Today is nothing; tomorrow is all kinds of stuff. Don’t forget to set your clocks back one hour.

The late night last night led, of course, to a late morning today. I took some of the banana bread and used it to make French toast for breakfast. The bread completely overpowered the flavor of the “Frenching,” but it did provide a better surface to spread peanut butter and jelly on it. For those curious, my French toast recipe, per serving:

1 egg
Equal amount milk
Dash of flour
Dash of sugar
Cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla to taste

Beat the egg(s) until roughly homogenous, then beat in the milk. Add in the dry ingredients and mix well. Dredge slices of bread through the wet mix, then cook on a griddle or other flat surface until the egg mixture is cooked. Serve with fresh fruit, peanut butter, jelly, syrup, or any other topping to taste, availability, season, and whim.

Breakfast consumed, I spent the afternoon reading up on things, and generally relaxing. In the evening, I went to hang out with Marcus, his brother Jayson, and Sqeaky. We made pancakes and waffles, then played video games all night.

I’ve decided to give up coffee for the month of November. I also decided to get started early so I could enjoy November more. That means caffeine withdrawal. The headaches weren’t too bad this go-‘round, but the fatigue was there in spades. The weather helped a bit, giving me a gray, rainy day to relax and sleep through. Only fair, it woke me up around 4 with some thunderstorms.

I rolled out, ate some pancakes, went back to bed. Rolled out again, baked some banana bread (I had some extra-ripe bananas that just needed to be used). I drove around the city enjoying the ambiance of the rain-soaked ground and fog-filled air.

So, it was pretty much like any other day, except completely backward.

The Cheese Experiment continues. If I get any really good results, I’ll let you know.

Another fairly mundane day. Caught up on some reading, played some Rock Band, ate some leftovers. Made it over to the Jewell Park playground again. I think I would have a lot more fun up there if I could share it with someone or if I brought something more there.

But, anyway, the playground is up at the top of a hill. To get there, you have to go around on this long-unmaintained gravel road. It’s covered in leaves this time of year, and there’s a channel down the middle of it from years of run-off. It’s not exactly a flat road, either, as you ascend probably a good 50-100 feet to get up there. Short by mountain terms, but actually quite a hike here. You know, for something that’s originally designed to be taken by cars, it’s pretty steep. The trees block enough of the route that car travel would be impossible, and even Jeep travel would be at least inadvisable.

You get up there, and there’s a swingset with no swings, chipped paint, and overgrown weeds. Across from that is a shelter, though someone has removed the pavement that used to fill the shelter. You can tell this was fairly recent, though, as the grass and other weeds have made little headway into the shade-covered flat. The poles holding up the roof are painted in the same fading colors as the swingset. A pair of cement spaces, each with a single hole in the center flank the swings, perhaps once the home to standing grills.

The playground is cut into a ridge in the hill system. The break in the trees continues off in the distance, though it quickly snakes out of view. Driven by a newfound sense of adventure, or perhaps boredom with the now familiar playground, you follow the ridge. Tire ruts, long grown over, line the path. You notice some deer to your right: gray, brown, white-tailed. You don’t bother them, but they run anyway. First the path swings to the right, then to the left. You see a fence and a structure in the distance. This is when you realize where you are. You are at the doorstep of the cemetery. Beyond that gate lie the departed, some hundreds of years past.

I think that’s as much story as I want to tell because, as I said, it was fairly mundane. It’s more exciting to leave it there than to finish the story. See you all tomorrow.

Today was a fairly mundane day.

I cooked. I’m sure you already know what.

I wanted to charge some batteries. So, I grabbed my charger and plugged in the part that goes in the outlet. As I was getting up to go get the batteries, I hear this hissing sound. “What’s that? I’ve never heard that before.” I look down to see smoke coming out of the thing. Not good. I quickly unplug it and throw it across the room (into some more open space). It smells bad of burnt transistors and plastic. But, crisis averted.

Fortunately, my batteries still held a functional charge, because I was off to do some night photography in the park, and I can do much more interesting things with a flash than I can with, say, a flashlight. This was one of those top-down pictures, I started with a title and built out a scene to match it.

Not much else happened today. Like I said, a fairly mundane day.

Three weeks until the 365 project is done with two years. The 731 project? Doesn’t sound as cool.

Maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s the growing hours of darkness, maybe it’s something else. The “professional-bum” pendulum is on full-bum right now. I’m filled with a lot of apathy, lethargy, and “why bother.” It’s getting harder to roll out of bed, to strive toward a goal.

I keep coming back to “who am I doing this for?” Me? I don’t need to prove anything to myself – I’ve already proven it. I had my dream job. I put in the effort. I saw the results. In the end, my dream was actually a nightmare. That alone puts you in an odd position. The one thing you set yourself to be, you hate. So, why do it? Why do anything?

There’s also the question of “Would I be happier if I had someone else?” Someone else to depend on; someone else to depend on me. Someone who can give me a reason to do the tedious, to excite the unexciting, to bear the unbearable. Perhaps it wouldn’t, though. Perhaps, someone would only bring more stress, more voices saying “Why do you do it?”

It’s just been one of those days. Of course, it’s on a day like today that I completely succeed at my 365 shot – vision, execution, delivery; all in sync, all without effort. I knew what I wanted, I did it, and I was done with it. Go figure. And it’s not even a down, depressed picture. Go figure.

Mondays always suck, though, right? Maybe Tuesday will be better.

I tried to type 1009 for the year tonight. We’re still in this modern age, not that one (it was modern to them at the time!).

