(backlogged on 10/26 - out of town)
Woke up early, and drove down to my parent's lake house carvan style - on the way, we were to stop at my brother's mansion for an afternoon/evening of October Bash stylings - a combination of family birthday get togethers, et al. When we arrived - miscommunication ensued (on my parent's end), they were not ready yet - so we continued down to the lake house (an hour each way). Made more sense. Got to the lake house - spent an hour or so unpacking, prepping the house, et al - then drove back to my brother's mansion - to be greeted by the whole extended family. Was really nice to see all of them - some of whom I have not seen in almost a decade. We all romped around in the spendor of the October Fall changing leaves, enjoyed a fantastic meal, many laughs, photos, memories. Lotta fun. Drove back to the lake house and relaxed for the evening. All in all, we drove for 8 hours - slept well.

Side note - had a bizarre dream that my family had entered me into a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy intervention - they had them "transform" my meager existence. The freakish part of the dream was that the Fab 5 was sitting there drinking apple martinis discussing the fabulous transformation with my father - who was being all gruff, yet attempting to go along - then he yalps out "what would Mike Hammer say?" (referring to the Micky Spillane novel, I, Jury, which my father lent me). I was laughing my ass off in that dream.

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Welp, gotta do a quick post - I still have a ton of crap to do before I go to bed. Gonna go on a 4 day vacation at my parent's lake house. Should be fun.

I hate my car. Perpetually jinxed. I thought I had this stupid "check engine" light fixed, because of the sensitivity to the cool temp/bad gas, needed oil change - no, came on again today. I was like..screw this..Ok, I'll go to the VW dealershit and buy the coolant (you cannot buy off the shelf coolant for a VW..you have to buy it at the dealershit...it's $20 a gallon - red stuff). Bought it, then tapped off the resevoir. Heck no - to no avail. I hope I better not break down on either trip to or from the lake (bout 5 hour drive each way).

I'll take some pics during this trip, get in a few bike rides. Speaking of which (after I got my special coolant at the VW dealershit), I went to Vienna and took in a very chilly 34 mile bike ride. Saw about 10 deer - in 4 instances, usually a doe with one or two baby deer. It's soo odd how comfortable they are with us silly bright colored bicyclists...they just sit there and graze...like no biggie. They stand there - less than 10 feet away, just kinda sniffing the air, prolly thinking..what the heck is that?..deoderant? They look confused like cats when you hold out a hand - deliberately bewildered...

On the way, teamed up with this dude on a recumbant bike (silly looking thangs) while we were waiting to cross route 123 in Vienna - he told me that he commutes from Reston (home) to Ballston (work) - 'bout 10 miles each way - he hates cars. He also told me that 1.5% of the population in Northern Virginia bike to work - which raised a few eyebrows, so State developers are currently proposing and building new bike paths. Way cool.

Next post will be on Tuesday evening - enjoy the weekend.

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What a busy busy BUSY day. Work was wild. Hectic morning trying to finish up last minute details and what not for a complex prototype demonstration/meeting offsite (dog & pony showing) this afternoon. Went extremely well, client seemed more than excited. Great news. Crosses fingers. That took the entirety of the day - I was already burnt out by noon - but continued on.

New 1 Gig Flash car - oh sooo tiny Actual Size (click on image to see enlargement)

Came back to the office after 5pm - decided to leave on a bike ride (in the rain again...grrr you Muthah Nature..spitting on me...four days in a row of rainy bike rides). Did a solid 32 miler (it was cold and slick - and dark. A little too dangerous - so I biked slow. Soon, I will be using the indoor trainer (treadmill) on evenings like this. Next weekend I'll be setting up a scenario for that - with my Mt Bike on the trainer, "baldy" slicker rear tire to work on the trainer...with a tv/books on tape setup.

Started packing tonight for my mini-vacation starting this weekend. Tomorrow will be a busy night making preparations, cleaning bike, packing, et al. I'm preparing these spicy chinese BBQ rib eye beef sticks for a family get together on Saturday - they need to marenade for 12 hours.

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Grrrrrr! Numero tres crappy day in a row. ABBA flipped his lid, berrating people all day. It was more than unbearable. And to pour salt in the festering wound of morale - he was insistent on keeping us late "just because". Asshole. We would have been far more productive tomorrow (and focused), if we just left for the day. We were all burned out. Fried.

