We're hurtling down the highway right now in the rented Suburban/tank. Murcia. Luckily I am still a year out from being able to officially drive a rental car.

At some point outside of Syracuse our kayak came loose and flew off of the roof of the car. Paul and I had to run back and get it. Amazingly the only thing we lost was the waterproof cover's strap. Now we just have the canoe tied down and the kayak is in the car.

The Squeaky Wheel peep show was last night at 500 Seneca street. Most of the building was swank modern offices but the sixth floor was unfinished old factory space. the event was pretty fun - (e:terry) volunteered and helped organize a lot of it.

The art itself was a mixed bag - some was cool, some was kind of lame. I loved the dirty bird exhibit and satanic rabbit pentagram.

There was also delicious coco food, including a white bean arugula salad, and fancy chocolates. There were also free drinks. I still don't like gin.

I think my favorite scene of the night was Nick's drag getup. I seriously didn't recognize him when he came up to me.

Once again an amazing Visco dinner - this time to celebrate (e:terry) and (e:mike)'s birthdays. Maria made this delicious cheesey zucchini dish for me - it was vegetables with a cheesy muffin top.

Our team ((e:mike), (e:paul), Tony and I) ended up winning catchphrase again, come-from-behind, over the Mickelson pair. Don't count us out!

I love you and your otTerry ways.

The past two years with you have been amazing and I can't wait to see what's in store for all of us!

A few pictures of the pre-birthday brownies. We really need to get some real candles.

I've now been on (e:strip) for two years! It's really crazy how time flies. I've now published over 700 journals, 3274 images, received 287 comments. Not long ago I was just a young (e:stalker) in college, procrasturbating at 4 am and reading the journals of (e:strip)pers I never met.

I know I've been neglecting (e:strip) posts lately but I really would like to write more, similar to (e:mike,60184). Writing about topics other than programming at work is good for me on multiple levels. How often do I write about something non-technical? And even if I do write about programming, it could be a new topic to reinforce or learn more about.

Most of my journals are catalogs/photo dumps of my life and pretty uninteresting. One one hand I like having that virtual record. I do a lot of self-censorship - either by delaying, rethinking and rewriting what I want to write about until it's boiled to a sanitized blurb, or not published at all. I feel that unlike the heady heyday of (e:strip), what you write is more attached to you than before. But honestly, who really cares? This isn't facebook or google who's tracking every word you say to sell your soul to some marketer later. The old posts of (e:strip) were much more interesting - sometimes, I click on the random article link just to read them

From now on, I would like to write at least one post a day. Even if I have nothing interesting to write about than some youtube video I saw, or some programming concept that just clicked.

I'd also like to work on updating and developing the site a little - (e:paul,60191) just added poop emojis, and there's a lot more that could be modernized (even if it's just on the back end). I'll save that for winter though ;)