July 2002 Archives

(i wrote all this on a shared blog site earlier today, but when i was done, i realized this is not really a blog, but rather a journal entry. so here it is, with a few additions.)

last night i finally gathered my courage and attacked the mess of boxes and papers otherwise known as my study (or "nick's room" as he likes to call it). even since i moved in, that room has been like my own version of a basement. no one who lives in clear lake ever has an actual basement, i think because the water table is too high. it's really too bad. attics galore, but no basements.

my house in charlotte has this chilly, dark, dank basement. you go down these wooden stairs and come out in a little room with a cement floor and brick walls. there's an old tool bench where my dad used to work, covered in cobwebs because it's been ages since he's done any sort of construction or building or fixing. the thing about our basement is that it's not really good for storage, but great for being a creepy, damp, mysterious place. the brick walls only go up about 5 feet, and then the basement opens up to where you can see all the way under the house, to the brick foundation itself. you can see the pillars that are holding the place up, and if you crawled up over the wall, you'd be covered in dirt. i haven't been down in the basement in a long time. our attic is the much more interesting place to explore if you're looking for treasures, for things you long ago stored away and have since forgotten about.

anyway. i unpacked boxes and moved my new bookcases from the living room to their permanent positions in the study. when i was cleaning my stuff out of the attic in charlotte, i discovered that i don't really have many items from high school, which was a bit of a surprise. just a couple projects i did, and yearbooks. photos, of course, but i wasn't the obsessive picture snapper that i am now, so i really only have pictures from the touristy marching band trip each year. it's not hard to figure out the reason for my lack of high school memorabilia though. when i graduated and went to college, i had to not only pack the things i'd need at school, but everything else in my room as well, since my brothers were finally going to be able to have their own rooms. (we had three bedrooms for four kids; i was the first to leave, and hence the one to lose their room.) so when i graduated from high school, what i didn't pack got thrown away. so there's not much left.

instead, the treasures i discovered last night came when i finally got around to looking through the two big portfolios i have of all the artwork i did when i was younger, and dreamed of growing up to be an artist. i found a pencil version of the self-portrait that my mom has hanging over the fireplace in charlotte. this really cool colored pencil drawing of a cat. a pen and ink rendition of peter rabbit. an acrylic painting of the ocean crashing over some rocks on the shore. tons of disney characters i drew on transparancies and then painted during the phase when i wanted to be a disney animator. the very first thing i ever did in art class--a watermelon fruit basket drawn when i was probably 6 or 7 years old.

it is weird that my career aspirations shifted so suddenly from artist to engineer. but perhaps that explains why i loved making posters in high school, and doing layout for the nique, and why some days i still want to run away and do something creative.

ohhhhhhh. i'm currently being held captive by the demon known as the post-lunch coma. my eyes are drooping, i'm yawning, i want to crawl under my desk and take a nap.

last night i finally got to meet the mysterious eric, a guy who has been reading my journal since february to see what nick is up to, since nick is a bad communicator. ;) eric and his wife jane live over by the rice campus, and invited nick and me to their place for dinner. it was great fun, and eric and jane were very cool people. the dinner they made was delicious, and we even had ice cream with fudge and cherries (and caramel and sprinkles if you so desired) for dessert! their place--the bottom floor of a duplex--was really nice as well, just the kind of place i'd like when i move out of an apartment and into a house. (two words: hardwood floors.)

anyway, nick has invited them down to clear lake in a few weeks to return the favor by cooking them dinner at my apartment. yay! i am excited that my apartment is the default choice for hosting dinners. (becca also wants to cook at my apartment, and invite our whole group from work over.) it's also an incentive to finish unpacking all my crap.

this morning becca cooperated long distance with karen, and came up with a $500 (including taxes) youth fare from houston to london for the second week of september. so it looks like becca and i will be heading over for an ae mafia road trip to scotland! how exciting. it means i will be putting off my trip to visit nick in france until later in the year, but going to england in september and france later made sense in multiple ways. the weather in england will be better the earlier we go...nick will be more familiar with france the later i go... i can't wait!

so i forgot to update yesterday. oops. i guess i was just too excited about my big accomplishment for the day. yes, angels start your hallelujah chorus, because with some coaxing from yours truly, becca finally bought a couch!! hurrah!

