The Swarm

Wow, the days are just flying by. I've been really busy working on a programming project for Aerva, so I haven't had a chance to write a post. I just noticed it's been four days since my last post, so I thought I'd better stop putting it off.

I decided to cancel my Blackberry service all together, buy a Nextel i560, and save myself $60 a month on my phone bill. I was very close to switching to a T-Mobile Blackberry, but I realized that the instant email on my phone was more a luxury than a necessity. Combine the $60 I'm now saving on my phone bill with the $30 I'm saving by taking the train into Boston, and thats a whole $90 a month ($1080 a year) that's now going in my savings account.

The days have been hot, and I love it! Sometimes I'll be sitting in my truck, sweating from the heat, and I will reach for the A/C switch. Then I stop. "Remember a few months ago? You were freezing and wishing for 90 degree weather! Now you have 90 degree weather and you want the A/C!?". I love the heat.

My chiropractor hadn't seen me in about 2 months. He said my muscles grew exponentially and that I "looked jacked". Hah, good to know. It's hard to see physical changes in yourself when you see yourself everyday. If anyone could see changes, it would be him. Speaking of workouts, I thought I should mention that I've stopped the interval cardio. I completed it two weeks in a row. Now on my third week, I've decided to do intense mountain biking for 30 - 40 minutes instead.

I was mountain biking in the Dracut State Forest today and I tell you, the horseflies were unforgiving. I quite literally had 5 - 10 of them swarming around my head at any one time. It helped me constantly keep in motion, hoping to get away from them, but that didn't work. A couple times while I was riding down a hill, going about 15 mph, I looked behind me and saw the swarm chasing me! Seriously. A few times I was able to outrun them, going 20 mph, but every time I slowed down more seemed to magically appear.

I upgraded my laptop (Thinkpad T41) last night to Ubuntu's latest release, Dapper. I was hoping a newer version of the wireless drivers (IPW2100) would resolve an issue I was having with the wireless card randomly dropping the connection. So far, the upgrade seems to have fixed it. I did have one complaint about the upgrade. I had modified a color scheme for GVIM to color my folds. When VIM/GVIM was upgraded, it replaced the color scheme with a new copy. Also, for some strange reason, the newer version of VIM didn't like the path setting in my .vimrc and I needed to remove it (or change it, I can't remember).

Thinking about all the stuff going on in my life right now gives me a headache. I keep telling myself to take a deep breath (and then I take one), but the deep breath doesn't feel deep enough to relax me. I'm finding more and more ways to save money, but I keep being reminded how many things are unnecessarily costing me money. The property on 53 Ware street was a mistake. Wait, it wasn't a mistake but rather bad timing. I will feel as if a huge stone has been lifted off my back once that property has been sold.

The lawyer, who I paid $1850 to evict the tenant upstairs from me, called the other day. He said the sheriff called him and said there was a problem with the service, and so now the court date has been moved from the 13th to the 28th. Another two weeks of no rent and listening to screaming and bitching people upstairs.

Gas was at $3.09 today. I stopped by the gas station that usually has the cheapest gas on any given day. It was $3.09. Filled my tank up; $95. Later in the day I drove by the gas stations in Drumhill (Chelmsford), where the prices are usually the most expensive; $2.98 a gallon.

Headaches seem to be back. Probably because I can't seem to kill the goddamn coffee habit.

Green tea, you idiot!