So there I am, perched on my motorcycle, ready to ride.
But wait! you say, this picture is a bit yellowed with age...
Yes, I must confess that this picture was not taken this year. Not taken in the 1990's... nor the 1980's... nor the 1970's... This picture was taken about thirty-four years ago and plucked from an old photo album to be run (slightly off center) through a scanner.
And that's not my motorcycle either...
It belonged to one of my housemates. To tell the truth, it took me a minute or two to remember for sure if it was Mike's machine or Ed's... they both drove 250cc Yamaha bikes... but Ed kept his parked in his bedroom during the winter...which is where the picture was taken. Mike had stored his for the winter at the house of a relative who lived about thirty miles away.
See... I told you I used to smoke... Camels... non-filters... two or three packs a day... for many years... but I finally quit in 1980... October 31, 2000 will be the twentieth anniversary of my quitting cigarettes.
Okay, how about a slightly more recent photo...
This one is just a bit over a year old (December, 1998) and I assure you I've not gotten that much older looking.
This picture was taken on Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii. That's Diamond Head in the background. The drink in my hand was non-alcoholic, mostly ice and strawberries run through a blender, poured into a cup, a couple big chunks of pineapple added...hmmmm, it tasted very good.
When I say I was there on a business trip I know you are going to laugh and say Yeah, looks like some rough kind of business trip! but it's true, I was there on business. This picture was taken on a weekend. I got there on a Wednesday night after a very long trip (Providence to Chicago to Honolulu) and then had to work Thursday and Friday (and these were ten hour days because I was teaching all day and then doing work on the software infrastructure for the courses because things had not been set up properly in advance... the customer had assumed I was coming in a day or two earlier and so they hadn't bothered to tell me that we had to re-install everything in a different CICS region, etc.) but then I had Saturday and Sunday all to myself... which is the problem with business trips... I did have that time all to myself, which is a luxury for an hour or so... but then you miss your family the rest of the time... This picture was taken on a Sunday. The day before I had hiked up to the top of Diamond Head -- which was just incredible, such views, some day I'll have to scan in some pictures I took -- but I kept wanting to share the views with my family. It's the same on all of my trips, sometimes I get to see really interesting places, but I'm always wishing my family could be with me to see them also. (Hey, then Monday through Friday, I only saw the sunshine on my way to work, I never left the customer's building until after dark, until Friday when I drove to the airport early in the afternoon -- followed by a long flight -- realized about half an hour after takeoff that my other pair of glasses, really my good pair, must have fallen out of my travel bag in the waiting lounge at the airport, $350 to replace them (I have a wicked strong prescription) -- Honolulu to Chicago to Providence, landing early Saturday morning after, in effect, flying all night long -- and then for a long Saturday after not having slept since I got up Friday morning... Christmas shopping with my wife and daughter, doing some grocery shopping in the afternoon, fixing a large amount of shrimp cocktail as our contribution to the neighborhood Christmas party. It was a nice party, but we didn't stay too late as the jetlag was beginning to get to me...
Yes... of course... Hawaii was marvelous... incredible... beautiful... I enjoyed it and would enjoy returning to the islands (but would prefer to have my family along)
I was so busy at work today. I had only intended to spend half the day at the office, then planned on coming home to work on java programming, etc. Hadn't even bothered to pack a lunch. So by quarter past two I was really getting hungry and dashed out to a Subway to pick up a tuna sub.... or, as Rhode Islanders would say, a grinder (which is pronounced grindah)... yeah, I should know better by now, because I didn't leave until quarter to six... just about a normal day... except that other than the few minutes it took to get the sandwich, I was working straight through...
Tomorrow I should be able to get a lot of reading done, practice writing some java code, etc. because I am just going to work from home, not go into the office at all... (which also means saving an hour worth of roundtrip commuting time!)