yesterday afternoon we went to ikea, and were met by jen and gavin, who had rented a u-haul for the weekend and were nice enough to stop by ikea on the way home to load up the things that wouldn't fit in my car. becca got a coffee table, end table, and bookcase in addition to the couch, and i bought a bookcase as well. i had hoped to find a coffee table, but i was rather disappointed in ikea's selection. (i know, i was distraught that for once, ikea didn't have what i was looking for.) the one coffee table that i liked didn't come in the right color to match my other furniture, and the ones that did come in the right color were oddly shaped--either too wide or too tall. i guess i will have to go elsewhere. maybe i'll have time this week...i am starting to get annoyed that i don't have a coffee table, and hence nowhere to leave all my papers and stuff except on the floor.

after ikea, we all went back to becca's to help her move her couch up the stairs, and as payback she fixed us a lovely dinner of pasta and salad. now that she has a couch, i've decided to harass her about buying a floor lamp, because her apartment is quite dark.

i also have decided that i like dogs in general, but am very picky about their behavior. apache has grown quite a lot since i last saw her in march, but she is still definitely a puppy, and hence not very trainable, despite becca's valiant attempts. i like her when she's not jumping up on me or trying to lick my face, but that only happens about 10% of the time. during the other 90%, apache is a ball of excitement and it's impossible to keep her still. oh well. silly dogs.

meanwhile, this morning i have declared war on exceed. exceed is a program i need access to in order to log into the flight mechanics lab and do my work. exceed is being an uncooperative bastard. it won't run. grr.

what a day.

first, i had some old bananas and decided to make banana bread, but my oven (which i was planning to use for the first time) is mysteriously smoking. it smoked once, i turned it off, fanned out my kitchen, investigated. the thing is spic and span. not a drip of old food anywhere. there's nothing in there capable of burning. so i turn it on again and...more smoke. so now i have a pan of banana bread batter with no means of cooking it, and i have to call maintainance to figure out what's wrong with my smoking oven.

second, i spilled nail polish on my carpet. dammit! i had no carpet cleaner, and my attempts to clean it with other types of household cleaner made it worse--something in the cleaner reacted with the green-tinted clear nail polish to turn the stain red. hey, i never said i was good at cleaning. so after more cursing, i had to run to kroger to get some specifically-for-carpets cleaner, come home, and soak the carpet. i got most of it out, but if you look closely, you can still see the stain. i guess i was asking for it when i moved into an apartment where 95% of the floor is carpeted and didn't immediately buy carpet cleaner. {sigh}

i guess it's just not my day. but i know what will make it better: baseball. so off i go. jason and i are going to see the astros play the pirates. yay for baseball!

well poop. i had just written a nice entry and somehow i hit a wrong button on the keyboard and it disappeared. here we go again.

i wonder if i should get in the becca-like habit of updating first thing every morning when i get to work. i ended up doing it that way last summer when i first started on diaryland, but i think i prefer to update whenever i feel like it, and when i have something to say. though from the sound of some entries, it's apparent that sometimes i do indeed write when i have nothing to say. ;)

anyway. can i just say that i love my officemates? i adore them. that is all.

so i was listening to an interesting story on npr this morning as i drove to work, about the politics and religious beliefs that become embroiled in the process of choosing school textbooks each year. in states like texas, california, and florida, this is a huge deal to a lot of people. i never realized this before, but when i mentioned it to becca (who went to high school in palm beach county), she had plenty of stories about textbook battles, and said that it's not even unheard of for christian coalition members to move to florida and run for the school board in order to be able to affect textbook selections.

some examples from the radio this morning were: a publishing company altered a photograph on the cover of an economics text, digitally adding loincloths to the statues in a picture of the facade of the new york stock exchange. protests against a history book because it contained one sentence about how in the 19th century, there were 50,000 prostitutes west of the mississippi. (i can't remember the stat exactly, but it was something along those lines, the objectionable part being the reference to prostitutes, i suppose.) protests against another text because it stated that karl marx was the most important socialist thinker in the world.

i don't understand the big deal, especially when it comes to history--unlike math or science, history has always been and will always be a rather subjective discipline, subject to the biases of the historian. but who are we to nitpick every little thing that our children learn? isn't it better for them to get a well-rounded education, learn how to analyze and accept differing opinions, and then form their own ideas of their world?

at the end of the report, the journalist asked the question that i thought was most indicative of the entire problem: in the end, how can the conservative textbook crusaders ensure that they're not simply replacing textbooks' perceived liberal bent with a conservative one? to me, that is the real danger. getting rid of one bias only to replace it with another.

anyway. i don't think i expressed my thoughts on that issue very well, but at least it's something to ponder.

from moby's online journal:

nasa is an utterly fascinating place, and the fact that the buildings look so anonymous almost make it more fascinating. you walk by a generic office-park looking building and you have no idea what's going on inside.

it might be people doing administrative work, or it might be people figuring out ways in which humans can go to mars.

i love celebrities that keep online journals. moby. wil wheaton. adam duritz. i'm sure there are more...

