I had intended to leave my “Six Words” post as my latest for a while because I wanted to get a large number of responses. I had not, however, intended on leaving it as my most recent post for over a month. :no: This happened because all of my cable services went out at the beginning of April. I had no tv or internet. Well, I shouldn’t say absolutely *no* internet. I was able to piggyback off a neighbor’s unsecured wireless, but it wasn’t a fast or steady connection. Of course, this loss of service was as annoying as hell, but I did finish a couple books because of it.

As of this past Thursday, all of my services have been restored, save for a handful of channels and cranky On Demand service which I complained about again yesterday. Most of the channels that aren’t working I don’t really care about, but there are two I enjoy watching and I especially like the On Demand service. My roommate told me I should be demanding a month of free service for my inconvenience and suffering, but my sense of entitlement has never been so strong that I would do such a thing. The most I did was tell Comcast that until all of my channels are working as they should be, my monthly bill needed to be modified… even if it was only by a few bucks each time. I don’t honestly care about the few bucks, but it is the principle of the matter, right? :thinking:

No steady internet also led to my not being able to keep up with despair.nu comments. I got reported and my account was thus deactivated. I don’t blame the person who reported me for they did not know my reasons, but I apologize to everyone I missed commenting.

I suppose you could say the past six weeks have held some important updates for me and my life. I’ve gotten back into the swing of things with the gym and am steadily losing more weight. I haven’t weighed myself in a week because I found I was getting on the scale everyday, sometimes 2-3 times a day, which is just too obsessive and leads to disappointment. I try for the gym at least 3-4 times a week, even if my workout buddy happens to bail on me and so far I’ve been sticking with it. I jog one full mile at 5 miles per hour on the treadmill, which takes about 12 minutes. After the mile, I’ll walk for about two minutes and then alternate with running for 60-90 seconds at 6-6.2mph and walking at 3mph for another two minutes. I’ve read a bit about interval cardio training and how well it works, so I’m giving it a try. When I first started, I was jogging at 4.2mph, so I’m steadily improving and definitely melting the goo!

I went shopping at Old Navy and American Eagle online and bought a lot of new summer clothes, all in a size smaller than I normally buy. I was slightly worried trying them on once I got them, but everything fit! I was thrilled. I look good, too. :laugh:

I decided to take a break from MySpace, which, if you know me at all, was a monumental decision. I haven’t logged in since April 30th and don’t intend to for another couple weeks. The decision seemed easier when I didn’t have a steady internet connection, so as I sit here with my connection restored, it is a very odd feeling to not have the MySpace tab open in Firefox. Surprisingly, I haven’t foamed at the mouth or seizured or otherwise gone crazy. :wink:

I reached my six month mark at my job on May 1st. My review will be coming up in the next few days, before my boss goes home to the Caribbean for a couple weeks. I’m nervous but not at the same time. My boss has told me as well as others that she’s very happy they chose to hire me, but still I try not to take things for granted, no matter how comfortable and certain I may feel.

That’s pretty much it for my update. I’m going to see if On Demand will work so I can catch up on all things Dexter. Great show. Check it out if you haven’t.

Current Mood: Balanced

The past two weekends I’ve either had long distance friends visiting or I was visiting long distance friends, so I didn’t have my usual “low key” kind of weekend - which really means sitting around all day, playing on the computer, reading and watching TV. Probably not so exciting to many of you, but after a long week of work, that’s how I recharge. I have to work next weekend, so I told myself today must be a day that I relax and do next to nothing.

So, I slept 10 hours, am now showered, dressed and drinking my morning coffee. I have plenty of TV shows recorded on my DVR I could watch, I’m seriously behind on the books I want to read… and yet, I kind of feel like going out and doing something.

I don’t know which is to blame: the past two on-the-go weekends or the fact that spring is clearly on the way. Maybe it’s a little of both. The wintertime definitely puts me in hermit mode and to hear the birdies chirping outside I think is chipping away at that winter insulation.

Sometime soon, I’m going to spend a day at Brookside Gardens. That will be a day I definitely fill up my camera’s memory card. :smile:

I’ve been meaning to blog about a couple events from a week ago last Wednesday that are still resonating with me. This will be a lengthy post but worth the read, hopefully.

I was in a hurry leaving work due to a scheduled workout at the gym with my exercise buddy. We like to start at the same time so we can kind of “carry” each other through the 45 minutes of cardio we do. As you can imagine, the workout goes much faster than when you’re by yourself.

As I entered the metro station, I could hear the train just finish pulling into the station and noticed the wait for the next train was nearly 10 minutes. Sure, I could have waited, but didn’t really want to. So, I hurried to the escalator but was immediately stuck behind a trio of teenage guys. Two standing on the right and one on the left, blocking what would have been my smooth descent and successful entry onto the train.

I had my earphones in and my mp3 player playing, but not so loud that I couldn’t hear myself politely say, “Excuse me guys, I need to catch this train.”

I was quite stunned when the guy standing on the left just looked at me and looked away, not budging an inch. I think this set off some short fuse I didn’t realize I had that day, because in the heat of that moment, I said, “Well, Jesus Christ, that does mean move out of the way,” and proceeded to push myself between them.

Because my music wasn’t very loud, I heard the guy on the left say, “Hey!” and then he tried to grab my backpack as I was rushing to the bottom of the steps. Apparently, I was still fired up and as I stepped off the escalator, turned around and said, “Well, I asked you nicely. What does it take to get you to move out of someone’s way?”

It was at that point I realized just how much of a precarious situation I was getting myself into. I was essentially running my mouth and provoking three decently sized guys that very easily could have come after me. I suddenly realized how quickly my heart was racing and made a split decision to cross the platform and catch the train heading in the opposite direction as it was just pulling in. I started chastising myself for opening my mouth and rode one stop in the opposite direction, praying the entire time the teenagers hadn’t followed me.

Yes, I was more than a little scared. Thankfully nothing happened. After I calmed down, though, I began reflecting (as I’ve done many times) on the lack of manners with today’s generation… Generation Z or Generation XY… whatever the hell it’s called. I think the better name would be Generation ME… because too many people in this younger generation think of nothing but themselves. I’m not saying older generations are removed from selfishness. I’m not that naive, but I’ll assume at least some of you reading this will know what I’m referring to.

Even after a good, sweaty workout and a bitch session with my exercise buddy, the negativity was still kind of sticking with me. On my metro ride home, though, I guess you could say a redemption of sorts happened.

As the train approached the stop near my house, a bike messenger stood up with his bike to also get off at the same stop. I stood up, fully prepared to exit behind him. He must have noticed my movement from the corner of his eye or something, because he looked at me and immediately took several steps back with his bike, allowing me to leave first.

I met his gaze and said, “Aw, you didn’t have to move out of the way for me.” To which he replied with a smile, “I’m a gentleman whether you want me to be or not.”

That made me smile. I touched his arm briefly and said, “Well, thank you very much, because nowadays that does seem kind of rare.”

And he simply responded, “Chivalry is not dead.”

Chivalry may not be dead, but sadly, depending on where you live - it does seem almost extinct.