Dale Miller

I decided several nights ago that I was tired of feeding cat food to the opossum(s), so I put the food bowls on the dining table and moved the chairs away. Opossums are great climbers, but don’t jump very well. It seems to have worked. I haven’t been awakened by crunching in the middle of the night, and I don’t put out nearly as much food.

However…

I came home tonight to discover that my two small trash cans had been turned over. While that could have been the result of cats, I found a piece of evidence that says otherwise.

This was lying on the landing of the stairway. You would think (s)he could find something more nourishing to chew on that a diet drink can.

I found my project today. I installed a test version of the latest SunOne Java Enterprise system and configured it to see what it will take for us to upgrade. Okay, it might not be the most fun thing to do, but my boss wanted it, so that makes it good.

I should have come home sooner, though. I left the office carrying my laptop, went to the men’s room, back to the office to get my coat, and to the car. Somewhere in that trip I sat down my laptop, because it never made it to the car. I, of course, didn’t realize that until I got home. I was panicking, thinking that I had left it in the men’s room. I called one of my co-workers who lives much closer than I do, and talked him into going back to the office to check for me. As it turned out, it was right outside my office (and thus inside the locked part of the building), so I worried for nothing. That really wasn’t good for me, though. I was just sure I was going to have to pay to replace it, and I really can’t afford that at the moment.

I think that was enough excitement for the day.

It’s Monday. I’m at work. I’m bored. It’s time for a new project. There is a push for evaluating VOIP, but I will only be peripherally involved with that, so I don’t want to put much time into it. I should work on identity management. Maybe I will even do that today.

Today was not a bad day. I got up early, read webcomics, and went back to bed. I spent most of the morning lounging around, just because I could. I finally got out this afternoon and worked a bit in the yard. I actually accomplished quite a bit for the amount of effort I put into it. After I got tired of cutting things down, I wandered back into the woods a bit, and found two more lawnmowers (and other miscellaneous junk). One of them appears to be salvageable, but both had Tecumseh engines, which I don’t enjoy working on. I didn’t get the one I hauled back working today, but I didn’t spend much time on it either. I suspect that the fuel line/carburetor is clogged. It seems to have a spark and compression, but no fuel. That’s a project for another day. I still have the goal of being able to walk to the back of my property without protective clothing before next summer.. I’m not sure I will attain it, but it’s worth shooting for.

I saw one of my neighbors when I was carrying brush down to the street. She and her daughter were out looking for a cat that has been missing for a couple of days. I know what that feels like.

It’s morning, it’s cold outside (35°F) and the sky is as clear as it can only be on a cold night, with a full moon flooding the pre-dawn hours with enough light that reading is possible.

I must find something to keep me occupied today so that I don’t fall into my usual pattern of depression.

It’s been too long since I last updated, so here’s a quick summary:

Nov. 13-21 – I took off work and worked in the yard. I actually had a lunch date, but no chance at a second date. That was about it.

Nov. 22-24 – Went to work, didn’t feel well, accomplished a few things.

Thanksgiving day – Worked in the yard a bit, had a turkey sandwich for lunch. Guil invited me over for dinner, but I just couldn’t convince myself to go. I wasn’t in the mood to be around people.

Yesterday – Mark called in the evening and convinced me that I needed to get out of the house. I met him for dinner, then went back to his house. I filled up my hard drive with Anime (only about 20GB, but it is a laptop, after all, helped him get a router set up to replace the machine that died a couple of months ago, and just generally visited.

Today – Read all the archives of Irregular Webcomic.

In other words, nothing much is happening in my life at the moment. Several times over the past few days I have felt like writing something here, but by the time I’m at a computer I don’t feel like it anymore.

Yesterday was rainy, so I didn’t get much done outside. I did go out early and finish up a section of the front yard that I have been wanting to attack. I spent much of the day reading. I finished up “God’s Concubine” by Sara Douglass, read of “The Dark Side of the Sun” by Terry Pratchett and “Bell, Book, and Scandal” by Jill Churchill, and got a good start on “The First Stone” by Mark Anthony. Very many more days like that and I will need another trip to the bookstore.

Today seems to be much the same as yesterday. It’s not currently raining, but it’s still wet and overcast outside. I’m probably going to want to do something to get out of the house today, just because.

Once again Yahoo has changed the format of the personals for no apparent reason. I have given up the idea that they might actually add useful features — like being able to flag ads I don’t want included in future searches, and excluding ads I’ve already replied to — but every time they change the format it breaks my ad-grabbing program. Since they won’t give me the features I want, I just write my own search program so I can see who has added an ad since I last checked. That way I don’t have to keep looking through the same ads and trying to remember if I have emailed that person.

In any case, I have re-written my Perl program yet again to reflect the latest changes. Maybe they will leave things alone for a while.

Yes, I am truly a nerd.

Oh, I just checked and realized that since I started doing this I have responded to 607 Yahoo ads. That has resulted in meeting one person (today). That’s not a particularly good ratio. But, it’s better than any other way I have found to meet women. That’s the really sad part.

I was in a good mood and very optimistic this morning, now I’m just depressed.

I had a luncheon date with DeeDee, a woman I had encountered on Yahoo Personals. I was looking forward to it, and she was as well. She had looked over my web pages and said she thought I was fascinating. I went to her office to pick her up and we went out to lunch at a Chinese place she liked. I found her quite interesting, attractive, and thought we might actually be a good fit. However, she told me that there “was no chemistry”. I interpret that to mean “I think you’re boring”. I obviously don’t make a handle first dates well. I suspect it’s partially because I’m so nervous. I want so badly to make a good impression that I make a poor one. It could also just be because I’m boring. As it turned out, we probably wouldn’t work out long-term because she’s allergic to cats. That started me wondering — would I find other homes for my cats in exchange for the right woman? It’s possible, but she would have to be very special.

Let’s see — at the rate I am getting dates from Internet personals, I should have another date next May. It seems to be about one every six months. That’s not particularly good. I think I’m going to go off and eat a chocolate bar and feel sorry for myself now.

Yard work — bleagh.

I have done what I intended and worked in the yard at least 2 hours yesterday and today. I really have made great inroads into the “forest”, but unless you knew what my yard looked like before, you wouldn’t appreciate it. There is so much more to be done. I can’t let myself become discouraged, though. I knew when I started working on this that it would be a multi-month (if not multi-year) project. Tomorrow I’m going to try to get out by the street and clean all around the pile of brush I have gathered so I can burn it. I really want to do that, but I’m a bit worried about it as well. It helped to see someone up the street burning yesterday. They didn’t even have as much clearance as I’m planning on having. I suppose I really should go buy another couple hundred feet of garden hose, so I could at least have a hose nearby while I’m burning. That is one disadvantage of a big yard.