birthday present in advance to myself

I'm going to Barcelona, Spain in September. I found a great deal through the same travel company I used to go to Athens, Greece and Rio de Janiero, Brazil and just finished making the reservations with awesome customer service at Gate 1 Travel. ( http://www.gate1travel.com I don't want to sound like a gushing testimonial, but when something works well, why not say something about it?)

I've been saving all year to go somewhere. I wanted to go with Brooke SOMEWHERE. We had talked about Barcelona, but she said that it didn't really interest her. She got ecstatic about a Morrocco trip, but we'd have to do alot more saving. We talked about Montreal in October for the Lantern Festival, but she wasn't really in trip-mode and then broke up with me. We never even got around to doing an overnight to NYC like we'd always talked about.

So... I'm doing this solo. Just like to Brazil. Except this time it's Spain. And an odd part of Spain that prefers to speak Catalan, not exactly Spanish. Barcelona has all kinds of cool architecture. It's situated on the Mediterranean. It's a stylish city. The hotel looks awesome. My passport is ready and now I'm going to work work work to have amassed not only spending money, but pay my bills way up in advance.

more later...

Charter Cable problems

Does this happen to anyone else?

Hot weather in particular causes my Charter Digital Cable service to totally crap out. I'll turn on the tv, the channels will come in for a little while, then randomly / eventually flicker and then go blank, occasionally deciding to intermitantly come back in flickers and then go blank again. I can go unplug the cable box, wait, then let itself reset and then it'll work for a little while, but then go back to crapping out.

This morning I checked the cable service and everything worked fine in the cool weather of quarter to five a.m., but sure enough tonight it was all sporadically working again.

Charter's service sucks. I haven't got time in the day to exchange the cable box for another (with little if any guarantee that the replacement will even solve the problem). I can't sit around at home waiting for some charter freelancer to drop by to tell me I need to replace the cable box. And calling Charter is like talking to a wall.

I've bitched to Charter quite a bit about a month ago and the cable box seemed to "fix itself" and some kiss-ass from Charter said they've GIVE me a year of free movie channels (which is all fine & nice IF the cable box actually works) and they did. But now that hot weather is upon us, now I have to do another round of complaining to them.

So... anyone else in this same frustrated tv watching boat?

I should probably just ditch tv and end the whole problem like that, but why should Charter get away with such crappy service?

The Day After

I'm so sad. I nearly broke into
tears with a customer in the cab
first thing this morning.

It's a little past 6am. I'm outside
the methadone clinic waiting and
watching for my 2nd customer of
the day to get done with his dosage.

What I need can't be quantified,
liquified, injected, purchased...

When things get rough, I
fall back on what I know...
Cab driving, customer service, my art,
music... But I don't understand
why asking for someone to love me
is asking too much.

Tears were literally streaming
down my face as I flew solo
down Belmont Street, heading for
Windsor & Catharine.

Keep it together.

Don't fall to pieces.

Play to your strengths.

Try to remember that I'm not a jerk.
That I really do have a heart
and common sense and a youthful
spirit tempered by some sort of
wisdom...

I hope she changes her mind.

job description

but still available hidden away on my website for those interested.