1. I was going to enter a web site contest until I found out it was just for kids.

2. Wifey thinks I should enter anyway and use one of the dogs’ names.

3. My oldest daughter has been asking for help with her math homework.

4. I had to look up on the internet to remember multiplication of radicals!

5. At this very moment I’m downloading music for a new running mix.

6. On the days I run 5 miles, the music doesn’t have to be fast, just good.

7. I’ve lined up a couple of 5K races for the fall, maybe I’ll sign up!

8. I found a couple of programs that emulate old 68000 processor Macs.

9. It’s fun to see the old games we used to waste so much time playing!

10. It’s not all fun and games, though — if you have a SEA file (self-extracting archive) and you don’t have any of running it on your modern Mac, this is the only way to retrieve your files.

11. I’ve heard that The Amazing Race will be coming to our TV’s in a few weeks.

12. I’m so excited I can hardly contain myself! ::giggle::

13. There was something else I was going to tell you all, but now I can’t remember what it was. Oh well, have a super-excellent Thursday!!

1. I think the “title” field should be at the bottom. I know what I want to say, but I don’t have a title yet… does that sound backwards?

2. I’m in a ubuntu kind of mood right now. This comes over me every now and again and I have this laptop that always gets sacrificed. Last time it might have been Fedora Core, come to think of it. And then after a while I’ll get bored with that, or I’ll realize I ::gulp:: need Windows on that system for something or other… and then I’ll have to go looking for my XP disc again.

3. OMG, is it really Thursday? I’m taking today and tomorrow off, going up to **This content has been redacted by the Federal Information Privacy Administration**

4. Ha, did I really do that? I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it’s all this rain. Seriously, we need rain for drinking and showering, and oh yeah, GROWING OUR OWN FOOD SO WE DON’T GO BROKER THAN WE ALREADY ARE ::ahem::

5. Do I sound different? Maybe it’s this haircut. Does it make me sound dashing and debonaire? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. And for sake of full disclosure, I had to look how to spell debonaire.

6. It only took me a minute into this post to realize I was going to just have to get out my numbering pencil and yes, come up with thirteen things. If this post turns into Thursday Three, however, you can file a complaint to get a refund — just click on the tip jar over yonder ::pointing:: and put in a negative number.

7. I just learned about Linked In — I must have heard about it before, but I was talking to this guy at work and he got me thinking about the olden days — I’m having a 20-year anniversary of when I left company XYZ and went to work for this small group of dudes. Anyway, that conversation led to the whole Linked In thing and I now have two whole contacts, I think! They should have a system like that for pretend people such as myself ::pointing:: and all of his alter egos.

8. And I just now added numbers to this post, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t come up with a title, because now of course the title has to be Thursday Thirteen #whatever-the-heck-we’re-up-to, because otherwise my special Mister Linky pinging thing won’t work right. Hey, don’t blame me! :)

9. I’ve had it up to here ::pointing:: with WordPress. I need to do the new upgrade, but with all the umpteen blogs I’ve got going, it will take me a whole day. And that’s just the first one, and then the second and third and fourth will just take a few minutes once I remember what the heck I’m doing. It’s just a matter of getting myself up off the couch. Or is it into my working chair? Oh who the heck knows anymore.

10. I went running in the rain yesterday. OK, it turns out it was just misting, but I was prepared for rain, which means I had resigned myself to the notion that my beautiful shoes were going to be ruined. OK, maybe not ruined, but at least dampened, a bit, which they were. Now they’re hanging on my lovely unfinished coat rack. Of course I realize that if any of my coworkers do a google search for “running shoes hanging on a lovely unfinished coat rack” I’ll be totally screwed.

11. You know those store cards that give you discounts if only you’ll let them track your ever purchase and steal your privacy forever? And you know how they give you one you can put on your keys because your pet store is like the most important thing in your life? Yeah, and do you love them as much as I do? Yeah, I thought so.

