Unread magazines

To be perfectly honest, I've been feeling a little depressed while visiting here lately. Down.

It isn't those much-discussed ads, which don't bother me in the least. It's a number: the number next to "blog alerts," which has been rising nearly as rapidly as the national debt recently.

What apparently has happened is that I've been subscribing to lots of interesting blogs. It's like magazine subscriptions. Before long, the magazines pile up unread. I have my favorites, like you do, but you're all interesting people--your life adventures, your unique version of daily life, your dreams and photos and adventures and frustrations and joys. And the jokes. I find them all interesting.

So I feel bad that I haven't been able to keep up. My life has just been very rushed lately. I recently skimmed through a bunch and simply cleared some that I didn't even look at. Hated to do it. But ... what else could I do?

Just this past Monday, I realized one big reason behind my mood: I haven't had a Saturday to myself since early November, what with several weeks of high school football playoffs, then an all-day wrestling tournament and an all-day volleyball tournament (last Saturday). I had one "normal" Saturday--the last one in November. But that was the day after that 11-hour drive back home from Detroit, so I don't think that counts.

A "normal" Saturday involves working about three hours in the morning, writing up what I can of the Friday stuff, and then having the afternoon and evening to spend with my wife and son. This Saturday, I would be able to do that--except that she's working at the call center all day. Maybe David will want to do something.

It's just the manic rush of events during the manic run-up to the holidays. This week, I had events to cover on four nights: I covered wrestling on Monday, basketball Tuesday, will have volleyball tonight (Thursday) and more basketball Friday. But I've decided to take a pass on Friday. My wife needs to do some Christmas shopping out of town (the nearest Wally World, 50 miles away). I've been telling myself that I have to cut back.

(About this past Monday: I also had a volleyball match and a city council meeting to cover that night, and they were all going on at the same time as the wrestling. Something had to give. But I enjoy wrestling a little more than volleyball and a lot more than meetings.)

On Wednesday, I did something I haven't done for a long time--I took the day off to visit my mom. I dropped my wife off at work and got back home in time to pick her up when her shift was over. It wasn't easy; I had to hustle.

My mom and I went to Hardee's for lunch (and to get her out of the nursing home). After taking her back, I tried to find some stuff at Wally World. David had given me a list of things that might be a good Christmas gift for him. They didn't have a single one! I batted .000. Thank goodness for the internet!

I did find some pants for myself and a multi-card reader for the office. I already had a multi-card reader at the office, but it only reads three or four types of memory cards. If they bring in Compact Flash or SD cards, I'm fine. But in just the last few days, people have brought in photos on MemoryStick and XD cards; I couldn't do a thing with them.

My home computer--bought last spring--has slots where the cards can be inserted. But my office computer was built back when computers were operated by steam and had belts and pulleys. And for carriage returns, you had to slap the thing back with your right hand.)

(OK, I was kidding about the manual carriage return. Seriously, though, how many of you started typing on manual typewriters? Remember?)

In fact, my office computer does have USB ports. While it was born as a Windows 98 machine, it has been upgraded to Windows XP. and it has 512 megs of RAM, with which I run programs like Word and Pagemaker and Photoshop 7, often all at once. So why does it run soooo sloooooowlllllyyyyy? Does it have something to do with its mighty 1.2 GHz processor?

(By now I hope you got the message that I'm pissed about having the oldest, slowest computer in the office. And my CRT monitor has the worst contrast, too. Everyone else has nice, thin, contrasty flatscreens, like I do at home. Just thought I'd mention that, while I'm at it.)

(End of computer vent)

So I got the memory card, and then I went home. I wrote part of this last night, and then I did other stuff. So I'm posting this now, and then I'll try to make headway on the backed-up blogs tonight.

I also discovered yesterday that I hadn't taken any photos with my own camera since the trip to Detroit. So I got a few shots yesterday, and I'll try to get more today, to show you how far advanced winter is around here.

Quick update on other stuff: My wife is working six days this week at the call center, for the Christmas rush. But the contract ends next Wednesday, and she'll get some time off after that. It's been very busy this week, she says.

Phil, my son who lives in Detroit, will be visiting here next week for the holidays. According to the calendar, he'll be arriving in about a week.

I understand that Christmas is on the way, too.