An iPod in a Blizzard

Laundry Day (aka Saturday). I need to bring another pair or two of long pants next time I come. I’ve been wearing jeans on both of my laundry days thus far because it’s been chilly in the morning, so I’ve only had two pairs to get through the rest of the week. The laundromat was pretty empty when I visited last week, but this week, it was positively bustling. At one point, I was joined by a man apparently doing nothing but hanging out and signing loudly, a fellow and his five-year-old son, a woman and her two men friends—husband(s)? brother(s)? I can’t be sure—a young man in his late teens who was somehow related to the group, and, for a short time, his estranged girlfriend/wife/whatever. (I overheard him mention her kicking him out.) I’m not sure if it’s exciting or scary to be in such a crowd with your underwear on the table.

I took my week-one Java programming test today and got 100%. Yay! It wasn’t really that hard because most of what has been covered so far has been programming concepts that I already know. Where I struggled was with some of the logic. We had to evaluate statements like: given p = true, q = true, and r = false, then is “!(p && (r || q))” true or false? After a lot of scratching my head, I got all 12 of the combinations in the problem correct. Not a Java programmer yet, but I’m happy to say I’ve learned something!

After I got home, Dan came by, and we had brunch at Trip’s Diner, which is about as close as I’m going to get to my beloved Saturday lunches with Mark at Paul’s in Columbus. Across the street, we spotted a nice, smallish bookstore, Wilson’s Book World. It’s my kind of place; they pulled real literary fiction out of the general fiction section so I didn’t have to slog through the dross to find the gold. I bought two books, Mason’s translation of Gilgamesh and Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in Search of America, both of which have been on my list but neither of which I often find on the shelves. Dan found a sci-fi series that he read many years ago and wanted to reread. One of the books was missing, so he almost left without buying it, but I cajoled him into it. He can find the missing book at another store or online.

I then dragged Dan across the county to look for a new hand strap for my camera. Two malls and a Best Buy with no luck. It’s kind of sad to say that it’s probably the way things are going everywhere, but there are no camera shops (that I could find, anyway) in St. Petersburg. Sigh. I guess we’re lucky to have World of Photography and Midwest Photo Exchange in Columbus; I should go there more to support them. In the end, though, I bought a hand strap on Amazon; I can’t do without it until I get home, unfortunately.

It’s now around 6:30. The sun just went down. I don’t know where the day went, and I’m taking that to mean that I had an enjoyable day. Dan and Alex, Tom and James, and I are going to Urban Brew and BBQ for dinner in a bit. I piqued Dan’s interest singing its praises last week, so he badgered Alex into trying it out. I think they’ll like it.

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Sunday opened as not my best day. I dreamed that I owned a theatre that caught fire and that, due to smoke inhalation, my breathing became very labored. I woke at 4:30 to real-life labored breathing, and I was afraid I was having a heart attack. I thought seriously about calling a squad or driving myself to the hospital until I got myself settled down. I checked my symptoms and realized that I’d only made myself hyperventilate. I went back to sleep (more bad dreams; that’s the last time I eat barbecue after 8 p.m.), finally rolling out of bed around 8:30. I had an email from my friend,  Jan, saying that the Buddhist temple I sometimes visit to meditate had burned. The fire had been reported at about 4:30 a.m. Uncanny.

On my desk was a request from my personal trainer to copyedit a marketing email. He and I trade services, and I’m deeply in his debt right now, so I wanted to makes sure to do a good job. Unfortunately, I don’t know the interface of the marketing program very well, and I corrupted his email so badly that I couldn’t recover it. I salvaged about half but finally had to email him and ask him to recreate it.

The day went better after that. Dan and I went to the mall so he could get his phone fixed. True to grumpy form, Dan snapped at the poor fellow in the Apple Store because of a minor scheduling snafu, but he left with a working phone. And I found shoes.

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It’s Monday. I found a multi-purpose trail—the Pinellas Trail—that runs a couple blocks south of my apartment and had a good run on it today (except for the god-awful rotting garbage stench along about 100 feet of the trail). I think it’s an old railway that goes through an industrial area. It was a tiny bit sketchy, and Dan had advised me to be careful because of reported muggings along the trail, but I had no real concerns. I checked the crime reports in the area, and it seems that the muggings all happened a good way further along the trail than I’m ever likely to run. I’ll continue to use the trail, but because it is a little isolated, I’ll stick to daylight hours, and I won’t carry anything with me except my apartment keys.

I worked for most of the rest of the day then went for a two-mile walk to downtown and back. I’m in an area called “Grand Central.” I think I mentioned earlier that it’s an artsy area with a lot of galleries, but it also sports an impressive number of well-done murals along. Here are some photos I took along Central and First Avenues North.

The area also distinguishes itself with colored-concrete insets in the sidewalks—something I’d really like to see in the Short North when the city rebuilds the infrastructure over the next three years—sculpture, and cool architecture.

I introduced Dean and Diane to El Gallo Grande. It’s amusing that I—the most non-foodie person I know—am introducing St. Petersburg natives to their own restaurants! After dinner, I settled in to rematch the space-western series, Firefly. To my great pleasure, I discovered that I’d missed the original pilot and now understand the parts of the storyline didn’t make sense to me. It was like finding $10 in your coat pocket.

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Today is Tuesday; Mark is coming on Thursday, so I feel like I need to “clean up the edges” a bit. I cleaned the apartment on Sunday, but my hair desperately needed to be cut. Wanting to stay within walking distance if possible, I turned to Yelp and found a barber shop nearby with very reasonable prices. I mentioned it at dinner on Saturday. “I love Chago’s!” is the response I got from James. “It’s gossipy. The people are fun. It’s like being in an old-fashioned beauty shop. And you’ll get a great cut.” He wasn’t kidding. It was a pretty light afternoon for them, but all of us were chatting and gossiping—gay guys and straight guys, black guys and white guys and Asian guys. And I did, indeed, get a really good from Shawn cut for $20. I’ve never gotten the straight-razor and hot-towel treatment before. I feel like a beardless hipster. Chago’s will definitely be my go-to barber shop when I’m in St. Petersburg.

It’s been a busy work week so far, and tomorrow looks busy, too, so I don’t expect to get back to my Java class this week. I’ll have to make that a priority next week. It’s a five-week course, and I definitely want to be done with it before I leave.

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Arrival Day! Yesterday was Mark’s and my second official anniversary. Today, he and his mother arrive for a visit. We’ll go immediately from the Tampa airport to his sister’s house near Kissimmee where his mother will be staying for the month. I’m looking forward to seeing him after three weeks. It’s going to be a rainy day today, but that’s okay.

I hope my iPod is working for the two-hour drive. I went for a Blizzard at Dairy Queen last night, and it melted on the way home and spilled into the cup-holder where the iPod was sitting. By the time I got home, the iPod was swimming in a pool of melted ice cream. I used a Q-Tip to get the mess out of the docking port, but this morning, I had trouble getting it to boot up or connect to my Mac. I finally did get it connected, but I’m not sure how reliable it’s going to be now. Sigh. If it isn’t one thing….