Today, I consumed the following items:
Total calories: 1750.
09:00 AM: I’m up. My weight did not change from yesterday. It’s still 173.5 Lbs. See here for a summary of the progress on this goal so far in 2010.
09:30 AM: Listened to more of the Best African American Essays: 2009 book overnight.
10:35 PM: [Mentat] and I watched today’s episode of NBC’s Meet The Press on the DVR.
12:45 PM: We watched the movie: Parenthood, with Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, et al. Love that picture.
02:00 PM: [Mentat] told me about a Nature Sounds channel on AOL Radio that plays long segments of various and relaxing sounds from nature. They showcase babbling brooks, thunderstorms, gentle rains, birds chirping in the woods, wind swishing through trees, ocean waves rolling, and so on. It occurred to us that [Emmy] has been looking for an endless supply of these auditory experiences to help her relax and get to sleep at night, and this Internet radio station might be just what she needs. So this afternoon, I programmed it into her IRIS Internet WebRadio for her, and she was profusely pleased when she found it in the selection list on the radio a few minutes later. She wrote back a couple hours later saying how much she enjoys listening to it.
04:20 PM: [Memtat's] sister just arrived to take him home, and about as seemingly quickly as he got here on Friday, he’s gone again. We’re planning on getting together in May. This time, I’ll visit his place.
04:50 PM: It’s been a gray and rainy time this afternoon, and gray all day. The rain started heavily a couple hours ago and it’s still going. 40 degrees right now. I think I’ll take a nap; prime time for one it is.
05:00 Nap time.
07:00 PM: I’m awake once more, listening to the gentle sounds of raindrops hitting the roof, just a foot or so away from the head of my bed. Lots have written about this sound in various bedrooms and sleeping quarters through the centuries. So I’ll add my voice to their chorus: If you’ve never fallen asleep to the pitter-patter of raindrops outside while you’re nice and warm inside, you haven’t lived yet. 
07:30 PM: [Emmy] called to say that the Penguins won their late-afternoon hockey game just now. She’s also happy that the IRIS WebRadio seems to be working better than when we first connected it out at her place five weeks ago. I’d imagine that the firmware they just came out with is responsible for the improvement. I am curious though if it was this upgrade or the speed enhancements of [Emmy's] new Comcast high speed Internetservice that eliminated the numerous lost station connections we experienced last February. I hate looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. But I want to know. I’m eager as well to see if the radio’s WiFi works any better since the firmware upgrade. [Emmy] has no WiFi set up at the moment, and in fact, I’m not even sure that a new firmware version was applied; [Emmy] can’t read the current firmware version on the radio, since it does not speak this part of its menus. But I’ll check for the current version when I visit her again in several weeks.
08:15 PM: Watched the 2010-03-14 episode of NBC’s Meet the Press on the DVR.
09:15 PM: Watched the 2010-03-26 episode of The Young and the Restless. In this one, we learned that Ashley’s baby is actually Sharon and Nick’s, and Adam realizes that Emily is really Patty. Good stuff.
10:45 PM: Talked with [Emmy] on the phone. Gosh, I do use the telephone quite a bit these days.
11:40 PM: Recorded audio journal episode: AJE-2010-03-28-23-10.
12:25 AM: Listened to more of the Best African American Essays: 2009 book.
12:30 AM: Bed time. See you tomorrow.
No mail deliveries today.
Today, I either added or modified the following posts in the Tom’s Diary blog for improved brevity, clarity, categorization, decreased spelling errors, appearance, and search-ability:
Today, I consumed the following items:
Total calories: 2120.
07:30 AM: I’m up. My weight did not change from yesterday. It’s still 173.5 Lbs. See here for a summary of the progress on this goal so far in 2010.
07:30 AM: Listened to more of the Best African American Essays: 2009 book overnight.
08:30 AM: Posted the Mentat Moving Away Again piece.
04:55 PM: [Mentat] and I watched the 2010-03-21 episode of NBC’s Meet The Press, and the 2010-03-26 episode of NBC’s Nightly News on the DVR.
05:30 PM: Brother’s pizza for supper. [Mentat] and I split a large pie. There were no leftovers. Yum!
09:00 PM: Watched the movie: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. I still love this after nearly thirty years.
11:00 PM: Talked with [Emmy] on the phone.
11:30 PM: Toon the weekly system backups.
12:35 AM: Okay, bed time again. Catch you tomorrow. Good night.
Weekly backups of all my blog sites completed.
Today, I either added or modified the following posts in the Tom’s Diary blog for improved brevity, clarity, categorization, decreased spelling errors, appearance, and search-ability:
Today, I consumed the following items:
Total calories: 2380.
