Uncle Frank’s Memorial service, a lunch recption following, and my birthday…

Though my alarm was set for 9:00, I was up at 8:00 after about 10 hours sleep. Felt good.

Aunt Annette and I had coffee and cinnamon toast, while we talked about the updating of her will, which she wants to do soon. She expressed concern about not having a co-executor to name, and I told her she was welcome to list me as the co- or contingency executor, if she wanted to.

She seemed incredibly relieved and grateful.


Karen and Joe arrived at about 10:00, and the rest of the crowd trickled in between 10:45 and 11:15.

One family member, Gail, after saying she remembered me when “you were this high,” asked, “How old are you now?”

I wasn’t thinking and started to say 50, and then stammered, “Actually, 51, today. Today’s my birthday.”


Uncle Frank’s memorial service was in a little catholic chapel, and everyone—around 15 of us—sat, what reminded me of, on “the bride’s side.” That is to say, we were all on the left side of the church.

Ironically, in retrospect, the “guest of honor” was up on the altar on the other side of the church—the box, and small bag of cremains.


I had so many mixed emotions sitting through mass. It’s been forever and a day since I’ve been, and I’m pretty sure the last time I went was for the funeral of co-worker’s daughter ten years, if not more, ago. Some of my thoughts, not necessarily in the order I had them:

  1. I can’t believe I remember all of these responses… “Thanks be to God.” “And also with you.” “Through Him. With Him. And in Him. In the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is Yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever. Amen.”
  2. I’m surprised these people behind me know the words, too. I’m quite sure most of them do not attend mass regularly, if ever.
  3. What is it about humans that they would choose to return to a place, from which so much pain has emanated, for some “closure.” “The catholic church” was a huge reason that my aunt and uncle gave up their daughter for adoption. It’s never been kind or welcoming to me as a homo.
  4. Did he just say, “…our parishioner, Frank…”? He wasn’t a member of this church.
  5. I wonder if that priest has ever done or said anything inappropriate to that altar boy.
  6. That’s all that’s left of a life. That box and little bag over there.
  7. Should I take communion? The “rules” say I shouldn’t. Will there be so few people taking it that it’ll be embarrassing?
  8. Oh my. There are only kneelers on the first row. I wonder how many knees we’re going to hear creaking as everyone kneels, most of us all the way down to the floor.
  9. When the priest said, “Can I impose on someone to bring the gifts to the altar? My first thought was, “Oh no, they are not going to pass the basket.” and then “Do they mean move the cremains to the altar from that table?” then, “OH, he’s talking about the water, wine and bread for the transubstantiation!”

After mass, we caravaned to the Hong Kong Buffet, which was one of my uncle’s favorite restaurants, where our party of 13-15 enjoyed a nice meal over the course of an hour or so.


We had just about an hour back at the house, just the four of us: me, Aunt Annette, Karen, and Joe.

I said my goodbyes to Aunt Annette, and Karen and Joe graciously took me to the airport.

I carefully guarded three books that Karen gave me that my uncle (her father) had written for her, and which I’m going to try to put on DVD.


My flights back were uneventful, albeit unexpectedly crowded for a Monday night. Perhaps because it was Columbus Day, a holiday for many business travelers, who were perhaps doing their normal Sunday night travel on Monday night.


I’m fifty-fucking-one.

Flying up to Coventry and hanging out with Aunt Annette, Karen, and Joe…

I was up at 4:45, and at the airport by 5:45. I parked in Lot 3, the “Purple Lot,” and was in line at U.S. Airways by 6:00.

I had my laptop, a suit bag, and a small bag that I’d normally take as my carry on bag, but was checking today, since I had three items. I was absolutely annoyed that I had to pay $15 to check that little bag.

Retrieving my stuff at the end of the security conveyor belt, I had walked around to the other side, since it was so crowded and shit was spurting out and piling up at the end of the belt, but within about a minute, Brunhilda came toward me, “Sir, I need you to move back around to the other side.”

There, I put my suit bag on the stack of empty containers, while I gathered my shoes, laptop, and the gray bin with my wallet, cell phone, watch, and change in it. “Sir, I need you to move your bag off the empty bins.” (There were two piles of empty bins, and no one was trying to put an empty one back on either pile.)

I made a face, and grabbed my bag, and then she began to wheel that stack of empty bins, which was on a dolly, and she ran over my toe. She knew that I had just about had it with her by then, and she said, “Oh, excuse, me. I’m so sorry, sir,” and went around me.