12. I’m going to do it, I swear I am. I’m going to take all of my ideas and turn them into cash. Who’s with me? Click the tip jar ::pointing:: for more information, and put in a positive number this time, the more numbers the better — you’ll see what I mean when you’re done. Be sure to leave your e-mail address for goodness sake, so I can make sure you get the information. God, wouldn’t that be awful if you sent me your thousand dollars (just a random number I pulled out of the air, you could send more or even very slightly less) and what was I saying? Oh yeah, you WILL get the information.

13. OMG, I almost forgot about this. And I’m going to write a story about this, I think. I’m adding it to my list of short stories, and Finn, this one just came to me while I was getting my truck fixed the other day, which is why I didn’t send it to you. What would happen if you went to the auto service place and hung out in the waiting room all day? How long would it take for someone to realize you aren’t getting your car serviced and kick you out? Do you all see major motion picture written all over this one? Yeah, I don’t too! :)

I know, it isn’t quite Thursday yet, but I get so behind that if I don’t start early, I might not get to it again this week!

Tomorrow’s the big day, and if you know what I’m talking about, then you know just what I mean! And if I had any friends, they’d all be expecting me to camp out, wait in line, whatever because… I have to have an iPhone, don’t I? Well no, actually.

So let’s see if I can come up with thirteen reasons why I *won’t* be getting an iPhone tomorrow — or Friday, whatever.

1. it’s way too popular and I don’t like being one of the crowd

2. anything new and shiny like that, I’m afraid I’d wreck it

3. I don’t like the idea of having to use iTunes to sync it up

4. yeah, and I’m a Mac guy but that doesn’t mean I want to be locked in!

5. there’s no expansion like an SD card, can you believe that?

6. my current phone is unlocked and no iPhone will ever be

7. it may be pretty, but so is my next phone the HTC Touch Pro

8. I’m willing to wait for that one because it’s not available here yet

9. I already have a bunch of chargers for my 8125, quite an investment!

10. and my 8125 is running Windows Mobile 6.0 I flashed myself, thank you very much!

11. does iPhone support Personal Area Network? nope

12. there is so much more software for Windows Mobile than for iPhone

13. and just because I love Apple and hate Microsoft, their phones are, well, different!

Thirteen things about losing 100 lbs — yes, I did it!!

1. I had thought I could do it in a year.

2. It only took two very, very long months longer.

3. Now I know there’s nothing I can’t accomplish if I try hard enough.

4. And it was very hard work, but the benefits far outweigh the effort

5. It’s hard to admit to anyone you need or needed to lose 100 lbs.

6. So I’ve been very secretive about my progress in real life.

7. The important thing was setting a long-term goal to strive for.

8. Without a specific goal, I fear I might have given up along the way.

9. My plan from now on is to just live healthy.

10. As for goals… if I lose another 14 pounds I’ll reach the “normal” weight for my height.

11. One bad thing about this is having to buy new clothes.

12. Thank you for clicking on the tip jar, so I can get a new outfit!

13. And thank you all so very much for your encouragement and support!!

1. How many things can I test at once? Will the new pinger work?
2. The other thing I’m testing isn’t here — it’s over at the Mister Linky Blog — yes, please do!
3. I’m soooo hungry right now. I need a snack!
4. But I’m stuck at the car fix-it place with nothing to eat!
5. I might have wander over to the DD next door — horrors!
6. I came in for an oil change and to check my alignment.
7. They showed me my brake pads, which were worn bad.
8. It’s going to be an expensive day.
9. I guess I’ll have to stay up all night making new t-shirts!
10. Or bake some cookies or point to my tip jar.
11. They sprouted wi-fi since I was here last.
12. Boy is there some awful crap on TV right now!
13. I’m trying not to watch since I’m supposed to be working. ::ahem::

I’ve lost track again. How hard could this be? Not very, I’m sure. I’ll do some research and update the all-important edition number. So without further ado, thirteen things keeping me so busy that… yeah, I know I’m such a bad, bad blogger!!

