So, there's only so long you can put on a pair of pants, realize they're a little tight and think, "Huh. Dryer must have shrunk them," even though you know they were line dried.

There's only so many times you can look at the scale go up another pound and think, "Well, I'm still two pounds lighter than my husband."

Only so many times you can look in the mirror and think, "Huh, look at that. All that sitting really does have an effect on my width."

And only so many times you can think, "Hey, I'm still a size 6. Sorta. Maybe."

After having it on my to-do list for over six months, I joined a gym yesterday. But not just any gym, oh no. Go on, ask me how I heard of this gym. Go on.

"So, how did you hear about us?"

"The back of a bathroom stall in Santa Cruz."

"Yeah, everybody says that. It's the only advertising we've ever done. Either that, or word of mouth."

I've never had a personal fitness trainer before. Not a regular one, anyway. G didn't count because he was the instructor of a class. It just so happened that only Kris and I were in the class, as all the other people (kids!) dropped out. The only ones I've had were the one or two trainers in passing ("What? Pay you $50/$75/$100 a hour? No thanks.").

However, I've since realized that I need someone to help me push myself. G was great. Lisa was awesome. Spending the money keeps me going to the workouts ("I'm not missing this, I spent $100 on this person!"), but the time with the trainer also means that, yes, I can and do push myself. Someone yelling at me to "go go go!," well, darnit, I'm "go, go, go!"ing.

So, let's see how this goes.

October?

October?!?

The next episode of Battlestar Galactica won't show until next October?

Gah! I have to wait until October. Dang it, Mike! What have you gotten me into? Another show I like and now have to wait until OCTOBER before I see the next episode.

Worse, it's another television show to watch. Why do I even have a television? Watching television is the brainless, thought-free, vegetative way to drift aimlessly through life watching made up people living their made up lives while you just pitter away your own.

Another show to watch. Bah.

Okay, this is annoying me. This is annoying me beyond belief. Not only is this annoying me that much, but it's starting to make my life less fun. So, I'm going to open my mouth. I'm going to break the rules I hate breaking, and say a whole bunch of negative stuff about someone.

Sandie Hammerly is, as near as I can tell, an incompetent manager who has thus far succeeded at the UPA because of the UPA's staff's love of the sport they govern. She is negative (nearly obsessively so - the person crossing the street in front of her is walking slowly just to piss her off, no kidding, she said this). She is clueless (rather than contacting the person doing a job for help with that person's replacement, she contacts the person's coworker for help). She is unable to communicate with people without accusing them (see the negative part). She is a bad manager (rather than discussing issues with an employee, she complains to the other employees, then fires the original employee by bringing up every little thing said employee did wrong since he began employment).

It's to the point I can't stand any message from her any longer. She has nearly killed any joy of the sport for me.

Decided to hide this post from anonymous readers, so I can say what I really feel.

Sandie Hammerly is a fucking psycho bitch. May she rot in hell.

Day three of ETech (I'm having problems capitalizing that correctly. I want to use eTech, instead of ETech, but all the documentation capitalizes it ETech, so ETech is the correct way to go.

I'm surprised at how blah all the colors are here. 99.5% of the people here are wearing neutral colors (black, brown, dark blue) or otherwise boring colors. In the last session, which was packed, there were five of us wearing bright colors (three wearing red, one orange and Cal in turquoise). What is it with boring colors that makes everyone want to wear them? Sure, if you want to hide in a crowd, I guess.

Today started off slowly, as I was completely unable to get to the 8:00 breakfast/8:30 keynote on time. Sleep tugged at my consciousness when my alarm went off at 7:30, so I ended up sleeping until 9:00. Much of the keynotes I did hear were attention this and history that, including a talk from Joel Spolsky that, according to the backchannel was a repeat of last year's talk.

Lunch was good, with Messina leading the way at a table with Jason Calacanis of Weblogs, Inc. (and Netscape), Mike from Mozilla (have his card, his name is unusual and interesting so I need to look it up) and Sherman (don't recall last name). All major browsers but IE represented at the table. Jason had Gaping Void business cards, so I was able to share my myCrap card. Entertaining.

The next presentations were Tom Coates and Alex Russell, who are both good speakers, each in his own way. At some point, I'll go drag out the slides and podcasts and transcripts of the presentations I saw. Hopefully the ones I didn't see, too.

Maybe they'll have color.

Last night, I repeated to Kris a conversation I had with an acquaintance here at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. Said acquaintance had expressed surprise I was leaving early (where early was 10 at night) instead of hanging around for the free (free!) beer. Who would leave early when there is free beer? Unheard of!

Not being a big drinker, much less a beer drinker, said free beer had little appeal. Sleep, now that had appeal.

Kris chuckled at the conversation, too, and remarked, "What is it about free that gets people flocking?" People always descend on the free stuff, in a mob mentality, rushing the free stuff. Free! Free! Free! Gone.

Today, after all the sessions were done, the conference provided small appetizer items to tide over the attendees until the party at 7:30 (Yahoo1). Providing a hint of food makes sure people will stay around and check out the vendor booths, instead of splitting for downtown to get interesting nutrition.

After gathering my food, I sat opposite the O'Reilly booth. The booth had a dozen or so stacks of books, which, I later found out, they were giving away for free. When I initially sat down across from the table, I looked at the books and thought, "I have that one, and that one, and that one, just bought that one, have that one and that one and that one." I thought they were selling the books, so, although there was one title I didn't have, but was considering getting, I didn't grab it.

As I sat, ate and watched, the books disappeared in the span of five minutes. Zoom! The geeks descended on the booth and grabbed up all the books, including the one I was interested in. I would have joined the frenzy, admittedly, if only I knew. I would have taken it for free, even though I wouldn't buy it at full price. Sorry I missed it, though the ones I really want, well, I already own.