On my way to my gate, I stopped for a bagel, where the cash register had just “gone down,” and where the two people working there were trying to manage math in their head, using English as a second language to boot.

Overall, not a great start to my day.


We had an uneventful, on-time departure for my RDU to LaGuardia flight. The plane was small—two seats on each side of the aisle. The guy next to me was hot, but slept the entire time.

I devised my Thursday and Friday blog entries en route, and listened to Eva Cassidy’s Songbird CD on my iPod Touch.

I had seat 7A on both of my flights today, and my gate out of LaGuardia was Gate 1, with a 45-minute layover. I started on my PowerPoint presentation for my China trip while I waited, and pretty much got the first five slides done.

The flight from LaGuardia to Providence was on a tiny plane, nine rows total, and propeller-driven. Of the 36 seats, only 13 were occupied, so we had plenty of room to spread out.


That flight arrived 30 minutes early in Providence, which I still can’t quite figure out. Something was wrong there. The flight time I had in my Palm Pilot was from 9:30-10:54, which is nearly an hour-and-a-half, but I’m quite sure the flight attendant (and later the pilot) said that it was a 45-minute flight. And then we landed so early, which was more in line with the 45-minute announced flight time, than the time I had in my records.  I checked my printed flight reservations and sure enough, it stated the flight time as one hour and 25 minutes.

I don’t know. Who cares. It’s said and done, and I arrived safely.


After retrieving my bag, I found Aunt Annette and Karen, and after tearful hello hugs, we headed back to Coventry.

Before we unloaded my stuff from the car, we walked across the street to Annette and Frank’s three-car garage, which Frank was going to make into a little retirement house for them, where Karen’s husband, Joe, has done a phenomenal job in going through.

My uncle had an incredible collection of all kinds of things for stone masonry and building. Piles of hammers, piles of chisels, piles of trowels, and piles of a lot of other such things. All kinds of leftover wood, wires, drills, saws, huge buckets of nails, screws, four or five gas containers, four tool boxes, and a huge stone cutting machine with diamond-edged blades on it.

Joe is such an incredibly nice guy and has been working over the last several weekends clearing out and straightening up the amazing collection of clutter that the place had become.

I took a compass that was laying on my uncle’s work table. It’s one of those old compasses that used to be used in math classes—V-shaped with a steel point on one end and a little pencil stuck in the other end.


I also took a key chain that says “Açores” on it, and has an eyeglasses screwdriver hanging on it. Both my uncle’s and my dad’s heritage is from the Azores Islands of Portugal.


After checking that out, Karen, Annette, and I came back across the street, where I unloaded my stuff, and the three of us enjoyed cocktails and some snacks.

Uncle Frank’s cremains were on the table, most of it in a good sized black box, and a little bit in a red draw-strung bag. The box was for Annette. The bag for Karen.

Around the next May timeframe two things will happen with them: (1) Most will be buried at a local cemetery, and (2) Karen and my aunt will go to Arizona, and spread a bit of them in the Grand Canyon.

Karen and Annette brought out a stuffed quahog with a birthday candle stuck in it for me, and I said before blowing out the candle, “To my favorite uncle in the whole world,” to which we all smiled through tears.

An hour or so later, Joe came back over, and we had Bacalhau—a delicious Portuguese cod fish dish that my aunt made, along with some mashed potatoes. Yum. Yum. Yum.

For dessert, we had some most delicious pistachio cake, made by Karen, also served with a birthday candle in it, and all of us sang happy birthday to me. 🙂


After that late lunch, we walked back across the street to see the work that Joe had done while the three of us were drinking and snacking earlier, and it was incredible how much he’d gotten done in that little bit of time!

We walked around the back of the place, and checked out the piles of stone back there, and talked about what the little house that my uncle had planned to build was going to look like. He had it all thought out, of course. Karen kept saying, “Every time I see this, it just breaks my heart. He had this all planned out, and it would have been done, too, if all of this hadn’t happened to him.”


Back at the house, we sat around the table upstairs, and Annette and Karen detailed the final week with my uncle. It was an incredibly taxing week on them, extremely painful for my uncle, and left him so sad in the end as Karen was the only child that visited him during his time in the nursing home and at home under Hospice care. Heartbreaking.

