I went to my acupuncturist today, and I told him about the pain in my shoulder and he said it was a pinched nerve. That's what I thought. My silly chiropactor didn't believe me. Honestly, I really need to figure out a way to stop seeing him without hurting his feelings. He's just not very good, but when I told him I wanted to stop seeing him because I was moving out of the neighbourhood he got so upset.

Maybe I'll tell him that company is switching health plans, because I only see him because he's contracted with my health plan. That's a good reason. It's a total lie, but I doubt I'll get found out. This way we could both save face.

My acupuncturist treated my should and gave me the best massage. He's the best, and people come from all over even from LA to see him. He's always so busy. I wanted to see him next week, but he's very expensive ($60 per visit) so I made an appointment to see him in two weeks. He is so worth every penny. He's fixed my plantar fascitis, and my heels don't hurt ever anymore.

I think after my shoulder gets fixed, I'll have him work on my left hip. Even my spiritual healer said the angels she talks to really liked my acupuncturist, and said he was a good man.

I've spending so much money on my move this month that I need to be careful. It's so easy to spend money. I went to The Container Store, and bought some stuff. All the stores on Union Square were having a sale, and I popped into Macy's to check it out. Big mistake.

I walked out of Macy's with two pairs of earrings, on sale, but still Iike I need to be spending money on earrrings. I want to replace my eating utensils and saw the cutest set. The handles had pineapples on the end. How hawaiian is that? But four place settings cost $180. Yikes! Macy's had the set on sale for $99, and I was so tempted but I passed. Maybe in a couple of months, if the set is still there and on sale again, I'll buy them. I must have forks, spoons and knives with pineapple handles.

I decided I need to check out Victoria's Secret and walked out with 5 knickers. Two were colours I've been looking for and since you had to buy 5 to get the sale price, I bought 5.

There so many other things I wanted to buy, but I stopped myself. I can barely fit the clothes I have into my new place, and I don't really need anything. I did just buy a pair of Lands End cropped khakis and a new cotton sweaters from Sears on Tuesday for my company meeting. I didn't end up wearing the khakis, but I wore the sweater.

I told myself I would never buy myself a pair of cropped khakis, but the pair from Land's are more like pedal pushers, which means they come down to mid calf. Most cropped pants end up right at your ankle, and remind me of flood pants that some kids used to wear in elementary school because their parents wouldn't buy them new pants. Remember those? Kids at my school used to tease the kids who wore flood pants mercilessly and so meanly. I never wore them, but seeing pants like that brings those memories right back.

This is why it's a bad idea for me to work at home. It's 9 pm and I'm still working. I had some oral surgery done this morning to move my gumline which took four hours out of my day. Then when I came home to finish the project I started this morning, the system was so slow and I had so many problems building my workfiles and tables that I didn't get anything built till around 7 pm. And this is just the gathering the data step.

Then I have to actually analyze the data, put it into some usable form, and send it off to my boss so he can look at it and get it ready for the big important client meeting next Tuesday. I think he'll be happy though because it does look like we're helping the client's business and yes, the magic phrases, "improving their bottom line" and "saving them money". Clients love these phrases, will be grateful to you forever if you can prove to them emperically "the magic phrases", not to mention they won't complain about the huge sum of money you're charging.

It's going to be a late night working for me, sorry to say.

So I'm sitting in my all day work meeting thinking this is the first company I've ever worked for that I don't really care that much about. It's a strange feeling. I made a deliberate choice a few years ago that in order to concentrate on my writing, I would take a job that paid reasonably well but was not demanding. I would take a job where I wasn't so emotionally invested, so I could leave it at 5 pm and work on my writing.

Well, I have that kind of job. I'm not emotionally invested, I don't work more than 40 hours a week, unless there's some huge client meeting and that's happened only twice in three years, and part of me just doesn't care about the place other than the fact that the pay me.

This is like the weirdest feeling for me because I've always been into whatever job I'm doing, and now I'm just not. A friend tells me that I'm just treating my job like how everyone else treats their job and that I was weird for taking my jobs seriously and having my self esteem so tied into my career and my job. This is a horrible feeling though, not to care that much about the company you work for. It's a new experience for me, and although I know it's good for me to think of job like this, I'm not sure i like the feeling.

Maybe if I was married and had kids I wouldn't want to be so emotionally invested in my job, but I don't. I know that some of the other people at my meeting probably treat their job like a job and have no emotional investment in it whatsoever, and that's normal for them.

