All your interpretation are belong to us...

I went to sleep at 5 pm, with the alarm set to give me plenty of time to get ready and hie myself to the MCC by 1 am. I awoke at 7:20 pm to the infernal sound of a dog barking with an enthusiasm reserved only for those canines with stamina.

After 15 minutes of tossing, turning, and listening to the dog go for some sort of Guinness barking record, I got up, got dressed (kind of) and sat down to watch the second installment of The Lone Gunmen. The episode was actually not all that bad, if you're willing to overlook some plot "funnies" (i.e., things that don't quite hang together).

I retired again upon the conclusion of the show (9 pm locally) and woke up at 11:45 pm, which gave me just enough time to get dressed, get out of the house, and drive to work. So I'm here, with my headset on, jacked into the appropriate loops, ready to rumble. There are no VHF passes until nearly 7 am this morning (yay!), but that just means there'll (probably) be more frequent, sporadic contacts via the S-band (boo!). No biggie. I'm ready for all of it.

Once out of here, I must do the following:

(a) write up all my invoices;
(b) visit the place that made my new eyeglasses and take advantage of their "unconditional money-back guarantee";
(c) return a book;
(d) verify that my reservation home has been rebooked;
(e) laundry;
(f) convey the punch list items to Y. for completion before the renter moves in;
(g) write at least one proposal for a paper to deliver at the ATA conference in L.A. this fall.

A piece of cake, unless I procrastinate...

Cheers...

Semi-dry?

What does a fellow have to do to get a drink around here?

Coming home after doing a bunch of stuff down in Clear Lake, I stopped to do some food shopping at a yuppie-haven supermarket down the street, and could not find the wine display. I tagged a clerk unpacking boxes and asked where the wine was hidden.

"We don't sell wine," said the lad.

"Where can I buy some?" I asked.

The young man furrowed his brow and said, "You go down 518 until you cross the county line into Friendswood. There's a liquor store there."

Seeing my quizzical look, he added, "This is a semi-dry county. You can buy beer, but not wine or hard liquor."

Wow. I've been living here for over a month and hadn't noticed. It's my first conscious run-in with such regulations (if you don't count blue laws, and they date pretty much from my youth), and it's evidence, I suppose, that I'm probably not an alcoholic. Semi-dry. Humph, and other comments.

On the other hand, the fact that I am considering dipping into my stock of Becherovka (a deadly Czech concoction from Karlovy Vary) seems evidence that I probably am.

It's almost 9 pm and Lee hasn't been by yet. The sausage and kraut is cooling off, my Casablanca DVD is playing on the PS2, and I have to pack for an early departure tomorrow. Yikes.

Cheers...