Later in the evening, Karen and Joe, especially Joe, told a lot of funny postal stories, most of them about dogs, as they both work for the U.S. Postal Service—Joe still a letter carrier, and Karen working in human resources now, but having been a carrier for eleven years.


Karen and Joe left at about 8:30, and by 9:00, Aunt Annette and I had both retired to our rooms.

I checked in with Robert by phone, finished this blog entry, and then worked for about an hour on my PowerPoint presentation for my China trip.

Manbites Dog board meeting, a birthday lunch, and finally installed year-old SW…

I went to bed way too late, and got up way too early.

I attended our Manbites Dog board meeting from 10:00-12:00, during which—after failing miserably at applying little stickies to invitations—I successfully, and in some cases quite beautifully, addressed a little over 100 invitations to our upcoming fundraiser on November 8, 2008.

Ed, with the patience of Job, ran the meeting while the rest of us gave our divided attention to making various contributions on the handmade invitations.


I picked up Robert at his new place, and after a short tour—it’s adorable! (much like himself)—we headed over to Symposium in the Durham Tobacco Warehouse area for my birthday lunch. Oh, before we left, he gave me the greatest card! It’s a picture of a fat lady on the front, with her mouth opened, and it says, “You’re not OLD until the fat lady SINGS.”

When you open it, this incredible operatic-sounding woman holds this outrageously long note—complete with a fabulous ending including a slight echo. I loved it.


Back in Raleigh, I had every intention of attending Chaotic Elections! A Mathematician Looks at Voting, for which I’d actually registered, but when my alarm went off after a one-hour nap, I turned it off, did a very quick calculation myself, and promptly went back to sleep.


I did two loads of laundry, during which I reviewed—and added comments to—Sarah’s proposal for our presentation at the 2009 STC Annual Conference in Atlanta next May. The submission deadline is 10/20/2008.

After that, I finally installed two software programs I bought in September of 2007. Yes, 2007, over a year ago—Microsoft Office 2007 and Adobe Acrobat Professional. I installed them on both my laptop and my PC.


I have to be at the airport for 6AM tomorrow. I set my alarm for 4:45 and hit the sack.

A Hep A shot, an HR meeting, and too late a night out…

I was up at oh-dark-hundred, and out to my doctor’s office in RTP for a 7:00 appointment with Amy Hird, my GP, who really is a P.A, and whom I absolutely love.

She ordered up my Hep A shot, which was actually administered by her nurse, and she wrote me prescriptions for Cipro, Nexium, and Lisinopril. She explained to me that cipro is not at all effective for your run-of-the-mill stomach virus—cramping, diarrhea, and such as that. It’s for serious bacterial infections—stomach cramping, bloody stools, fever, chills, and so on. I appreciated the distinction.

My blood pressure was most excellent today, 124/78, which was good news, as I haven’t checked it for a while.


I got home in time to catch the 8:25 bus to work, where it was a quiet day. I did get a news item written about yesterday’s expo, and passed it off to Jude for editing and publishing to the OIT website.

I had a 2:00 appointment with Rob Stevenson in benefits, and the fact that only three Wolfline buses were running today due to Fall break only complicated my getting around by a time factor.

I walked over to the Brooks Hall stop, which is over by the Bell Tower. Fortuitously, Holladay Hall is right next door to that, and I took advantage of the opportunity to stop in the Vice Provost of Diversity’s office to give Marcia Gumpertz a copy of my Will & Ned poster.

I had a list of nine questions for Rob, all of which he handled in one way or another. Two of them involved sending notes to other people, which he did on my behalf.

The two most important things covered were:

  1. Clarifying my potential retirement benefits with the State. Using the most conservative estimates in terms of pay increases, he estimated that if I retire in 10 years, at age 60, I will have a pension of about $707 a month and half-price medical benefits for life. That $707 would be enough to cover my mortgage payments, and hopefully the other half of the medical benefits I’d have to pay, depending of course on what kind of incredulous and unpredictable things happen to health care in this country between now and then, as well as how my general health fares.
  2. Clarified how leave accumulates, which was not good news. I was hoping it would be like it was at my previous employer, which was you could use whatever leave you are acquire over the year at any time in the calendar year, even if you haven’t yet earned it. Not so with the state. What’s bad news about that is that it means my planned February trip to visit Kevin and skiing in Whistler is out the window. I’ll only have one day of 2009 vacation earned by then. 🙁

From Rob’s office I walked up the street to catch the city bus back to my office, as it would have taken me right to my building, while with one of the three Wolfline buses that were running, I’d had to have walked a bit of way to get back.

