The next step is resolving what I see as a big financial problem for which my debt has made me incapable of addressing: my mortgage. Remember the mortgage crisis that culminated in the printing of zillions of worthless dollars in 2008 to make believe the problem had been addressed? Well, I'm one of those "toxic" mortgage customers. I took out a loan for the full buying price of my place when I bought it in 2007, and got an APR of 6.375% on it. That's bad. Especially with the dizzyingly low rates that are available to qualified borrowers nowadways. But over the past four years(it'll be five years in March!) I've made sure to always pay more than the amount due on my monthly payment, even if it was only a couple dollars. Some months were small, others were big, but now, I've managed to lop the last three months off my term and save myself about four times what I've overpaid. That feels good, but I'm still sitting with under 20% equity on my place.

So my plan is to ratchet up my monthly payments with my newfound extra money each month, with the goal being to get over 20% equity, and qualify to refinance at one of these great low rates. I have a spreadsheet on google that outlines my monthly expenses, debt, savings, and projections thereof. My plan is to increase my mortgage payment by an amount roughly equivalent to 0.7% of my principal balance each month, with the goal being to get over 20% as quickly as possible, so I can refinance for super-happy-big longterm savings.

What I've discovered though, is that I really don't have any savings whatsoever, and a monthly budget surplus seems like an ideal way to fix that. I have a couple of noticeable expenses that come up once or twice a year, and having a savings to deal with them and anything else unexpected seems like the reasonable thing to do. So here's the plan. Save up about two months' salary, then scale the monthly contributions to savings down to a trickle to push hard on the mortgage for about a year and a half.

Then I refinance, and fix my place up. Let's see how it goes. Check back with me soon.

Last week, I was in my friend Nick's car, on the way back from Lawrence. We had just watched the season premiere of Parks and Recreation, and a good time was had by all in attendance. I got a series of texts from my roommate about how the keg was pouring 90% head. The keg is from my favorite possession: my kegerator.

Anyway, I promised my roommate that I would look into it when I got home, and put it out my mind. I checked it out the next morning, and in my various times in and out of the fridge to check pressure gauges and stuff, I noticed that the top of the main fridge door was wet. I opened the freezer and it wasn't even slightly cool inside. I looked down at the wall and saw that the kegerator was unplugged. Because of the appendage we use to regulate the temperature inside, the unit will very easily become unplugged.

I explained to my roommate that it was because the beer had warmed up that it was pouring mostly head. I plugged it back in, and the compressor kicked on immediately. Upset by the loss of a fair quantity of meat and seafood that had completely thawed, we disposed of a couple of items from the freezer and went about our business.

By Friday evening, a tinge started to manifest in the air. I didn't notice it, but my roommate wore a disgusted look on his face from it. I assumed then, that it was me, and sheepishly went to take a shower. By saturday however, it was an outright stench throughout the common area of the whole apartment. Walking in the front door was a wall of stench. It took us at least a day to figure out what was going on. We turned the place upside-down trying to place the odor. My roommate was certain that some sewer gas had belched up through the kitchen sink, so he filled the sink with water. But over the next day, the stench only got worse. The closest thing I can think of to compare it to would be like the pen of unhealthy livestock. But even that doesn't do it justice.

But I was sitting at my desk yesterday, and it occurred to me that the stench appeared at about the same time as the kegerator caper, and I decided that the two events couldn't have been coincidental. We zeroed in on the kegerator and found that the smell's intensity had a zero added to its arbitrary measurement of revulsion, when we were close to the kegerator.

So we performed surgery on the kegerator, convinced that somewhere inside it there was a foul reservoir of thawed meat and seafood leavings that had to be cleaned out. In our exploratory surgery, we discovered the path of the drainage was actually determined by design. the natural slope of the floor of the freezer led back to a catch that fed into a pipe that went down. We followed that down to the bottom-rear of the unit, and there, sure enough, perhaps two quarts of the most vile liquid I have ever seen or smelled had accumulated.

I unplugged the fridge, propped the freezer door open, and we stuck a couple plates of baking soda into the freezer. We left for a while, and when I returned, I pulled the fridge away from the wall in such a way that the pan was as exposed as possible, and tried to think of a way to tackle it. It was attached to the compressor, so the only way to pull it out would have been to detach the compressor's housing and unwire it, and I wasn't about to do that. Between the lip of the pan and the heat-dissipating grated structure of the refrigerator's rear was perhaps an inch of clearance into which I could insert something to extract the reeking poisonous liquid.

So, the most effective method I found was to take a large spoon and bail the pan out a tablespoon at a time, over the course of about an hour, enduring the mortally toxic odor all the while. Three times I had to break away to breathe out my nausea. After it was done, I put a bunch of baking soda into the pan, and sprayed down the floor with 409. I boiled the spoon for about 40 minutes before putting it in the dishwasher. Maybe some day it can be used again.

Pursuant to the fact that I am now newly-employed, I was in the Chicago area for my new-hire orientation, which I must say was excellent. Previous employers, especially the one where I supported battle simulations, could take a lesson from the practiced brevity and high-density content that was cheerfully and interestingly delivered over a period of two days.

But again, I digress. Since I was in the area, I arranged with my patient accommodating new employer to let me fly in early and spend the weekend with family at my brother and sister-in-law's house, not far from where I would be staying over the course of the orientation period. This all fit very well with scheduling, and a lovely weekend was had by all. When my brother dropped me off at the hotel, I immediately began to miss him, and got emotional when I had closed the door to the room behind me.

That said, I wanted to talk about Blu-ray, the purported next generation in consumer-level video storage. I honestly found the picture to be a little too good, if you can understand that. The motion was so fluid that I was forced to step out from behind the fourth wall and come to the realization that the robotic smoothness, as if I'm looking through a window and not at a large television set, is actually a little disconcerting, and I would actually like to have the slightly choppy nature of DVD and its predecessors.

Realism is not important, I've decided, when watching movies. It's the same reason I think movies that are projected in 3D are grasping for a level of realism that is demonstrably unnecessary. I'm aware when I watch a movie that the people I see are not really there, and cannot respond to my suggestions at how to disarm the bomb or come to terms with a death. Comedian David Mitchell made an excellent point when he said that people actually dislike being realistically immersed in the settings of the media they consume. A good example of this is sculpture. Sculpture is extremely realistic, and by its nature is far more realistic than painting, yet it is far less popular.

But even with all that in mind, I think I could live with Blu-ray, but for one problem. Intrusive advertisement is rampant. A significant portion of set-top Blu-ray players are wired for internet services like Netflix Streaming, Hulu Plus, or just plain old Youtube. As such, they will take advantage of this internet access to force the user to sit through commercials before they can watch their own movie. As far as I know, there is no setting that allows users to disable these ads.

This is on top of elaborate and patently fluffy animations and menu screwiness, along with Final Fantasy 7-style animations for production houses and distribution companies, which are also ads in themselves. They cannot be skipped or avoided in any way. The aggregate result of these delays is that the "feature," for which the legitimate consumer forked over money to watch cannot be watched until several minutes of ads and menu juggling have been accomplished.

