eHarm

eHarmony has a new feature that lets you see your matches without having to pay first. I am grateful for this since, ever the optimist, I considered renewing my membership after three months of perfectly ridiculous and inappropriate matches. After the latest batch they emailed to me- "Mike is a 5'6, 58 year old meatcutter from Horsefart, Idaho. He says the three most important things to him in life are his Christian faith, his seven children, and his collection of George Strait memorabilia" - I am going to look elsewhere.

Besides, any site endorsed by a bloated megalomaniac like Dr.Phil is bound to be frightning.

Ruston Way

More Pictures From My Neighborhood

The back of my apartment building (I'm two floors from the top, 2nd window from the left)
Stadium High School. I think this may be one of the coolest-looking high schools in the country. The school is situated right at the point where Commencement Bay meets Puget Sound. In random news...

On Friday one of my student said "It's supposed to be beautiful next week" Being woefully out of sync with the rest of the world I pictured cool and cloudy. Turns out it's going to be in the 80s. Yuck. The only time I don't enjoy the mile walk to and from work is when its hot out. Rain doesn't phase me at all. I love walking in the rain. This baffles my coworkers who don't understand why I don't drive on rainy days. First of all I think it's absurd to drive when it's only a mile. Again, I'm out of sync with the average American who would probably drive to an office two blocks away. While I'm on my high horse, posturing not only as the queen of health and fitness but also as an environmentalist, please use half the recommended amount of laundry detergent. That's all you need- really.

I have a new manager at work. I was really sad to see my old one go since I really liked him. The new one is a Red Bull-guzzling Mormon (hello?? Actually I have to admit I think it's kind of cool that he's not bound by dogma) who offered to keep the office refrigerator stocked with said legal narcotic because he wants us to be "high energy all day, every day". He's an aggressive, corporate-climbing, former football player with a bone-pulverizing handshake. I'm working on liking him.

I'm going to Jacksonville, NC at the end of the month to visit my nephew who will be spending the next year in Iraq.

I want to make an overnight trip to the Oregon coast sometime in the next month or two. I can't think of any place I love more. Of all the places I've lived in or visited, the only one I don't miss is Denver. I hate Denver. There are only two things I miss about that area and that's Boulder and Red Rocks Ampitheater. Even though Boulder is only 35 miles from Denver it always felt like a different world to me. South Florida will always be part of my soul, but I can't really imagine living there now. And while I would never want to live in Phoenix again, I do have a few good memories of my time there. I may actually go back at some point to visit Dave. One place I really want to visit again is western North Carolina. My grandparents used to have a vacation home in Deep Gap, and I went to Camp Yonahlossee in Blowing Rock for several summers. I haven't been back since 1976. I especially want to visit Asheville which has morphed into the sort of weird, new-agey kind of town I love. I'd love to visit there in the Fall. The Blue Ridge mountains at that time of year are gorgeous.

I've worked for my current company for a year and a half as of September 6th. I haven't talked to Peter in five months.

Filler Post

Too busy to post past week or so. Finishing a class this week; will have more time after that (although I start a new one the very next day). Went to the Muckleshoot casino Saturday night with a couple of friends from work. I spent $20 on gambling and had a club soda with lime. Woo. I'm a party animal.

The casino was fun in that in had good live bands and a nice atmopshere in general, but I can't stand breathing air that's polluted with cigarette smoke. I'm starting to scare myself with what a militant anti-smoker I am becoming. It amazes me when I see young people smoking. Do they say to themselves "I want to spend a thousand dollars a year on a habit that will make me smell disgusting, render me repuslive to the opposite sex, and quite possibly kill me? Great idea, I think I'll start smoking!" Yes, I know. I was a smoker off and on in college. But that was when you could still smoke in restaurants and I think even on planes. There just seems to be an even clearer message now that smoking is so toxic and disgusting that if you must engage in your filthy habit please do so at least ten yards from any public building. I doubt that casinos will ever be completely smoke free- although though I do give Muckleshoot credit for having a smaller, completely non-smoking facility across the parking lot (but that's not where the band and all the fun stuff was).