One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Today you will see a photo in the blog. In fact, I have enough photos to post one each and every day this week!

Unfortunately, this weekend also saw me skipping two concerts (including a much-anticipated return of the Dirty Projectors) as well as yesterday’s Black Sheep Hash.

Four More Beers
The reason Friday night’s Sea Wolf concert at The EARL was skipped was because I found myself drinking beer at Taco Mac after work with coworkers. At night’s end I had added four more beers to my Passport collection (if my list has not been updated by the time you read this, check back later).

I attempted to return to Taco Mac on Saturday afternoon, but the NCAA football crowd had the place packed to the gills and I was in no mood to wait around for a chair.

Oh Gourd, What Could Keep Me From The Dirty Projectors?
If you think back to July I proclaimed the Dirty Projectors’ show The EARL to be an incredible show. When I heard that they were going to return to Atlanta there was no doubt in my mind that I’d be at Masquerade on Saturday night to see them again (Google for “Amber Coffman” and you’ll see another reason why I enjoy seeing them in concert).

After spending a partial day at work I headed over to ITP-Reader Tony’s house for a night of chili-eating / football watching / pumpkin carving with a bunch of folks. Well, one beer led to another, and the Gators game was running late, and then there was more beer to consume, and I think you can figure out why I never made it to Masquerade.

You can probably also figure out why my head hurt slightly on Sunday morning.

ITP Flickr Pic
Yes Virginia, Paulie still knows how to press the shutter.

We met for breakfast at The Majestic, shot for awhile including at IKEA, before completing the day at Fox Bros BBQ. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning.

And It Started With So Much Promise
My East Atlanta Deadbeat Dads are now 3-4, this after starting 2-0, which means they’ve gone 1-4 during the past five weeks. How depressing. Even worse is that there seems to be little hope that I can right the ship. If the Double D’s were a baseball team they’d be a collection of light-hitting shortstops with one player having a great day each week. This is not the strategy on which championships are built.

RealiTV Update: Those Water Wings Made Me Feel Like A Pedophile
A Sunday night miracle occurred last night, The Amazing Race started on time!

Somehow the field has already been whittled to eight teams. All eight are still meddling around the Middle East living the lifestyle of the rich and famous with expensive watches, playing with gold bars, and sliding down awesome water slides. Who wouldn’t enjoy doing that? Oh, I guess her name would be Mika.

A quick aside… Folks can we please stop with the ridiculous spelling of your child’s name? “Mika,” “Canaan,” “Cheyne?” When have you ever seen a mini-license plate or keychain with these names? NEVER!

Okay back to pedophilia. So at the end of what was a rather mundane episode, although I was surprised that the Globetrotters were the only team to have difficulty translating the time on the watch to the briefcase’s combination, things got interesting. Teams had to slide down a large waterslide into what appeared to be a shark tank before Baywatching their way to Phil at the Pit Stop. However, It seemed that the lovely Mika (btw- What was with that bandage on her back? Is that some new-fangled birth control?) didn’t like the water so she was sporting some fashionable Water Wings. An already-young looking Mika looked like a little child in those Water Wings; her pouting like a small child didn’t help the image either. Evil Canaan, supposedly the man who loves her, was all-but-ready to ride her down the slide, but that’s probably against Amazing Race rules, so he made several futile attempts to push her talk her into going down the slide. And then Globetrotters showed up (insert Globetrotter whistling here). The Trotters’ arrival gave Mika two minutes before she and Canaan had to relinquish their position for the challenge. The Trotters talked much smack, Mika froze like a popsicle (which is odd given that they were in the desert), and had to back off. This FAIL allowed the Globetrotters to finish ahead of Mika and Canaan, who were then eliminated.

UPDATED: After reading my account of what I witnessed last night you should read the bio for Mika and Canaan; it’s rather amusing given the context.

Mika’s and Canaan’s elimination is also going to force me to purchase another iTunes song as they were the pick-of-the-week by ITP-Reader Terri.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – frustrated on so many levels
Current Music – listening to a CBC Radio 3 podcast
Website Of The Day – By name alone The Full Pint is worthy of mention. Oh, they also have some interesting beer-related information on their site as well.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – didn’t check

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 8 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 0 (0)
Vegetarian Days – 5, Carnivorous Days – 20
Marta Rides – 0

October Goals
– Not get fired from my job
– Take at least one photo every day
– Restart work on house, actually making progress this time (note: not successful during August)

2009 Goals
– Reduce my weight to 190 pounds (today’s weight was 199.5 pounds)
– Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
РEarn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalape̱o Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop

The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient programmer in Objective-C (iPhone development) and Ruby on Rails (Black Sheep web page concept)
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]