Also added to the delay is the fact that since Blu-ray is a poorly written and implemented technology, there is an actual computer processing period that takes place for the loading of the underlying software that reads and displays the information stored on the disc.

On top of this is the customary, and now completely ignored MPAA/FBI warning about copyright and its legally protected status. I find it especially outrageous that due to the nature of ripped media(ie, illegally obtained digital copies of movies), these warnings are never seen by the people who decide to infringe the copyright. This means that pretty much the only people who have to sit through the display of these warnings are the people who legitimately purchased the disc. So basically, the people who play by the rules are being punished for doing so.

Incidentally, upon a quick check on my roommate's streaming setup, Netflix doesn't stick the FBI warnings into their features either. You just hit play and the movie plays. I agree with most people that physical media is quickly becoming a thing of the past, and that in a short time, people will remember physical media like DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and VHS tapes as something from a bygone era. However, Blu-ray discs and even DVDs are still very much in the mainstream.

It would appear to me that the MPAA is either trying to shape consumer behavior by making their products a pain in the ass to use, or they're just hopelessly out of touch- oblivious to the sensibilities and preferences of normal people. The former seems highly unlikely, given the fact that many movies are still not available on streaming services, so I'm going to bank on the latter.

I'm also probably never going to purchase a physical disc for a movie again, as I'd rather pay just once for a movie than over and over with commercials.

I lived this way for over ten years, and now I'm the heaviest, fattest, and most out of shape I have ever been in my life. It's easy to continue, facing the choices that have to be made to turn things around. It's easy to go with the flow. But I recently realized that the path of least resistance could easily mean terrible things for me, and not very far down the road. Heart disease. Cancer. Death. I'm 32, and these are very real possibilities for an unhealthy person.

I was getting a drink with my friend Jon recently, and he was telling me about the changes he made to his lifestyle in 2010. He was just as heavy as I am, or possibly heavier, and now he looks fantastic. He lost over fifty pounds over the second half of 2010. He talked about how unhealthy food gives your brain a short seratonin rush that passes quickly, and leaves you wanting more of what you just ate, regardless of whether you're hungry.

Elsewhere and historically, fat has been viewed as a sign of luxury and abundance. Only the wealthy could afford so much food that they ate more than they needed. Their wealth allowed them to eat for pleasure, not sustenance. As with so many things, American industry has turned the concept on its head.

The cheapest, most accessible calories available in Anmerica are in fast food. The easiest and most apparent way to fill your stomach in America is to load up on extra value meals, and in so doing, pump your body full of endorphines that give you a short-lived high that your body learns to associate with eating unhealthy(but admittedly delicious) food. The result of this is that poor Americans are fat.

This means that people with the means to eat healthy in America are failing to realize an enormous bit of potential when they don't. While unhealthy food is ever-present and marketed in-your-face, healthy food is still readily available to anyone who wants it. It certainly gets a bad rap though. My friend Jon made an excellent point though, when he said that there are extremely profitable systems set up in this and every country that operate on the assumption that people will just do what's easier in the short term, and those who see through that and act accordingly place themselves at an enormous advantage.

I decided then and there that I was changing my life. That was Monday, February 21st. The next day, I walked into the cafeteria at work for lunch, and instead of going straight for the deli or the fried/grilled counters, I went straight to the "home-cooked" counter which always features two ever-changing selections. One is the "comfort zone," and the other is the "right choice." I'll leave the distinction to you, but suffice to say, I went for the right choice, and on a whim, I decided to treat myself on top of this with some roasted potatoes.

My custom when eating is to eat all the least pleasant things on my plate first. So I ate all the squash and peppers and chicken(though I love chicken, but I needed an in-mouth accompaniment with the vegetables) with it, and last on my plate was a pile of greasy roasted potatoes. I took a bite of one, and almost immediately after swallowing it my stomach roiled with indigestion. I realized immediately that what Jon has told me was correct. I threw the rest of the potatoes away, and I've been eating healthy ever since.

That was eight days ago. I've been walking about a mile per day in my commute, and trying to run on the treadmill upstairs at least once a day, but i haven't been as good about that. Even so, my most recent weigh-in has me at 8.7 pounds lower than when I started. I feel better than I ever have, I'm sleeping better, and I have more energy.

The next couple of months should be very exciting for me.

I'm still employed, and earning the most I've ever made. I've devoted the majority of this new income to paying off the very significant amount of debt. The job I had before didn't pay well enough to allow me to make any real headway against the five figures of debt that I had-- quite the opposite. I actually picked up some debt there. But as it is now, I've actually managed to take the five figures down to four figures, and I put together an aggressive payoff strategy that has me completely out of debt by the first of July(this year). Excitement about this fact has occupied a great deal of my attention as of late.

I wanted to share with you what I think is a really simple method that I've put together for debt payoff that I'm confident would have been effective even with the lower income at my old job. I spent all but two weeks between the 4th of July and Labor Day in Dallas, and my presence there was largely unnecessary, as the planning and meeting that was going on there was for Windows stuff. Not my area of expertise. That meant I spent a great deal of time looking for work to do.

In this search, I formulated a plan to simplify my bills, debt, and budget. I get paid once a week here, as I'm still an hourly contractor. This means that there are sometimes bills that are larger than my paycheck. A notable example of this is my mortgage. For a long time, I've struggled to create a situation where the money that gets deposited into my bank account is mine to spend, and spendable. I wrote and continuously improved my ledger app for this purpose, under the idea that if you have a rough idea of what your expenses and income will be, you will know how much money you have by looking and seeing the lowest balance in the future.

I've conducted my financial affairs under that understanding for several years, and it's worked well enough for me to avoid overdrawing my checking account. But what I really want is to normalize my finances so that every paycheck I get has roughly the same result. The same impact on my check account balance. In this way too I can get a better idea of what I'm spending on things. I decided that what I needed to do was set up a second account, and divide my direct deposit between my checking account and the second account. I settled on the ING Direct account that I've already had for several years, and with which I've on several occasions made a half-hearted attempt to create savings or contingency funds. It was ideal for my intended purposes in this case.

I started a spreadsheet, and it has grown from this point, but it began with an itemized list of all of my monthly expenses, including debt payoff itemized at at least $1000 a month. I added all the items up, and divided that number by the number of times I get paid each month, and rounded up. I took this rounded up number and changed my direct deposit setup to take that number and send it to the ING Direct account, and dump the rest into my checking account. This means that my mortgage, HOA dues, electric bill, phone bill, cable bill, insurance bill, and debt payoff are all paid automatically from this second account, and my own spending money is constant from check to check.

Using this method, I don't have to put a great deal of effort into paying bills on time or getting out of debt. I don't have to make sure I have enough money by the 13th. It's all taken care of by the separation of my accounts. All I need to do is pay the bills that fluctuate, and dump the remaining balance each month into debt repayment. As such, I've been able to draw up a debt payoff schedule, which indicates at any given time when my debt will be paid off.