I don't know how they do it. I don't know how I've done it for three yearsl, and not driven myself crazy. I know the only thing that keeps me at this job is 1) it's easy 2) it's not time consuming 3) the job market sucks and it's better to be gainfully employed at this point in time and than not and 4) the job doesn't stress me out at all like all the other jobs in my life.

I just feel so purposeless about life right now. I haven't been wriitng, so maybe I just need to get back to my writing and then I'll feel like my life has purpose again. It's like torture to feel so rootless about life, to feel like I'm just living my life without any aim or purpose in mind. That just doesn't sit right with me somehow. It's so utilitarian of me I know, but I just think my life should be for a purpose and if I don't have a purpose than honestly what is the point of living?

That's probably harsh, but it's like so true for me. I'm like one of those types who has to always feel like I'm living for something, a purpose, or cause greater than myself. I need a reason to exist, to live, to go on, so I can feel my life is worth living.

I know the times when I've felt I've had no purpose in life, no reason greater than myself to live, have been times where I've been incredibly depressed, suicidal even. Maybe it's like some gene I stood in wrong line for in heaven. The gene that says you won't ever feel you life is worth anything unless you're dedicated to something, someone greater than yourself.

Do other people have this gene, or is just me? It's so not curable either because I have tried to rid myself of need to feel like I have a purpose several time but to no avail. It's an odd way to think about life, I think sometimes, but I can't help but think of my life like this.

Okay, so this is my first night working from home. I hate this because it's so easy to get extra work done. I have TV on so I can hear the finale of American Idol.

I wouldn't be working tonight if there wasn't this huge, huge client meeting next Tuesday in Florida, and I wasn't assigned four analyses to get done for the meeting. I was supposed to only be doing three projects, but we had a data issue so to make up for the messed up data the president of the company decides let's get Brenda to do an extra project so maybe they won't notice. Isn't that nice?

I'll probably work on the weekend as well since tomorrow I have to go Sacramento for an all day meeting. If I didn't have to attend this conference, I could finish my fourth project on Thursday and then wait for changes to made on Friday. I'm finishing projects 2 and 3 tonight.

Then silly me scheduled dental surgery for Friday morning, and I don't think I'll be able to work very much when I get back. I should have taken the day off, but even if I did I'm sure I'd get a call or email asking me to work the weekend anyway. What a drag!

I've had more projects due these last two weeks working from home, then I've had in the last two months when I was still working out of my office. My paranoid self says my bosses are doing it on purpose so they can be assured that I can be a productive employee at home. Whatever.

I guess it's good to be busy. It keeps me employed and gives me a regular paycheck. I have another report project that I have to start work on next week, which I think will involve some people from my Sacramento office. I have a feeling I'll have to drive up there every other week, if not every week to get the project off the ground. I'll find out tomorrow I think.

I don't mind driving up to Sacramento every other week, but once a week would be tough. It's a two hour drive for me, and that's two solid hours of freeway driving and not stop and go traffic. The Chief Technology office suggested that the report project be a joint one, and my home is that they just the project over to the IT department to be automated and leave me out entirely. I suggested this to my boss, but I still might have to consult on the project since I helped to build the report and consulting always means meetings.

I think they're about to announce the winner of American Idol in my time zone, so I've got to go and watch. I'm torn. I really like Ruben, but I like Clay too. I should have voted, but I didn't know who to choose. I think either way, they will both get record contracts which is so great for both of them.

Is it the terrorists? The radio news just reported that there was an explosion at Yale's mail room.

Scary!!!

The only good thing to come out of the whole "the one that got away'" experience is I came up with a great idea for a screenplay.

It's a romantic comedy, kind of like Romancing the Stone and an all girl road trip. It's loosely based on my relationship with "the one that got away" but totally amped up and dramatized.

The movie opens with this girl who's crying because she missed her boyfriend. We find out it's been over for a year, but the girl is still moping. Then we see her at this 12 step group meeting, where all the women are cute, blonde and trendily trashily dressed.

One girl gets up and says "Hi my name is Bambi, and I'm a silicon valley gold digger". It's a meeting for a 12 step group called "Silicon Valley Gold Diggers Anonymous", where all the women are dating, divorced, married or broken up with filthy rich silicon valley nerds.

The girl has been attending this meeting since she broke up with her nerdy sili valley boyfriend. We see the girls take out pictures of these really awful looking nerdy men, and cry. I don't know why but I think this scene will be so funny, but I do have an odd sense of humor.

