I’m at the end of a four-and-a-half-day vacation. I had today off for Columbus Day, and I took Thursday afternoon and all of Friday off as well. It’s all gone by way too fast.
Matt has a really good post about what we did on Saturday. It’s true, Matt needs a little help with chopsticks… but he did get the food into his mouth, so I think that counts as a success.
I also got to see Matt use his PDA a lot, and it only made me want one even more. I spent several hours yesterday researching PDAs online. I found a Sony Clié comparison chart and a Palm comparison chart, and there’s also the T-Mobile Sidekick, which seems amazingly cool. I could tool around Manhattan, stop into a coffee shop, and IM with my friends. Amazon.com is offering a great rebate on them right now.
But I’m also thinking, if I get one of these, will I really use it? I don’t know. Maybe I should just get a low-end Palm or Clié to start. I’m also thinking, maybe instead of a new gadget I should get a new bed. I have a cheap mattress, and hey, you spend a third of your life in bed, so if we’re talking about value per dollar spent, that would be lots of value.
Other things I did this weekend:
– Saw the doctor again. Even after a 30-day course of antibiotics, I’m still having issues, although not quite as bad as before. Apparently there’s no more bacteria — just residual inflammation. So I’m taking an anti-inflammatory drug, and apparently it might take another week or two until I’m completely better. They still don’t know what caused it — apparently doctors don’t know a whole lot about the prostate. This isn’t all that fun when it flares up — I’m tired of it already. Hopefully it will be over soon.
– Bought Will Shortz’s Favorite Crossword Puzzles, and I’ve done about a third of them already. I enjoy the New York Times daily crossword, so I figured, why look forward to just one per day when I can curl up at home and do as many of them as I want? Will Shortz, the New York Times crossword editor, is a hero of mine: like me, he has a law degree from the University of Virginia, but unlike me, he enjoys what he does, and his career has nothing to do with the law. It just goes to show what you can do with a law degree.
– Bought Tend Skin, which supposedly works wonders for ingrown hairs and razor bumps. Shaving is really hard on my neck, and I hope this helps.
God, I’m usually not this consumeristic. (I’m not even sure if that’s a word.) But I guess we all go through phases.
Jeff,
( This is in response to one of your posts from the week of 9/11/01 )
Since this past second anniversary of the tragedy at WTC, I have found myself reading as much as I can find, preferably first-hand stories, of that horrendous day in downtown Manhattan… This is how I came across your site. First allow me to say that I have a deep and abiding emotional and aesthetic connection to Manhattan, even though I am in Florida. My closest friend lives at 5th Av and 9th St, just down the sidewalk from the 9th St PATH station, and I have, since 87, visited him almost 30 times. Each time, my stay was at least a week and most times 2 weeks, giving me the chance to say that I have “lived” in Manhattan for about 1 year. As such, I have many many friends and aquaintences there and have come, over time, to love NYC fervently, and indeed, consider it to be my second home. Unfortunately, I have not been back since the election ( crapshoot…? ) of November,2000. I labor under a rather strange duality, inthat I have both an inescapable yearning to go back, on its own merit, yet also to see for myself the remnant of such gargantuan hate… and at the same time, *not wanting* to see the gravesite of so many thousands and also of those once-towering titans of the NYC landscape I had seen so many times. There is ( or was ) an electrifying view of the skyline from a small engineering college on the Hudson in Hoboken, and from my first visit, I had returned many times ( having to literally sneak onto the campus each time, which seemed to only enhance the experience… the little boy in us really does seem not to die easily ) to take in that breathtaking sight. I am fearful that looking scross the river and not seeing those towers will be more than I can bear… having said that, I am planning to be back again this coming spring and let the “chips fall where they may”… The thing that haunts me most about what happened there is that I have no way to contact the majority of my friends and people I have come to know on a less formal basis there, having never gotten their last names or addresses. It bothers me greatly to know that at least one, if not more, of these people with whom I have shared time, could have been in those buildings that morning… If so, I would never know and so, for myself, there has never been a sense of closure. I am not sure why I am even writing this note, but in some strange way, perhaps it helps to communicate this very minor part of a much larger collective, to you… again, not really even knowing why… on September 11, 2001, I could feel New York screaming in pain, fear and outrage, and it was frustrating beyond description not to have been there to do, in my own small way, anything I could do to ease the suffering and just be part of making things, somehow, better again… I have mixed feelings about going back next spring, but go I shall… I need to be there, if only for a while…
Michael
Donated by Michael
10/14/03 @ 4:14 PM