And when that happens, drinks are on me.

Take this old picture, for example. This is an average shared office-like workplace from probably about 60 years ago. Look at all the people. They're all pretty visible from throughout the room, but even without partition walls between them, they each have a modicum of privacy. Look at how their tables and desks are all perpendicular to the wall, and not flush against it. Their backs are to nothing in particular. If someone comes to talk with one of them, they only need to look up. They don't need to turn around.

Compare that to the average cubicle of today. The partition separates and isolates the occupant from coworkers. The only privacy the occupant is afforded is from his/her contemporaries. If anyone approaches the cubicle, the occupant's back is to them, which means that while the occupant is working, all they do is visible for any passerby, but especially to management. The occupant knows that their boss can see whatever it is that they're doing, just by approaching the cubicle. This means that the overarching motif is fear. The design goal is for occupants to be productive not for the sake of productivity, but for fear of getting in trouble.

To further reinforce the intent behind modern office design, let's have a look at a typical managerial office.

The door to this room is off to the left, or possibly the right, but certainly in such a position that the occupant of the office can see who's there, and face them with a piece of authoritative furniture between themselves and the visitor. The theme of the manager's office is comfort and authority, as opposed to the theme of the cubicle, which is vulnerability and fear.

I've worked in many cubicles over the years, and they've all been similar enough to the one pictured above that the main points I stressed were consistent. When I worked at Sprint, I remember that I didn't like what I was doing on my computer to be visible to anyone who came close. So I moved my computer to a part of the desk that allowed me to face the entrance of my cubicle. This way, my computer screen faced only me, and I could see when people visited me.

My boss, Barbara, was very opposed to this idea, and cited this rearrangement in a write-up she composed after I'd been there a short time. She didn't like that she couldn't see what I was doing on my computer. She didn't like that she couldn't surprise me anymore. She was very accusatory in her tone. "What are you trying to hide?" she would ask. "It's very paranoid that you would do this." The simple truth at the time was that I didn't like people tapping my shoulder without me knowing they were there, but thinking back I realize that I felt like a subject of management, and not like a valued employee.

Every manager I've ever had has had an office with a desk that allowed them to face the door. In addition, they would always put their computer in a position to allow them to see who was coming at all times. Nobody ever claimed that the people in management were paranoid, or trying to hide anything. Such ideas didn't enter people's minds. Indeed I'm sure they were looking at youtube and facebook too, just like everyone else. But they had no need to worry about whether anyone could see it.

So why does a cubicle dweller not only work in fear of reprisal, owing to the default layout of their allotted work space, but the manager is above reproach? Don't even take into account things like managerial incompetence or hypocrisy, or whatever other charges you can levy against any manager you've ever had. Look past all of that and ask yourself, why don't we ever wonder what they're looking at on their computer? We certainly worry about them seeing what we're doing. Why does the term, "time theft" only seem to apply to cubicle-dwellers? Even the dwellers themselves don't generally think about what their managers are doing, if it doesn't relate directly to what they themselves are doing.

We have an office layout system now that encourages discipline with fear, and work ethic through paranoia. It seems like a problem to me.

On Friday I met a bunch of friends at a park somewhere down south, near the Plaza. The specific meetup time was "eightish," so I hopped on the bus at a little after seven, and got off at 43rd. I had plenty of time, so I decided to walk past the Kansas City Art Institute, as I had never actually seen it before in nine years of living in Kansas City. It was very small but very cool looking. The evening was like what you see in old paintings of people in gigantic clothes: women in dresses made of an acre of silk, and men in three-piece suits sporting chained monocles and top hats. In short, it was perfect outside. The vivid blue of the sky contrasted brilliantly between the full summer leaves of Rockhill and Southmoreland, and a breeze carried the scent of flowers to me from their beds to the conjectural west.

Not so much walking as floating, I wandered into the park and back a a couple minutes after eight. My feet impacted the overgrown lawn of the park as reality set back in, and I made my way the long way around the fence that had been erected around the event. In 2003, I went to Berkeley Riverfront Park with my brother and my friend Stacey for the Tour de Fat, a bike-centered beer event put on by New Belgium Brewing and well attended by all. Dogs and bikes abounded, and a great time was had by all. I watched year after year, and they never came back to do it again. The closest the event ever was to KC when it was held again was St. Louis.

On Friday New Belgium made their eventual return to KC, after over seven years away, for the "Clips of Faith," film festival. A small collection of short, usually humorous, often moving films were shown after the sun went down. Many of them made sure to carefully position New Belgium's products for everyone to see, but even so it was very fun. The sky was clear, the crickets were crackling, and the beer was delicious. I could hardly have thought of a more entertaining use of my Friday night. When the films were over though, the crowd dispersed like cockroaches when a light turns on. We went over to Fred P Ott's on the Plaza for a beer, and went home.

I woke up the next day far too early for how late I went to bed, and communicated poorly with Nick over IM or text about getting lunch at Burger to Go. It's an absolutely amazing burger place at 7th and Central in KCK that used to be a Checkers or a Rally's, or something like that. I wound up going by myself, but I regret nothing about going there. The food is so good that I have to remind myself to chew it. I met Jeff for a drink at the Peanut shortly after that. The 3rd was his birthday, and I didn't want to miss it. At around 7pm or so I rolled over to Grand Slam and picked up a six of Single Wide, clutching my bag of undetonated fireworks from perhaps 2005.

Nick and Anna had a cookout at their house, and everyone made themselves at home while we were there. At around 10pm or so, I got the itch to head home. Nick taught me better of it, and I wound up staying for an additional six hours before I left at bird-chirping time. Before that though, we played charades, some kind of drinking jenga game, and wrought various levels of destruction in blowing up the remainder of my fireworks. The last of these were blown up well after midnight. They either have some extremely patient neighbors, or nobody was home, nearby. Either way, no protest was given to our mayhem.

I slept until noon on Sunday the 4th. I would have slept more if convention had allowed. After sitting for a while weakly sipping water to counteract a hangover that had begun the previous day, I received a message from Nick, inviting me to get some food at Sharp's. I arrived unshowered to find an unshowered ensemble of Nick, Anna, and Daniel tucking into eggs benedict and biscuits and gravy. I ordered some honey mustard fried chicken sliders and drank four full glasses of water before the check came. It was a successful meal on all fronts.

We decided we wanted to keep it moving, so we dropped Daniel off at work, and Nick showed us around his childhood neighborhood, and pointed out no fewer than seven times the school where he served his K-8. As we slowly, creepily rolled around Western Hills and Santa Fe Hills, both Nick and Anna pointed at houses with 87-, 88-, and 89- addresses, and stated the names of people they knew while growing up. Locals!

In response to their familiarity with south KC, as compared to my lack thereof, I spirited them to Raytown. We followed the detour around the missing bridge for 63rd St to the Bickering Tree, a relatively trashy bar that uses hanging helmets of various type and style as over-table lamps. I sponsored a pitcher of Budweiser and we made ourselves as comfortable as we could with the bar's outspoken clientele. We moved on after our pitcher to Highway 40, or as they call it in KC, "40-highway," where we called at the Bamboo Hut. None of us had ever been there before.

