Being faithful to bring you new greetings can be awfully difficult. Alls I can say is that life is busy now, and will be busier still until September 7th. Church will be keeping me quite busy over the next month. There are three things that I'll be working on in preparation for our 2nd anniversary service. Our church has grown, and as a result we're going to be moving into a larger room. (We're currently renting out a cafeteria in an elementary school) This task may quite possibly be the easiest of the tasks, primarily because I have great folks working with me, and I can off-load some of the tasks to them. The other two tasks are ones that are harder to delegate. Both of them deal with multimedia and presentations. One of the tasks is to migrate from a Slide projector to a digital projector that is run from a laptop. During singing, we put the lyrics up for people to see. We've ordered the hardware, but it hasn't come in yet. The most challenging of my tasks is the 2nd annual slide show presentation. I shouldn't even be writing right now, but if I don't fill you in now on what's going on, I won't be able to do it later. I'm also waiting for more material to roll in so that I can start to assemble the presentation with a full deck of pictures and video. Yes, I said video. I'm planning to incorporate video into this year's presentation. I got my new memory today. I ordered a GB of memory for my computer so that I could work with the video. I was running out of memory earlier. My computer now has 1.25 GB of memory in it. A dramatic improvement, let me tell you.

    Sadly, I don't really know if I can recap much that has happened between July 25th and today. Hmm, I just had an idea, I can look in Microsoft Money to try to determine what I've been doing! It should be interesting to see where my money has gone. Let's see what my spending reveals. Wow, it's like lifestyles of the rich and famous!

    Jul 25th - Jul 31st: Giant Food (grocery store), gas station, smart tag (for speeding through those toll booths), Einstein's Bagels (for coffee no doubt!), Microcenter (for video editing software, which was returned in favor of a fire wire card) and Best Buy (A video game and a gift certificate). I also spent a bit of cash during that stretch, and paid bills.

    August 1 - August 7th: Mattscdsingles.com (a killer spot for finding those rare singles. Check out the James section which has 7 new CDs. I also found some U2, Peter Gabriel and Coldplay. I'm thinking of starting a little Coldplay section on the website!), Costco (for numerous household items, like pillows & towels), USPS (for books & CD's to dear friends), Tower Records (Roswell Soundtrack & new Coldplay single.), Microcenter, KB Toys (I couldn't resist!), DSW (for snappy dress shoes & golf shoes for that once a year that  I swing the irons),  gas, cash & Bills.

    August 8 - August 13th: Merchant's Tire & Auto (*gasp* 60,000 mile overhaul. Cost. Big. Bucks. Car. Now. Purrs. Priceless!), 4allmemory.com (Memory for my computer. Reasons stated above.), Toys R Us (guilty again), gas, Best Buy, Gap (I found an outlet store, very pleased! *grin*, I looked good today!), Giant food, gas again, cash, and bills get paid.

    Since I use a lot of cash, I missed a few things in my registry. For example, I got my hair cut again. This time it's good and short, and I like it. It's slightly longer on top than it was for my last haircut and so I now have a degree of control over the shape of my head. I was beginning to worry about what  I was going to do with my hair now that I'm turning 30 and my hairdo was getting stagnant. I also picked up the Best of Duran Duran and I'm switching between it and the Roswell soundtrack.

    I'm heading for Tampa, FL in about 10 days. I'm hoping that my friend will still be living there. She dropped the bomb that she was moving to Boston in the next couple of weeks. I'll be miffed if she's out the door again before I get there. She keeps doing this to me. Every time I get within spitting distance of her, she moves. Still, she's one of my better far friends out there. So, maybe it's appropriate that she be way outside of my saliva range.

    In a completely unrelated note, I got a letter from George W. Bush! It's a campaign contribution letter, (surprise, surprise), but it's my first ever! And I just moved. And it came to my new address. I want to know who ratted me out to the RNC. Maybe it's the right wing publications I subscribe to. Or, it could be my subscription to Star Wars Insider that clued them in. One never knows when the Black helicopters and John Ashcroft will be at my door checking out my internet usage. This is all tongue in cheek, because I believe that our top cop should be trying his hardest to get to the bottom of crime. It's the citizens and politicians responsibility to challenge the constitutionality of what he does. He should leave sensitivity management to those who are, well, sensitive.

    Off my soapbox and on with the show! What have you folks been up to lately? Me? I love my cell phone. I frequently use it when I'm crisscrossing the county on my way to work, or when I'm reclining on my deck, walking the dog or just laying in bed listening to friends who keep me informed about what concerns them, what excites them and what they are living for.

