Apologies, Greetings, Plans and Misgivings

So on the eighth day after blogging, he rested.

It's been over a week since I last swung by, and despite all the excuses and the busy-ness, it's kinda hard to believe I haven't taken this long a break from this nook since November of last year. Had I known I was going to be on this mini-excursion, I would have alerted you, the dear reader, with some advance notice instead of merely a retroactive apology.

In either case, a lot has been happening -- which is why I've been away for this long -- so I suppose you should feel lucky to be here, expecting to be regaled with exciting tales of parties, hobnobbing with supermodels, eating caviar in private charters and spending late nights in uber-chic trendy bars that haven't yet been outed by "Where To Go" magazines.

Ain't gonna happen.

My week has consisted of a variety of time-consuming errands, chores, work, and some miscellaneous bullshit. Aside from days filled with work -- which (duh) keeps me occupied and running around the City from anywhere between 9:30 and 6:30 -- I have a lot of work to get done once I land home. And since the 15th was a deadline -- in theory -- I've been pushing hard to get everything wrapped up before that date; except that as a result of that particular deadline, there was a lot of fallout that -- while good for my organization -- has resulted in a lot of last-minute wrap-up that I usually don't anticipate to happen after a deadline. So for a change, the deadline brought a flurry of activity and aggravation and busy-ness, only after it had passed and not prior thereto.

On the 21st, I had a friend in town for 24 hours -- he was on his way from DC to Singapore, an 18-hour flight which sounds grueling -- so I left work early so we could chill out and get some sushi before he headed back to the airport the next day. Other than that, life has been pretty even-keel -- Yankee baseball, Giants football, the impending Ranger hockey season, and -- last but not least -- Kaia occupy my time and my thoughts.

A few issues I've been dealing with concurrently -- my Palm, a LifeDrive model I bought in July, keeps rebooting and erasing itself. Normally this would be considered a lemon ("citron," as my other half says) but the main problem is that it's actually some of the software I've stuffed onto the Palm that keeps freaking it out. And while it, on the surface, seems exceedingly boring and not worthy of inclusion here, I mention it because it seemingly happens several times a week, and I'm actually getting closer to determining the problem. Either that, or I'm getting closer to throwing it against a wall and seeing how many pieces into which I can get it to splinter. I'm not sure -- but either way, the light is nearing at the end of the tunnel -- so that's progress no matter how you slice it.

Another interesting nugget of truth I've realized over the past couple weeks is that my attempt to cut out Diet Coke -- in part, if not entirely -- from my diet as a result of my finding some new stuff to drink in lieu thereof might have been a failed experiment. I started drinking Vitamin Water by Glaceau,a line-up of flavored waters infused with vitamins and other good things as well as a bit of flavor in them (and, subsequently, about 125 calories or so a bottle). I actually drank a lot of it out in San Francisco and preferred it to soda, so when I got back to NY, I bought a bunch of the stuff. The flavors vary but, essentially, there are different formulas for different purposes -- morning nutrition, energy, focus, etc. Personally, I think the variation is bullshit and it's all the same basic stuff with just different colors and flavors, but neither here nor there. The main reason I am mentioning it here is because I think I had an allergic reaction to one or more of the flavors that I've tasted, which include focus ("more clarity"), essential ("more morning nutrition"), multi-v ("more calcium") and revive ("more recovery"). I like the varieties -- lemon, citrus, tea, and "dragonfruit" -- but I had some kind of serious allergic reaction that left me feeling all itchy. So I'm back to Diet Coke and instant gratification. I'll work my way back to Pellegrino one of these days, but in the meantime, if anyone needs a few extra (unopened) bottles of Vitamin Water and doesn't mind hives and sneezing, gimme a holler.

Finally, in addition to my Fantasy Football habit -- which I was dragged into by a good friend -- I recently accepted an invite to a Fantasy Hockey league. I know -- next thing will be collecting comics, wearing a pocket-protector and playing Fantasy Chess -- but I've realized it's not as geeky as I thought. Essentially, for me, it just gets me more interested in the sport as a whole rather than merely rooting for one team, whether it's baseball, football, hockey or baseketball. The key difference, however, is that with football, it's basically two days a week of an hour (tops). I tweak my team before the games begin at 1PM on Sunday, and then do some more tweaking on Monday night or Tuesday once the last game has been played. It's a lot less complicated than I assumed. However, Fantasy Hockey is a bit more problematic as there are always games on -- nightly, daily, constantly -- so I'll have to either be more attentive to what's going on throughout the NHL or not be very successful. Either way, I'm pleased that I'm (thus far) 3-0 in Fantasy Football and the only unbeaten player in the league, so I must be doing something right.

The final item in the "where have I been" laundry list is not doing laundry -- unfortunately -- but instead setting up a wireless router for my parents, who recently purchased a Dell Inspiron notebook. They've had computers in the house, but they've always been way too old and far too unusable, so we decided -- together -- to get them a notebook, a wireless connection (so they wouldn't need to bother with wires) and a printer. So the first step was getting the cable modem from their company; that finally happened so I made my way to Jersey this past weekend, but in the process of setting up their internet connection, I found out -- after an hour of attempts to get everything set up -- that their cable server wasn't functioning properly and I would need to do all of what I had tried doing again the following weekend. So as it stands, I need to go back out to New Jersey and set everything up for them -- not a terrible thing, incidentally, but a pain in the ass.

A little more detail: normally, the hardest part of establishing a wireless connection is setting up the WiFi router. So, since it took me about an hour to find out the easy aspect of the installation -- physically connecting a cable modem to a notebook and getting onto the Internet -- was not gonna happen, I was kinda tweaked.

That's basically the way things have been going -- easy, simple things that I anticipate to take little or no time have been slowing me up as of late. Going to the bank, there's a line of 25 people. The market is inundated with a Weight Watchers Field Trip and one semi-blind cashier. And then there're the "retired" people on the bus. Everything takes longer than it should.

Other than that, I'm just doin' peachy. Although I was saddened to discover that Maxwell Smart, aka Don Adams, passed away at the age of 82. I remember seeing The Nude Bomb (as well lots of re-runs of Get Smart) and every time I hear the word "claw" I think "Da Craw."

One final note: I was out and about in NYC today and picked up one of these. I highly recommend it for inducing stupidity, smiles and a carelessness that, as we evolve into adulthood, we all-too-often leave behind.

I'll be right back.