OK, I can read signs just fine. The sign said "Street Cleaning - Second Wednesday of Every Month". What's today? The second Tuesday of the month. Apparently, I'm supposed to magically know that the second Tuesday of every month is when they clean the "odd side" of the street (the side everyone normally parks on); the second Wednesday is for the "even" side of the street.

I knew something was wrong when I noticed no cars parked on side of the street where I usually park. Sure enough, my truck was gone. I called the Cambridge City Clerk, who transferred me to the non-emergency police department, who then told me to call B&B Towing. When I called they explained that it will be $75 cash -- a truck ripped the phone line off their building a few days ago and they're still waiting to get their phones working before they can take credit cards. I jotted down their address and proceeded to Google Maps. The place was 3.2 miles from my apartment -- a bit further than I was willing to walk (I had to get to work). I knew I should have brought my bike to Cambridge this week instead of leaving it in Lowell!

I called a cab. Ten minutes later he arrived. He didn't seem to know the area very well for a cab driver. After fifteen minutes I arrived at 50 Mooney ST; an industrial area with big trucks, backhoes, and lots of dust flying around. The fare was $12.75 -- there were no credit cards accepted and I only had $11 cash on me. I told the cabby I needed to stop at an ATM, but he insisted on just taking the $11 and dropping me off. After he left, I realized I needed to go to the ATM anyway -- to get money to pay the towing company! I walked in the direction I thought I would find an ATM -- 1/2 a mile later I came across a Bank of America branch. I took out $100 cash and walked back to 50 Mooney ST.

After paying the towing company, I got in my truck -- ah! Whats that on my window? Oh, a ticket: $20 fine for parking on the street during street cleaning. This whole event cost me 1.5 hours and $106. How lovely. Tomorrow is the second Wednesday of the month. Everyone seems to have parked where they normally park on the street. I left my truck in my office parking lot and walked 1/2 a mile to my apartment. I'm not taking any chances. I set up a reoccurring event on my Blackberry to remind me each month before the street cleaning days.

I found a bunch of posts, nine months worth actually, and added them to the archives -- August 2002 through May 2003. It's pretty interesting how I've changed since then, how my writing has changed, how what I've written about has changed.

I used to use the date of the post as the subject, so that's why all the posts don't have any nice descriptions. It's hard enough to come up with subjects for new posts, so there is no way I'm going to think up post titles for all those archived posts!

I found a couple of pictures, taken back in 2005, of awesome tiny mountain formations created by a heavy rainstorm.

I was digging out the dirt from my basement when all of a sudden it started pouring -- so I went inside. When the rain stopped and I went back to continue working, I noticed these tiny mountains in the pile. Upon closer inspection I was amazed at what I saw:

Normally the rain would have just washed away the sand, but because the pile was underneath a big tree, and the leaves from the tree slowed down the rain, the water dropped straight down on top of the pile. A lot of sand was washed away, but some tiny stones shielded the sand underneath them.

It has to be the most incredible form of art, created by nature, that I have ever photographed. The pictures still amaze me. Check out the full gallery of images, including some nice pictures of Pawtucket Falls (on the Merrimack River) in Lowell. The waterfall was unusually high due to the large amounts of rain we had that week.

The trip went well, except for a few minor delays. Our plane in Boston was delayed and even though we arrived at the airport around 6pm, we didn't leave Boston until around 9pm. When we arrived in PA we had to take a taxi to the hotel -- which was 45 minutes away. The taxi charge was $75! By the time we got into the hotel it was already 11pm.

The Ericsson building was awesome -- designed to look like one of the high tech buildings in Southern California. I've searched the web for awhile, but been unable to come up with any pictures of the place, sorry. The weather, was incredible; sunny and 75+ degrees with a light warm breeze. I only felt the warmth of the outdoors for about 15 seconds while walking to the car, but it was beautiful! It was 33 degrees and rainy when we arrived back in Boston.

I read about 70 pages of The Martian Chronicles while I was on the plane and so far it's an awesome book. This week I'm going to do my best to read at least 1 hour every day and I'm also going to ramp up my cardio. I'm not seeing enough results with the pace I'm going at now -- and it's already April!

As usual, the weekend didn't go as planned. Something came up Friday night and I decided to get the stuff on Saturday instead. I woke up late on Saturday morning and missed the appointment at the Chevy dealership for the safety recall. I ended up spending the majority of Saturday driving to different hardware stores, returning stuff for my Dad, and buying stuff for Ware ST.

I worked all day on Sunday installing everything in Ware ST. I started around 10am and didn't finish until 7pm. I kept finding things that were broken or needed replacement. I must have run to the local hardware store half a dozen times. I took before pictures, but forgot to take the after pictures... 😐

Last week, I mentioned that I was going to start reading and rowing everyday. I've been doing a lot more rowing, even though it does feel rather uncomfortable (probably something to do with the misaligned posture of my spine). Reading, however, I have not been doing a lot of. I'm bringing The Martian Chronicles with me tonight on my business trip to Pennsylvania -- hopefully I can finish at least half of it before I get back. 🙂

I really need to start counting calories. I feel that even though I am eating very healthy, I'm still consuming too many calories to loose fat. FitDay is really nice for doing this, but it takes time to measure out and weigh every single thing I eat throughout the day. I suppose if I pre-made all my meals this wouldn't be a problem.

I spent $75 less on food this week than I did last week -- not that I really had a choice. The bills are stacking up faster than I can count and I don't see any end in sight. It's pretty bad when you've already cut your expenses and you realize that the only way you're going to be able to break even is by making more money.

This week I'm going to start two new habits: reading and rowing. That's right, I'm going to set aside 1 hour every night for reading and at least 15 minutes every day for rowing. I will make sure I don't read the same thing two days in a row (i.e., not the same book/magazine). I've got plenty of reading material, as I am a subscriber to New Scientist (weekly) and National Geographic (monthly), both of which I never read in their entirety each month.

Although I frown upon reading fiction, simply because it feels like a waste of time, I decided to purchase The Martian Chronicles, a SciFi novel which is supposed to be one of the top 10 must read SciFi books. At the same time, I picked up The Pragmatic Programmer -- one of the top recommended books for programmers. I also have a book that I bought a few months ago called The Best Software Writing, volume 1. I've already read probably 25% of the book and there really is a lot of well written stuff in there.

So, why reading? Well I feel that the only way one can become a better writer is to read better writing.

Today I brought my mountain bike to Cambridge. Now that it's warm enough to ride, I'll start riding it to the office and to the gym in Somerville. I also brought my water rower from Lowell. My mom paid half for it a few years ago for my birthday. It hasn't seen very much use since then but I plan to change that. Here is a picture I took a few years ago after assembling it.

I realized how much I love the outdoors, and more specifically the rainforest. Breathing in the fresh scent of a forest or the smell of ripe tomato's on the vine, is absolutely the most relaxing thing for me. Ever since I was little, I've had a liking of deep, dark green colors -- specifically forest green. Since I moved to Boston, I've been realizing how much I miss nature.

I've started to wonder how much of an effect, mentally and physically, not being around trees and plants has on a person. Plants consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Humans consume oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Nature didn't make things that way by accident. When I walked into the plant isle in Home Depot yesterday, I was shocked. The air literally felt different, -- cleaner, healthier, easier to breathe. If simply walking into the isle produced that much of a noticeable difference, how much am I missing on a daily basis?

So I bought a plant, an ivy, or if you'd prefer the scientific name, a Hendera helix. I picked the ivy because it doesn't require a lot of light, which is good since I live in a basement which gets little light!

I don't know if a single plant will have that much of an impact, but it's a start!