    Did I mention that I absolutely adore VH1 Classic? If I didn't, I sorely apologize. I totally dig this channel. They play all the 80's videos I didn't see because I didn't have cable in the 80s. They even play the bad ones! Isn't that cool? My roommates look at me, like I look at those people who get excited when KC & The Sunshine Band come on TV. I maintain that Echo & The Bunnymen were much cooler than KC.

    In the vernacular of Bugs Bunny. That's All Folks!    

    A friend of mine made me a couple of mix CD's recently and I've really enjoyed them. Two songs have been on constant repeat. The first and most compelling is John Mayer's "Your Body Is A Wonderland". The second is Paul Oakenfold's "Starry Eyed Surprise". In both cases, I've bought the CD that has those songs on it . Your body is a wonderland is just the coolest. It's on the edge of being cheesy, but manages to land on the side of being a somewhat sexy (without being lewd) love song to anyone. There are some extremely tender moments in the song. Check out the now playing section for the lyric that stands out most strongly to me. I've included the whole stanza for context, but it's the last line that rings most strongly. Paul Oakenfold's Starry Eyed Surprise is just a fun poppy dance song about going to a club. Paul Oakenfold has remixed more than a few U2 songs. He teamed with Steve Osborne to create Perfecto Mixes for U2. There are Perfecto Mixes for Mysterious Ways, Even Better Than The Real Thing, Numb, Lemon & Beautiful Day. In nearly all cases the Perfecto Mixes include new vocals, or new lyrics which is very cool! I hope that he keeps getting assignments from U2 because I've been pretty happy with the ones he's done. So I'm awash with music to listen to. In fact, I've been so busy listening to these discs, I haven't really had a chance to listen to the Coldplay singles he sent me as well. Shame on me! Oh well, I'll get around here in the next several weeks.

    I took my cat to the vet this past Monday to have her de-clawed. By the time I left the vet that morning, I had given permission to have her defanged. No, it's not because I'm cruel, it's because a number of her teeth were abscessed and they wouldn't de-claw her unless the infection in her mouth was cleared up. I'm not happy to have spent so much to have my cat's teeth removed, but since she's healthy in every other respect, I felt that I had to take care of her. The vet removed 11 teeth that were either abscessed, or loose, including all 4 of her fangs. She was also missing 3 other teeth from earlier in life. Please recall that she was a stray when I found her and has always had bad breath. Her teeth have always been an issue, but I didn't realize that it was this bad until this visit. She's recovering nicely, she's really affectionate and has eaten some of the hard food that I've given her, but not much of it. In a couple of weeks, I'm going to have her de-clawed as well. I can almost hear the cries of disappointment and sadness, but I think it crueler to leave her in her basement apartment completely separated from Fritz and I. Seeing her every 72 hours is not a good way for her to live. The upside is that the surgery is laser, which means less pain, less swelling, shorter recovery periods. No more yanking the nails out. People e-mailed me, and talked to me about soft paws, and it's just not feasible. One person was generous enough to clip my cat's nails and put the soft paws on herself. (Editor's note: Soft paws are plastic caps that are put on the cat's nails to prevent a cat from scratching furniture. When the nails grow, eventually they come off. They last about 30 - 45 days) Look, cat's are nice and all, but for my life to be bent over side-ways is not how I'm meant to live. They are cats, they're further down the food chain, and I think on balance her psyche will get over it and she'll enjoy sleeping with me again. Case closed.

    I've spent every evening this weekend (and a few mornings) scanning pictures in for my church's anniversary presentation. I have 155 pictures in there so far. I have another 800 or so on CD, which is good, the scanning was by far the most time intensive portion of the process. I'm starting to move away from the video editing in favor of gif animations so that I can just highlight and not overshadow. We'll see, I need to really get a significant portion done today. It's only 9:20 AM so it's isn't a crime for me to taking a minute out to update my diary. In fact, this may be the last time that I do this month.

    I'm going to Tampa this week. I ought to be able to see my long time friend V when I'm there. She is planning to move to Boston. Boston really isn't my favorite place. I have had some good memories of Boston, but I've also had two lousy ones. The good was that I was able to see U2 in Boston. The worst was when I took a bus from Albany to Boston to see an ex-girlfriend. That was near disastrous and heartbreaking. On the upside, it put the last nail in the coffin and removed all doubt as to whether or not there was a chance. If she had said that she would only marry me if I were the last man on earth, I would have thought, there is still a chance! Such were the depths of my romantic delusions at the time. I'm extremely grateful that it didn't work out.

    Well, I'm going to get a bite to eat and then I'm going to tackle the presentation. See you in September!