A Wolfline bus came about five minutes after I got to the stop (it’s a shared stop), and I passed on it for the city bus, which I anticipated arriving in about five more minutes. Well about thirty minutes later it hadn’t arrived, and when the Wolfline bus came back around, I hopped on it.

Turns out the city bus switches in the afternoon from every half hour to every hour. Lesson learned.

Back at my office, I updated three Remedy (our customer work request system) tickets, since I’m going to be out on Monday.


I met Joe at Flex at about 9:45, where we played to free, but once again frustrating games of pool due to the crooked table.

We spent most of the night talking with Patrick and a friend of his named Ali who works with him. He’s married and calls himself straight, in spite of the fact that he had recently been [expletive deleted], and is in the process of leaving his second wife. Not to mention the little fact that he’s hanging out in gay bars.

Real fun guy, though, and we had a lot of laughs.

After drinking way too much, Patrick, Joe, and I ended up at Shanghai Express at around 2:00. There’s a Chinese guy that works there (You don’t say!), who’s always there when we come, and when I told him I was going to China in a couple of weeks, he just lit up, and then wouldn’t stop talking about the place. Cute.


Bus scrambling, the OIT Expo, a flu shot, and dinner to get China adapters/converters…

I had intended to catch the Wolfline bus to the Talley Student Center this morning, but remembered—fortunately before I waited at the bus stop—that it’s fall break and most of the NC State buses were not running today, including the one I would have taken.

The city bus I usually take to work—the Method Road bus—doesn’t go by the Student Center, so I quickly checked another city bus route—the Avent Ferry bus—and found that it had a stop practically at the steps of the student center. Sweet.


Today was the culmination of a lot of work that has been done in the almost month now that I’ve been working at NC State. Our organization is called the Office of Information Technology, and today we held OIT Expo ’08, where we had booths of a bunch of the services that our organization provides to the university, including those for faculty, staff, and students. We had tons of drawings for door prizes—two real nice ones that included a GPS system and a Sony digital camera. Unfortunately, the staff was not eligible to win those nice prizes. 🙁

I spent most of the day taking pictures of the event, and standing at booths whenever the booth owners had to step away, either to attend, or present at, one of the many workshops that went on throughout the day. From 11:30-12:30, I attended the keynote address by Dr. Marc Hoit, the recently hired, and first ever, vice chancellor for information technology and chief information officer.

I attended one workshop in the afternoon. It was on the features of Contribute, Adobe’s Web authoring, reviewing, and publishing tool.

At about 2:30, I slipped over to Campus Recreation, which is just across the street from the student center, and got my free flu shot. 


I met Steve H. at the Borough tonight for dinner and to get his adapters and converters for my China trip. Liz stopped by our alfresco table, and welcomed me back to the Borough and comped my bourbon and diet, which I very much appreciated.

I had their “Which Came First?” salad with balsamic vinegar, which I loved as much as the last time I had it, which was actually the first time I’d had it, too.

Which Came First?    $7.00
Marinated chicken, egg, tomato and red onion over mixed greens, served with a choice of dressing.


After dinner, Dave (singer of “Come Monday” at karaoke) joined us, with a friend of his named John, who was an absolute stitch. He was a real young kid (probably still is, it’s only been a day), and was talking about being in Spain with his parents, while his dad was there on a business trip.

“Yeah, their national team had just one some huge soccer final, and the people were going wild. They were all out in the streets and shit. And talking all that Spain shit. And they knew I was an America right away.”

I retorted, “Yeah, probably because of all of that American shit you were talkin’.”


I updated our People-to-People “Who’s Flying from Where” file, adding folks’ cell phone numbers.

Sympathy cards sent, delighted customers, expo preparations, and dancing…

On my trek for an $.85 cup of coffee this morning, I swung by the post office, where I mailed two sympathy cards.


Workwise, today I had a flurry of activity regarding last minute updates to three handouts I’d devised for three different groups, all minor changes that I was happy to make to have “delighted customers.”

I also scheduled some time with a benefits expert on Friday, since it’s coming up on my first 30 days of employment, by which time most things have to be decided. I scheduled some time with that guy named Rob Stevenson, who was so excellent at New Employee Orientation.


