We want to pick sour cherries with Asma's family last Monday. When we pulled into the orchard, Asma nearly through a fit because she saw a car she did not want to see.

Suffice it to say that the group of us played hide-n-seek, with the seekers not knowing that we were there in the first place. And it was better kept that way.

Work (or the absence of it (I would gladly take menial HTML updates at this point (they don't give me anything challenging in the first place))) is really getting me down. I don't want to be there if I have nothing to do. Partly my fault. I don't even have the focus to make a dent in some other personal projects, because I keep thinking how much it sucks to be setting in that cubicle.

So, I'm thinking about leaving AARP for real. I'm working with my friend Raymond, who's in town (we had dinner with him last night, and oddly enough, it's the first time I really talked to him in the last 10 years). He's got more and more projects to give to me, so there's a possibility he'll have enough for me to do to equal the amount I'm making right now (hopefully more).

If not, a part-time [telecommuting] job utilizing the more complex things I know plus work with Raymond would be much nicer. It all comes down to me being aggressive in selling myself.

Eh.

The wedding is still sort of taking its toll. We need a vacation badly. One of the biggest days in our life didn't really go our way, and we haven't had anything to fall back on. Stupid debts.

The deliverymen from Sears amazed me in how quick they swapped washing machines. What took a good hours of constant struggle took them maybe five minutes. I know their trick, but I wonder just how much upper body strength they need.

I have my own little trick about moving the washing machine back into the closet myself. Dunno if I ever mentioned that parts of the apartment have unlevel ground, but the most extreme case of it is at the living room-kitchen border, which also happens to be the washing closet. A video clip would be the best way to explain how much it sucks to move.

This morning reminded me a lot of Urbana for some reason: cloudy and cool breezes and dampness from a recent storm, not too dreary, very soothing. I felt like it fit junior year. Not sure which year I miss most (if I had to miss one), but it would be between sophomore and first senior year.

Speaking of which, I've got Trail of Dead's ‘Mistakes and Regrets’ stuck in my head for some reason. Trail of Dead in general reminds me of the beginning of the first senior year. Seemed a bit lonely, or something.

Things botched, but things work out over time.

We're in a slump, but that will work out too. And soon, I hope.

Cyndi Lauper has lost her bid to have the rent on her Manhattan apartment cut nearly in half. On Thursday, the New York state Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that set Lauper's rent at about $1000.

And here I am, no fame with middle-class income for less than a year, paying the same as her.

Respect has gone down for Lauper.

I'm making my own scripting language, which will translate into a customizable subset of PHP. There's a slew of web applications I want to write.

Making a parser is tough.