The girl in my story goes out for coffee with a couple of the girls, and one of them tells her about this healer in LA who can cure anyone of their sili valley nerd addiction. No one in the group has done it because they're all afraid that if the LA healer cures them, they'll never date sili valley rich nerds again.

My girl decides to do it because she is desperate to get over her man and lead a normal life where she's attracted to normal men. She flies down to LA, one of the beach towns like Redondo Beach, and take a cab to the house of the LA healer.

The LA healer will be a spoof of a stereotypical new age healer complete with crystals, pyramids, filmy scarves, those stinky healing sticks, coconut man guards, etc. The healer tells her that her and her boyfriend, Steve (what else would I call him), were married in many three previous lifetimes where she pledged to be his twinflame soul forever. The healer tells her that she will never get over Steve unless she makes peace with her three previous incarnations by visiting the sites of her former marriages.

Incarnation # 1 - some island in greece or italy that disappeared because of a volcano eruption, it's famous but I can't remember the name. Her husband was away, and thought she died in the volcano but she actually escaped with the children. He vowed to spend the rest of eternity looking for her, and she vowed to be faithful to him for all eternity. This is where it all started.

Incarnation # 2 - Ohio, she was a mormon wife # 6, and back in those days they chained the wives so they wouldn't run. She died on the way travelling to Utah while trying to escape

Incarnation # 3 - Hawaii, on the big island. He was a magic man, the kahuna and she was his apprentice, and they got married.

Th LA healer tells her that her graves must be found and she has to do a clearing ritual at each gravesite. The healer gives her a set of clues for each place.

My girl decides to go and drags her best friend, another member of the Silicon Valley Gold Digger Anonymous with her.

So the movie is all her adventures, and in Greece she has an accident with this guy, who ends up for some reason following her on the rest of her adventures. Of course they get together in the end, and he turns out to be another rich millionaire guy, but not a rich sili valley nerd.

So my girl gets her cake and gets to eat it too.

I have one scene in my head where she goes to a support group for families of polygamists in Utah (another 12 step group), and one girls gets up and says "Hi my name is Catherine, and my grandather is a polygamist", which is loosely based on a spa trip I took to Utah. I was talking to one of the hiking guides, and the woman just blurts out to me like it's a common everyday thing to hear "my grandfather is a polygamist." I mean, what does one say to this kind of remark other than "really?". I got kind of freaked out, like "oh my god, yucky", but then the woman told me her whole life story and it all seemed kind of normal after that.

Metallica is back ... Woohooo! I love Metallica, only because I watched their story on VH1 and fell in love with the band. I really, really like their head banging, metal music too. The Headbanger's Ball I hear is coming back to TV, and that show was one of my favourites. I love Lars the drummer (so cute!). A friend watched the VH1 show too, but fell in love with with Kirth Hammett the guitarist.

We want Metallica!!!

A review of Metallica's latest concert on SFGate: Metallica returns with pedal to the metal - Bassist invigorates band's Fillmore show.

So I did some experimenting because I have two yahoo ids, and you can delete someone off your friends list but the other person still sees you online. "The one that got away" probably deleted me off his list a long time ago.

I think I'm all nostalgic about him because a friend went to the E3 show in LA, and I know "the one" was there. He works for one of those video game software companies, and spend 50% of his time travelling. Our relationship basically fizzled out because he was out of town most of the time for the three months that I knew him. Scheduling a date was not fun, and then I had a killer work schedule as well working 60-80 hours a week.

"The one that got away" made a comment once "that I should be more available" or something like that. Of course independent stubborn me at the time thought and probably said to him, "no, you should be more available for me - why should I put accomodate my schedule and life to fit yours?" I was so not into compromising in those days.

Now I think I would be a little more tactful and try to work for a win-win situation for both of us, instead of getting all pissed and huffy. In any relationship, both people have to compromise a little and I've realized since then that compromising on scheduling and time is really necessary when both people work and have intense work ethics.

"The one that got away" wanted to make VP very desperately, so he was working it hard, and I was working my bunnies off because I wanted to get promoted as well and make more money.

I don't think he's a VP yet, and I switched jobs and don't work as intensely so I can write. "The one" even had comments about my writing too though because I was in writing class at the time. He used to say "you sure spend alot of time in writing", and I didn't even write alot when I knew him.

I hope he's happy and married. He was really lonely, almost needy which kind of disturbed me, and really wanted to settle down and get married. He had one bad marriage behind him, and I could tell that part of him just wanted the whole marriage thing settled.