We sat outside in their pretty filthy patio. We got a pitcher of Busch and Anna laughed uncontrollably as the bartender poured it all over my legs by accident. The kitchen was closed, as they were cooking out. They had a large gas grill that they were still using fluid to light. With a sharp WOOF the grill leaped to life, scorching the TV mounted right above it with 4-foot tall flames. We had no choice but to buy a plate of food. We had some bratwurst and potato chips, and some baked beans, potato salad, and pasta salad that came from large plastic tubs for $5 a plate. Anna refused to eat any of it, and I can't say I particularly blame her. The bar seemed to have a bit of a pest problem, judging by the abundance of pests.

That said, we had a great time at the Bamboo Hut in Independence, and would happily go again and recommend it to anyone. Just be ready for some grit. We made haste from there to Nick and Anna's house, where I dropped them off. I hurried home and took a 60-90 second shower, rendering myself 3-8 minutes late for a drink at the Peanut. Sunday night went on apace, and I met up again with Nick and Anna for a rooftop party in the West Bottoms. Nathan joined us as well. After the evening of watching fireworks in every direction was over, Nathan and I went over to 1st St by the railroad crossing in the East Bottoms, lit off perhaps two hundred individual pyrotechnic items.

I introduced Nathan to the "sparkler ignition technique," in which a sparkler is laid on the pavement, and a dozen or more bottle rockets are laid along it. The result is a rapid-fire succession of bottle rocket launches and explosions. We scored several direct hits on passing trains, and lauded them with cheers and fists in the air. I dropped Nathan off at his sister's place in the River Market, and went promptly to bed.

I got up the next morning, and went to El Camino Real #2 with Nathan. That was the entire extent of what I did yesterday. I sat at home, played video games, and drank lots of water.

It was a banner weekend.

Nathan and I climbed in my car and we went to the Foundry, where we met up with Nick, Anna, Jim, Jean, Justin, Jonathan, Jayne, and Karen. We talked about effects of drag on mountain bikes and the state of the claymation industry until we decided the Foundry had run its course. We went over to Harry's Bar and Tables and sat outside around the metal tables while we sweated through our clothes sitting still. Justin and a friend took off for something or other. Nathan and Karen went off to get sushi at Matsu, but wound up just getting ice cream at Murray's instead. Those of us that wished to keep things moving did so by way of One80, across the street.

Brad and Jimmy joined us there, and Jim bought me a shot of cheap bourbon that had a rolled-up slice of pepperoni in it, through which I was to suck the bourbon in a slow dribbly fashion. I drank it for some reason, and immediately regretted it. I avoided my famous impression of a human fountain only though a series of deep breaths, to the intense delight of those around me, including the bar's staff. I don't do liquor. I think I need to have that on an insurance card or something.

By about 12:30am or so, the little voice in my head spoke, and I heeded it. It's never a bad idea to do so, I find. I told Nathan the boat was sailing, and he seemed relieved to end the night as well. We stopped at Burger To Go in KCK, and we exchanged curse-filled exclamations of praise for the quality of the food. I was in bed by 1am or so.

I got up the next morning around 9, and enjoyed some alone time in my room for a while before I decided I wanted to get a new debit card. I'd noticed for months that the magnetic strip on my debit card was absolutely demagnetized, so people always had to enter the number in manually. I called the bank to have a new one sent to me. Through the maze of menus all designed to keep callers from talking to a real person, I found that my bank account had substantially less money in it than I'd thought. While I was waiting to talk to someone, I punched up the account on the bank's website and found that Harry's had charged me $15 for my tab, but had entered another charge for over $2000. I was within a pinky's reach of overdrawing my account.

I found that Harry's doesn't open until 5pm on weekends, and that my bank's customer service people don't answer phones after that time, so I have to wait until this week to sort this out. I have a mortgage payment that will overdraw my account, and may even get kicked back, so I need to get this taken care of. The people at Harry's told me that this sort of thing happens from time to time, and made me think that maybe I don't want to go there anymore. I told Karen about all this, and she very quickly and very generously told me that she would cover me that day.

You see, we made plans that week, along with my roommate, Nathan, and our friend Chrissy, to go on a bit of a road trip. We met at noon at Happy Gillis and had some lunch. Amazingly, we got right in and found a table immediately. I was expecting a long wait. The BLT was delicious, and burped well for the next hour or so.

Our first destination for the day was O'Malley's in Weston. It was promising to be a very hot day with unbroken sunshine beating 97-degree heat into our skulls, and because of our reliance on sweet, sweet air conditioning, we felt the heat immediately whenever we went outside. We opted to take the scenic route, and went through Parkville and Waldron to get up to Weston. Through verdant forests and fields we made our way north and west, following the flood-staged Missouri River as closely as we could. Every bridge we crossed looked like it might be carried away at any minute by the roiling brown waters only inches below. I'm told that fishing is at its finest when rivers are swelled like they were this weekend. If it hadn't been so unforgivably hot outside, I would have liked to try.

We passed the McCormick Distillery and rolled slowly into Weston, MO. We, or at least I hastened to the front door of the bar to escape the merciless sun. Stepping into the cave-like earthy depths of the bar did very little to combat the heat. It was still probably in the upper 70s inside. However, it was a lot better than the full heat, and we made ourselves comfortable. We watched the first 30 or 40 minutes of the USA-Ghana World Cup game, and had our first round of drinks. Nate had a bloody mary. The girls had a pair of Connaught Cokes, a mixture of Coca Cola and Bailey's that together formed an unappetizing concoction that Nate described as, "concrete and throw-up." I chanced a house-made hot pepper ale. It was not a good idea.

We wandered over to Pirtle Winery and drank their dry and extremely sweet wines. The port tasted like someone poured fun dip in my mouth. Someone was having lunch or dinner or something across the street, and had left a dog in their black car. It was now well over 95 degrees outside, and getting hotter. We remarked at the cruelty behind such an act, but thought little more of it until we went inside the winery and saw that the staff there were calling around to find the person who owned that car, to get them to kick them out of their business and desist in torturing the dog. We thanked them.

We drove over to Leavenworth. I had a wild hair to show the folks around Fort Leavenworth, so we got in line at the gatehouse. When our turn came, the guy told Karen that since her ID was expired, they'd have to run some kind of a search on her, and be douchebags if there was something on her record. So we opted not to visit the Fort, and instead headed downtown to High Noon Saloon to watch the end of the USA-Ghana game. In the end, I think Ghana just outplayed the USA team. They absolutely deserved the win, in my opinion.

We drove out of Leavenworth on US-73, and covered the 20 undulating miles to Atchison in record time. We decided we had to go to the Duck Inn, at 8th and Commercial, and we weren't sorry for it. There was no entry for the place on foursquare, so I added one. I asked the bartender what the number was, and he answered with only four digits. "Uh, what's the rest of it?" I asked. The people at the bar realized at this point that I wasn't an Atchisonian, and rattled off the area code and prefix that every business there apparently shares.

