I wake up, kiss my wife, and roll out of bed. It is early – the sun still sleeps. I head for the pool, arriving as it opens. My swimming is effortless; the water and I have made our peace. My mind whirls, analyzing and organizing my schedule and priorities for the day. I leave the pool, refreshed and alert. I return home, to help my wife make breakfast and get the children ready for school. I drive the kids to school, the ones who don’t take the bus, and begin to receive/make phone calls from my car after dropping them off. I do a little consulting besides my day job, a professor.

How do I celebrate my independence? By being a complete and utter anti-social nerd. I slept in, played on the computer, went into work (where I goofed off and watched two movies), got some delicious Thai take-out – and am now winding down with a glass of wine and an rsync. I’m very curious how Bailey will take the fireworks tonight; which reminds me, I wonder if I will be able to see something cool from my deck. I think so.

It went by quickly… that is an indication that I had fun, right? Yet, I spent over 2/3 of my time awake working… is that ironic? Considering that I don’t quite understand the meaning of irony, I don’t really know. I think I’ve made progress – my daemon averages around 3% CPU (target is 0) and doesn’t seem to leak memory profusely. Unfortunately, it is pretty darn buggy. ;P

to work? I spent most of the day inside, besides the time it took to walk to work, walk to lunch, eat lunch, and walk home. ;P I would have prefferred to have the day off, but in actuality, it was too warm for me. I have had my shirt off since I left the air-conditioned office. My project is getting closer, but I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me. Sometimes I actually find myself enjoying it – when I manage to ignore the stress/pressure of deadlines.

I have been busy. My project at work drags on. It is a “thorn in my side,” as my dad would say. I know that only I can remove this thorn, though. So I am trying to remain chipper. I had my first swimming lesson yesterday and it was erally fun. We just did gliding and a little kicking but I had a really good time. I am looking forward to tomorrow’s lesson. The walk is a little long… about 15 blocks, half of which are up Queen Anne hill. ;P Less than two months…

I hope I finish this project soon, because otherwise I’m going to have to obtain some ICBMs and take up another profession. ;P