Hamster had gotten himself stuck in this huge plastic bucket, the one we use for party beverages, and couldn’t get out! But he was safe and sound!!

But wow, what a relief. My daughter has been so upset about this whole thing and I just didn’t know what to do. Thank goodness, this crisis is finally over!

I knew it had to happen eventually. With umpteen acres… OK, maybe only a half an acre of nothing but clover, it had to happen eventually. I found it! Yes, I found it! I found a four-leaf clover!

But some luck. Last night, my youngest daughter’s hamster got out of his cage and is on the loose. We’re getting set up with traps and cat containment and the like. And hopes are high. And maybe the clover will help.

And I think it took a lot of luck this morning when I finished this past Sunday’s New York Times crossword puzzle — one of the hardest I’ve ever done, I have to say.

Will I have any other luck with anything today or this weekend? Time will tell, I guess. Let’s see if I can complete 5K of outdoor road work. Yesterday I gave up after 16 minutes. You know how at lunch time the streets are littered with runners? I picked the wrong day to start my outdoor training, because I got back and looked at the thermometer and it was only 90 f-ing degrees. I should bring a bottle of water with me today, not that I have any idea how I’d do that.

Luck — do I need it? Or should I just rely on all those skills I keep so neatly tucked inside my pockets?

Oh wait, did I mention that I won the lottery the other day? Yeah, a whole buck and it’s mine, all mine!! :)

I know, it isn’t quite Thursday yet, but I get so behind that if I don’t start early, I might not get to it again this week!

Tomorrow’s the big day, and if you know what I’m talking about, then you know just what I mean! And if I had any friends, they’d all be expecting me to camp out, wait in line, whatever because… I have to have an iPhone, don’t I? Well no, actually.

So let’s see if I can come up with thirteen reasons why I *won’t* be getting an iPhone tomorrow — or Friday, whatever.

1. it’s way too popular and I don’t like being one of the crowd

2. anything new and shiny like that, I’m afraid I’d wreck it

3. I don’t like the idea of having to use iTunes to sync it up

4. yeah, and I’m a Mac guy but that doesn’t mean I want to be locked in!

5. there’s no expansion like an SD card, can you believe that?

6. my current phone is unlocked and no iPhone will ever be

7. it may be pretty, but so is my next phone the HTC Touch Pro

8. I’m willing to wait for that one because it’s not available here yet

9. I already have a bunch of chargers for my 8125, quite an investment!

10. and my 8125 is running Windows Mobile 6.0 I flashed myself, thank you very much!

11. does iPhone support Personal Area Network? nope

12. there is so much more software for Windows Mobile than for iPhone

13. and just because I love Apple and hate Microsoft, their phones are, well, different!

I was planning to post about the upcoming road race I was planning to run. But wouldn’t you know it, time flew by and here we are on the other side of it!

I’ve been doing a lot of running, about 5 miles a day. And for a while I was doing intervals anywhere from 6 mph to 8 mph. But I knew there would be some 5K races and I’d want a good pace I could maintain.

I guess I’d say when I started that 7 mph seemed fast for me. But over time I worked up to around 7.5 mph, which is an 8 minute mile. And doing the math, I figured I’d want to try and run a 5K in 25 minutes. Now this is on a treadmill, mind you (incline set to #2). I don’t really like running outside, with cars and exhaust and all that. And what’s worse is that a treadmill will not only tell you how fast you’re going, it will pretty much force you to go that speed.

Here’s where my secret weapon comes in — music on an old MP3 player. I did some looking around and found that I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones has the perfect tempo to match my running stride at 7.5 mph. And I’ve got other music I told you guys about already. So I made up a slightly modified mix for this race and I was off and… well yeah, running!

It’s hard to get started in a crowded field like there was today, so it was a good minute or so until I was running at the pace I wanted. But eventually I got there. And unfortunately, the music was all I had to work with. I had forgotten to start my watch, so I couldn’t really tell how long I’d been running. And that would only have helped if there was any kind of distance marking on the course, which there was not.

I had planned to kick it into high gear when Welcome To Paradise by Green Day came on. But since I’d gotten kind of a slow start, I had no idea how long I’d have to keep up such a pace. Would I burn out before the finish? I could kind of tell just by the area where I was at that point that I shouldn’t have much further to go, so what the heck. I poured on the speed, running what I can only imagine was something in the neighborhood of 8.5 mph.

And there was the turn for the finish and a bit of an uphill, but no big deal, and the mats to record the official time with the chip system — what a super invention, now if only they could have used them at the finish and start, like most races have!

