There are a thousand stories in the naked city…I know about 86 of ’em.

I had an ok day today… Newt made it go by a lot more softly, as did some communication with my sweetie, later in the day. I’m still not looking forward to tomorrow’s fumigation cleanup, but at least the house will be wonderfully clean when I’m done… going to go catch a movie and do some mp3 player shopping with my bro on Sunday… hopefully the weekend will allow for some social time with my sweetheart, too.

I think I’m going to take advantage of my brief displacement, and have a long tub-soak.

Nurture or nature – what determines how brine shrimp will turn out? The Scopes Sea Monkey Trial tests both theories at once by raising the subjects in water from varying sources, including holy water.

and now, your moment of zen –

Careful!
Even moonlit dewdrops,
If you’re lured to watch,
Are a wall before the truth.

– Sogyo (18th century)

Nighty night, dear journal.

Well, I’m online from the hotel…connected at a dragging 19200… but phonecalls oout are only $.72 apiece, unlimited duration. I get to stay here tonight and tomorrow…I can certainly smuggle newtie in tomorrow night. I found out about the friday night stayover today at 5pm, the landlord was pretty upset about it too, because the fumigation guys told him after the place was filled with the toxin… no going in to get more supplies…I’m lucky I grabbed two day’s worth of clothes. (I hate wearing the same gear two days running, unless I’m “roughing it” in the woods somewhere.)

Well, If not a disaster, it counts as half of one, anyway. bah.

$10 cab ride to the hotel. I was told it’d be non-smoking, ground floor, and allow newt.

Nope, nope, and nope.

Add to that the general unpleasantness of the owner… he saw I was struggling, didn’t offer to help with my baggage (a laptop, CPAP, bag of clothing…unwieldy, at best) I go upstairs, unload, hop back in the cab, return home, get newt and his food, and go upstairs. He comes following after me, and tells me that no pets are allowed.

I tell him ok… let me gather my things from my room, and I’ll be on my way. I have to hold onto Newt, so he doesn’t go anywhere.

He makes no effort or gesture to help gather my equipment, but instead says “I’m not playing around” as I try to gather my loot up to make it all in one trip.

I thanked him for all of his help and courtesy, and left…he replies with “Whatever”.

My retort was “I hope all of your permits are in order… I’m calling code enforcement tomorrow. Fuck you and yours.”

I got into the cab, and returned home, and here I am.

I’ve posted a sign on my door… “Tenant is inside, do not Fumigate” just in case, but I know that they have to open the place up with the landlord present first… all the windows and I think the doors, too. Regardless, I’ve set my wake up call to 6:30 am, so I’ll be up in time for it.

Work tomorrow is going to be really lousy… fortunately I’ll have Newt with to take the bulk of the edge off.

now, nigh nigh for real, dear journal.

okie doke… off to the hotel. I’ll probably do journal entries on the palmtop or laptop and synch ’em up later.

Sweet dreams, and have a good day tomorrow, dear journal. I’ll be activating the *noxious deadly vapor-cam* while I’m gone. I wonder how long it’ll stay running? (It seems to fritz out after about 8 hours or so..)

Nuts… the landlord called *JUST NOW* and said that the fumigators will be here tomorrow at seven in the morning, as opposed to the ten-ish, maybe eleven he quoted me yesterday.

That means I go to a hotel tonight, after I finish all the packaging up of stuff, including taking Newt to a new and strange environment at night to a place that might be less than welcoming.

I voiced my upset, but will be nice about it, and let this take place. What a hassle. Ah well, back to work.

Looks like that an epidural is the next step, after I get some blood work done.

Instead of surgery, they want to work with “managing” the problem, first…a shot of cortisone into the back whenever it causes problems. I need to research the side effects.

Meantime, the usual “back care” stuff… no heavy lifting, no improper bending or twisting.

A little tension after the diagnostics today… but otherwise, my back’s doing fine these days. Still hitting the doc as more of a preemptive strike for the next one, now.

Time for me to bag my loot before tomorrow’s gassing. 🙂

Explore the mysterious reaches of… the Moscow tunnel system? Yes, really. This article from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (yes, really talks about the people who are doing it, the things they’re finding (including corpses, an abandoned secret lab, and armed men in camo uniforms), and the things they hope to find (starting with the hidden library of Ivan the Terrible).

A bit of Googling turns up another piece about the same group, the “Diggers” – this one from Outside Magazine. But, hmm, there doesn’t seem to be anything of substance since 1997. That’s a long time.

Wonder if they finally crawled down the wrong tunnel?

Well, off to the Neurologist… see you later, dear journal.

interesting keywords that link to my page –

Yahoo history of Spanish punctuation
Google ray gun schematics
Yahoo nanotech camouflage

and a fun discovery at google labs, google sets... enter a few words, and it’ll try and extrapolate a list for you. Usually three will do it.

(The glossary there is better than dictionary or m-w.com, too.)

Called my landlord, and he said he’d be by to bag up my food and stuff tomorrow… uh, nope. I’ll take care of it.. it may be weird of me, but I don’t want him rummaging through my pantry and who knows where else tomorrow. I told him to leave the bags by the front door, and I’ll take care of it tomorrow night.

Things to take with me to the hotel –

• All of Newton’s Toys (no point of leaving them to be gassed or bagging them), including army men, Scotto hair ties and milk rings.
• Box of litter
• Newton’s Food
• Newt’s Dishes
• Newton
• Laptop
• two changes of clothes
• CPAP
• All my shoes, incl. Fuzzy Godzilla slippers
• Palmtop
• Camera

Things to throw out / Replace –

• Newton’s Big cardboard boxes… (easier to replace ’em, than risk him gnawing on them)
• food that I bring to St. Vincent’s on Thursday
• Anything that Newt might get into
• Anything in the Fridge that needs tossing. Honey Mustard… that means you, bub.