Another exciting Sunday. Football, pancakes, football, burgers, baseball, grilled cheese, and generally hanging out filled the day. Also, lots of perusing the Flickrverse for more photos of yesterday’s Zombie Walk and sharing them on Twitter. Lots of links in the search for #zombiewalkomaha.

Yeah, like I said, exciting Sunday.

Brains!

Today was filled with sleeping in, the most depressingly angering football game EVER, and brains. Well, specifically, calls for brains. I think that’s enough discussion of the football game.

Zombies descended on downtown Benson today, filling the streets with shambling hordes screaming for brains. Most had ratty clothes and gray flesh, while a few went over the top on their costumes:

I went armed with much the same equipment I used last year (I swapped out one camera body) as well as the goal of gathering all the Flickrers together. I counted a dozen in with the hundreds of zombies, and I know I missed some. If you were at the Omaha Zombie Walk and are on Flickr, let us know in our thread on the event, please. We’re nice and love new people!

Another highlight of the evening: I finally got to speak with Josie (you’ll find she’s been a common topic on this Blog). You see, when we met before, we didn’t really speak as much as she just lobbed questions at me from the crowd. We didn’t get to chat long, but it was still better than nothing (and I hope I’ll recognize her without all the zombie garb :)).

Lowlight of the evening: coming home, noticing a bloodied sock from a blister the shoe gave me. To make it worse, there weren’t any bandages to cover the blister with. It gave me an excuse to go grocery shopping, though. I should be prepared for cooking tomorrow.

I spent most the day sleeping, after the late night yesterday.

I made some effort around Twitter and Flickr to draw interest to the Zombie Walk tomorrow, so we’ll see how that helps turnout (hopefully, I’ll draw out a couple people, but I don’t think I’ll meaningfully impact it – other people are bigger draws). It was fun last year; you should come out! 62nd and Maple between 5 and 5:30.

I installed the release version of Windows 7 on the Eee, then spent most my waking hours setting it up. It’s not that it takes me that long to do it, it’s just that I wasn’t terribly focused on it. But, I’ve got my Twitter client, my photo tools, my blog tools, my mail client, my backup client, and my data sync tool all installed and set up, so I’m good to go.

I went out for walleye at Catfish Lake. It’s still the best fried walleye I’ve ever had. Then, I went over to Starbucks for "dessert” and to work a little more on the setup stuff. I ran into some friends there, which was nice.

Tomorrow’s the Zombie Walk!

Windows 7 Launch Day!

I awoke at 11 to messages on Twitter asking if I want to meet at 10:30. Umm, nope, sorry. Eh, things happen. This particular meeting is the inverse of the one last week -- I'm getting back all the cool stuff I lent a friend of mine. I've missed the 16-24mm range for photos, but not enough to consider buying a second lens in the range. It sounds like the wedding went well for him, so I'm glad I could contribute. We should get together tomorrow morning, then expect a barrage of ultra-wideness.

I boiled down some more apples (the last of the bunch) into a sauce. This time I seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg, in addition to the sugar in the water. Oh, my... this made a huuuuge difference. I jarred the leftover "syrup," so it'll be fun to see if that comes out well on things or if it needs the apples in it.

Tonight was Marcus's Windows 7 Launch Party. Basically, it was a nerdfest, mostlly of my former co-workers, plus Gabe K. and his friend Kat. Turns out I know Kat from back in the day. Like I was in the 8th grade back in the day. Small world. I must look exactly the same as I did all those years ago, though, because she totally recognized me, and I totally didn't recognize her. I have this problem a lot, where people will not just recognize me but actively remember things about me, and I will have no idea who they are (I knew who Kat was once she said, but let's just say she wasn't that tall or cute 12 years ago). Am I really that distinct? Has my work time just killed that much of my memory? I used to be good with names, or at least with faces; if I forgot your name, I'd at least know who you were and have some idea of interactions we've had in the past. Anymore, I've got nothing. It's almost like I had this whole life that I just don't remember.

So, on the Windows 7 front, Marcus had asked me to help him with the "demonstrating Windows" part of the party. I kept it pretty simple, I showed off the parts of the user experience upgrades I found particularly useful, then showed off uploading photos from my camera to Flickr (not using my usual workflow, opting instead for a much freer one), then clicked through Marcus's Flickr stream, showing off such gems as his eleven-point "ELEVEN" in Scrabble, tired nights in datacenters, broken down cars, me standing on desks, and President Obama election celebration cakes (appparently, hope tastes like bananas, and change like frosting).

After the demos, Marcus and I gave Sqeaky his (late) birthday presents: I gave a button from Geek Details, and Marcus gave him a red fedora (from the actual Red Hat store). Gaming followed; first a Windows-themed "Werewolf" game, then poker. Somehow, Rock Band was never played. After the games, we spent some time discussing our shared history. It was good to get some of that work stuff off my chest, with people who would understand.

Those things I talked about not doing yesterday? Most of them I did today.

For starters, I stayed up all night processing photos from my road trip. Here’s one of them from Silver Lake outside Brighton, UT:

Then I slept. Well, okay, I went to buy some donuts first, but basically, then I slept. After I got up, I brewed some coffee and finished off the donuts, caught up on the happenings of the day, and took some photos in the back yard before the real rain got here. Dinner was just a venue to process photos at (you know, as well as sustenance).

All in all, a fairly simple day. Tomorrow is Windows 7 Launch Day, which means Launch Party over at Marcus’s place. I’ll probably cook something to take, something like cookies, maybe in the shape of 7’s or something.

The week’s already half-over. Have you made of it what you wanted to make of it?