Fear of flying. Fear of mice.

So I'm taking the family to Disney World tomorrow. I'm really excited... not as much about the trip, but about PROVIDING the trip. I'm trying to be a Conduit of Pleasant Transportation... instead of irritable and nervous, which I can sometimes be during travel.

I've prayed a lot on this.

I hate to fly. It scares the crap out of me. The last time we flew, we hit some big-ass turbulence. My oldest boy got scared, and I remember just PRETENDING. I acted all calm and reassuring, while inside I was like: "HOLY SHIT!"

Maggie and I went out for dinner tonight to do some last minute itinerary planning. It's a big World, after all.

12 inches of pure love.

Get your mind out of the gutter, people.

After a week-and-a-half long experiment with the inelegant crap that is windows, I am writing this from a 12" iBook, which will last me until the Freescale or G4 PowerBooks come out.

Man. that was a NIGHTMARE. It makes want to go back in time and slap the shit out Apple marketing folks form the 80's, for lettings such a crappy OS like Windows gain the upper hand.

You'd think it mattered.

It sounds good: Athlon 3000+ XP-M, 512MBs of RAM, 15.4" widescreen monitor.

Just one problem: it runs Windows.

I ebayed my PowerBook, thinking I would switch to Windows to gain access to better CRM software. So I got a decent price for it, certainly more than this notebook cost. And I figured I'd learn to like Windows.

The problem is: Windows SUCKS. Forgetting that I've had two bluescreens (I thought those were gone in XP?) that restarted my computer spontaneously.... it's SLOW, it's CLUNKY, it interrupts me all the time, and AAAAAH!

So I'm ebaying the notebook, and buying an iBook until the Freescale/G5 powerbooks come out.

I can't BELIEVE that 95% of the country uses this crappy operating system!

Correction: 4 hours, 17 minutes, 28 seconds.

:-)

That's the official time.

Brother, can you spare a knee?

I finished my first marathon! 4 hours, 20 minutes. Crazily, I did miles 13-26 faster than miles 1-13.

Huh?

Off to the bath. Then ice. Then, another bath. Then, more ice. Then sleep. Then more sleep.

Love ya!

Okay then.

I'm off to meet my friend Lisa. It's race time! I'm a little nervous. Cheers!

Lucky, lucky, me.

I am runner number 3231.

No matter what happens today in the race, I am incredibly fortunate.

How suite it is. (Or, Bowl of Gourds!)

So, I get to the Marriott, check in, and they can't give me a key. The key encoder is broken. But the bellfolks will take me up and let me in right away. He says. Sadly, the bellfolks were overwhelmed by the marathon crowd, combined with an onslaught of speech therapists. They asked me to come back later.

I come back later.

They give me a key. I go upstairs and enter the room. They kind of forgot to clean it. Yucky poo. I go back downstairs. The nice lady says "Whoa. Sorry about that. Let switch you to a hospitality suite."

Zowie! Conference table! SEVEN chairs! Couch! Huge TV!

AND A MASSIVE BOWL OF METAL-PLATED GOURDS!!!!!!!

Nice!

26.2 miles tomorrow. 26.2 miles. Holy smokes.

26.2 miles, redux.

I'm leaving in an hour for Philadelphia, where I'm running in tomorrow's marathon. After missing my first attempt at a marathon (Chicago in October) due to bronchitis... I'm nervous and excited about tomorrow. The scary thing is... I was really trained for Chicago. Less so for Philly. But I'm a-goin'.

That's funny, she doesn't LOOK fluish.

See, as an ex-Hebrew School (assistant) teacher turned Liberal Catholic, I feel guilty even making a reference to a REFERENCE to a joke involving Judaism. That's how little I want to offend people.

Jeez.

Anyway: My wife is sick. And I was on the phone with a friend of mine, and I said: "Listen. I'm going to try really hard, right now, not to speak angrily with my children for the entire day."

Now, this might now sound like a big deal, but I've got three kids going non-stop, and they all of the energy that I HAD when I was younger, and they're smarter than me, and they get cranky and fight with each other towards bedtime, and... well... it's very hard not to be snippy.

I prayed what I always pray: "Thy will not mine." And I tried not to be a jackass.

And I made it. Barely. My daughter started yelling for me for the second time after I had just gotten her brother to sleep, and she was yelling for me just to tell me, AGAIN, not to shut her door. Which I hadn't, didn't, and wasn't going to.

So here I am. It's 9:55pm, and everyone's asleep. I'm going to go get the puppy, bring her for a short walk, then make popcorn and watch bad TV until 11pm. I've been up since 4:30, and I'm really tired. I know that I'm really tired because I had an episode last night, where I got up and was all crazy during the middle of the night, with utterly no recollection of it this morning. This happened a lot when I used to drink, and it was proven to be a weird brain thing ("night terrors") when I went to a sleep clinic in the 90's, but it happens a lot less now that I've given up alcohol entirely. Only when I'm really tired.

That, and my right eyelid is, like, VIBRATING.

Catholics for birth control!

Look. I can see both sides of the abortion issue. Personally, I'm completely pro choice. And I truly believe that this is the right way to be. But I can see WHY people fee the other way.

(Unlike, say, being Anti-Gay. What the hell is THAT about? Senseless.)

Now, here's what makes me crazy. If you're pro life, why the hell aren't you pro BIRTH CONTROL? And don't give me that temp-taking, rhythm method bullshit. If you believe in ONE way of dodging a pregnancy, why not believe in the RELIABLE one's? You think that God get's mad about condoms, but approves of avoidance. You think God CARES about that?

That's all.

Pass it on.

What you're good at, share with others. And if you need help with something, ask.

Well, down the hatch.

So Bush won. Did you hear? He won fair and square, and he won a majority, not a plurality.

I think the reason comes down to this. Consider this Kerry argument, paraphrased: "I voted to give the President authority to go to war in Iraq, thinking he would do so only as a last resort. Instead, he went to war without evidence, without reason, and without international support."

This is WAY to complicated for the general American public. They need to hear things like "You can run, but you can't hide."

Maybe if Kerry said: "We gave Bush the right to bear arms, and just started shooting," then people would have gotten it.

Oh, well. Time to get more active in politics, me.