The girlfriend whisked me away for my 30th birthday to Mystic, CT for fun-filled days and nights. She’s super fantastic like that. I haven’t had a moment to write about that or put up a picture or two but I’ll do that within the next few days. All that immediately needs to be noted is that I had the best birthday ever thanks to my Alisa.

Jon Secada looks like a Latino Barry Manilow.

Or not. I don’t know. Depends on the photo I guess.

My local market calls frozen broccoli and cauliflower its “Winter Blend.” Simply adding carrots to the Winter Blend creates their “California Blend.” Apparently, carrots are pure vegetable sunshine as I’ve been telling my daughter.

My girlfriend is having an MRI tomorrow. Of course, she knows about removing the necklace and earrings but, Alisa, you’ll also want to make sure there aren’t any institutional floor buffers around. Good luck!

I caught this last Friday morning on my way to work and it’s a nice little segment: Why they play Sweet Caroline at Fenway.

Hey Internet, I want to point out something I thought you knew already.

Just because I say or post something on my Web site, it doesn’t make it automatically true.

I could post cute pictures of my daughter for the public to see (something I don’t believe in) and you might be tempted to leave a comment telling me that I must be a wonderful dad. I’m sorry, but that wouldn’t mean a thing. My daughter’s inherent cuteness has nothing to do with my parenting skills.

In the same vein, simply because I, or anyone else who has a domain, might seem to labor over a “difficult post” and pour emotion out all over the screen, doesn’t mean that I’m being honest with myself or with my readers. It might be a way for me to attract attention, sympathy, or what-have-you. You don’t know me (unless you actually do know me) and so, you don’t know what strange motivations I might have for saying what I say.

Point being, the anonymous nature of the Internet allows me to portray myself as I want and, unfortunately, or I suppose, fortunately for some people, strangers are indiscriminate with what they read. I’ve found it to be a problem in the Information Age, in education, and with users of the Internet in general. People have to check their sources, get information from multiple locations, ask follow up questions. Unfortunately it’s too easy not to do that along the way because it slows you down.

You might respond, “Well, of course! I read blogs for the author’s take on things. I understand they are one-sided and I’m OK with that.”

Well, that’s great. Just understand that, like with real life, there are lots of people in the world who seek attention in different ways, who carefully portray themselves to be someone different online than they are in real life, who maybe don’t exactly tell the full story about themselves, or maybe they have a specific goal they want to achieve with their site like gathering friends or getting hot dates. I don’t know what to tell you, Internet. People have some interesting ways about them yet, for some reason, a lot of that seems to be ignored when people “go online.”

I’m not so into my Web site being a public space for people to read about my divorce and the reason behind it. I don’t want my life to be a soap opera. I just want to move on. If you want to ask me about it, please feel free. I may or may not tell you. I generally prefer to share those sorts of things with people I know.

I’m following the US Open and you know, I think I heard somewhere that Ekaterina Bychkova is really mean. Like, really kind of cranky and moody and full of complaints and whining all the time and just generally not a nice young woman. There’s got to be a concise word for it but it escapes me at the moment.

The packages of Canna lilies that I planted in front of the house this spring, said that they would be blooming in August and would be 3 to 4 feet tall. Here it is mid-August and they are about 1 foot tall and not looking like they’re going to be making the effort. I hate the lazy plants and their “I’ll grow however the hell I please” attitudes.

Cross plant bulbs off, below my haircuts, on the ever growing list of things I’m not going to entrust to Walmart’s hands anymore.

The thing about these two-year-olds is that it’s like you’ve got your very own personal cheering section following you around all the time.

I walk down the stairs and it’s “You go down the stairs? Yaaaaaay Daddy!”
I drink a glass of water and it’s “You drink the water? Yaaaaaay Daddy!”
I back the car out of the garage in the morning and it’s “You back the car? Yaaaaaay Daddy!”

You get the idea. I’m kind of getting used to it now though. I think it would be a good idea to have the same sort of thing on the job. Companies that have daycare options have good employee retention as it is but then, the company could harness the youthful exuberance of the kids in daycare by turning them loose in row after row of cubicles after nap time every day:

“You typing? Yaaaaaay you!”
“You make markety report? Yaaaaaay you!”
“You program Web application? Yaaaaaay you!”

My sister had her first baby this evening. A month and a half earlier than expected but she had an issue this afternoon, went in, did the whole natural birth thing in an hour and Voila! Impressive. Birth experiences are like snowflakes, I’m finding.