{happy sigh} i love my group. i love my mentor. i love talking to phil and christina and susan and carter. i love having dinner with nick and debbie. i love coming home to my lovely apartment and parking vic in my garage. i love watching sportscenter on my big tv. i love my squishy queen size bed. things are really good.

yes, i love pretty much everything right now. in fact, the only thing i can think of that i don't love at the moment is the west nile virus, which is being spread by houston mosquitos. ha.

i finally went to the grocery store tonight after having dinner at nick's house. i spent so much money. but it was to be expected, i guess. since i had absolutely nothing, i had to buy a lot of cooking staples--everything from flour and sugar to ketchup and mayonnaise. whew. i just told myself that this will be my largest grocery bill ever, and i hope that is true.

tomorrow they're turning the power off in my office at 4:00 to install some new outlets or something. i don't understand why they have to do it during the workday, but i guess it means i'll have a totally legitimate reason to leave early, eh?

weird. i just looked at my grocery receipt. i bought a bottle of wine, and underneath that entry on the receipt, it says "date of birth = fri oct 10, 1975." huh? i wonder what that is. is the cashier required to put in a date? if so, he obviously made up my birthday since he didn't ask to see my license. and in that case, he was off on my age by two and a half years in the wrong direction--older. did he think i am 26 going on 27? grr.

working next to becca is quite a distraction, and not just for us. together, we distract the rest of our group. what can i say? we're good! ;)

my first two days of work have been better than expected, seeing as how i expected pretty much nothing more than paperwork. there's been plenty of paper, to be sure, but there have been other fun things as well. yesterday my whole group went out to lunch to welcome me, which was a lot of fun. today i ran into jason finally, talked to bob, bothered my groupmates... i chose a health insurance plan (i know, i can hardly stand the excitement) and got my password reset for the flight mechanics lab. got access to the mcc. brought in my braves pennant for my wall, much to rich's dismay.

so things are good.

four people were arrested on saturday for stealing moon rocks from jsc, and three of them were co-ops. i know one of them. it was a disheartening announcement, especially coming today--my first day ever at jsc where i'm a full-time employee and not a co-op. tomorrow the co-ops have a mandatory meeting. nick has to go, of course. i wonder what they'll say. i can only hope these happenings won't affect the co-op program itself too much.

i start work tomorrow, but it doesn't feel like that. it still feels like vacation. like i'm here for a week's visit and am trying to see everyone i possibly can. like i'm going back to my real life soon. only...

...this is my real life now. and i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little bit scared. there is a certain apathy towards being back in houston, a feeling that it is not the only thing that i could do, but only the most comfortable thing. i know what i am getting into here; i understand my job, know my way around town, and have many, many friends. it makes it easy, it makes moving here easy. this feels like another co-op tour, with the added bonus of living in a great apartment and buying nice things.

i worry that i am too comfortable. maybe i should branch out, try to add new people to my life instead of depending only on the ones i already know. by september, nick will have gone to france. ron will be a full-time fiance because buzz will have moved here. i am glad to know that becca will still be here, and chrissy and others.

i'd like to meet some new people. i'd like to meet a guy. i've never really dated, and that usually doesn't bother me, but lately i've been thinking it might be nice.

by october, i think it will hit me. this isn't a co-op tour, and i won't be going back to school. that will be a strange feeling, i think.

on another, slightly related topic...i had the best conversation with james yesterday as we sat by the pool after chrissy and liz had gone inside to shower. it's funny, because james has always sort of been someone else's friend. i mean that in the sense that, well, rarely have we actively sought out each other's company; it's always that we both end up in the same group. and yet i feel like james understands me better than most.

i always enjoy talking to him, especially when we go past formalities and start discussing "deeper" issues. when i want to know about other people, i never ask the right questions. james always knows what to ask me. i like that. i'm glad that i will get to see more of him now that i'm in houston.

i need to try harder to ask the right questions.

