This morning as I was about to bike into work I found a pile of garbage that would irrefutably link me to poor garbage bag management. There was a large pile of my business cards from four different jobs strewn on the pavement where the garbage was taken out along with a pile of about three hundred keys. Realizing that people would quickly solve the mystery as to who left a bag with tons of keys and business cards that burst on the pavement I scurried around for 15 minutes trying to collect all of the evidence. The evidence consisted of the business cards. I left the keys on the pavement figuring that they were less traceable - unless some handy detective wanted to search throughout the world to see what locks the keys matched. My guess is that they don't match any lock since they are the old keys to the ChannelWave house in Cambridge.

Ron Schmelzer got engaged over the week-end. He plans to put out a web site. Stephanie forwarded me pictures of the engagement proposal that occurred in London on a ferris wheel. I couldn't figure out who was taking the pictures but I suppose it is always good to have a collaborator on such activities who can fully document the process. I congratulated him via email.

Yesterday I took the big Java mid-term test. I am always frozen regarding doing anything when a test or a big presentation is due. I can't work on other things because I think I should be studying for the test but I also can't exactly study every second of the day. So I end up in this limbo state of studying as much as possible and then feeling nervous and then studying a little more. I tell people not to meet with me, give me tasks, or to schedule dinners. In the end the test questions I couldn't figure out the answers too seemed too esoteric for me to get very excited about them. It was a bit disconcerting that I couldn't figure out what the right answer was to question#1 but I probably got about 15 or 16 out of the 20 right. It seems that now that the test is over and Halloween and the wedding and the big rush of stuff to do in October is over that there is a lull in my life finally where I can relax. It is pleasant.

To take advantage of the lull I went to the gym today. It was nearly completely empty. I bought a pair of headphones because the right headphone on my old ones wasn't making any sounds and then when I got to the gym I determined that the problem was that the elliptical runner that I always use doesn't output to the right ear. So I switched elliptical runners. Go figure?

I also bought a plug for the bathtub so that we can take baths. I didn't take a bag and then as I tried to stuff if into my pocket I cut my finger on it. The guy at the hardware store was really helpful and nice. This goes back to Sunday when we tried to buy a plug for the tub at Bread and Board and the sales clerk told us to go to the hardware store instead. His reasoning was that we didn't need to spend $10 on an 8 ball shaped plug when the hardware store would sell one for much less. He also said they had cool things like juke boxes and old phonographs at the hardware store on Harvard street and that the people there were friendly and courteous like an old time hardware store. He also said he tries as hard as possible to avoid Home Depot because he was remodelling his house and had some terrible experiences there. Go figure?