Memo to guys who are on first dates with girls. Don't tell a girl you just met that your last girlfriend was a model/actress right of college, even if it's true. LIE! "The one who got away" told me this story, and it really headtripped me. I think the whole time during our three month gig I kept thinking to myself, why would he be interested in me after dating a probably very tall model/actress now living in LA who he's still friends with.

I asked him why he didn't marry the model/actress, because he made it clear that the chick was hot to marry him. "The one who got away" said that he was afraid of their age difference, and that the model/actress would still be young when he was very old.

A guy friend thinks that "the one who got away" was totally lying about dating the model/actress in the first place, and only told me that story to boost his own self esteem. I don't think he was lying but if he was, why lie in the first place? It only scares off potential dating partners.

I think I need to do a clearing ritual to get this guy out of my head. I hate that I still have memories of him and I've now dubbed him "the one that got away". But, I do regret that we didn't take it further. He was so cute, very smart and very, very sweet, which is like a tripple threat, totally deadly combo for me. He was also very kind and so logical.

Okay, the party republican voting thing was off putting, but I've gotten used to that over the years. Aren't all guys republicans? My guys have almost always been republican, although there's been a liberal or two along the way. No Nader voters though, that's an automatic "no way ever" litmus test. And yes, they so know where I stand politically but it never seems to bother them.

Okay, so this is really weird. Yahoo messenger came with my dsl and I logged in usning my old account. Under Friends is the id for this guy that I used to date back in 1999. I was the one who got him to sign up for Yahoo Messenger, and I guess he's still using the same ID.

I can see that he's online, and I think that means he can see that I'm on online. Like why didn't he take me off his friends list. I mean, I keep him on there for like the most stupid sentimental reasons because he's my official "the one that go away", but why didn't he delete me?

God, I just hate this. I can't believe he's still using the same Yahoo ID from like 1999, and that I'm still on his friends list. WHY? Maybe he can't see me, but I can see him? Could that be possible? I'll have to email Yahoo Messenger to find out. I mean that would make way more sense right?

My apartment is starting to look decent again. I still have alot of paper from packing to throw out, but I didn't want to hog up the recycling bin with my trash so there are bags of packing paper sitting in my hallway. The thing about moving into a new place is you have to decide a new home for all of your stuff. I still have some orphans sitting around.

Like my baseball caps. I have amassed a good collection of baseball caps, which I use when I go out for walks. At my old place, I used to put them on the top of a tall bookcase I had. I don't have that tall bookcase anymore, so I have no idea where to put all my hats.

I saw this cool hat rack thing in The Container Store downtown, but I need to go downtown to pick them up. Or, I could find another place to put my hats. It's a dilemma.

And for whatever reason, I have like four calendars. I have two of them up, one in the kitchen and one at my desk, but what do I do with other two. One of them was a present, so it's really nice, too nice for the kitchen even. I always end up buying a calendar, and then I get one as a christmas present. And if I don't buy a calendar, I don't get one as a present. I never seem to win on this one.

So I ended up watching half of the The Bachelor finale last night, in between watching the Hitler movie. The Hitler movie was way too intense to watch for some reason, so when I was channel surfing I came across The Bachelor and got sucked in.

The girls were so pretty, and the guy was like so-so. He seemed like a really nice guy, but on a scale of 1 -10 I'd rate his attractiveness as a 5. I liked his family though, they seemed very nice. I hope it lasts, but some part of me doubts it.

I love how the guy set himself up to choose between a sweet girl and really attractive slutty girl with a questionable past. The Joe Millionaire guy did the same thing. The sweet girl always wins out in the end, but only because the cute slutty one either comes across as too money grubbing or her past comes back to haunt her. Could Hollywood have written better morality endings for women? It makes you think these shows are scripted, but I don't think they are. Perhaps real life really does work sometimes like they say it does on tv and in the movies, only totally exagerrated of course.

I'm so sick of my McAfee virus scan software. My instant updater is still not working, and on their support forums users are saying they don't even use it because it has too many problems. That's bad.

I'll probably keep it until I get really sick of it, and then go back to Norton. Norton antivirus software never gave me a problem at all.

Worked out today, and then did laundry. I had a ton of laundry to do, so I went to the same place my exhubbie and I used to do laundry. We used to live in this area when we first got married, so I remembered where to go. It's funny what things you do remember from relationships. I can still remember our favorite breakfast places in this neighborhood as well.

This is so cool! I posted a message in the yahoo groups board for Blogger Pro, and Phil Ringnalda
answered me right away and told me how to fix it! He said my side bar was longer than my posts. I guess I always just write very long posts, and my system got messed up when I started writing shorter posts.