anyway. on the sunday night before i start work for real, i thought i would put some of my thoughts into words and share them with the world.

today was nice. i got up, had some cereal, wrote some email. nick came over and took me to best buy to get a tv (mom, dad, if you're reading this, don't worry, it's ok). we came back, set it up, played around, talked. i had dinner with ron and ethan. we talked about being in europe, and about the banned's performance on friday. we went back to ron's and watched wallace and grommit.

it was nice.

too tired to write much now. had a long day. ran the lunar rendezvous 5k this morning and clocked my worst time ever. must adjust to this heat. wonder if that is even possible.

at 10, chrissy and james picked me up and we got stuck in traffic and it took us 2+ hours to make the normally 40 minute trip to liz's place. as a result, we didn't go to six flags. instead, saw road to perdition at the theater and swam in liz's pool. then picked up thai food, bought wine, and watched west side story at the outdoor ampitheater.

does the word "ampitheater" automatically imply "outdoors?" hmm.

sleepy.

my dad just left on his long day's drive back to charlotte. i'm sad to see him go. now i am all alone in my big apartment for the first time, and that's a little bit of a spooky thought. tonight will be my first night alone in my new place! both exciting and scary.

(2:16 p.m.)

oh yeah. i posted a lot of pictures, from mexico and from dad's and my stop at jake's on our way down to houston on monday.

i'm sitting here pretending to unpack, but actually i'm being a bum and vegging in front of the tv. i watched the second half of one of the tom clancy movies, one of the ones with harrison ford as jack ryan. i dunno which one it was, but it had to do with drug lords and lots of government deception. anyway. i'd never seen it before. it was ok.

i really should unpack some more.

(4:56 p.m.)

ok, what is it with southwestern bell? when i called a month ago to set up my phone service, i was put through to what i thought was the most talkative salesman ever. he just would not stop talking to me and trying to sell me different services. i couldn't hang up until he finished setting up my service, so i was literally on the phone with him for 45 minutes until i finally got the stupid phone and dsl set up.

fast forward to today. i have now come to the conclusion that every southwestern bell billing person is just extraordinarily and annoying long-winded. today i call because i noticed that my first bill had my street address right, but was missing the apartment number. so i called to add the number. first of all, the guy asks me random questions about how much long distance i use, if it's just me that uses the phone, etc. he finally gets around to asking me what i want changed on the address, and then puts me on hold for 5 minutes while all he does is change one little number.

he finally comes back and says he's changed it, but wants to let me know about some call waiting extra feature for only $1 a month more. i politely decline. he says "ok, i understand completely, but i wanted to let you know that..." and proceeds to tell me how nice this call waiting extra stuff is, like it can automatically forward to your voice mail and crap. again, i politely decline. he says "ok, i understand completely, but i wanted to let you know that..." and starts talking again about the call waiting thingy. i say "no, i really don't need it, all i need is my address changed." he says "ok, i understand completely, but i wanted to let you know that..." and then he starts talking about some fancy phone they're having a sale on.

at this point, i'm starting to get fed up, so i interrupt him and say "i don't need anything but my address changed, that's all, and if that's been done then i'm gonna go now. has my address been changed?" and he says "yes, i'll put that in the computer, but i wanted to let you know that..." and starts to say something else. at this point, i say "ok, thank you, goodbye" and hang up. he was still talking.

now, i don't like having to hang up on people. i feel sorry for people who have to spend their days telemarketing or answering customer phone calls because i figure it must be a really sucky job, so i try to be pleasant. but good lord, this man could not take the obvious hint that i didn't want anything else. ugh.

i bet he didn't even change the address.

it's harder to remember to update when my days have no real pattern. no schedule, no commitments. just whatever i want to do.

anyway. here is the major accomplishment of my day:

my poor little sentra has suffered an identity crisis! in 2 minutes, it went from being a happy member of north carolina car society to a confused little guy in a sea of texas trucks. i think the identity crisis motivated my car to finally choose a name though, after five years of just being "my little sentra." his name? vic. i can't explain it, but that's what it is. my little sentra named vic. now from texas.

unfortunately, vic has not been able to help me out much in the way of attaching his front license plate. i went to the nissan dealership to get the frame for it, since i've never had a plate attached to the front, and since they didn't have time to attach it for me, i figured my dad and i could do it ourselves. shouldn't be too hard, right, especially since between the two of us, we hold three degrees in engineering (two aerospace, one mechanical). not hard? for the life of me, i can't figure out how the stupid thing is supposed to attach! i honestly think they gave me the wrong part. either that, or i am supposed to cut away significant amounts of the bumper to make the thing fit. anyway, now vic and i have to go back to the nissan dealership to try again.

oh, and tonight after i dropped my coffee pot on the floor, shattering glass everywhere, i tried to vacuum the tiny shards up. when i plugged the vacuum cleaner in and turned it on, it blew a fuse.

