♪♪"I want to ride my bicycle...I want to ride my bike.."♪

Well Happy New Years to all! Today is my first day back to work after a 4 day weekend. Tuesday was courtesy of ex-pres. Ford's Earthly departure...RIP Gerald.

So you know how Jenn and I were supposed to head to Ft. Lauderdale for New Year's? Well, turns out, Mary Beth already had an apartment full of people staying over for the weekend, and there was no room for us :( Nuts. So we sauntered over to the old back-up place, Dog N Bone, to celebrate the coming of another year. We made ourselves have a good time. Always good people-watching at the DNB...lots to make fun of. The band , 5th Avenue Onlys, was great, and the drummer (the guy in the bottom pic, Ryan) was totally hot...ya, too bad he's only 23! Dammit! They're always so young! Oh, but he had a chest to die for...broad, toned, looked great in a T-shirt. He wanted me to go to Ihop with him after his set was over, but alas, as I've said before, the youngn's have lost their novelty. Such a shame.

I took advantage of my Tuesday off and bought a bike finally. After all the bike shops I visited, and all the research I did, I ended up buying the first bike I ever test rode. Figures. It's a Trek 3700 WSD...in a turquoise-y teal color. I'm not big on the color, but hey, that's the only color it comes in. I also bought a helmet, a pump, and a lock as well. And the grand total came to $405. Yikes is right. That just means I better be riding this thing everywhere!

I heard from Jill yesterday. Her grandmother finally passed away a few days ago. The funeral is on Friday. I'm just happy she made it through Christmas and got to see Jill before she moved on. I'm also glad that she has finished suffering in the ICU...it just wasn't fair her being in there so long. I'm worried that her grandfather won't last too much longer now even though Jill said he seemed to be taking it pretty well. In fact, all he wanted to do the next day was go out and buy a camera because his wife wouldn't ever let him have one! But I've seen it happen before to people who have been married forever...one goes, and then the other follows not long after. For Jill's sake I hope this doesn't happen, because her grandfather is still in relatively good health.

I have been feeling kinda crappy lately. for the past 4 days or so I have felt an annoying pain in the top of my stomach. I constantly feel like I'm full, even when I have hunger pains. It feels like I've overeaten and something is stuck there. I've been ignoring it and force feeding myself the last few days, but it's really starting to get on my nerves!

Jenn hasn't been having much luck these days either. She has a shower drain leak in her house and a ballpark estimate from the plumber came in at $1200. Doh! She won't claim it on insurance cause she's worried they'll drop her, and she has a $500 deductible anyways. She took off work today to rip up all the wet carpet, and to get those guys started working on her problem. Suck! Ok, I'd like to address this insurance issue here. The state requires you to have insurance, and you have to pay whatever they charge you. Then something happens, like $1200 worth of damage, and people are scared to claim it because the insurance company might drop them ( a completely valid fear, mind you)!? WTF is going on here? Doesn't this sound like a crime to you? You pay for a required service that you can't use! How is this legal!? Insurance companies are dropping people like 500lb barbells because they are scared they actually might have make good on their business?! What about all the years when nothing happened and you made a huge profit!? Everything fluctuates you morons!

So I finally did it this weekend. I officially joined match.com and actually paid for a dating service. I try not to think of myself as a loser for doing this, but more as a visionary for realizing the potentials of internet dating. (That's right, Rene', just keep telling yourself that ::rolleyes::). I have a few things lined up for this week. One was last night. The guy, Mark, was nice enough, but just not my type. He was just too quiet and reserved for my taste. He has absolutely no game and his hugs were cold and awkward. He asked me out to dinner this weekend, but I think I'm going to decline the offer. On Saturday I have an afternoon coffee date with Dave. I think I will have the opposite problem with this guy...he seems pretty feisty. He likes wit and sarcasm, so I better eat a good breakfast if I'm going to keep up! I'll let you know how it goes. Everyone else I have been in contact with is still out of town on vacation it seems, so I expect things to be picking up next week...hopefully (crossing fingers).