My DSL is up and running. I think it's faster but I still can't tell. My email pulls up faster, and I do notice that, but some sites still load very slowly. I've got to try downloading some songs to see the DSL difference.

SBC Yahoo send me an extra modem. I guess I get a free one just for ordering the service. I called customer service to see if it was really free, but they couldn't figure it out. Typical. I ended up returning it. I don't have the room for it, and I'll probably never use it.

I cabled my work computer to my home portal yesterday and it worked fine. It's kind of a hazard having the cable go between rooms, but I'm the only at home so it's not like it's going to get in any one's way. At 5 pm, I disconnect my work phone and my DSL connection so I have the physical act of leaving work. I kind of like it that way. If my company were to try to call me after work hours, I wouldn't even know it because the phone is not connected. I'm sometimes tempted to log on and check my work email, but I've so far resisted that stupid temptation.

I went to see the Da Vinci and The Splendor of Poland exhibit today. Da Vinci is amazing! The Da Vinci portrait they had was the one called "Lady with an Ermine". This is the first Da Vinci painting I've seen in person. Apparently there are only 20 of his painting in the world, and this portrait is owned by Poland.

I never got before why DaVinci was considered a revolutionary painter, but when I saw this portrait it really hit me. DaVinci's brush stroke work and his understanding of light and shadow are just phenomenal for his time. The woman in portrait looked so three dimensional, like she was floating in the background. No other painter in Leonardo's time could do this. The lady look so life like. I spent a long time looking at the portrait, trying to figure out how he did it. It's got to be his incredibly fine brush stroke work, and his understanding of light and shadow.

DaVinci achieved the kind of three dimensionality you sometimes see in photographs and movies. He was also able to add this amazing texture to the skin of the woman, so you can tell that the woman's skin was very soft.

I remember when I was making a feeble attempt to learn to draw, how hard it was for me to get shading and light. I just couldn't do it. I'm sure if I stuck with it, I would have gotten it eventually but seeing how to shade for shadow and light just did not come easily or naturally to me. Did it come naturally for DaVinci or did he spend hours and hours working on it?

There were two books on DaVinic that I saw at the exhibition store that I wanted, but didn't want to spend the money on right now. The two books were "The Notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci Vol 1 & 2". I flipped through and there were his journals. I read one entry and it was like reading into the mind of a genius. I definitely have to acquire these books one day.

The only book I ended up buying because I couldn't resist it, was a book put out by Phaidon Press in London called "Crucifixion" . From the publisher on Amazon, "this book presents a sequence of over 100 images of the Crucifixion, the central event of Christianity, depicted by the world's greatest artists." I'm not sure about the reproduction quality of the paintings, but I thought it was so interesting to see all the different paintings of the crucifixion of Christ. There were three other books, Annunciation, The Last Supper and Descent, but Crucifixion was my favorite.

I was going to go and workout, but my body still hurts from the move. I think I totally messed up my right shoulder and it goes numb every now and then. My SF chiropractor is doing ultrasound on it because he think it's related to my car accident, but that doesn't seem to be helping. If it doesn't clear up in a couple of weeks, I'm going to see my chiropractor in Berkeley. Mitchell is totally expensive to see, but he is so good at what he does. I've been meaning to make a visit to him anyway, so he can check if the car accident altered any of the previous work he did on my body.

My right scapula hurts so much, that as I'm typing I can feel my right arm tingling. What a pain! It's not painful or anything, but it's just weird to have my right arm go kind of numb and start to tingle.

I thought the car accident affected my left side and I had some work done on that shoulder, but now my right shoulder hurts. It's a pattern with my body. When I had foot problems on my left side, the acupuncturist fixed that and then my right foot had the same problem. The same thing is happening with my shoulders. I worked on one side, and now I have the exact same pain on the other side. It's a very strange thing. I have an acupuncture appointment on Saturday. I think I'll tell my acupuncturist about it, and see what he does about it.

I'm sure my body will heal itself in time, but I just hate the waiting part!

My blog is sick and I don't know how to fix it. I wonder if it has something to do with my comments not showing up. YACCS is acting up again. Maybe I need a new blogger template. I'll have to think about this. I could just modify one of the templates I suppose.

I hate when my blog messes up for no reason. I didn't change the template or anything, and all of a sudden these huge spaces are showing up on the top and bottom of my blog, and I didn't do anything.

What is going on with my blog page? All of a sudden a big space is showing up at the top of the most current post. Why?

