A bad blogger

I've got to be honest with myself. I've been a bad blogger. (And, by the way, that's "bad" in the traditional sense. I'm not hip enough to use "bad" in any other way.)

I've got my excuses, I guess. The big one is the pace of work, which has been horrendous. Yeah, I know, I should be grateful to have a job, much less one that I actually enjoy. But it gets a lot less enjoyable because of the rush of things.

Lately, it has been oodles of basketball. Three and four nights of basketball per week, after the normal day in the office. As you may know, basketball has limited appeal to me in the first place, and my nights have been focused mainly on free throws and dribbles and inbounds passes. And free throws. Or did I mention that already? There have been that many.

That plus several special editions (working on stories for them) have filled my work hours pretty thoroughly.

The end of the season isn't far away, though. A month from now, it should all be over.

I've been doing other things when I have spare time. Inspired by a recent movie I saw, I am trying to learn chess. To do this, I am following tutorials in the Chessmaster 9000 computer game. But some of the tutorials--mainly examples where I am supposed to implement the lesson I have just learned--take a lot of time to complete. If I don't finish it, I have to go back to the beginning when I try it again. Which doesn't sound right. I am on "discoveries" right now.

I have also taken the plunge and invested in a new cell phone. The cost of the phone isn't that astounding ($20 with a two-year agreement), but the leap in faith was opting for a monthly plan that costs $30 more than what I had been paying per month--in order to get data/internet/e-mails on my "phone."

The word "phone" scarely describes what these "devices" are capable of. In my case, I opted for a Blackberry Pearl, a jazzy red one. At least, in a concession to what the item is really for, I chose a ringtone that sounds a lot like an old-time telephone. How quaint!

My friend, B, and I have been writing a lot. She has become a good friend. Frankly, we are discussing the chances of us getting together some time. (I am poly, and so are B and her husband.) It won't be easy--for one thing, the distance between us is pretty impressive. For another, because of her job she can't take vacations in June and July, which are quiet months for me. Where there's a will, there's a way, of course. What that way is remains to be seen.

Anyway ... I suppose I should report on what I did for Valentine's Day. I worked all morning. After lunch with my wife, she and I did something together: We went grocery shopping! That included getting a movie at the video place. More on that later.

(By the way, you may be wondering how I observe Valentine's Day with the other women I am emotionally close to, S and B. The answer is, I don't. They don't even get an e-card. Valentine's Day is exclusively reserved to be observed with my primary sweetie, the way S and B should spend it with their primaries. S has been married to her husband for 20 years, and B married her husband 31 years ago.)

Back to my observance of the day: Late in the afternoon, my wife told me where she wanted to go to eat--a restaurant in town, where they serve steaks. But it was too late for reservations, so we needed a plan B. We went to the place just across the border (in Wisconsin) where we got for fish fries. They had a surf and turf available, but we were thinking steak.

In the end, neither of us ordered steak. She opted for broasted chicken, and I chose beer-battered cod. A nice meal. We agreed that we will hold off our steak dinner for about another month, to celebrate the end of basketball season (after the final team I cover has been eliminated from the post-season tournament).

As for the movie we chose, it was "Evening." We both read over the box at the video place and decided to go for it. [URL="http://www.amazon.com/Evening-Claire-Danes/dp/B000V6LSOA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1234716826&sr=1-1"]Here is the link[/URL] to the Amazon page and write-up, in case you haven't seen that one.

After watching it, she fed the kitties, and then we went to bed. She lit a couple candles, we snuggled up and started stroking each other ...

And then it was morning!

It's now late at night, not so far from midnight, so I'm signing off. Another busy day tomorrow. Better get some sleep.