1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)?

Right now I’d have to say novels, but that may all be changing….

2. What is your favorite novel?

Or novels, The Dark Tower I – IV by Stephen King

3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)

Nope

4. What is one thing you’ve always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?

I don’t know about always, but currently I would like to read “The Art of Deception” by Kevin Mitnick.

5. What are you currently reading?

“Dreamcatchers” by Stephen King (figured since the movie is releasing I might as well finish the book I started a year ago) and “Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down!” by Dave Barry

We woke up Sunday morning and were itchin to get out of the house and do something, we just didn’t know what. Since neither one of us had ever been to the Napa Valley and the beautiful Wine Country we decided what the hell, let’s go. While we were at it we decided to make a night of it too and packed a bag then hit the road, without any further planning of where we were going when we got there. I think it made the trip much more interesting and adventurous.

About halfway there we realized that hunger was dissipating our thirst for adventure and that we would need to stop and eat. Boy am I glad we did. As we pulled into Pleasant Hill to look for a place to eat we passed a Peet’s Coffee. I have heard so much about the majesty that is Peet’s Coffee, but had yet had the opportunity to partake in it’s splendor, until now, that is. And yes, it did live up to it’s hype as it had to be the best damn cup o’ joe I have ever put into my body. Even if Napa was an absolute flop, my weekend was made by this simple mixture of ground up beans, water and steamed milk. Life is truly wonderful that way sometimes isn’t it? Despite my arguement to forget Napa and simply stay the night in Pleasant Hill so that I may wake up to a cup of caffeinated goodness, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and pressed on.

We arrived in Napa and, since we really did not know where to go, pulled into the first hotel we saw and procured a room for the night. Here we were able to gather enough tourist flyers to give us a direction for the afternoon. We hit Berringer Vineyards Winery and Peju Province Winery before they all closed down for the night. Since this was really our first wine tasting and touring experience, we had no idea what to expect or how to differentiate good from the bad, which made the experience that much more enjoyable. Sunday night we laid out a gameplan for Monday and heeaded out early to get blitzed experience the Wine Country in all it’s beauty. We ended up hitting and touring Domaine Carneros, Domaine Chandon, Rutherford Hill and finally Mumm Napa Valley. I personally did not consider drinking wine to be exhausting, but let me assure you that it is. At least when done in this fashion. We had planned to pick up a travel bug on our way home, but we were much too tired to do anything but drive home. Either way the Wine Country was an amazing place to visit, one that I’m sure we will visit again. Not bad for half a tank of gas round trip either.

Phew, looks like I’m all caught up, just in time for what looks to be another full weekend. Saturday we have Tyler’s first real baseball practice (yes I know it’s only February) and maybe some geocaching to do. Sunday is Marcy’s dad’s birthday and we plan to spend it touring the more local winerys. Hmm, would this be considered an addictive behavior? Oh well, it should be fun anyway.

Off to a friend of our’s 29th Birthday Party, which as we found out when we got there, was a Mardi Gras themed party. Their partys are always a wild time so nothing less can be expected from a party with a Mardi Gras theme. Mom and Dad were even in on the festivities with her Mom passing out Jello Shots walking around saying “How you doin?” It was a wild time, but their partys always end the same, it just depends how quickly the assholes that show up get drunk and start fighting. What is it about alcohol and assholes that always have a way of ruining a good time for everyone? Either way, we’re home around 2:30…which is earlier than expected. The good side of getting home earlier though is we got up relatively early (9:30) Sunday morning.

I don’t usually pay much attention to my horoscope (or horrorscope) much less read it on a daily basis, but today’s is just too good to pass up:

Libra:

Resist the urge to hide from the public. It would be such a shame not to share your warmth and brilliance with the world at large today! Everywhere you go, instrumental music is crying out for a set of lyrics. You have what it takes to be a superstar in whatever venue you choose to perform in. Consciously or unconsciously, others notice your wonderful subtleties. Why not sell tickets to your one-person show and make some money while you’re at it?

Saturday morning starting with a 6 AM wakeup to get out to the RC Airstrip to video Bobby’s test flight of his new Extra. I did not have much time to spend out there that morning and it looked as if I may not be able to see Bobby get his new plane in the air. As I was packing up the camera Bobby decided to give it a go, minus the nose and spinner. Finally, his new plane took flight.