1. baseball — my son is on two teams and I hate missing games

2. work — yeah, I have a real job! and we’ve got this big project and, you know…

3. running — I’m up to five miles a day! and you know what, on Monday, the day of the Boston Marathon, I’m going to start on the treadmill at 10am and keep running until the winner finishes, some 2 1/4 hours later! I’ll be running my pace, not theirs, though!

4. lifting — why not mention this, too, since I’m not sure I’ve got thirteen things — doh! yes, four days a week I’m doing that.

5. spinning — I really do get really cranky if I don’t get my two spinning classes per week!

6. system management — you can write all the code you want but if the system isn’t running right, nobody can enjoy it!

7. my band — yes, I play bass in this band, Too Pretty For Prison — and we just got back from a world tour and boy are our arms tired!

8. organizing — you’re going to LYAO, but I’ve been trying to catalog every single thing in my house. I’m so tired of not knowing where anything is! so everything is going in a bin in my much tidier basement and I’ve got lists and… yeah, I know — nerd alert!

9. writing — no, not the actual writing, but taking every little thought for a story and writing it down in — yes, the same system I use for organizing my bins of clutter! one of these days I’m going to sit down and write the actual stories, I swear!

10. eating — ok, not eating all the time or I wouldn’t have lost 90 pounds, but thinking about eating is more like it, and what I can eat that’s healthy.

11. planning — I’ve got some big plans for some code I need to write that will make the links just fly off of the page! now if only I had some time to actually write the code!

12. planting — it’s that time of year! only four or five weeks more until we can put our veggie babies in the ground, but I built a good size plant light stand to get everything started… and this week is roto-tilling time!

13. and last but not least, I feel like I spend most of my free time tweaking this code I’ve been writing — it’s the tool that keeps my bins and thoughts and stories and everything organized — and no, it’s not ready to share yet, but it keeps me wicked wicked busy!

now if it could just keep me organized enough to know how many TT’s I’ve written! LOL!!

If I can think of thirteen things that are bugging the crap out of me, they’ll be a TT post. Otherwise, they’ll just be me ranting.

1. People that don’t cool down after their workout and worse, when they are all sweaty and they just towel off and don’t take a shower and go back to work.

2. People leaving their stuff all over the locker room while they work out instead of putting it in a locker.

3. People who repeat what I’ve just said, as if it was their very own idea.

4. The expression “do the needful.”

5. Not having a cell phone signal inside the building where I work.

6. Feeling like I have to put five bucks in the powerball pool every time the jackpot gets really big, even though I can’t really afford it.

7. Having to use a little adapter thingy to plug headphones into my phone/PDA.

8. License plates that just say the kind of car like “MY93BUICK.”

9. People saying “back-slash” when they just mean “slash.”

10. People sticking their noses where they don’t belong like in my business!

11. Really loud sneezes. OK, I’m reaching now.

12. People walking up to my office door, looking in, turning around, walking away. Yes, someone just did that!!

13. Oh yeah — that wordpress plugin that grabs your latest post — I will find a way to defeat it! :)

1. I’ve finally figured out my TT number… whew!
2. I’ve got two suits hanging in my closet.
3. The larger of the two I could wear after losing a few pounds.
4. You may recall the whole thing about wearing it to a funeral.
5. The smaller of the two suits is now too big for me!
6. I have another funeral to attend and… what will I wear??
7. With more pounds/inches to lose, clothing shopping is out.
8. I just bring a huge bag of stuff to the Salvation Army bin.
9. Some of it was brand new, most of it barely ever worn!
10. I said a good-bye to the old me as I pushed the bag inside.
11. It was a very short but meaningful ceremony.
12. It was an uncle of mine who passed away a few days ago.
13. He’s been dead to me for years — a very long story…

You know you can’t be doing too well on last year’s new years’ resolutions when you don’t even remember them… They do look a bit familiar, but OMG am I in for it!

