My sister Erin (tigerlily35) did very well in the US Women's Triathlon in Naperville, IL, held on June 22, 2008. Here is her blog entry about the race.

Our friend jd60610 also participated. Erin's daughter and her boyfriend Scott were there.

I took a few photos. In the photos: you can tell who my pretty sis is. jd60610 is the smiling beautiful blonde woman composed entirely of lean muscle and high spirits. Scott is the handsome fellow in the baseball cap. My niece age 8 bounces around with terrific energy. At the end of the race, as Erin was running to the finish line, her daughter ran up and took her hand and they crossed the finish line together and that was Erin's first triathlon, completed with honor. I tried to get a picture of them together but they were too fast to catch.

work
Worked my ass off today. Got a lot done. Tomorrow: meeting with new client. Need to get perfect with the CitySoft platform. Need to cram more ColdFusion in my head. And get better at SQL. Do some marketing. Focus less on poems and more on business for a while so I can keep food on the table.

But my markup validates.

AG
Keep thinking about this person. Can't shake her off. What the hell. This is gonna be one of those five year recovery periods. %$#@! Coming up on the end of year 4. I remember the first year. I was the hurtin'est dog in the pound. I'm hoping I do not run into her in DC when I visit for a week in July. I don't want to see her.

I don't know what the solution is but believe it involves dancing. It certainly involves hanging out w/ my cool siblings and cool niece and cool nephew.

bro
Last night Ian beat me at chess. He's quite smart. I like having him around. He's a considerate housemate. He hangs out in his room and reads and listens to music. Studying for his PhD at U of Chicago. Last night I astonished him twice, by listening to Madonna's Ray of Light CD then watching an episode of Bob Ross. Happy little trees.

soledad
I've been pretty solitary these past six months. Holed up, read books, did web work, did gym, wrote poems. A few dates, a few flirtations, but that's all I feel like doing. Maybe in a year. This is shaping up to be a regular Dear Diary entry.

DC
I'm coming there 16 - 21 July. To catch up with clients who like to see my face now and then. Many friends there I miss a lot. All of whom should move to Chicago. We have fun here. A very bicycle friendly town. And we have this gigantic silver bean that we keep in a park. It's worth it to move here just for the gigantic silver bean.

gigantic silver bean
Who knows what's inside it. Money? Is that where the city keeps its budget? Is it solid? Or maybe full of pennies? Dark matter? Music? Mayonnaise?

( Yanked from wiki: )

Chicago
I invite my entire flist to move to Chicago. You can stay with me till you get your own place. It will be crowded with all of you here. But we can play chess and Settlers of Catan. Who's got wood for sheep? Does that joke ever get old?

Song for my sister
When I was ten and she was seven
I should have gotten my sister out of there,
I should have said Come on, sis,
pack your bag, we're getting out of here,
we're joining the circus and not coming back
till our parents come to their senses.

(Start of poem. Dunno the rest yet.) Ya'll have a good night.

tigerlily35

Indulge a proud uncle. Niece, age 8, first communion, Old St Pat's Church Chicago 3 May 2008.

My sister got me at Costco a giant tin of decaf coffee. She fed me a delicious homemade dinner. What a cool sis. I read a story to my niece (who turns 8 in about two weeks). "Olivia" was the story. It is about a curiously animated & anthropomorphic young pig who must be about my niece's age, in human (not pig) years.

At dinner, niece acts up, jumping around next to me in her chair, putting her feet in my lap.

Niece! A little more savoir faire, if you please!

What's savoir faire?

Tact.

What's tact?

Manners.

Nephew is froward. He is four. Rascal. Tonight he nearly went flying down the stairs. I yelled at him pretty loudly: Hey! Don't run! What did I say?

I got very angry at him for almost tumbling down the stairs.

The memory chip upgrade went quickly. Lift up keyboard, unlatch and remove Airport, unscrew faceplate, pop in memory. Sister's ancient iBook now has 1.25 GB memory.

Once they fix Leopard I'll get her that. Currently she has Tiger.

Freezing bike ride there. Freezing bike ride back.

Indulge a proud uncle. This is I with niece and nephew on Thanksgiving. I am extremely fond and proud of them.



Have a good evening.