At about 2:00, I headed over to the Talley Student Center, where our OIT Expo ’08 will be happening all day tomorrow. I helped prepare bags that will be handed out at the registration booth, placing to sheets of paper in about 150 bags.

After that I helped one of my favorite people, Twanda, tape some plastic-type material over a table to act as a table cloth and drapery around the front and sides of the table.

From the bus stop in front of Carmichael, I caught the Wolfline 9 Greek Village bus home.


I took an hour nap before dancing.

Dancing was fun tonight. Bill and Carl were back, and they brought along Sharon (whose name might be Karen), whom we’d met at Carl’s 50th birthday party at their house. It took her way too long to order a drink, and in between her gazillion questions to Kurt, I motioned for him to please pour mine.

She really wanted wine, which they don’t have at Flex—not even that boxed wine that she drinks.

We were not stopped for Sordid Lives tonight, though it was shown. They finally worked out showing it on one side of the bar while letting us to continue dancing on the other side.


Old dogs are the best dogs: slide show. (Note: I had to open this URL in Internet Explorer. It wouldn’t work in Firefox for me.)

Some cards, negative money numbers, a couple brochures, and “bundle packing”…

First thing this morning, I wrote, by hand (that ancient art) in three greeting cards: a sympathy card, a “just because” card, and a thank you card.

En route to my morning coffee, I dropped them off at the post office that’s two blocks down from my office. Having such things around me is one of my favorite things about working for NCSU.


During lunch, I walked to the State Employees Credit Union, two blocks in the opposite direction of the post office, and I entered into a long line from which I saw two tellers clicking and typing away at stations that have “Please Use Next Window” in front of them. Evidently, they were doing credit union business that was more important than serving customers who were waiting in line. But I digress…

Of the two stations that were open, both had customers doing more than a quick transaction. One of the two tellers of those two stations was having a conversation, loud enough to hear in the line, with a young college kid. It went something like this:

Student: So, can you tell me exactly when I overdrew?

Teller: Well, on October 3rd, you electronically moved $1.83 from checking into savings. And then, you wrote a $3.00 check.

Student (with attitude): So you’re telling me—$1.17—that’s what made me overdraw?

Uh, what part of negative numbers don’t you understand? It’s as negative at -$0.01 as it is at -$2000.01.

To be honest, he lost me at the $1.83 transfer to savings, not to mention the $3.00 check. Get it together. You’re a young adult now.


I had a productive day at work today, finishing up an OIT Expo ’08 handout for Dan and the AVTech/ClassTech teams, and getting halfway through a similar handout for the Security and Compliance team.

I attended a Drupal information architecture-type meeting with Jude, Jen, and Alan (one of our customers), and I got started folding my 100 copies of the OIT Services trifold for the expo on Thursday. I took the rest home with me.


I listened to some NPR podcasts both to and from work today, including one called, “1000 Essential Recordings You Must Hear;” another called, “Covering San Quentin: A Behind-the-Scenes Look” at how, among other things, the gymnsium has become one massive cell; and a gem called, “How to Pack Everything You Own in One Bag.”

Of course, with the one bag, 44-pound limit for luggage on my upcoming China trip, my ears perked right up on this one! After listening to it, I posted this to our delegation Yahoo group:

This investment of 5 minutes and 13 seconds might be the only chance most of will have of even coming close to packing what we need with a 44-pound weight limit.

It’s a podcast, but you can listen to it directly from your laptop or desktop. Doug Dyment, whose Web site onebag.com is devoted to the art of traveling light, is planning an international trip to both India and Russia, two places with very different climates, and he’s doing it all in one CARRY ON bag.

His two biggest tricks: Don’t let any space go unused, and wrap your clothes in bundles. I’d never heard of the bundling technique, and really didn’t get it until I looked at the diagram on the NPR website:

Click on image to enlarge.

Listen to, or read the transcript of, the story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90297199

Best,
John


At home, I had dinner, folded the rest of those trifold brochures, and had instant message conversations with both Robert and Joe.

I got to bed at a decent hour. Yay.

A transgender podcast, cheap coffee, memorial service travel arrangements, and writing an article…

I listened to a fascinating podcast on the bus on the way in today: Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences. Each family is dealing with the situation in totally opposite ways. Each is working with a professional, each of which has a totally different philosophy about the issue.