So here are my grades for 2007.

1. Keep up the exercise regimen… A+ — and oh yeah, it shows!!

2. Drink more water… B? I drink a lot of herbal and decaf tea, does that count? I hope so!

3. Eat less… everything!… A+ and see #1

4. Don’t procrastinate so much… B-, only because it’s already nine days into the new year and I’m just wrapping up the old one.

5. Play my saxophone more often… F, I don’t think I blew a note all year.

6. Keep up the reading (books)… C, and I need to improve. but let’s make that a C+ because I did use my library card quite a bit.

7. Learn another language… F, no excuses.

8. Drink less soda… A- with less than one per day, I think I’m doing pretty well, and it’s all diet.

9. Turn in expenses more promptly… A, and it’s nice to get my money right away.

10. Stay on top of auto maintenance… A — I can’t think of any lingering car problems unsolved.

11. Be more creative with everything I do… B, because there is room for improvement.

12. Take more pictures during the year… B-, because there’s even more room for improvement here.

13. Be a better blog visitor… F, and how I suck at this, and I’m so sorry for that!

So let’s tally up my marks — my final grade is ::drum roll:: wow, a C or a C+, that’s awful! Can I make some progress before the next report cards? I sure will try! And that’s my one and only resolution for 2008 — that and keeping up the good grades. Wish me luck!!

My sister called me yesterday last week to ask if I was going to my class reunion. When she asked why not, I asked her which of a hundred reasons did she want to hear?

1. Other classes were invited to attend
2. That means my sister was going to be there
3. I can listen to music from 1982 whenever I want on XM.
4. I don’t remember much about high school at all.
5. What could I possibly have to talk about with people I haven’t seen in 25 years?
6. I’m really no good at making small talk.
7. And I don’t even consider myself much of a people person.
8. I can never, I mean never ever, remember anybody’s name.
9. It would be way to hard for me to pass up all of the crappetizers.
10. I’m afraid I’d say something about my secret blogging life.
11. I’m just not into showing off and bragging about stuff.
12. And I sure as hell don’t need to hear about other people’s fabulous lives.
13. If we were meant to live life in the rear view mirror, they wouldn’t call it “reverse”.

OK, so I guess it only feels like a hundred reasons. Only thirteen? I guess I’ll have to save this post for TT, then… so there you go!

A day late and how many dollars short? LOL, oh well!!

1. I’m so behind — it’s been three weeks since my last thirteen!

2. Sounds like I’m about to give my confession, doesn’t it?

3. Bless me, blogosphere, for I have shirked.

4. I’m kicking myself for not doing NaNoWriMo this month.

5. But you can see how much time I’ve got on my hands.

6. I’ve got a really great story just dying to get written.

7. But you see, I kind of want it to be well written.

8. Damn, I can’t even remember what I was going to call it.

9. I’m sure it will come back to me as soon as I hit Publish.

10. It’s on the tip of my tongue — the tips of my fingers, actually.

11. Yes, I remember now — the story is called “The Village”.

12. I could tell you what it’s about… but then I’d have to… you know.

13. Well would you look at this — my TT post has been sitting here in this window when I had to rush out of the office the other day… and it’s still here! LOL, I thought I’d posted it!

Thirteen things about Fall (and Winter) in New England.

1. The foliage is really beautiful right now.

2. The yellows are more brilliant than usual, I think.

3. Usually I like the reds and oranges better.

4. The yellows remind me of forsythia somehow.

5. And the next time we see forsythia… next spring!

6. Not that I would wish the fall and winter away.

7. That would violate one of my most important rules of life.

8. One of things I like best about fall… NO RAKING!

9. That’s right, I leave ‘em right where they fall.

10. The snow — well that’s another story altogether.

11. Our ATV has a snow plow for digging us out all winter.

12. And I don’t mind the little bit I have to do with a shovel.

13. But dammit, it’s only mid October and I’m cold already! :/