We went down to the riverfront, and stood in the muck while some guy took our picture. It was actually pretty great. From there we went to get dinner at the Riverhouse Restaurant, located right on the bank of the Missouri, overlooking the River itself and the bridges that span it. We sat outside for the view and talked about our next move. I saw signs that the others were beginning to flag, and I wasn't having it. So I just proceeded to St. Joseph in my conversation. They fell in line. We got some ice cream at a place called Snow Ball on our way out of town, and crossed back into Missouri for the 20 miles to St. Joe.

I love watching guardrails, telephone lines, highway stripes, and railroads from the back seat of a moving car. I love scanning forward and backward on them, as my vision takes on a movement of its own. In this was, the distance between Atchison and St. Joe was very short for me. St. Joe has about 70,000 residents, but I have no idea where any of them are. Downtown, while it's very interesting and architecturally intact, is a textbook ghost town. An abundance of bars occupy what look like derelict buildings, and surprise your ears with thumping music when you get close. We saw only a handful of other cars while we were there, and didn't need to look when we crossed streets.

We found a gaudy cajun place called Boudreaux's and had our last round of the day there. We sat quietly in Nate's car on the trip back home. We were tired, but we all agreed that it was an excellent day. I walked in the door of my place by about 11pm, and fell asleep almost immediately. I look forward to another trip like this.

Enter the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. They offered me a job last week that I will be starting on the 14th. I'll be slinging GNU/Linux virtual machines for them, and dealing with countless customers all over the country in person to find out how they want their data to be collected and arranged in a massive nationwide migration. It's a huge opportunity, and I can hardly afford not to take it.

I tendered my resignation on Friday, and I talked with my boss today as to the why. I've been going through the paperwork that goes into an amicable graceful separation, and I must say, it's all very exciting. I've also been listening to You're The Voice pretty consistently all morning, so that may also serve to account for my cheeriness.

With the new position comes a much greater structure of responsibility, challenge, time commitment, and scale of pay. I have a lot to live up to, and the new job will take all the ability that I can muster, but I think I'll be very successful in it.

In other news, Jenny and I broke up. I wasn't wild about the idea, and it's been tough since then(about 2 weeks ago). Life goes on, I suppose.

But really, this is a very exhilarating time for me.

The whole thing is written entirely by me, including the awful visual appearance. That's something from which I used to derive a great deal of pride. I want to feel that pride again. When I use this site as my social outlet on the web, I always have ideas for improvements to it, whether they're cosmetic, backend, or feature updates. So I suppose I need a project. I need something to pour into this site. I have some things on the burner, and some things I can't really talk about, but that will become apparent soon enough.

I'm still dating Jenny, and she's the best thing that ever happened to me, though lately we're working through the possibility of living in different places, and that's a less than encouraging thought. As you may imagine, a great deal of the relatable events in my life for the last 5-6 months have involved her, so I've been pretty light on updates because frankly, that stuff isn't anyone's business.

I'm still working in Leavenworth, and driving there every single day now, due to a directive from on high. We keep having our work cancelled by customers that aren't that interested in our product, or in devoting the time of their people to learning and using it. As such it's been pretty slow around here. For the most part, I'm driving 75 miles a day to check my email and sign my timesheet. I try to keep busy, but there's just not enough work to do.

My friend Geoff however, is up to his neck in work. Since I left the company for DST back in 2006, he ascended through the company's ranks, as was inevitable, and now he's in a position about three or four levels above me, and actually has people working under him. He's in town for a periodic gathering of the higher-ups, and for just a week, it's like old times again. We're carpooling from downtown to Leavenworth, and eating unhealthy lunch all over town.

We met up last night at the Riot Room in Westport, which has quietly become one of the best beer bars in Kansas City. They have some plans in the works right now to secure their place as being the unequivocal best. We drank some beers that were new to both of us, and talked about things past, present, and future. It was a beautiful afternoon, and the evening proceeded apace as we went to Grinders, El Pueblito, and Chefburger before we parted ways. He and Katie went to the Sprint Center to see Band of Horses and Pearl Jam, and I went home to talk for a while with Nathan and go to bed early.

Hopefully, I can keep up the press on yon website. Feel free, if you're among the 98% of the people that see this through Facebook, to click through and check the site out.

First, almost fifty people committed to attending on facebook, and another perhaps thirty people responded, "maybe." Now, I understand that these numbers never reflect the actual numbers, but the turnout was truly disappointing by comparison. Lots of people contacted me directly, talking about how excited they were, and how much fun it was going to be. When the day of the event came, most of these people didn't show. Not even a word.

There was a misunderstanding that led one team to go to Westport for the bulk of their bars, and I suppose I'm to blame for not taking them aside and saying that Splutschnik is supposed to be a downtown-only event. But even so, I wasn't upset about it. Unfortunately, others took what they perceived to be my lead, and proceeded to berate the wayward team, to no benefit but the satisfaction of their own sense of self-righteousness. This caused these people, good friends of mine, to leave in a huff, and without a word. I didn't find out about this until today, and I feel terrible about it.

It just puts the whole thing in a bad light and the comraderie that the event is supposed to foster was just spoiled by it. It's put a bad taste in my mouth about what I had previously considered one of the best ideas I ever had. I hate the idea of canceling the next installment of Splutschnik, but that's how I'm feeling at the moment. Maybe I just need some time to think about it.

The actual exercise didn't happen until Tuesday and Wednesday, the 26th and 27th, respectively. So we spent the abundant time beforehand setting up a bunch of computers, trying local hamburgers, and training soldiers on how to use the software that is used during the exercises we run. Everything went without any problems, and by Wednesday afternoon we were done. My partner Paul took the rental back to New Hampshire and few out the next morning, as he's not much of a fan of extended travel.

So, alone the next morning, I took a cab into Ayer, MA, to catch the 11:43am train into Boston. The driver pointed out various landmarks of the Devens that once was, and that no longer is. It appears that its transformation from Army base to ugly suburban office park was so gradual that nobody even noticed. The train was three minutes late, but I was in no hurry. I rolled into town in comfort, with an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ending right as the train pulled into Porter Square.

I surfaced at Porter Square, and started walking north along Hancock out of Cambridge, and into Somerville. I was staying with Tobias and Tessa that night at their place on the other side of the bikepath. I arrived at their doorstep at about 12:45pm, and saw Tessa striding up the street minutes later. She let me in, offered me food, and made me feel at home. I was anxious to go out and get into the area, so I declined the food and legged it to Davis Square. I found a burrito place called Annie's Taqueria, and enjoyed sitting still with hot food. All week in Devens I had never spent a great deal of time outside, and even doubted my decision to pack gloves, a scarf, and a hat. How foolish it would have been not to, because Boston was cold!