2:30 PM:    I’m in my hotel room. We had an early day today because everything went very smoothly. Since I have such a hard time updating the diary when I’m at home, I figured that I would go ahead and write now.

    The taxi cab arrived at my home at 7:00 AM yesterday morning and I was tired.  The plane was delayed a few minutes while they took care of a leak of some kind.

4:06 PM:    I fell asleep for a little while. I’ve been running on little sleep lately. It’s not something that I usually have the luxury of doing since my weekends have been quite busy.  It’s amazing how much better I’m feeling now though. AI is on the TV right now.  Even though it’s an inconsistent movie in places, it’s never boring and the cast is first rate. Steven Spielberg could make just about any subject interesting and entertaining.

            It has occurred to me that I don’t know who I’m writing to. I realized that over the past year or so, I’ve been writing to my friend V. The reason is simple. She has been my most vocal reader, and as a result, I often think of her when I’m writing. I’m here in Tampa and she’s just across the river. I talked with her last night and I will no doubt speak with her again this evening. Her life is changing rapidly. She found a job in New Hampshire and she’s starts a week from today. It’s clear to me that she’s falling in love, and it’s good to see. Too many years holding onto a memory can distort one’s perspective, sometimes we have to let go of the past and move on. I think that for her, it’s finally happening.

I still haven’t answered the question “Who am I writing to?” I have friends at church who know of the site and read it from time to time, but most who read it, don’t tell me about it. Their influence is seen here. I’m probably a bit more cautious about what I say when I write this, and thus I’m speaking to them a bit, but it’s not really them that I’m talking to. Hmm, who is it that I’m talking to? Have I adjusted my speech to the point where I talk to no one? It’s possible, yet there are a number of voices I imagine and faces that I construct and I talk to each of them in my own way. Sometimes it’s easier to imagine one person, but that person would have to be someone that is far away and that I don’t talk to frequently.

6:18 PM:    Yesterday was interesting, in a sort of non-interesting way. After getting home from work, I took a nap and then called up the two folks I know in Tampa; my co-worker and my friend. Neither of them were available when I called, so I decided to go ahead and find some CD stores on my own. One of them is called Bananas and it is located in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg seems kind of run down in a lot of places. I drove by Tropicana Field and quickly ended up in some slightly shady neighborhoods. I seem to have a penchant for finding some of the poorer neighborhoods in every city I visit. Bananas was hard to find, and by the time I found it, it was closed. So, I went back today and found a few things to buy, but nothing ground breaking, and nothing from U2. I was kind of disappointed by that, but what are you going to do?

            Every day has featured rain. The humidity is practically unbearable, but I hear it’s worse in Houston. My co-workers told me that. Or maybe it was a little bird who told me…

            I think that my co-worker and I are going to the Improv tonight. I would probably be dining with V as well, but she’s packing. I’m getting the feeling that I won’t see her for a very long time. It’s the way of things I guess. Sadly, my sense is that she will be added to the friends who have receded into the shadows. It’s what happens when their lives change from single to married. Writing anything more on this subject would be overkill, it’s time to get some food!

11:07 AM:    We’re waiting for some files to become available so that we can finish our testing of our system, so I have a few minutes to do whatever. With the spare time, I thought, well, I might as well work on the presentation while I’m down here. I was feeling guilty about not having worked on it at all since I’ve been down here, and had a small smile on my face as I thought about getting some of it done. Well, that smile has dissipated. Windows XP has tricked me. I thought that I had copied all of the pictures over here to this computer, and I have not. I have a folder that looks like it’s real, but it is in fact a shortcut to the computer back home. *Sigh* I will have to work very hard after I return so that I can get this stuff done. I’m sure that I could / should blame myself for procrastinating too much. I’m sure that there is something I could learn from this, but right now I’m not sure that I know what it is. Some of the problems stem from me, some of them just stem from my big ideas (I had some big plans initially for this), and some are that I just have too many things to take care of right now and I’m juggling poorly.

            My brother called me last night and informed me that he was having trouble getting on-line from my house. So, when I arrive home, I will have to deal with both my water problems and my internet problems. Oh, I just realized that you haven’t heard about my water problems yet. On Monday evening, my sister-in-law called me to tell me that my water had been shut off and that a note was left on my door informing me that the water company had shut it off because 4 gallons of water had been used in the space of 2 minutes. It probably indicates that I have an underwater leak, which could hurt the foundation. Lovely. *Shrug* What’s a person to do? I fly back Friday and get started right away in repairing my life and finishing the presentation, and the other stuff…