So who knows how much better I might have done, but my hopes of a 25 minute finish — let’s just say I crushed it!! by better than a minute! I was shocked to see I’d broken 24 minutes. I certainly didn’t come close to winning any prize, but I have to award myself a huge gold medal for such a huge improvement over the race I ran last August. This year’s edition of that race will be here before I know it. Will I set a new personal best? I certainly will give it my best effort!

There are plenty of reasons to hate Mondays. For me it’s listening to my boss spend the entire morning talking about his weekend. I don’t care where he went or what he ate or anything. But if I have to be here and working on something, SO SHOULD HE!

Phew, I’m glad I got that off my chest. :)

It’s days like this that I wish I hadn’t given up drinking. Sadly I have no choice but to experience today in all of its excruciatingly gory detail.

Wifey’s aunt and uncle are celebrating one of those milestone anniversary — let’s just say it’s the gold one, I think, anyway. Nobody was smart enough to rent a hall, so we’re having the party here at Chez Uisce. Which might not have been so bad when it was thirty-some folks, but it seems to have grown to fifty-some, and yes, we’re still going to try nd pull it off.

Grown, and there’s a story — some of the attendees are what let’s just call self-invited. Yes, there are cousins and nieces and other relations who haven’t seen fit to visit with the guests of honor for multiple decades… but “oh, we’d love to see them,” was the general theme. No “what can we bring” or anything like that. Bastards.

At least it’s going to be rainy so we have to all be indoors together. And at least Wifey’s asshole brother-in-law is going to have a bone to pick with me (another story, and I promise I’ll tell it soon).

Oh well. But chat me up (whiskey dot talking at yahoo) if you care to. You’ll get to hear the latest. :)

Can you believe it, I was able to grab my Yahoo! identity…

So I’m logged in at whiskey (dot) talking (at) yahoo (dot) com on the chat thing. I’m evaluating a chat client on my pocket pc, so we’ll see how it works… and IF it works.

I work in a very shiny building. And if you look at it in the right light… you can see yourself!!

I had an errand to run today and as I was walking in from the parking lot, there was this guy leaving the building and turned to check his look.

What cracks me up, though, is there are people that work right there in ground-floor offices with windows looking out over the lovely walkway, and the people gazing at their beautiful selfs.

And no, I couldn’t help but laugh. Yes, I LOL’d!!

And no, I don’t EVER look at myself in the mirror building. :)

Thirteen things about losing 100 lbs — yes, I did it!!

1. I had thought I could do it in a year.

2. It only took two very, very long months longer.

3. Now I know there’s nothing I can’t accomplish if I try hard enough.

4. And it was very hard work, but the benefits far outweigh the effort

5. It’s hard to admit to anyone you need or needed to lose 100 lbs.

6. So I’ve been very secretive about my progress in real life.

7. The important thing was setting a long-term goal to strive for.

8. Without a specific goal, I fear I might have given up along the way.

9. My plan from now on is to just live healthy.

10. As for goals… if I lose another 14 pounds I’ll reach the “normal” weight for my height.

11. One bad thing about this is having to buy new clothes.

12. Thank you for clicking on the tip jar, so I can get a new outfit!

13. And thank you all so very much for your encouragement and support!!

And you thought I was going to say something about the Celtics, right? Nope, look at the category — it’s all fitness, baby!!

YES, I DID IT!!! I LOST 100 POUNDS!!!

Victory was quite fleeting, of course, since the first thing I always do after my official post-workout weigh-in is to drink some water. And that eight ounces of water is eight ounces and you know how that works.

But yes, it’s official — and now I can stop obsessing!!!

To all of you, and you know who you are, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all of your help and support and encouragement, which I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY needed and appreciate VERY, VERY, VERY MUCH!

And to the rest of you, there’s still time to toss a couple bucks into the tip jar over there in the sidebar, because God knows I’ve got like nothing to wear, except for this beautiful Celtics t-shirt I had to buy a couple weeks ago after I spilled coffee all over myself. And honestly, I would love to buy a couple of shirts. And I promise to send pictures! :)

Speaking of pictures, check out today’s WW — and are you looking at the square picture or the rectangular picture? Are you logged in? (hint hint)

Seriously, this has been such a struggle and I never ever ever could have done it without the knowledge that somewhere down the road there I would need to blog about my victory or defeat. Well here it is, about 14 months after I started, and it’s victory.

Oh yeah, and congratulations to the Celtics!!

are you sure you’re logged in? (hint, hint)