This is a picture of me from when I was about 16 and a huge fan of the British SF show, Dr. Who.

I was a very . . . odd child.

There are days when I'm scraping for something to say in this journal, and there are days when I'm not sure I can fit it all in. Today is one of the latter. It's not that anything truly exciting or world-shattering has happened, but the past couple of days have just been very full, and in good ways.

As I said yesterday, the electrician came to get the wiring fixed up in the house. Actually it was a team of electricians, and they managed to get all of the work done in just about three hours. They showed up insanely early--before 8AM and got right to work. Though the head guy did get the scare of his life when he discovered that my neighbor's dog was sleeping under my house. For that matter it unsettled me a bit too, because my neighbor's dog is the biggest, meanest Rottweiller I've ever seen in my life. He usually stays safely behind his fence, behind the copious "Beware of Dog" signs, and he growls at passers-by, and snarls at anyone who approaches the fence. Right after I first moved in I walked over to the fence, and he lowered his head, charged the fence and did the "I Really Want To Bite Your Face Off" barking at me.

But outside of his yard he was remarkably well-behaved and quite sweet. I guess it was because he wasn't in his territory anymore. But my dad managed to pet him, and then called me outside to "meet my neighbor" and after letting the dog sniff the back of my hand, I scratched behind his ears, and I was suddenly his best friend. Then my dad got a couple of dog biscuits out of his car, which the beast inhaled in about two breaths. I couldn't get over how mean this dog looked. He looked like he was on steroids. Large bunched muscles at the shoulders, tapering down to a narrow waist like a bodybuilder's and then thick muscles again at the hips. And the head and jaws--this dog could snap your head off in one bite.

Yet, he followed me around the yard, and sat when he was told to--obviously well-trained. He finally started nosing around the fence, obviously trying to get back into his yard. I still wasn't sure how he'd gotten out, but I went ahead and went to the gate and opened it up for him and locked it behind him again. Funny thing though--he went back to being Serious Guard Dog as soon as he was back in his territory. I went over to the fence to see if he'd come over, and he studiously ignored me. He didn't bark at me or growl at me though, so I guess I've progressed a bit in his estimation.

While the electricians were working though, I managed to be insanely productive. They only turned the power off to one portion of the house, and not the part with my computer, so I managed to get two stories printed out, packaged up and sent off to new markets, plus I got 900 words written on a new story that I've been sketching out for the past week or so. Then after they all left I did some piddling with my website, and redid my main page. No real major changes other than aesthetic, but it's a start, I suppose. Kent has offered to help me out with doing something Way Cool and Nifty with my website, so the next step is to figure out what exactly I want to do with it.

I went to work out today, and did my usual thing of bicycling to the gym. I was about half a mile away thought when I noticed that it was getting really hard to pedal. Looked down, and saw that my rear tire was quite flat. I have one of those portable tire pumps on my bike, so after spending a couple of minutes figuring out how the thing worked (I'd never actually used it before) I managed to get air back in my tire. I could hear an ominous hissing though, so I was hoping that it would stay inflated long enough for me to make it to the gym. No such luck. I ended up having to stop one more time to pump it up, and even so it was flat again by the time I made it to the gym.

So, since I knew I wasn't going to be bicycling home, I went ahead and got on the elliptical trainer at the gym. First time I'd ever used one of those, and I think I'm hooked. I usually get bored on machines like that, but this thing is a workout without being insanely painful the way stairmasters are (when done properly.)

After I finished working out I called up the coffeeshop to see if my mother was still over there grading her exams. She was, so I left my bike locked up in front of the gym, and walked to the coffeeshop. Then for the next half hour or so I proceeded to annoy and distract her during her grading. Anyone who fails her class can surely blame me. Eventually she drove me home and dropped me off, and I took my truck down to the gym and loaded my bike up. I guess I need to replace the tires now. I'm actually a bit surprised that they lasted this long considering how old the bike is (over fifteen years) and how long it was in storage (almost ten years.)

And finally, major sympathies to Chiara for her disastrous plumbing problems! The electricians managed to bust one of my pipes when they were installing a conduit, but they repaired it with no fuss. Certainly much less hassle than what Chiara went through. Here's hoping that all gets fixed up properly.