When I first started self-employment 10+ years ago, some wise people in the same position gave me some good advice: no matter what you’re working on, or not working on, make sure you get dressed and get out every day. Shake a hand, not scowl at a stranger, etc.

Now, with a bigger house and a dog and fishies to care for, plus a lack of gym attendance pending some healing, I find I’ve been ignoring that sound counsel.  It really hit me this morning when Randy asked if I’d be out today (and could restock coffee) and I had to pause and think because I DIDN’T KNOW.  It was kinduva rude realization, and not pleasant at all.  Time to get back to the good practices that’ve kept me sane in this business for so long

Interesting piece written by a Foreign Service Office at the Huffington Post about his recent experiences with my former employers at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, reportedly for including links to Wikileaks in a personal blog post.  I found his claim that “Every blog post, every Facebook post, and every Tweet by every State Department employee, they told me, must be pre-cleared by the Department prior to ‘publication’”, presumably attributable to one of the DS agents interviewing him, especially interesting in light of the number of State Department personnel, including career security officers, who I know maintain personal accounts on Facebook.  My post from last November on the Wikileaks issues still stands, and 15 years removed from the Department I’m not going to try and comment on what DS should or shouldn’t be doing to investigate a specific leak case.  I am giggling quite a bit though, and not at Van Buren’s situation.

Today we received a recall notice on a certain 17-piece Knife Block Set that was given to us three years ago as a wedding gift.  According to the letter, our knife set “may pose a laceration hazard.”

MAY POSE A LACERATION HAZARD?

It damn well better pose a laceration hazard.  Isn’t the designed purpose of a knife set to lacerate?

My desktop PC is getting to that point where upgrades are pointless (or even impossible) yet required to run certain software I want to run.  Civilization 5.  DirecTV2PC.  Definitely thinking that this box has about six more months of use here.  I have big hands and won’t try and type everything I need to type on a little laptop keyboard, and certainly need a mouse for some things, but I’m definitely considering going with a laptop/docking station combo this time around.  Portable access to all my data sounds really good to me.  So, yes, I’m just rambling.  It’s my way of getting through a Monday and avoiding other things.

I’ll start with the blanket statement that I don’t believe the Post Office is going under, and that the current brouhaha is just posturing to try and get concessions that management failed to get during their last round of contract negotiations. That said, how much should anyone fight to save an organization who’s own tracking says my package left the suburbs of L.A. three days ago bound for the suburbs of San Diego and never arrived anywhere? Is it on the back of some burro working it’s way up the trails near Fallbrook?  Some level of performance, either in tracking or actual delivery, has to be expected.

In years past I’d be all about heading down to UCSD for the Triton Invitational water polo tournament over the long weekend, but this year…meh.  The tournament that in 2006 included fourteen teams and 29 separate games will only host six teams playing a total of ten games this weekend.  None of the other UCs will be there, and with Cal coming down separately next month I’m just not seeing the attraction this year.  The fact that the tournament no longer includes bracket play leading to a spectacular final, but rather a pre-ordained final game between Air Force and La Verne doesn’t help.

Nothing against Air Force.  Nothing at all.

I’d just like a little suspense and drama with my beefcake.

So instead we might head up to Disney, or enjoy the San Clemente Village Farmer’s Market (emphasis on the local artists) on Sunday morning.  Or just paint a bathroom and run some wiring.  Or sit on the coach and watch Red State on VOD.  Or just do nothing at all.

Diego spent yesterday getting groomed, shampooed and generally pampered.

Bud and Sid, the surviving mollies, got their tank cleaned and water freshened this afternoon.

I’m noticing a disturbing trend that involves everyone but me.  I sense the need for a massage in the very near future.

Drama and trauma in the form of internet outage and dead fishies (three of the five) around here.  I’d live to blame the troubles on Hurricane Irene, or maybe the East Coast’s quakepocalypse, but really I think it was just the normal course of life.

I’d post pictures of the new fishies if they’d ever slow down, but they haven’t, so I can’t yet, but I will when I can.

For the record, they are two “Golden Panda” Mollies, a breed I can’t find mentioned anywhere but on the label of one specific aquarium at my local Petco, sharing space with a Dwarf Gourami in a ten-gallon tank in my office.

While I’m forever grateful for the experiences I had traveling in the 80s and 90s, I don’t miss the actual act of traveling one bit, especially since the demise of PanAm business class. That said, I’m definitely having a bit of travel envy this morning based on this:

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.  [via Towleroad]