--329 days.

--The count, officially...
4 live plants (probably will get another)
4 cory cats (each different)
6 neon tetras
6 glo-lite tetras
4 black skirt tetras
3 coral platies
7 zebra danios
5 golden white cloud mtn. minnows

Yep. We got one of those instant-cycling packets...it's a pack of live bacteria that you put in the tank with the fish right away, and it feeds the biosphere with enough bacteria to support the tank. I was skeptical at first, but I read up on it and the guy (who sold us our tank, so he'd already "made money" off of us) sold me on it.

I very nearly got a pair of dwarf gouramis (a male and female), but they didn't have any females, and I am not familiar enough to know if that kind of gourami would get along with my other fish. I didn't want to take that chance, so, next time. Dwarf gouramis, though, are quite beautiful.

So the tank is quite active...I sat there for several hours just watching it today. There's so much to look at.

--Finally going to see Star Wars tonight. I figure maybe it'll be less crowded and aggravating by now, and Crown Village still has it in digital projection, so I'm happy about that. Of course, I have work to do as well...probably shouldn't have stared at fish all day. :)

--331 days.

--Well, we sucked it up today in softball and lost 11-0. Not pretty. We need badly to work on our hitting, that's for sure. Even though it was 11-0, it didn't feel that bad. A couple less errors and some hitting, and we'd have been in great shape.

--Though not many people find it interesting, necessarily, I often stop and wonder how things in my life influenced me to be "how I am" in one particular thing or another. Why do I act this way? Why do I feel that way? Things like that. And it's really funny, but just about every reaction, relationship, principle and social function is based in part on something I learned by observing, listening to or simply experiencing my parents in similar situations. It's very strange...but, it's funny, because, in a way, it appeases my curious mind.

And, honestly, it puts me at ease with the world around me and how prepared I am to face it. I have the utmost respect for my parents, and I guess that shows by the fact that I'm not afraid to be like them. Many people walk around and say, "I'm nothing like my father/mother!" but I wouldn't mind if someone said that to me. I'd be proud of it, honestly.

--333 days. Cool number...if I liked 3.

--Well, today I just barely made it to softball at 6pm. It was a brutal loss. We should have beaten this team, but instead ended up beating ourselves. We lost 14-13 even though we held a 12-5 lead after a 5-error first inning. What hurts is that in the bottom of the 7th, our first batter got on with a single. I stepped up and chalked the right field line with a perfectly placed line drive double. That put us with 2nd and 3rd with no outs. After the third-baseman made the play of his life to get the first out and save the game, our next two batters hit relatively weak outs to end the game. Sucky.

--Came home and did some cleaning. This second bedroom needs to be organized and taken care of. The key is, how much of it can I get done before getting "bored" of it. Right now, I'm motivated to clean...hopefully that'll last a while.

--Might get the new fish tank tomorrow. We found a place that has excellent prices (like, 5% above cost) on tank combos (with stands, hoods and lights), and Gina bought her water frog from there. So they're quality. We may very well get a 38-gal. tank, simply because the prices are that good. But we'll see how it goes. That would fit just fine in the dining room where one of my end tables is currently located.

--I've got plenty of writing to do for work...but, I can take this no problem once a year. Beats the hell out of every week. I'll probably have to work later than normal tomorrow and Friday to get most and/or all of it done, along with all the editing that will need to be done.

--Otherwise, not much else is new...except that, man, the air conditioners in the gangway outside our bedroom window are loud. Louder than ours, and it's right there in the wall.

--334 days (man, I've been busy, haven't I? You thought I was going to stop posting on my birthday too, didn't you? :) )

--iPod rocks. You know why iPod rocks? Because of the little things...such as, when put on shuffle, it doesn't play a song twice without playing every song first. That's freakin' huge. I HATE Windows Media Player and all other CPU players for the fact that their shuffle functions often play the same song twice at very frequent intervals. Even though I have 500 songs (at the moment). So this is nice. It'll be great for business trips and train rides (when I take the train) and the like. Once I get a car hookup, that'll be sweet too.

--Of course, the gargantuan task of transferring all my CDs to this awaits. But I'll take it as I go.

--Gina and I are looking into getting a fish tank...a nice-sized one too. Like, 29 or 30 gallons. I've done a lot of reading on the subject (it's been awhile since I had one...), and I've read about a lot of mistakes I made (no shit, Andy, your last tank was covered in algae!)...other than being lazy about water changes. So, this time, I'm gonna do it right, dammit.

--A fish tank means that we'll have to move furniture and crap all over...but we were working on doing that anyway in the near future because we'll need to find somewhere in the condo to put the bikes, for easy, but out-of-the-way access. So we'll see how that goes...

--Aside from that, I have birthday spending to do at Best Buy and Marshall Field's...when will I do that? No idea...I'll probably have to work late every day this week. But, once a year, I can live with it.