From there we had to drop off the boys at their grandparent’s so that me and Marcy could go to a party that night. After some light shopping we got to their house to do a quick drop off. This is the same house that I spent almost all night at last week trying to fix a computer, so when I heard that everything was back up and running except for a little display problem, I said I would take a look. 4 hours later I was being fed dinner and was still in front of the computer. And I told myself that I would be staying away from the computer for the weekend. I guess as long as it’s not mine it doesn’t count against me right? I finally told her to get a new video card as her’s was most likely fried and we left to get ready for the night’s party.

Of the many tasks and things I wanted to do this last weekend, one task stood clear. STAY AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!!! With what I believe to be tendonitis building up and getting worse in my mouse hand, staying away from my computer for a weekend (a long weekend at that) needed to be a priority to give my hand some much needed rest. To accomplish this task I needed to fill my weekend up with non-computer events and distractions so that I would not be tempted to sit down at my computer. The mission was accomplished, however a long weekend away from the computer will produce much to blog. I will start with Saturday and instead of creating one enormous post, I will form a new post for each day. OK? Ok. Besides, I most likely will not be able to describe the weekend in one sitting anyway, I just don’t have that kind of time. Trust me, it’s a good thing and it made for a great weekend. More to come….

I had a post somewhat planned for today, but those thoughts were ripped away from my brain by the dreams I was having this morning. I don’t remember many dreams, but I remember some of this one. It was one of those dreams in which you are seeing a girl get strangled by what you think is some madman. That is until the madman passes a mirror and the dream does one of those “walking by the mirror slow motion turn-to-look and see that it’s myself staring back at me” movie effects. You know, one of those dreams….everybody has those dreams all the time, right…..right???? ADMIT IT. Tell me that you have psycho-neurotic dreams dammit.

Actually I hope that you don’t. I do not think it is normal at all. In fact, the lingering rememberance of the dream is haunting my thoughts this morning. I keep getting this awful feeling that I’m going to turn around and have this psycho staring me in the face. The worst part being that the “feeling” has put a face to this man, and it’s my own. So in essence I feel like I’m going to turn around and be staring myself in the face. Not me though, the psychotic version of me. I need clear to my thoughts of this or my head is going to explode. Maybe some mindless chicken throwing will take my thoughts away from last night’s dream for awhile.

I hate mice, they’re quick, they chew through wires, and cause all kinds of damage. That’s why I use a trackball. But lately my middle two fingers have felt like they’re getting pulled downward into my hand. It’s gatting rather uncomfortable and I’m starting to wonder if it’s not a side effect of the way my hand rests on the trackball. Ya know, I stopped using mice because of the tendinitis that was developing in my wrist, and now something else is going wrong because of trackballs. What am I to do, leave my desk and stop using input devices for awhile? Sure, that’s gonna happen. Any suggestions on input devices would be greatly appreciated though.

So, this is what exhaustion feels like. I’ve been tired before, but I don’t know if I’ve ever been this exhausted, at least not in a little while. Not even after Thursday all-night karaoke sessions. Texas Turtle, I need your help. I spent most of last night at a friends house trying to fix her computer. The frustration lied in that she could connect to her dsl but could not browse any web pages. I tried everything I knew, then got SBC on the line and he walked me through his whole database of solutions too. Until we got to the Internet Connection Wizard that is, you see it didn’t work and could not be installed from Windows Setup either because it wasn’t there. How Internet Connection Wizard could not just dissapear from Windows, but from the Update Setup selection as well is beyond me. After trying a few dozen other things ,to include getting the same symptoms over a dial-up connection, a re-install of Windows 98 is suggested. Nice. Just want I wanted to do. Right. OK, at least all of the corrupt system files that I had come accross, and spyware installations that I found would be gone.

That is, as long as her hardware could install correctly once Windows Setup was finished. Turns out, her computer which is only 2 years old, was pieced together by some hack, who didn’t give her any software or anything with it. So guess what, no drivers and Windows won’t pick up her modem, doesn’t know what her NIC, or her display adapter, or her Sound Card are for that matter. That normally wouldn’t have bothered me, just download the drivers from the net. That would require a modem though, and this one just isn’t working, no sign of life anywhere. Anyone got a modem you can email me? There’s few things I despise worse that leaving a computer that isn’t up and running yet. In fact, she’s worse off now than before I got my hands on her computer. Talk about frustration.

“Go away, don’t come around here no more” Ahh the spyware game. I love playing it. Surf for a little bit and your computer slows down. Has this ever happened to you? I’ve finally decided to try to completely rid myself of all spyware by downloading AdAware 6.0 and Spybot S&D. It’s a good thing I did, because in the past I have relied strictly on AdAware, but Spybot picked up a few little manifestations of spyware and scumware that AdAware didn’t. Get ‘em both and kill ‘em all.