{sigh}

good news all around today. i'm in houston, in my apartment, my dsl connection worked on the first try, my mattress is here and comfy, my stuff has been brought in from the van, and the movers are coming with the rest this afternoon. the only bad thing is that my sofa was not delivered as scheduled, for unknown reasons. they can deliver it friday (grr), but dad and i are planning to drive to their warehouse tonight and get it ourselves. i'm tired of waiting on them to get their act together.

the drive yesterday was fine...until the sun went down, at which point we were around baton rouge and the drive started to just get loooooooong. dad and i were both just ready to get here, and we finally did about 1:30 a.m. at which point i groused about my lack of a sofa, and then we immediately went to bed.

we did make the trip longer by stopping for two hours in atlanta for lunch, but it was worth it. chris, christina, carter, and kent met us at mick's. we ate lunch and then even had time to go to jake's for some ice cream before chris had to get back to work and we had to get back on the road. i wish i could have stayed longer; i always like going through atlanta.

in any case, i'm finally back in houston and my past month's travels are at an end. it's nice to be settling in one place for more than a week, but it's sort of sad to see my exciting month end.

i didn't write yesterday. because nothing happened. i thought about writing, but didn't feel like it. no apologies.

i went to church this morning to see my mexico friends again before i leave for houston tomorrow. it was really nice to know people at church for once, and have stories to share. toney gave me two great pictures he'd taken--one of the nine of us who rode in van 6 (toney was our driver), and one of me and jeff taking a mid-morning break from laying block. i'll post them along with the rest when i get back to houston.

last night i went out with katie and jennifer and caroline. jennifer and caroline are two of katie's best friends, and all four of us were on the mexico trip. it made me feel really good to have been invited.

at times in mexico, i got the feeling that katie sort of wished i wasn't around, sort of felt like i was intruding into her group of friends. i was definitely the oldest "college kid" on the trip, and hadn't grown up with them they way they all had with each other, but still, i didn't understand why she might be bothered. each time i've invited her to hang out with my friends, i've always loved having her there.

so it made me happy when she invited me to dinner with jennifer and caroline. maybe i just got the wrong impression. i can't say that's never happened before. ;) anyway, we had a nice dinner at charley's and then went to see men in black 2, which was entertaining.

today i get to load the van with my stuff. woo. the excitement abounds.

just got back from a run with katie. as a general rule, i don't go running with other people because i find strangely that i am often better at self-motivating myself than letting others motivate me. in fact, if others try to get me going, i am apt to become stubborn, and not run just because they are telling me to run. i know, i'm weird. but it was nice to go with muh sustah.

we spent the day in durham and chapel hill with my grandmother and aunt. it was nice, and i got a free toaster oven out of the deal. ha! grandmother had one sitting in her closet that's barely ever been used. woo hoo--more stuff for my apartment.

on the drive home i listened to the counting crows new album twice, and made a semi-ordered list of my favorites: up all night, carriage, new frontier, black and blue, hard candy, american girls. order subject to change though, as i listen to the album more.

my big news for today? i found an acceptable 8 piece dish set at target for only $30. now, i love target and i love getting good deals on things i need, but if that's the highlight of my day, i think it's time i get back to houston and do something.

in other news, i got a haircut and learned how to make banana bread. oh, and my fantasy baseball team has fallen solidly into third place. this is what happens if you abandon your team for two weeks. woo.

{sigh} i'm bored. i started going through the boxes in the attic today as well, but haven't hit upon any hidden treasures yet, just work from my first few co-op tours that i saved. i can't decide whether to throw it out or not. my rational side says to throw it out, that i won't ever need it again, but my other side says to keep it, that it's neat to be able to look back on what i did when i first started working for nasa.

anyway.

{sigh} baseball, baseball, baseball. what are you doing to yourself?