I settled into a stool at the Burren, an Irish bar I remember visiting with Carl some years ago. I began my day. By the time the day ended, there were four reunions, two restaurants, five bars, one dinner, and eleven beers. Needless to say, I woke up on Friday feeling less than amazing. I took deep breaths for hours to avoid getting sick. I breathed so heavily that I made myself dizzy, and dried out my mouth and throat. Eventually I got up and moving. I packed up my stuff, rolled away the air mattress, wrote a thank-you note to Tobias and Tessa, and made my shivering way to Kenmore Square.

I checked in at the Hotel Buckminster, right on the corner of Beacon and Brookline, overlooking the square and Fenway Park. The view from the fifth-floor room was spectacular. I napped the rest of the day and afternoon, until Jenny's flight arrived late that night. We met at South Station after the worthless "Silver Line" bus took 45 minutes to go a mile and a half. We went back to the hotel and found that all the restaurants were closed, so we asked the front desk what places delivered this late, and he said, "Domino's" without hesitation, and with a straight face. Famished, we made the call. We waited for two hours, and they never came. We cursed them and went to bed just shy of 3am.

We still got up before 9am, as we were on vacation, and had a lot we wanted to do and see. We were going to take the train downtown, but instead opted to walk, as it was sunny out, though it was still well below freezing. Jenny's eyes popper out of her head when she saw an H&M store, and we went inside. She kept apologizing, but I assured her that I was expecting H&M insanity, and I patiently wait for her to burn out, getting myself a little something in the meantime.

After that we continued our walk down Newbury Street, until we reached the Public Garden, and walked around on the ice for a while. Lots of sickeningly cute pictures were taken, and fun was had. Jenny bruised her thigh, having lost her footing several times on the non-liquid ice. We pushed on, crossing Boston Common, and officially entered downtown at Park Street. We wandered through non-straight streets until we emerged at Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall. We walked from there to the waterfront, and grabbed some seafood lunch at the Chart House, located in an old building right on the harbor.

We took a water taxi to Charlestown, and had a drink or two at the Tavern-on-the-Water before we called a cab and got moving again. We met Carl and his girlfriend Jenn for dinner at Artu, a great Italian place in the North End, and followed that with chocolate-covered cannoli and tiramisu at Cafe Vittoria nearby. They walked with us back to the T, and rode with us to Kenmore, as it was on their way anyway. Jenny and I spent the rest of the evening together, and slept happily that night.

We got up earlyish, but wound up basking around until checkout time. We took the T west until we jumped off at some random stop for lunch. We adjourned at that point to grab our stuff at the hotel, and took the T over to the Institute of Contemporary Art, in South Boston. We passed our last hour there, before hastening to the airport and heading home. We had a great time and a great trip. Jenny was a little disappointed at its brevity, but it was great for me, as I was on the road for a total of ten days, and was very ready to come home.

We'll work out a trip that both of us will appreciate equally. Maybe I'll write a webapp to decide.

Work wound down yesterday by the usual time, and I put on some warm clothes. It snowed all day and most of the night, with the dizzying swirls and lamppost-illuminated multitudes of falling snow reaching fever-pitch at around 9pm. You'd have to be crazy to go out into that. So, I caught the 47 at 10th and Main at 5:45 or so, and alighted at 39th and Bell to join Nicolas and Karen at Gilhouly's for pitchers and popcorn. For over an hour we were the only ones there. We did impressions of each other to waves of raucous laughter until Anna joined us with snow in her hair. Matt appeared soon after. We had a regular night out on our hands.

After perhaps four pitchers, we groped our way across the a street to Fric & Frac for food. I got the sandwich that's named after me, as I always do, and we split some delicious nachos and fries. We're all going to die. We drank some Irish Ales(the first of the season), and agreed that 2010's batch is A-OK. Justin, of course, was there when we arrived. Matt rode the bus down to the Midtown nethers as well, and the two of us watched buses going by, always resolving to catch the next one, and be ready for it when it comes. It never happened. Instead, when Nick, Anna, and Karen were fed up with having a good time and left, Justin graciously offered to give us a ride home in his badass urban assault vehicle.

We picked up some beer for the road and drank it in the car, appreciating Missouri's lack of an open container law for passengers. Justin dropped me off at my shabby apartment, and I was asleep in minutes.

That's it!

Anyway, that was a record. It's been over two months since I wrote anything on this website. I could say I've been busy, but I really haven't. I've had work to do, and things to take care of, as I always do, but the real reason I haven't updated is because I just haven't really had anything on my mind to write about... until now.

That said, hello! How have you been? I realize it's been a while, and I'm sorry about that. I figured that perhaps people didn't want to read about every tiny minutia of my life, and about how I went to Grinders and ate a pizza. Well, from conversations I've had with people, I figured wrong. So, I will make an effort to keep you updated about every boring aspect of my life, asnd maybe even pepper it with some original prose from time to time. Lost Outlines, a short piece that was written to capture a moment in time, has received favorable feedback from the people to whom I have shown it. I assume that the positivity therein is more a direct function of people being excited that a friend made something approximating art, but any press is good press.

I wanted to let you know that I'm seeing someone. Her name is Jenny, and she's amazing. I'm not linking her profile/website or posting pictures, so please don't ask. We've been seeing each other for about two months, and official for one. We get along famously. She lives close, which is handy, as we seem to spend a great deal of time inspecting one another's residences. I've already rearranged furniture at her behest, and she's altered her home electronics configuration at mine. In short, I'm happy in a way I hadn't previously thought possible or even imagined.

That also means that I've been a bit off the radar, and for that I apologize. I will make an effort to be more available, because too often do new relationships consume one's life, and block out all the friendships and commitments of one's pre-relationship life. I don't want that to happen.

In other news, it is a new year, and new possibilities abound. I just completed my extensive employee self-evaluation, and was about to complain aloud about doing it until I realized that I began 2009 with no job at all, and that it would be in pretty poor taste to complain about busywork at my current one. We, meaning my home owners' association, hired a new management company that took over on the first of the year, and barring some sloppiness with the garbage transition, things have been going great.

Money still sucks, but that's the way it goes. I've been struggling ridiculously to pay off the last of the debt I accumulated in my six months of unemployment, and Capital One has taken to using dozens of area codes to try to trick me into answering a call. Pursuant to getting that paid off, I am reinstating my online ledger program, and making some programming updates to it to make it more effective. If you want to try it, let me know.

I think that will do for updates at the moment, but be sure to expect more, because they are coming.

Though the site survey itself was at a mostly shut-down Army base near Leominster, MA, I was instructed to find accommodations in Worcester, a small city of roughly 170,000 about 15 miles down the road. In Massachusetts, fifteen miles will cover a lot of ground. In my seemingly short drive from Worcester to the site, I passed a half dozen decent-sized towns and three state parks. Massachusetts, though it's small and dense, is a very wild place outside the inhabited parts. Mountains, thick forests, and swamps abound. In late October it's truly a sight to behold. Though the biggest frenzy of vivid leaf colors had passed perhaps two weeks earlier, there was still an abundance of dazzling color in every direction.

