Opportunity Missed

I considered riding the (rather dirty) Red Rocket to work today, but failed in the end. I did laundry last night at a nearly-empty laundromat (it was wonderful!) next to Lee’s Bakery (yes, I had a Banh Mi for dinner) and then plopped my buttocks on the couch for an evening of football and Mad Men.

Clearly The City Of Atlanta And I Are On Different Pages
After doing laundry last night I returned home to watch my NY Jets play an absolutely forgetful game while I opened up the two weeks of snail mail that ITP-Reader Betsy was nice enough to get from my mailbox since I was not going to be making back to Atlanta on my scheduled date. I had the Post Office hold my mail, but the entirety would have been in my box for a couple of days since it was scheduled to be delivered en masse on the day I was initially scheduled to return.

I’m happy/sad to say that nearly 95% of the mail was junk — flyers, useless credit card offers, etc. However there was one piece of mail, a large yet slender manilla envelope which caught my eye. It was from the City of Atlanta and contained a single sheet of paper which is some sort of certificate related to the business license document I hurriedly mailed before departing on vacation. On the document is the statement “This Certificate Must Be Publicly Displayed In Accordance To The Law.” (I’m paraphrasing since I just realized that I left the document at home. WTH?

Clearly the City of Atlanta does not understand Sharpened Stone, nor the fact that I have no storefront set up at Sharpened Stone’s business address.

ITP Flickr Pic
Be warned. Until I get my shit together I’m going to be digging through the photos I took during the first week of my vacation (they happen to be the only non-iPhone photos taken during the vacation, but that’s neither here nor there).

St Louis arch as the morning’s first sun strikes it.

I’m Not A Loser After All
For the past two days I’ve been searching for an iPod that I last remembered seeing before Sunday’s Black Sheep Hash. I distinctly remembered placing into my trunk, but when I went to retrieve it post-hash, it was missing. I assumed that I had moved it back into a safe place within the car, but no amount of scouring the past two days produced the iPod. I’ve returned to the trunk on more than one occasion, lifting items, checking inside boxes, moving everything around, all to no avail. This morning I took the drastic measure of taking nearly everything out of the trunk and looking around into the deep dark corners with a headlamp. Nada.

And then I noticed something. A notch cut into the trunk’s bottom which is used to lift the trunk floor when needing access to the spare tire. The notch which I most certainly assumed was covered the entire past two days, and could only allow the iPod to pass through in a portrait orientation. Certainly there was no way the iPod had slipped through this hole. Certainly I was wrong. As I shone the headlamp into the notch I saw the familiar glisten of the metallic back of my beloved fourth generation iPod.

I am not a loser.

see also: “body weight”

Parish The Thought
Some time ago I jumped onto the Groupon bandwagon and purchased a coupon for Inman Park’s Parish. Tonight I’ll be using that coupon (before it expires on Friday) by dining at Parish for the first time. I’m really looking forward to it as I like what I see on their menu, though I’d be happier to endorse them if their website didn’t require Flash or play music upon loading.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – okay, though feel it’s time again to try to lose some weight
Current Music – silence
Website Of The Day – People For Bikes is an interesting group trying to raise awareness for bicycles and bicycle safety. Now if I could only manage to get myself to ride more.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – didn’t check
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 77

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~15 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 1 (1)
Vegetarian Days – 0, Carnivorous Days – 13
Marta Rides To Work – 0
Bike Rides To Work – 0

September Goals
– Not to get sick for the entire month
– Not get fired from my job
– Ride my bicycle no fewer than 250 miles
– Determine the fate of Sharpened Stone, LLC
– Complete at least one iPhone application (seriously, this needs to happen)
– lost five pounds
– eat vegetarian at least one day a week

2010 Goals
– Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds) [update: On July 1 I’ve sadly gained weight; I’m at 203 pounds]
– Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
– Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Sharpened Stone.
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
– Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
– Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
– Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
– Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS Objective-C
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]