Yesterday upon his arrival here for a weekend visit, [Memtat] informed me that he may move away again in the next six to nine months; this time to be with his girlfriend of several years now. The news stung a little because he’s probably the closest male friend I have, and best friends don’t come easily to me. It seems like just last week, that he returned home from California. Actually he came back at the end of 2007. Since then, he’s established a nice residence and has managed to acquire some nice furniture.
But his lady wants him to live with her in Ohio now, and they’ve both determined that it would be easier for him to move there than for her to come here. She doesn’t want to sell her house because she probably could not afford a comparably-sized dwelling here. So she’d need to throw away or sell off many cherished possessions. I’ve been through that myself, when I returned to Pennsylvania from Ohio in 1997, and so can appreciate her dilemma.
On the other hand, [Memtat] is far more agile in this way, as he owns far less than does she, and so, it would make more sense for him to relocate to her place, as he’ll be able to move without pitching anything, or at worst, just a very small amount — perhaps a bed and dresser. Thus, moving there would cost the two of them much less money than for her to relocate here.
I understand his rationale. He does really seem to love her and he’s tired of busing it out there several times a year, not to mention being away from her so much of the time besides. I’m happy that he’s found someone like that, and a bit envious too because five years ago, he and I debated over how a guy needs a true love in order to be truly happy. Ironically, he argued that he could get along without such a woman, and in fact, he was striving at that time to rid himself of his carnal woman-lusts and yearnings. I told him though that I didn’t think that I could ever learn to be completely happy alone. In fact, I found the whole idea of attempting to “program away” one’s inborn desires for the opposite sex, to be repugnant and a monumental waste of time.
But, today, nature, destiny, and love have turned him around, and he now enjoys the very sort of person that I argued back then that most of us need. He agrees with me now, he’s found her in fact, and I am truly happy for him. Any objections I might have to his leaving are purely selfish ones. I had hope upon his return to Tyrone that he and I might develop our friendship more, and spend more time together than we have. But his romance was just getting started then, and with him spending so much sojourning in her city, he and I never got to hang out nearly as much as I would have liked. And now, he’s becoming long-distance once again besides, though he assures me that I’ll probably see him more once he lives with her, because he’ll come back here for visits more frequently than he did while living in Pasadena.
I hope that’s true because he’s one of the few people that gets nearly every position I’ve shared with him. Further, while he may not agree with all I say, he relentlessly endeavors to understand and appreciate the grains of truth in my words, though there may be very few of these at times, I admit. For me, it easy to see the truth in his arguments as he expresses them so simply and thus, so well. He’s quite knowledgable and so I need explain very little to him in our talks to bring him up to speed, and our intellectual discussions never degenerate into personal judgements and acrimony. Through some at times painful personal growth in each of us, our friendship has matured over the past four decades to the highly pleasing association that it is today.
No, we weren’t always this congenial. But we’ve learned how to do it through the years, and with some cost. We have a fair amount invested in this thing. So the thought of losing him to long distance saddens me a little. Indeed, though we only see each other once every six months on average, I’ll keenly miss this long-time friend when he goes. I’m sorry that he’s leaving. But I’ll be happy for him, though sad for myself. Hopefully, we’ll stay in touch.
06:15 AM: I’m up. My weight did not change from yesterday. It’s still 173.5 Lbs. See here for a summary of the progress on this goal so far in 2010.
06:30 AM: Listened to more of the Best African American Essays: 2009 book overnight.
06:30 AM: By the way, this is the three-thousandth post to this blog. I’m striving to reach four-thousand this year.
11:30 AM: Added the Vee and Mentat categories to this blog. They’re located under the People parent category, in the sidebar at the right of most blog pages.
02:30 PM: [Mentat] arrived a little while ago. We’re hanging out through the afternoon and we’ll go shoping and out to eat this evening.
04:45 PM: Leaving for shopping now with Mom and Debbie.
07:30 PM: We’re back home. We’re going to watch the movie: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
10:00 PM: [Mentat] and I finished viewing the movie. Next, I chatted with [Emmy].
11:00 PM: [Mentat] and I reminisced about the winter of 1977. We were trying to remember what songs were out at that time. He had heard an installment of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 from that winter. Recalling hits like Boogie Child, The Things We Do For Love, New Kid In Town, Don’t Leave Me This Way, Do Ya, The First Cut Is The Deepest, Hotel California, Go Your Own Way, Isn’t She Lovely, Maybe I’m Amazed, Dancing Queen, and others brought back all sorts of wonderful memories. Specifically, there was the car wash we ran to raise money for the prom, decorating for it, as well as the prom itself. Those were some wonderful times, and it’s gratifying to know that all that good music is still around and that I own most of it.
12:00 AM: Heading for bed now. My plot will be the office floor tonight, as [Mentat] is using my bed. Catch you right back here tomorrow. Take care, and pleasant dreams.