(10:54 p.m.)

as katie and i were headed out to bed, bath and beyond tonight, we got a call from mom telling us to hurry home, because our old neighbor leon was in town and was going to stop by. what a great surprise visit! leon and charlene (and their awesome dog mac, the best dog ever) used to live next door to us, but moved to atlanta four years ago. leon is a lawyer for bellsouth and was in town for a case, so he stopped by our house to catch up. it was nice to hear all the news about the kids too--samuel is about to enter kindergarten, and olivia is 21 months old and cute as ever. even though i don't live at home anymore, i always wish they had been able to stay in charlotte, as they were the best neighbors we ever had.

but at the store, katie bought me my belated birthday present, something for my apartment, and i chose...a george foreman lean mean fat reducing grilling machine! ha! i am sooo stupidly excited.

ah, the lazy days of summer. this is the first time in a while that i've been able to truly enjoy them, without school or work to think of. they're nice.

woke up at a reasonable hour this morning, read the paper, took a shower. helped mom shuttle cars back and forth, as apparently every car in our family suddenly needs work. dad's suburu broke down last week, mom's van needed repair to the door hinge, and katie's corolla needed brake work. brian's accord, david's brand new civic, and my sentra are all just fine though, so ok, i exaggerated a bit when i said all of the graybeal cars needed work. it was really only half of them. but still. and yes, we really do have six cars in our family. six adults = six cars. i know, it's disgusting. it's our way of pretending we're rich. ;)

after that i headed over to the rec wing to meet katie for a work out. last night mom and katie and i went to the mall and i tried on at least a dozen pairs of khaki shorts before i found a pair that i liked well enough. some just plain didn't fit, some were just weird, some were too short, some were too long. (mom said i'd get used to the extra inch; i argued that an extra inch is the difference between looking like a 50-year-old and looking like a 24-year-old. katie agreed with me. score one for the younger generation.)

after an hour of looking and only one suitable pair of shorts, i have come to the conclusion (for the umpteenth time) that i am a fatty. so i worked out hard today. rode the bike, ran at a flat 10:00 per mile pace, and let katie almost kill me with situps. i am exhausted, but if i keep it up, i won't be a fatty anymore. and that will make me happy.

besides, i need to get back in shape for the lunar rendezvous run that i'm doing a week from saturday. i haven't done a race since bay to breakers, and i need to get back on track. also, i've used all my travelling as an excuse to not run for the past month and a half. no more! no more fatty!

anyway. that is my mid-year resolution. no more fatty. tonight dad is taking me to picasso's for dinner so that i can watch the baseball all-star game. i could have watched it at home, but noooo, dad has some sort of personal vendetta against time warner, and cancelled the cable tv. now we not only don't get cable, but can't even pick up the local channels because we have no antenna. what a wacko. oh well, i get a free dinner out of it.

oh! i almost forgot. counting crows came out with their new album today, hooray! i bought it this afternoon.

i'm back! (and freezing in the air conditioning of this house, i might add.) it's weird--after being internet-less for the majority of three weeks now, i had to consciously remind myself to update. i'm sure you're all glad that i remembered, as am i. i actually did keep a journal (handwritten of course) every day in reynosa so that i can look back at it and remind myself.

mexico was very, very, very good to me.

for once, i am not in the mood to share the experience with the world. not yet. maybe later. on the more superficial side (hee hee), i did take a lot of pictures, and i will post them when i get back to houston next week and can download them from my camera.

i'm not very wordy today, i think, as i've just been sitting here for about 10 minutes staring at the screen while i daydream. i'm sleepy from a busy trip, and revelling in being truly clean (shaved legs, clean fingernails, conditioned hair, non-sticky skin, ahhhhh) for the first time in more than a week. mom taught me how to make her yummy egg salad. i bought new running shoes to replace the ones i left with a 15-year-old girl named wendy in reynosa. i read the newspaper. i read sports illustrated's mid-season baseball issue, and was appalled at rick reilly. i am starting to see why carter has such a dislike for him.

i don't have much to do this week, so i'll just be lounging i guess. i want to go through all my boxes in the attic so that i don't take junk to houston, which will probably be fun, as many of the boxes haven't been opened since high school graduation six years ago. i'm sure i will find some treasures.

i was thinking of going down to atlanta early, on friday, to hang out, and have my dad meet me on sunday or monday to drive to houston. but i found out today that some people will be gone. i dunno what i want to do. i am feeling very disconnected from my atlanta friends these days, and i am unsure of how to reconnect. i am probably worrying over nothing.