How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “I’ve learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.”

Remember what it was like the night before the first day back to school?

Nervousness, no sleep, wondering how the next day, the next year was going to unfold? The excitement of new clothes, new supplies, new teachers, new friends.

My kids are going through that tonight. It seems just like yesterday that we were celebrating their LAST day of school and they were looking at 2 ½ solid months of time off.

Now they are up there chattering in the dark, hours away from true sleep. He’s going into 8th, her into 6th. For the first time, they are going to the same school at the same time so not only is that comforting for the both of them (although they will NOT admit it), it’s also nice for Carrie who can now drop their butts off on the way to her morning workout at the YMCA. Before, they were an hour apart so Carrie had two morning trips to make and the second was inconveniently in the other direction of the Y.

Now Carrie gets most of her day back.

I leave tomorrow and will be gone to Camp Lejeune for a business trip all week so I have hotel rooms and eating out in store all next week.

As a last celebration of the summer, we rented a classic and I sat down with my kids to watch the original Back To The Future. For me, it was revisiting my youth and for the kids, it was a brand new show so seeing it through their eyes was a lot of fun.

I had to explain to them the concepts behind Tab, Pepsi Free, “heavy,” Chuck Berry, Huey Lewis, and well, what Biff was trying to do to Marty’s mom in the car. But the kids loved the story and that is a true testament to the quality of the movie: that the next generation can watch and say afterwards:

“Dad, that was a really good show.”

I guess I’ll have to rent the other two for them.

Sleep well, Knuckleheads.

Free Advice for Today: “Resist the temptation to buy a boat.”

Quote of the Day: “THE BUCK DOESN’T EVEN SLOW DOWN HERE, So keep on going.”

It was 0600 and I had no idea what happened. I had laid down for a nap at 6:30 last night so unless my scary math skills fail me, we’re talking 11 ½ hours of sleep. WTFO?

OK, this cannot go unpunished. Get on the road, Grose!!!

The run was nearly orgasmic. When I lived in the desert, running back in Washington was memorable because of the oxygen-saturated air. It was like rocket fuel. Now that I live in Virginia, the oxygen isn’t the big deal (it’s pretty green in Virginia) but the lack of humidity is. I got up and ran in 55 degree weather devoid of massive humidity. It was simply intoxicating.

I ran about 4 miles and the dryness, the temperature, and the nostalgia of running in my wife’s childhood neighborhood (and where she was living when we met in 1987) made the run truly enjoyable. I have a marathon on the 10th so I had business to take care of before I start the taper.

If I can complain about one thing it would be that my in-laws do not have high speed internet. They have dial up.

And it hurts.

Bad.

But I did get an interesting email while I sat there and watched the gerbil run the wheel.

It seems I was a bit of a smartass in my blog a few years ago. I KNOW! I was just as shocked.

I got an email from a David Wren and while the name didn’t jump out at me at first, my memory was soon jarred.

To get the full story, read these posts and then come back.

OK, for those of you that are too damn lazy to go, I’ll indulge your lazy asses and summarize.

I had been looking for a search mechanism for my site for years. The site was getting too big to remember where everything was but I could never find anything that worked very good until I found a free program that worked better than I could have expected. I was so impressed that I set it up, wrote the company praising them, and wrote a detailed blog about it (I KNOW, so unlike me).

Everything was hunky dory for years until I discovered that the search function was not returning some items I knew for sure were on my site. I tinkered with it but to no success so my loyalty evaporated like a plate of Krispy Kremes backstage on Oprah. I was not content to just complain about it, I had to go and tell the company that they can kiss my white ass.

The software was from “WrenSoft.”

Are you getting what I’m serving up here? David Wren?

Anyway, I turned to Google and set up a local search function but that eventually failed also so I sheepishly turned back to WrenSoft and went to their site to see if they had an updated version. They did. For $99.

So I’m back to the free version and trying to tinker with it again. I never get it to quite work 100% but it was better than Google’s functionality and infinitely better than nothing at all so I stuck with it.

Then I get this email: Jason,

I just came across your blog. In particular the post, “Search Me, I Don’t Know!” – Monday, March 21, 2005

The phrase, “WrenSoft can kiss my white ass”, caught my eye

I don’t think we are prepared to go that far. But we would be prepared to exchange a free copy of the software in exchange for a proper review in your blog.

I think you were using the old creaky V2 release in the past. The current version is V4.1 of the software has almost been re-written since then. It should be easier to use and definitely offers more functions & speed.

Regards,
David Wren
Wrensoft

I have to say, I was embarrassed but the offer he made me was exciting. I could try out his new software for free and all I have to do is review it on my site. Are you kidding? I would do that anyway and this way, I don’t have to negotiate between my self-proclaimed conflict of perfectionism and cheap-assedness.

But I have to wait until I get home, obviously. On the upshot, I have something to look forward to when I get home!!!!

Free Advice for Today: “Read acknowledgments, introductions, and prefaces of books.”

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

BLOG entry for this day from 2004

BLOG entry for this day from 2003