Welcome to ITP blog post #1000! When I started this blog nearly four years ago I never would have expected it to be such a large part of my life. I was just a guy who wanted an outlet to vent after having his life upended by getting carjacked.
It is not completely coincidental that post #1000 also occurs on my 43rd birthday! Weeks ago I tried to figure out when post #1000 would occur and it mapped out to yesterday. Then I realized that if I conveniently skip posting on July 4th, then post #1000 would land on my birthday.
Two years ago I got to celebrate Pine Lake #1000 on my birthday and today I am headed out to Marietta (yikes!) to work a career fair. Truth be told I’d much rather be hashing. From the career fair I will be headed safely back ITP so that I can have dinner with some great friends at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club and then attend the Old 97’s concert at Variety Playhouse.
In my absence make fun of me in the comments and enjoy any cake that is leftover… wherever you may be.
Read Along With Me
Today’s passage from Notes To Myself.
You say you just want to be my friend. I know you mean you want to relate to my mind but not to my body. I can understand that, and will not ask you to relate to me in a way you don’t want to. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending. If you want to have me as your friend you will have to accept my penis along with me.
(Okay, this one cracked me up!)
To all who have helped me — Thanks.
Who Would Have Thunk It?
My first job as a programmer was with Intergraph in Huntsville, Alabama in 1992. At Intergraph I worked in the Public Safety division on an application to help Emergency 911 dispatchers. For testing purposes I jokingly created a police unit called N0722 (get it?) and created numerous emergencies on Poole Drive, because it was the closest street name to “Paul” in our testing database.
Last night I received a birthday wish from one of the people who has had the greatest impact on my life. My friend Doug, who I met at Intergraph and now lives with a wife and three kids in Australia, was the person who convinced a 245-pound version of me to start working out. Doug humored me by playing half-court basketball, until I realized that we were doing more sitting than playing and then started lifting weights and doing step aerobics instead.
The email shocked me because Doug and I don’t keep in touch all that much these days. However, I laughed heartily when Doug confessed that he remembered that it was my birthday because of my N0722 police unit. I then laughed again when I wondered why Doug would send me the email a day early, until I realized that it was already July 22nd in Australia.
ITP Flickr Pic
Because the house was so bloody hot (at least until the rain arrived) last night I had to live in the basement and fight the heat. Last night I knew that I needed photos for today and planned to take some tasteful self-portraits. However, I was driven mad from the heat and wound up with very different results.
Me at nearly 43.
Dammit! I was going to post a photo of me on my 38th birthday celebrating with the person I thought I would marry but I apparently have never uploaded the photo to Flickr! Now-the-same-age, ITP-reader, and on-her-way-to-Iowa Barb has told me that she has married, had a child, and rumored to be getting divorced. Funny how divergent lives can be…
Since I don’t have that photo, I’ll embarrass myself a bit by posting a couple of photos of a Young Master Paulie (long before the Inside The Perimeter days)
Proving that once a Jets fan, always a Jets fan.
In 1972 my family did the classic New York to California car trip. At that time I’d venture to guess that gas was about 38-cents per gallon. As you can see from this photo the colorization of the Grand Canyon had yet to be completed.
(I’m the one on the left, standing there with my father)
A Break In The Streak
Today I didn’t make my bed. No, it’s not because it’s my birthday, but rather because I threw everything into the washing machine before heading to work. Technically I could have replaced the linens with another set, and since I did not I’ve broken the streak at 110 days. I’ll be starting a new streak tomorrow.
And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood – fine
Current Music – watching the Tour de France and wishing I could watch all morning instead of working
Website Of The Day – Thanks to Maigh I have today’s special Website Of The Day Cake Wrecks — a blog dedicated to cakes gone wrong.
Exercise (b)Log – nothing, too much heat, too much smog
Monthly Foot Mileage – 34 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work – My car
Monthly Marta Rides – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 0 (110)
Books To Read To Earn Kindle – 4
July Goals
1) Run/Walk no fewer than 75 miles
2) Ride no fewer than 150 road miles
3) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
4) Read at least two books
5) Make my bed every day
6) Relaunch www.JalapenoBeach.com
7) Keep track of how many days I use stairs over elevators
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
The cake wrecks are killin’ me! (as are your Grand Canyon tourin’ shorts) How hilarious!
Happy Birthday, ITP! May you have the best birthday brisket ever – and I hope to actually see you again this year, for pete’s sake!! We’ll celebrate late!
Happy Birthday Paulie! Nice pics, you still look (and act, obviously) the same!
The Grand Canyon pic is fun, so that’s what your Dad looked like, must have been an awesome trip!
See, you’ve avoided getting divorced already… chalk one up for the Bachelor side!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAULIE! I am still cracking up over that Grand Canyon Picture – priceless!
I will be spending my birthday this year in the Canyon.
Have a great birthday!!!!!
Happy birthday Paulie!!!
Happy Birthday!
Hey, my best friend is the girl in the opening band tonight (The Spring Standards, not sleepercar)— enjoy the show! I’ll be the one bouncing around dancing.
Hope it’s a very happy day for you — you deserve it!
Happy Birthday!!
Today’s Notes to Myself passage is a hoot. Love the pics and particularly the clarification on which person perched on the edge of the Grand Canyon was little Paulie!
Happy Birthday Paulie!!!
Hilarious Notes passage today – fantastic!
I’m intrigued by the number of ropes supporting the Christmas tree behind that little Jets fan. Did your family always use that many holiday hold-em-ups, or was that a particularly precarious pine?
-Randy
Happy Birthday (again) Paulie, I swear this is the last time for today.
Yesterday I was browesing the ‘library’ here at the B&B, to my surprise I found a copy of “Notes to Myself”. I guess I can now skip to the end and see how this turns out.
Thanks all!
Can’t type much because I am at the career fair. Will answer questions when it is over.
And which anniversery of you 39th birthday is this?
You always brag about your Jets helmet.. maybe you still have the pajamas as well? Or doesn’t want to say.
I hope the day is great.
-FP
I am back at my keyboard (temporarily)
THANKS everyone. I feel great today knowing that I have friends.
– This is year 39 4.
– Mom was always “extra cautious” and tied the tree up as if she was putting up guy wires for a power line. Who knows, maybe *she* had a bad tree accident in her youth.
– I seriously love that Grand Canyon shot. I have many more of Wee Little Paulie, but those are for my eyes only.
– The Jets helmet was part of a uniform set that I received one Christmas. It actually went with the “Namath jersey” that I have in my basement. I have photos of me in that get-up too, but those will never be shown in public.
– Martha, if you haven’t finished the book yet then I will spoil the ending… he winds up writing a blog. j/k
Paulie, you could always refer to yourself in the same manner as parents do for their small children… Hi, I’m Paulie and I’m 39 and 48 months old.
Congrats on your 1000th post as well!
Enjoy the rest of your birthday!
-Randy