Things to bag and/or rewash when I get home –

• Dishes
• Silverware
• Any surfaces that Newt might wander onto, including under the sink and the shower curtain
• All my laundry, including towels and egg-crate on bed

*note, leave Newtcam running, just for the heck of it…maybe see what it looks like to have my apartment flooded with poison gas.

Tomorrow morning, I go to the Neurologist to have some more tests run, and to check for any nerve damage… I think all is well, except for a little trouble bending my left big toe, and some numbness and swelling of my left foot. Get his report, and take it to my doc 7/2, and see what my treatment options are…I’m glad to be taking care of this, and my back is fine these days. This is all just to prevent that problem from rearing up again. I’m glad I can walk around again pretty reasonably… ticking off some of the extra weight I’ve tacked on the last month or two by not doing as much roaming. Summertime’s coming, and less traffic and more heat is officially here. good time to work out… maybe even swim between walking to the beach and back… it’s been an age since I’ve been actually more than knee deep in the ocean. It’d be nice to do some tai chi katas out there in the early morning too, now that the beach isn’t covered with lookie-loos. A bicycle is looking more like an option again for working out and traveling, too.

Bro invited me to take a three-day cruise with him when he gets his settlement from the police department… that could be fun… I’ll have to see if I can arrange good time off, and maybe a nice discount (or freebie) from my parent company. He sounds good, and it looks like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for him. I’m glad.

nigh nigh, dear journal.

I just got hit with a case of the lovey-squishies.

🙂

Just a warm feeling. I like that.

It’s Tuesday, and no information regarding the fumigation from the landlord yet. All I know is that Thursday night is being spent somewhere that is not here. I’m going to have to call him up from work and ask what the procedures are going to be for my food, toys, self and Newt are going to be.

The most diplomatic way to put it would be to say “The landlord has poor organizational skills and a lot on his mind.” I can forgive him his oversights easily… if the sale goes through, I’ll never have to deal with him again.

a Newtcam moment

I love his pink little nose. crazy amount of brightness outside… little wonder he likes that sill. Toasty.

This morning’s walk was fruitful… in that I enjoyed being out and about. I think all of the tourists are officially *gone*, now… the roads seem more quiet, sidewalks less busy, and the beach has a much smaller population. I took a few pictures at the pier, and will synch ’em later tonight.

Random Scotto Factoid – I think pelicans are more cute than sandpipers or seagulls. They have a total goofy vibe going, sitting on a wooden post, and then *zoom-dive* they’ve got a beak-net full of fish.

Meet the bugs of Cricket Magazine… I didn’t know it was still being published until today.

Quickie Newtcam Graphic I made for sweetalyssm‘s banner exchange (bottom link on the right, above subscribe)… until I can gather some artistic resources and produce a better one. Not bad for three minutes’ work.

I wish I could say the same for my website. I’m dissatisfied with it, design wise, but I really don’t know in what direction I want to go. I’ve built and scrapped about 20 designs now. My trouble is that I don’t want it to be too graphics intensive, and I don’t want it to look “too typical”… but there’s only so much you can do with words on a page… especially if your graphic arts skills are weak, at best. I’ve wandered from “cave motif” to just earth-tone colored text, to an “entertaining the first visit, annoying the third” hand-drawn on the palm style. I contemplated having my Livejournal as my homepage, and just tweaking the Flash “Road sign” there to point to the rest of my site.

All good-ish ideas… perhaps I’m just being too finicky. There’s no real deadline to produce the design of the page… but I feel like it’s overdue. Perhaps I need to assign myself a deadline, just so that I’ll act on it… not like I can’t change it again later. Perhaps I’ve been doing too much code… very little artistic goodies like writing or any crafts…. I need to pick up the recorder again. Clear the cobs of colors and sounds, and let the math and structure centers cool down a bit.

I’ll think on it from a more horizontal position… perhaps something will come to me in a dream.

Nigh night, dear journal.

Regarding the Pet Psychic and the Crossing Over guy.

My personal opinion (and I could be wrong, this is just a first impression) is that they are entertainers, using the same routine many, many showmen have used before them. Both are friendly and charismatic, and offer a nice production though my gut says “Nope”. I’m a skeptic, but not a cynic… I’ve seen folks that I think are more intuitive than others, and I believe that the unknown is out there.. and some folks can tap into that… but these two don’t ring true on my inner “paranormal meter”.

That said… whether you buy into their psychic powers or not (or anyone’s, for that matter)… they do bring comfort and happiness to people, and I think that’s far better than what 99.9% of what television has to offer. If they make a million advertising dollars making people smile, and soothing hearts then more power to ’em. Beats television news and Jerry Springer with a blunt object, repeatedly, in my book as long as they’re not leading anyone down a path of real social or spiritual folly.

gute fahrt means “good drive” in German. (not PROPERTY TRAVEL, like google’s translation says)

so, after riding with someone, when you get out of the car, be sure and tell them “GUTE FAHRT!”

*snerk*

Ok, off to work, dear journal.

Well, I’m back, showered and fresh for the day.

Not a single one detected. By the way, all you ‘l33t’ people… the plural is viruses.

Moment of Zen-

However deep your
Knowledge of the scriptures,
It is no more than a strand of hair
In the vastness of space;
However important seeming
Your worldly experience,
It is but a drop of water in a deep ravine.

– Tokusan