People at work advised me that I should avoid flying into Boston, as there's traffic. Instead they recommended that I fly into Providence. I wasn't into this idea, but I did understand the futility of depending on Boston's Logan airport with a car, and instead chose to fly into Manchester, NH. I flew out of Boston to come home though, because I was there anyway, with my friend Karen. I had never used Manchester's airport before, and it was an absolute breeze. From gate to street was roughly three minutes, and that includes a pee. I had no trouble getting a rental, and hopped on I-93 to speed southward to my destination.

About seventy minutes later, I rolled into Worcester, a city named for the British city in the center of the region that gives my father's favorite steak sauce its name. As is the custom in Massachusetts, Worcester has a salad bar of colleges, large and small, and so of course has a significant youthful population. Undulating hills score its landscape. This combined with its considerable age of 336 years (ancient for America) make for an incongruous mishmash of streets that follow no particular pattern and heed no address numbering scheme of any kind other than buildings just incrementing addresses on a particular street. I noticed this on Massachusetts' highways as well. They most certainly do have mile markers, but the exit numbers have nothing to do with them. Anyway, this all comes together to form an excellent built environment in Worcester, and it goes without saying but I'll say anyway that it's an extremely walkable city.

I walked to Armsby Abbey on the advice of the hotel staff, and they instructed me to "have one" for them. They love beer in Massachusetts, and it shows. I went inside and found that the bar had a selection of about forty beers available on draught, including several Belgian flavors. I'm not a big enthusiast of Belgian beers, as they're on average too sweet and bready for my taste, but I do acknowledge that the commitment, both monastic and commercial, to the craft is a time-honored tradition in Belgium, and here in the States, people flap their arms for Belgian beer.

I helped myself to a local IPA and a local Porter, and got a lot of turned heads when my food came. Some kind of gouda-based concoction that featured bacon and potato salad, and that almost made me start looking around for an apartment guide, was dropped off in front of me. It was a late dinner and I was very hungry, but even so it was an explosion of flavor. I asked the bartender who was, of course, from the Midwest, like everyone else in cool coastal cities, where would be a good place to go after this. She recommended the Boynton, but admonished me that without the benefit of a car, it was "a hike." I told her I didn't mind a walk, as it was a beautiful night. She reluctantly gave me directions.

It took me fifteen minutes to walk there with a full sidewalk and respected priority crosswalks on every step of the route. I don't know what she was talking about with it being, "a hike." I walk farther than that in Kansas City all the time, and have to keep my wits about me to avoid getting flattened by motorists who don't take kindly to people walking on their roadway. Anyway, the Boynton had an outstanding draught selection, but almost everyone there was drinking bottled grey beer. The bartender dusted off the 90-minute IPA handle for me, and I watched the Phillies lose game 2 of the World Series. I was back at the hotel by 11pm, and went leisurely to sleep.

I awoke the next morning in no particular hurry, as I had no specific obligations until after 2pm. I checked out at noon, and drove up to the site just to do what database partner Paul calls, "recon," on the location and the route. With an hour to spare, I periscoped for some lunch. After a pretty sad showing (ie. nothing), I finally came across a Wendy's in Ayer, MA. I ate a 99-cent burger that isn't available in Kansas City, while I watched with quiet humor a revolving door of something you don't hear a lot about in the Midwest: New England Rednecks.

I've been to Massachusetts many times, but never before in my adult life had I visited the provinces this extensively. The natives, especially in the country, have the thickest New England accents I could have imagined. My friend Carl told me several years ago that the accent had "left Boston," and removed to the surrounding areas. I had forgotten this until it was brought home to me at that Wendy's in Ayer. After I finished eating I had perhaps twenty minutes to make the five-minute drive to the site, and I got a phone call. It was my point of contact, letting me know that the site survey wouldn't be possible for another ninety minutes. So, I had some time on my hands.

I decided to head into Leominster for three reasons. One, it has my middle name in its name; two, it was very close; and three, it's the purported birthplace and hometown of Johnny Appleseed. So I headed into town and encountered a ridiculous traffic jam just outside the downtown area. I pulled off and found a spot at a Catholic Church aptly named St. Leo's, suited up, and walked into town. Leominster's downtown is a New England-style modern-art puzzle crammed around a sunny lawn with a Gettysburg memorial reverently erected in its center. No fewer than six church steeples were visible over the orange and red treetops. I took a couple of pictures, but realized that really, there's nothing remarkable about Leominster. It was very different and interesting and exciting to me, but to the average Leominister(?) it's just another town. Even so, I wandered around downtown, peeking into shop windows and trying not to act surprised when people smiled their hellos as we'd pass on the sidewalk. It was a very agreeable town.

I got a call from Ed, my point of contact, as I was heading back to the car. He said he'd be at the site in perhaps thirty minutes. We met at what used to be the Post Shoppette (basically an army gas station), but was now just a regular gas station. I got there first, so I used the bathroom, picked up a hawaiian punch, and sat outside and read a chapter of a book I've read a hundred times already. Ed arrived and we made short work of the work for which my employer paid an extensive sum to finance.

My work obligations complete, I had nothing to do but have a good time. So I hopped on Highway-2, and zoomed into Boston for Halloween weekend. The highways directed me toward the Masspike, and soon I was $2.50 lighter, and headed toward the Prudential building to Neil Diamond in open 60mph traffic. It was a very exciting for me. For a moment I forgot about my debts, my obligations, my troubles, and just enjoyed a sublime point in time.

I dropped the car off at the airport, happy to be rid of it, and jumped on the silver line "train" to the World Trade Center stop. Karen was waiting for me there, and we shared a weird sideways hug. Karen and I are two pretty different people. She actually enjoys things that are good for you. To me they're a necessary, but entirely unpleasant aspect of life. When I travel I abandon the pursuit of making myself a healthier person, in favor of enjoying myself as fully as I can. Beer, meat, potatoes, cholesterol, sugar, refried beans, guacamole, loud music, walking at leisure- these are all things of which I usually avail myself fully when I'm traveling for fun, while Karen is more of a mind of staying the responsible healthy course she has set for herself in her daily life, and which she has come to love and enjoy.

I wish I could enjoy that sort of thing, but I just can't. So I chew my greens and wash them down with water to get the horrible unprocessed veggie taste out of my mouth, and press on. But even so, Karen and I got along just fine when we spent the weekend. I think she was being a little more accommodating than I was though, and I feel the need to apologize to her for that. I need to remember to do that the next time I see her, and to remember that she gave up her weekend for me. I'm not sure I ever fully conveyed my thanks to her for that.

Anyway, she walked me back to the hotel, and I did a five-minute unsweating of my face and armpits in the bathroom when we arrived. I had already arranged with Carl that I'd meet him for dinner and drinks that night. (It was Friday.) Karen had an opening reception to attend for the weekend's conference, and said she'd try to meet up later. I had outstanding luck with the trains, and managed to catch one as soon as I arrived at each platform. As a result, I beat Carl to the rally point by a good ten minutes. This was in the middle of Allston, so the streets were alive with beautiful young people. Carl strode up soon after, and we hugged, not having seen each other for the better part of three years.