Dr. Diane Ehrensaf… Dr. Ken Zucker…
“If we allow people to unfold and give them the freedom to be who they really are, we engender health. And if we try and constrict it, or bend the twig, we engender poor mental health.” “Suppose you were a clinician and a 4-year-old black kid came into your office and said he wanted to be white. Would you go with that? … I don’t think we would.”

The mother and father of the boy being treated by Dr. Ehrensaf now use “she” to refer to their son Jonah, and mom had this to say about that fateful day when they finally allowed Jonah to buy a dress:

“I thought she was gonna hyperventilate and faint because she was so incredibly happy. … Before then, or since then, I don’t think I have seen her so out of her mind happy as that drive to Target that day to pick out her dress.”

It’s a 22-minute podcast, which you can listen to (or read the transcript) here.


Remembering that the coffee in the NCSU library coffee shop was $1.35, as opposed to the $1.60 and $1.70 in the coffee shops on Hillsborough Street, I walked that way this morning after getting off the bus. In order to get to the library entrance where that coffee shop is, you have to pass the student food court area just off the Brickyard. I said to myself, “I wonder if the coffee is the same price in here. If it is, it’s a little bit closer, and will save me some time.”

Ducking in, and helping myself to what I would call a medium size cup of coffee, as opposed to the small I usually get at the other places, imagine the smile on my face when the cashier said, “That’ll be $.85, please.”

Not being a coffee connoisseur, and being the financially savvy guy that I am (sounds so much better than cheap, or even frugal), you know I’m going to be all over a “50% off” deal on coffee whenever I want some.


I spoke with my manager this morning about taking off Monday, October 13th, to attend my uncle’s memorial service in Rhode Island. She assured me that we could work something out—first with potentially taking work to do remotely with me, but later remembering that I could use sick leave for this purpose.

I used my U.S. Airways frequent flyer points to get a $400 ticket for $35 instead. It was supposed to be $50 more due to booking inside of 14 days, but the website hung up while I was making the reservations, and by the time it was all said and done with a representative on the phone, that $50 charge was either missed or waived. Either way, I’m not complaining.


I had lunch at Mitch’s Tavern with a co-worker, Garrison from “the admin team,” my boss, and my boss’s boss. We talked about the potential use of social networking applications, specifically Twitter, in our work.

I had their Super Garden Melt, which consisted of sautéed eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini squash, onions, melted provolone, and served in a large roll. It was most delicious, and came with a side order of potato salad, which was also quite good.


My afternoon was consumed with two “customer” meetings, in which we talked about information architecture with the liaisons of two groups who are going to move their Web content into a new content management system into which our overall organization is migrating.

Late in the day, I got into a services brochure that I’m working on for a booth at the upcoming OIT Expo ’08.

I caught the 7:15 bus home.


At home, I made a run for a number of greeting cards, including three sympathy cards, one birthday card, and one anniversary card.

I also stopped at the Hardee’s nearby to use a “buy an order of our bacon cheese fries, and get a soft drink free” coupon, for which I was promptly told, “We don’t even sell bacon cheese fries any more.”


Back at home, I wrote an article about my upcoming China trip for the October newsletter edition of the NCSU student chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.

A memorial service date, updated “scripts” plan, workout, dinner out, and some pool…

We were up around nine this morning, and I made Cheddar omelets; sliced, fried turkey ham, and toast for breakfast, accompanied by coffee, of course.

Robert was an absolute dear washing a tie for me that I might be able to use on my trip to China. Thanks, my sweet!


At about 1:00, I finally turned on my cell phone to find a voice mail message from my aunt. Unfortunately my uncle’s wish to donate his body to the Anatomical Gift Program at Brown University was not able to be honored due to that open wound in his chest that never healed.

To that end, she is going to have a memorial service on Monday, October 13th, in Rhode Island. This presents a challenge for me in terms of time off from work, but I’m going to talk about it with my manager tomorrow. I really want to be there.


I logged into merckmedco.com to see what the implications were to my switch from IBM to the State, both of which use Medco for their prescription plans. After a very frustrating 20 minutes or so trying to figure out the difference between a member number, a subscription number, a group ID, and a bin ID, I called their toll-free support number, which I was surprised to find staffed on a Sunday afternoon.

A very seasoned support person took care of everything I needed, and before we hung up I said, “I want you to know that I very much appreciate that you were able to do everything I needed done without transferring me to a bunch of people, and I thank you for calming me down.”