I'm not even sure what ABBA's "role" there is anymore. Seems that bureaucratically, he's not doing any administrative/CEO/directive tasks - self-directed shift of "title", conveniently to "President of Sales" or something. Mixed messages here. If he's only doing sales - why is he still threatening one of my subordinates to fire him if he would "..stop and close Flash [the application], NOW!..I'm telling you, if I see you have that application open again today, even buy accident...you can just leave and wait for your last paycheck...you guys are killing me....i like you alot but you'd better not have that Flash open again....you cannot have that Flash open because you do not understand me"... (yet 3 hour earlier, he was asking this programmer "why hasn't the flash been done...the [client] really likes the Flash - I know you will do a great job...")...All fricken day long.

I didn't leave the office until after 7pm - and I was ready to get the stress out of my system by biking. It was pouring rain like a mo fo. No fricken break today. Asshole boss - patronizingly being an asshole all day long, then worked an hour and a half (unpaid) overtime, then dark, cold heavy rain bike ride. Came back to car, dried off - drove home in horrible conditions.

I'm just glad to be home. And glad to be going on a little vacation this weekend thru Tues/Wed.

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What a long day, glad it's over. The feather comforter on my bed is calling my name. Nice Fall sleeping weather.

Work was horrible. Another day of over-patronizing crap minute after bipolar minute from ABBA. (looking over my shoulder, after informing me that he told a client that he would have my team just "quickly" move an entire website, databases, flash, XML, streaming video & audio over into a client viewable arena)"...I just called the client and told him we'd have this done in 5 minutes...you're killing me here....is there something that I don't understand?", he says. (my thoughts: um yea, there's potentially a catastrophic amount of things that could go wrong before you have a client catch one of our "bugs" which may just invariably cost us the account because they think we are premature, desperate for business, and rushed too hard that we make nothing but mistakes) "I will not want to get into this argument another time, I know we discussed this 40 million times, weren't you here? I know we talked about this..." (um, yea...you have a tendency to have your own delusions of what you talk about..I am not privvy to those discussions)...blah blah blah...all fricken day long.

After all that..I was more than HONORED to willingly suit up and bike 34 miles in the cold and pouring rain, dark, slippery conditions, totally soaked - to releive me from that stress.

Finished my ride, came back soaked, dried off bike, self, et al. I drove to the library to get some books on tape (new thing for long drives) for my trek down to my parent's lake house this long weekend. I picked up a funny book, The Honk and Holler Opening Soon and the classic On the Road . Will be interesting to hear it read to me while on the road

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Just another manic monday...

Work was horrifying - ABBA seemed off his meds again. If I weren't educated in psychopharmeceuticals, he would seem like he's a coke feind. He just seems bi-polar and his meds are not administered right. Regardless - nothing like being over-patronized all day long, paranoid freak.

I was glad to go on my bike ride - I had all this pent up stress after work. It was about to rain, and it was going to get chilly, went anyways. It was a really pleasant ride - even the rain - went out to Peonnean Springs (need to check the spelling on that) 36 miles in all. On the way back, near Leesburg - I see up ahead in my bike headlights 4 small beady eyes...as I approach, I realized it was 2 teenage raccoons. I startled them, they got confused then started to cower into the bike path. I wasn't sure if I should steer around them or stop. I slowed - but they got all freaked out then they scowled at me with this really nasty hiss. I felt bad for them. But it was a little amusing the look on their faces - just a harmless biker...encroaching thier night prowling.

This weekend, I will be going to join my family at the Lake for a few festivities, and I will stay on until Tuesday or Wed - should be alot of fun. Good to see my nephews and neices, and my brothers and their wives.

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Beautiful day - almost perfect, minus a few domestic chores that had to be done. Helped my dad fix a lamp, then went to have a haircut. I will attest that the best time to get a haircut is when there is a football game on. The place was empty.

Then drove to Vienna, took in a very casual, albeit crisp 34 mile bike ride to Ashburn and back. Stopped by Performance on the way home - got me a new bike saddle, finally an upgrade. Will take time to get used to (Carbon-injected shell, hollow titanium rails, genuine leather, weight=197g.

Came home, had filet mignon and asparagus - then installed my new saddle - re-sized my fitting, then put my bike lights on for the dark work week night rides - now just Sunday night anxiety...

Finally took a little time to post a few pics of the Washington & Old Dominion bike trail that I bike on daily. Just a few pics i took a week ago - not the best quality, but hey...a picture is worth a thousand words. Click on each thumbnail - it will open a new page with a larger picture:

Powerlines, near Leesburg, VA	Heading East, near Reston, VA	Looking West, near Reston, VA	Goose Creek bridge	Over rt 28, looking West

Looking towards Reston, over 7200 bridge	Deer next to trail, Vienna, VA	Deer closeup, side of trail
Heading towards Reston, from Vienna, VA	Blurry handlebar view, with new lights	Looking west at Reston, at night
Powerlines near Leesburg	Looking West towards Hamilton	Goose Creek bridge - no longer scary

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