We went to a bar called Deep Ellum, which as I recall, is the name of an artsy neighborhood just outside downtown Dallas, TX. As such, I had the theme music from Dallas stuck in my head all night, along with images of Charlene Tilton. We shared a table with a friendly couple, had dinner, drank some delicious local beers, and caught up. It was really wonderful to spend time with Carl on Friday, brief as it was. After we'd been there a little while, I got a text from Karen, proposing that we meet at the Publick House in Brookline. We heaved sighs, but Karen had never been there, and it's definitely a place that everyone needs to visit at least once.

I'm sure there were plenty of buses and cabs that would have been happy to carry us the mile and a half that lay between Deep Ellum and the Publick House, but we agreed that it was too nice of a night not to walk it. Even on foot, we still beat Karen there by at least twenty minutes. We grabbed some beers, and wedged ourselves into a window-side table among the spent glasses of the table's previous occupants. Karen appeared in the picture window about halfway into our beers, and the three of us sat and talked for perhaps an hour before other people from her conference that were walking by recognized her, and split us into conversation groups of Carl and John, and Karen and the conference people. It was actually really nice.

The conference people persuaded us to join them at a costume party about a half mile away. Carl excused himself for the evening when we arrived, and after a couple of beers and laughs, Karen and I left too. It was after 1am, so the buses and trains were not an option. We grabbed a cab, and were stunned at the short time it takes to drive from Brookline to South Boston, compared to our previous point of reference: the T. We went upstairs and were asleep in minutes. Karen reported the next day that not only was I snoring loudly, but I was also growling and speaking in complete sentences, presumably, to people with whom I dreamily interacted.

We met Tobias at a bookstore and brunch place called either Trident or The Trident, on Newbury St in the Back Bay. I had an eggs benedict and too many potatoes, while Karen and Tobias each had some kind of fruit-stuffed french toast dish. it was all extremely tasty. We left there and cruised down the sidewalk of Newbury St. We got our hands lavishly and pungently washed at a Lush store, and we browsed the inescapably expensive wares at Louis Boston, which had a Ferrari parked out front. Karen spotted a pair of glasses with wooden frames, ambitiously priced at just over five hundred dollars, not counting the cost of actually fitting her prescription lenses therein, and was tempted enough to talk about them until we were considerably past capable of purchasing them. I suggested she run the search through google.

We wandered across the Public Garden, and found ourselves in Beacon Hill. Tobias told us stories about how this was his first home in Boston, and the place from which he first began to know and appreciate his new home. He pointed out places where he loved to eat, shop, and walk, and had more stories about people that he knew and had known in various parts of the neighborhood. Beacon Hill, clearly, is important to Tobias, and it's easy to see why. It's almost unimaginably scenic, and its location is the stuff of cliche. If the housing stock wasn't protected as historically significant, it would all be towering highrises now. I knew one business in Beacon Hill: the Beacon Hill Pub; a lone cash-only dive bar in the middle of the charming opulence of Charles St, conveniently situated within 100 yards of the Charles/MGH Red Line stop. We drank beer from faux pint glasses constructed of shatterproof light plastic, and talked some more about nothing in particular.

We agreed it was time to head north, so we got on the Red Line nearby, and traversed the Longfellow Bridge with the afternoon sunlight glinting off the whitecapped Charles River as a foreground to the view of the skyline of the Back Bay to the west. Karen looked up at me, smiled, and said, "I think I like Boston."

We got off the train at Harvard Square, and were immediately shocked by the much greater numbers of people on the streets in Cambridge than there had been in Boston. But it then occurred to us that it was late afternoon on Halloween in America's most overtly collegiate town. Of course people would be out en masse. We weren't quite ready to sit down yet, so we walked around Cambridge for a while. It's very surprising how abruptly the commercial storefronts give way to quiet, tidy neighborhoods of immaculate New England-style houses, but it is so. Cambridge is a singularly lovely town. I've always enjoyed visiting.

Again on my suggestion, we went to Shay's, a basement beer and wine bar about three blocks off Harvard Square. We grabbed a table and some beers, and watched the place fill up around us. Probably half the people we saw were in costume. One woman came in, dressed as a flawless Chun Li from Street Fighter 2. Shortly afterward, six men, dressed perfectly as six-foot tall versions of Oscar the Grouch, Bert, Ernie, Grover, the Cookie Monster, and the insufferable Elmo, sat down at a nearby table. We liked this very much. Even so, after one beer, we felt the need to ramble.

We walked for a bit more in Cambridge, and wound up, on Tobias' suggestion, at a fantastic pizza place called Cambridge 1. We shared a pizza with lobster, sorrel, goat cheese, and corn on it. It was delectable. We didn't even leave any crumbs. Out the back window of the restaurant, next to which we were seated, was a centuries-old cemetery. We decided we wanted to have a look. It fronted Mass Ave, but we took an intentionally circuitous route through the neighborhood behind it for aesthetic reasons. We saw 300-year old headstones amid the falling yellow leaves and late afternoon sunshine. We left there and crossed Cambridge Common, for a bar of the same name.

Our waiter was dressed as Marty McFly, so I called him, "butthead," when I thanked him for our drinks. He laughed appreciatively, as there had been few people that had known what his costume was. Full credit must be given to Tobias though, for first spotting the costume for what it was. We had a couple of beers before we set off again, toward Tobias' home of Somerville, where we had planned with Tobias' wife Tessa, and Ted, one of the people that Karen had met at the conference. We hopped on the red line at Porter Square and rode for one stop to Davis Square, and grabbed a table at Damaskar for some excellent Indian Food.

The food, drink, and conversation were delightful. Nobody could finish their dinner, so Tobias and Tessa gratefully and graciously accepted everyone's leftovers. We said good-night to Ted, who had a party to attend, and went to Tobias and Tessa's apartment about 3/4 of a mile away. We watched some football while we talked, and Tobias and I discovered that his mother and my sister attended the same small girls' college in Terre Haute, IN. Tessa brought me close to tears as she played us a beautiful piece on their new piano, and we watched an episode of Saved by the Bell.

By this time, it was about 11:15pm, and Karen and I had an early flight the next morning, so we thanked them for their friendliness and hospitality, and retraced our steps to the Red Line stop at Davis Square. On the way, the weather went from sprinkling to drizzling to raining to pouring. We hastened to put electronics into protected pockets and bags, but everything got wet. We alighted at the T stop bedraggled and soaked, but I still rather enjoyed it. It was certainly wet, but the temperature was very pleasant, and I always enjoy walking in the rain. Also, though it did rain, neither of us made any effort to hurry. I think we had a silent understanding of our mutual appreciation for the simple novelty of finishing our weekend with falling rain.

It had been almost three years since my last visit to Boston, and though the visit was brief, I can't imagine how it could have been improved.