She seemed delighted to hear it.


I got back to the gym today, where I accomplished the following:

 Exercise Category

 Exercise Type

 Duration

 Comments

Resistance

Lower Body

40 minutes

 

Strengthening

Ab Crunches

15 minutes

300: 10 sets of 30 reps

Cardio

Elliptical

20 minutes

Hills setting, Level 4, 372 calories burned


Joe and I met at Hibernian at around 5:30, where we had envisioned enjoying a Bloody Mary at one of the tables out front on the sidewalk. Well, evidently, everyone else had dining alfresco on their mind, too, in this beautiful weather.

Instead of waiting, we walked directly across the street to Stool Pigeons to enjoy “Half Price Sunday” (all food on their menu is half-price), and drink their Bloody Mary’s.

However, before seating ourselves, I just checked with the wait staff to see if they were still doing HPS, and as it turned out, they weren’t!

We walked down Glenwood to 518 West instead, and had their Bloody Marys (aren’t we flexible?), and got two “pizzettes”—the “Quatro Formaggi” and the “Italian” without the onions or green peppers.

Our waiter was dropdead gorgeous, and at one point, while Joe was using the restroom, he came to our table with some bread, and I said, “You are a very handsome man.” He smiled, and said, “Thank you very much. I appreciate that.”

After dinner, we stopped across the street at Turkish Delights, where we each had a cup of coffee and split a “Flaky Pistachio and Almond Baklava.” Yum!


We intended to spend just a couple of hours at Flex, which we actually stuck to tonight. We played just a couple of games of free pool, but quit after two, as the table is so unlevel, that all the balls end up along the one rail by about halfway through the game.

We left just before “Drag Queen Karaoke” started. Yay!

A 73% off kind of shopping spree, dinner@Two Guys, and some lame dancing…

I thought about riding out to the outlet mall in Smithfield today, but decided to hit Kohl’s at Crossroads to see if I could get what I wanted there first, which would also help keep my gas usage down. I’m still above a half tank, and it’s coming up on two weeks, tomorrow, since I’ve filled up.

I only clothes shop a few times a year, and this is probably about the third time that I’ve been to Kohl’s. I love that store. Of course they were having sales, otherwise I wouldn’t be shopping now would I? With that said, it seems there’s always some kind of sale going on there.

 Item
Regular Price 
Sale Price 
 Apt. 9 Dress Shirt $40.00  $12.00
 Chaps Dress Shirt $42.50  $8.50 
 Chaps Dress Shirt $42.50  $8.50 
 Sonoma Dress Shirt $36.00  $3.80 
 Men’s Shorts $28.00  $8.40 
 Dress Shoes $70.00  $39.99 
 Watch $50.00  $35.00 
 Total $309.00 $116.19 


And if those aren’t just about thrift store prices to begin with, I opened a Kohl’s credit card (which I will promptly pay off when the bill for this purchase arrives, and after it sitting in a drawer for a year, I’ll cancel it), and that took another 15% off everything, and then they gave me this scratch card, on which I “won” another 15% discount.

So, in the end, I saved $227.67 on $309 worth of clothes for a grand total of 73% off. My final total, with tax, was $86.82. That’s my kind of shopping.


After that little frenzy, I stopped at Panera Breads, where I had a cinnamon bagel with some lite honey walnut cream cheese (freakin’ delicious!), and a cup of coffee. And, of course, I used their free wi-fi while I was there.


Robert arrived around five, and we went to Two Guys for dinner. I was all set to order their vegetable lasagna, as I was quite sure that that’s where it was catered from for our work picnic a couple of weeks ago. However, the waitress acted like I was speaking Chinese (I wish!) when I asked where it was on their menu.

With no luck I settled on my standard there—their pepperoni stromboli, which comes with a salad. Robert had their mushroom burger, which came with fries. It was all good.


Dancing was kind of lame tonight. We had very few dancers: me, Robert, Ernie, and Rick. And Chris joined us on the few dances that he knows.

It was “blackout night” there tonight, and when we stopped dancing, the lights went (mostly) out, and the glow sticks took over. We stayed for just a little while, during which I mostly spoke to Patrick, whose birthday is Monday, one week before mine. We bought each other a birthday drink.


At home, <TMI>incredible sex ensued</TMI> before eventually reading the backs of our eyelids.