claus-tro-pho-bic
adj.
1. Relating to or suffering from claustrophobia; Uncomfortably closed or hemmed in.

potential
n.
1. The inherent ability or capacity for growth, development, or coming into being.

Tonight wasn't the most comfortable night I've ever had.

Rich O's was fairly empty. I started out sitting in the living room area with some of the regulars, but when more people joined us I felt a little crowded.

I moved over to the island area thinking this would allow me to drink my beer (a Rogue Dead Guy Ale) in peace.

(Belushi) But noooooooooooooooo! (/Belushi)

All of the regulars followed me to the island area and continued to yap amongst themselves.

Somehow I managed to suffer through the evening with my Dead Guy and my Alaskan Smoked Ported (Yum!) and after those two beers I left.

I went to meet MysteryLady in order to decipher the cryptic voice message I'd been left earlier. Instead of clearing things up I'm now afraid that I've managed to blur the situation.

I had to be a little forceful I'm afraid, reminding her that this arrangement (such as it is) was all her idea and that she'd promised to be able to deal with it.

The alternative is simply too risky and now I seem to be the only one who realizes that fact.

Found out this morning that my niece Bethany has been nominated for Homecoming Queen!

My sister is very excited.

My question is, "Why even bother to vote?" I haven't seen any of the other girls but I already know that Bethany should win.

I mean, who could compete with Beffie?

a-dor-a-ble
adj.
1. Delightful, lovable, and charming.

pu-trid
adj.
1. Decomposed and foul-smelling; rotten.
2. Extremely objectinable; vile.

When I got to Rich O's last night I nearly turned around and left immediately. PutridPipeGuy was really stinking up the place with that dogshit or whatever it was in his pipe. Pipe smokers try to act like they're soooo sophisticated and stuff but that effect is ruined when the paint starts peeling off the walls and even the cockroaches start evacuating the premises.

Anyway, I didn't leave. I sat at the bar and started out with a Dead Guy Ale from Rogue. I've had this before and I really like it.

After what seemed like an eternity PutridPipeGuy and his entrourage finally left. This meant that Rich O's was effectively empty becuase everyone smart had already fled the aroma.

As for me, I ended up having a couple of Piraats. This is a very good beer that, as I stated in my RateBeer review, would probably kill me if I ever had more than two in one sitting.

Eventually MisunderstoodGirl appeared in the living room area and I moved over there. We talked for a while about travel and moving while I tried to ignore the idiots holding a political debate at the end of the couch.

At about the time I finished my second Piraat LaptopGirl came in looking, I guess "comfortable" would be the word. I ordered a Smithwicks and after MisunderstoodGirl left I spent a pleasant hour or two talking with LaptopGirl until someone more interesting came over and I realized two things:

1. I had drank too much.
2. I was no longer needed.

I left pretty abruptly because I knew that if I didn't I'd be there closing out the place with LaptopGirl and I'd probably be sleeping in my car if I didn't get home fairly quickly.

I wanted to say something about today's 9/11 anniversary, but there isn't much I can say that hasn't been said by writers much more talented than I.

Some in this country try to dismiss it like it wasn't a big deal. I'm sorry to tell you but you're quite wrong. Sure, terrorism happens all the time all over the world, but anytime 3000 people are killed I assure you that it is a big deal.

At the other end of the spectrum are the people who obsess over the tragedies and forget that terrorism is not the only problem facing the United States and the world today.

I guess, like with a lot of issues, I'm somewhere in the middle. I feel that 9/11 was certainly one of the defining moments in history. When that second plane hit, and we all knew that we were under attack, I saw the looks on the faces of the people watching with me. Everyone went from being very concerned to being angry and fearful.

I continued to see that mad/scared look everywhere for several weeks after the attacks. People on the streets and in the stores that on September 10th had nothing in common with each other now had all endured the same horrible events and were all trying to do the same thing.

Trying to go on with their lives until all of the shock and grief and fear had subsided to the point where they could go on with their lives.

For most of us the memory of that day no longer haunts us constantly. We can think about it, for a while at least, without welling up or clenching our fists.

For a while at least.

One of the reasons I first decided to learn some CSS was to have the ability to wrap text around images.

Now I've finally got that ability. You can see examples on some of my cats' pages.

Also today I added a couple of little mini-forms, one on the main page and one on the FAQ page, to allow short messages or questions to be sent to me.

Okay, I suppose I'll just go ahead and declare the barenada.com version 4.0 redesign complete.

Of course one never really finishes with a website. It's an ongoing evolution.

And then there's the fact that I just hacked away and deleted about 700 files that I hope weren't being used anymore.

I also want to see about putting in a mechanism to change the color scheme (such as it is) on the fly.

Oh yeah, I also want to standardize my image borders.

And then I want to finish my email-based 'blog system.

Maybe I'm not as done as I initially thought.

As what's left of Hurricane Frances spirals and dumps rain to the East of me I can't help but feel a little gyped that what was such an awesome storm has only provided me with some wind and clouds.

Sometimes I wish I lived along the Gulf Coast so I could experience one of these incredible storms in its full fury.

Then I see the reports of all the devastation, injuries, and deaths, and I have to be grateful that I don't live anywhere near there.

I know that, were I in Florida when Frances hit, I'd have been one of those idiots that refused to evacuate and instead held a deck party.

I'd probably have gotten a Darwin Award out of it.

Since I decided about a zillion years ago - or it may have been last Thursday - to do a complete site redesign I've spent nearly all of my at-home time sitting at this computer.

I think I'm almost finished, but along with the inevitable bugfixes and layout tweaks I still have a couple of bigger decisions to make.

First, do I even bother with the Pronto pages? I still get hits against these pages even though they haven't been updated in years and years, but converting all of those outdated pages to the new site format seems like a really daunting task.

The other four sections (gross exaggeration alert!) that the old site had were the humor page, the page about my Monte Carlo and my dad, my resume page, and the page which shows the states I've been to.

These four single-page sections (there it was again) would be pretty easy to convert to the new format. I suppose I've just gotten a little burned-out from using Dreamweaver and Fireworks over the last few days and so I'm currently limiting myself to bugfixes and layout tweaks.

First off I need to catch up on what happened Thursday and Friday.

Thursday I broke one of my new resolutions and did something stupid for a stupid reason.

How do you suppose that worked out?

Not very well, that's how.

Friday when I got to Rich O's all of the regulars I know were crowded into the living room section. There was clearly no room for me so I ended up at the bar.

At one point I realized a couple of things:

1. Some seats had opened up near my friends.
2. None of them had even bothered to invite me over.

Now I know I've been a little moody lately, but c'mon. I suppose this should tell me something but I'll probably continue to play dumb.

Tonight (Saturday) I went bowling, of all things, with my sister Dina's family.

This was the first time I'd been in several years and the rust was quite evident. I bowled two games, each of which saw a score that was barely half my old average. I think my 9-year-old nephew beat me the first game.

Back to Rich O's to drown my sorrows, I had a Three Floyd's Pride & Joy English mild ale.

I liked it. It could have used a little more malt to balance it out but I'll definitely have it again.

Tonight I had a feeling.

I just knew that if I went to Rich O's that things would be pushed back into balance.

I was right.

Oh yeah, I have four days off work. That's very cool and I really need the time off because I'm sick of getting up at 6:30AM every damn day.