The man who is the voice of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street is being interviewed on the radio right now. I love Big Bird! A little girl called in and spoke to Big Bird. I wonder if I should call in so I could talk to Big Bird too. Where's Bert and Ernie? I want to talk to Bert and Ernie!

After spending an hour on the phone with MacAfee tech support, I finally uninstalled my software firewall. I thought I had my DSL problem fixed, but it still wasn't connecting. I ended up calling the tech support for home DSL modem, and Ihad to reinstall my TCP/IP, because guess what, MacAfee had messed it up.

So now I have DSL baby, baby DSL. Honestly, I don't notice that much of a difference right now, except pages do load faster. I'll have to try and download some songs to see if DSL really makes a difference.

I wonder if dare try and hook up my work computer tonight or wait for tomorrow. I'm exhausted! I bought an ethernet hub switch to cable my work computer. My DSL modem, much to my surprise, accepts wireless transmission, but I don't have a wireless card for my work laptop. Until I get one, I'll have to just deal with cable. I bought a 50 ft cat 5 cable to connect myself. When I finish working, I'll just disconnect the cable, like how I disconnect my work phone.

It is kind of cool to be online and be able to answer the phone at the same time. That's a new thing.

In a bad mood today. My dsl modem arrived last night, but installation wasn't as easy as I thought. First of all, I didn't have an ethernet card on my home pc, so I thought I'd connect the dsl modem through a USB cable. I couldn't get that to work.

Then I decided to install to install the ethernet card that came with my dsl modem, and I finally got to that right, but the dsl modem still wasn't connecting to the computer. I finally ended up calling 2Wire support and they told me that the problem was the McAfee Firewall that I installed. The firewall software was putting filters on my ethernet card adapter, and the modem couldn't communicate to the computer throught the filters. The tech person said to uninstall it and the DSL modem should work.

WRONG!!! I uninstalled the McAfee Firewall, and it didn't uninstall cleanly. What I should have done was uninstall the ethernet card, and then uninstalled Firewall. Somehow I think I corrupted my computer registry, and now I'm going to pay MacAfee $39 to walk me through getting rid of the filters. I hate McAfee. I should have stayed with Norton AntiVirus. I've never had a problem with Norton, but every time I've switched back to MacAfee I've found out down the road that it's compatible with some software that I bought.

I hate computer problems, and I'm a damned good techie person. I used to have to even do it for a living, and had to work help desk for a short time. I called a friend of mine, who works an IT help desk for a living, and she said I need to call MacAfee. I'm so upset, I'm almost tempted to throw out my MacAfee antivirus software and go pick up Norton instead.

I know it will work out. I've never let a computer problem stop me before, but I just have having computer problems.

I made my second meal in my new apartment. I keep wanting to go out and eat because I've been eating out every meal since Friday, but I have so much food that I need to start eating some of it.

My right shoulder still hurts. I think my y has to get used to working at a new desk. I'm still trying to figure out the best place for my keyboard and mouse. The desk I bought has a pull out keyboard and mouse tray, but it's really low. Maybe too low. I could put the keyboard and mouse on the desk, but I hate the thought of not using the keyboard tray. It's there after all.

I haven't worked out since last week. I was going to work out last night, but it felt awful to leave my apartment in such a mess. Putting things away takes time because then you have to figure out where everything is going to go. It's a slow process for me.

My goal is to have everything put away by Saturday. I think I can do it if I just work at every night. I'd like to walk into my new apartment and see it neat for once. There are a couple of boxes full of stuff that I have no idea what to do with. I have to go through the boxes and decide whether to throw the stuff out or not. Two small boxes of stuff isn't that bad though, and I can deal with that. Besides, it will give me a good incentive to work on sorting the stuff in the box if I have to look at it every day.

I spent eight hours on Saturday cleaning my old apartment. I hope I get my cleaning deposit back. The place didn't look too bad after 8 years of occupation.

On Sunday, a friend came over and helped me unpack more and get organized. We hung all my pictures up, so the place looks a little more homey now. I really want a cordless drill. I think they are the best tool.

Lots of work today, and more projects look like they are on their way. I have a feeling I'm going to have go up to my corporate office in Sacramento once a week, because one of the projects is a joint venture between me and the IT group. The project is still in the planning phases, but it will probably be approved soon.

I don't mind going up once a week or even every other week, as long as the company pays my mileage. It will be nice to see people once in awhile.

I am so sick and tired of unpacking. I wish I could wave a magic wand and have everything unpack itself and walk over to their right places, like Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer's Apprentice.. That would be a dream.