Daily Update

Weight: 220

Currently Reading (fiction): Black Order, James Rollins. This is a pretty good book about secret Nazi science research on evolution and superhumans.

Currently Reading (non-fiction): Beyond the Influence, Katherine Ketcham, et al.

Rush Lyrics of the Day: Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought them mad.

Food Update: I seem to eat pretty well during the week, and then eat really terribly on the weekend. I think this may be what causes me to have stomach issues on the weekend, but seemingly never during the week. Today I’ve had oatmeal with flaxseed and blueberries, and green tea.

ESP Update: As I’ve been discussing via email, I keep having these weird ESP-like coincidences, which I’m sure are just that...coincidences. Last night, I dreamed of someone I went to college with who was just a distant acquaintance, someone I knew because he had friends who were PHA’s, and because Georgetown is so small, but otherwise, we weren’t friends or anything. I haven’t seen this person in I don’t know how long, and haven’t even thought about him in years. Then out of nowhere, I dreamed about him last night. So today, I’ve been convinced I’m going to see him, or hear something about him, or something like that. I’ll keep you updated as to whether or not that happens. It’d be weird if it did, wouldn’t it?

Reds v. Astros Update: Reds beat the Astros in Cincinnati last night, 14-0. I missed most of the runs (as they were mostly scored in the 2nd and 3rd innings), but watched the final 4 innings. I think the Astros season is pretty much over. The Reds are only a game out of 1st in the Central now, and are up by 2 games in the Wild Card. I hope that this little 4-game win streak they’re on is the beginning of a strong finish that will propel them into the playoffs. Despite being only 1 game out of 1st and leading the Wild Card, this is the first 4-game winning streak they’ve had since the first four games after the All-Star Break.

Job Update: Well I’m pretty damn depressed over my job situation. Despite getting an unexpected raise (which I suspect was a kiss-ass attempt to keep me here), I still am not making very good money and the support staff around here are dropping like flies. My friend Joel’s last day is Friday, and another legal assistant...Megan...quit today and didn’t come back. That means that there will now be only one full-time legal assistant who has been here longer than me. We’ve had 3 legal assistants quit in the last month, and 4 since I started, as well as losing two receptionists (one of the receptionists was promoted to fill a legal assistant vacancy). We’ve also had a number of runners and file clerks come and go. I’ve only been here 8 months, and already I’m one of the most “senior” members of the legal assistant staff. The turn over here is horrendous. You’d think that would tell them something, and, as I said, I think that’s why they gave me a raise out of nowhere, but you can’t expect to keep good employees when you’re paying them 23K per year or less. This is 2006, after all, not 1990. But it just makes me depressed because it seems like everyone else is moving on to bigger and better things, while I sit stuck here. I saw someone drive by today in a Scotts Lawn Service truck, and I actually felt jealous of him. Melanie and I are busting out of that little house, and the clutter makes me crazy, and we just need more room, but we can’t even THINK about moving, because I don’t make enough money. We made more money, and had a much larger house, when we were 25 and had no kids, than we do now, at 31, with 2 kids. That’s really, really frustrating.

Daycare Update: We’ve discovered that apparently Hailey doesn’t talk at Daycare. Literally. She apparently doesn’t talk at all, and they joke with her that she doesn’t have a voice. I hate that she is so uber-shy like that. I’m afraid she’s going to be like I was and have trouble in high school. Melanie says, however, that Sarah was really shy like that too at Hailey’s age, and she’s not shy at all now, and wasn’t as a teenager.

Today in History, August 23:

93 – Birth of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Roman governor of Britain.

1305 – William Wallace is executed for leading a Scottish rebellion against the English.

1754 – Birth of the last French monarch, Louis XVI. He would lose his head some 39 years later.

1784 – The counties of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina secede and declare themselves an independent state, named Franklin. This is ultimately rejected by Congress several years later and the counties are returned to their original states.

1799 – Napoleon bids farewell to Egypt and sets sail for France, where he will ultimately seize power.

1821 – Mexico gains its independence from Spain.

1914 – Japan declares war on Germany, and celebrates by bombing Tsingtao, China, which was a German colony.

1927 – Sacco and Venzetti, two Italian anarchists, are executed for murder in Massachusetts. The case becomes famous because they were found guilty on very sketchy evidence, despite having alibis, and were most likely the victims of anti-Italian prejudice. (I had to do a mini-thesis paper on this case for my Senior Seminar in History in college.)

1940 – Germany begins a campaign of bombing raids on London.

1942 – The Battle of Stalingrad begins. The battle would be the bloodiest in human history, with more than 1.5 million casualties, including over 40,000 civilian deaths. The Luftwaffe in the battle was led by Field Marshall Wolfram von Richthofen, a former World War I flying ace, who was a cousin to the Red Baron.

1966 – The Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first ever photograph of the earth from the moon.

1979 – Russian Ballet dancer Alexander Gudonov defects to the United States, causing an international incident between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

1992 – Hurricane Andrew hits Florida. It was the most destructive storm in U.S. history until Katrina in 2005.

1958 – Birth of Julio Franco. That makes him 48 today. And he’s STILL playing major league baseball. He made his major league debut in 1982. He’s the oldest position player in history.