<intentionaljoketag>generic blurb about how I have nothing to report</intentionaljoketag>

Anyone who’s watching the mileage tick up on the left side of this web page has probably figured out that my five-to-six days a week workout has become habit, and if I don’t get it, I just don’t feel entirely right, mostly because I’m getting to that point where I’m actually seeing real, positive results, and don’t want to lose them. During most weeks, this isn’t a problem – I’m a regular at the hotel gym between work and dinner, and until recently, on the weekends I took my usual rides throught the neighborhood or to the library or wherever.

However, I came to realize that this weekend, it was just too damned cold to take the bike out, and was likely to stay that way for a while. This bothered me, because after this week and next, I’ve got a nice stretch of time off the road, and won’t have hotel equipment to use for a while.

So, I solved that particular bother by buying a cheap-ass stationary bike this weekend. So far it seems to work, especially after I spent an hour on Sunday fiddling with the belt after it jumped the track after something like 25 miles’ use. Hopefully that won’t become a regular part of the workout; I’m assuming, for the moment, it just wasn’t dialed in properly at the factory.

Of course, fixing one source of anxiety knocked loose another one – I’m mostly done with my holiday shopping, and had much of it done before Thanksgiving. However, over the last two weekends I’ve ended up spending a fair amount of money to finish up, and started to feel nervous about it – mostly vestigial nerves from when I made a hell of a lot less – the values we’re talking about here are well within my budget, but I’m still a cheap bastard at heart, so it tripped that particular circuit. And buying the bike didn’t help.

I guess I can call the bike an investment in my (and my wife’s) cardiovascular health, though, so there’s that. Not the best job at satisfying the urge to do something irresponsible I tweeted about the other day, but I guess it will do for now.

Maybe the irresponsibility was the “Retro Burger” at the Galaxy diner this weekend (which is one of my favorite places in Richmond these days) – a fresh-grilled hamburger topped with mashed potatoes and gravy, served with a deep-fried dill pickle spear on the side by aloof hipster girls in a fifties-style sci-fi diner with alien invasion movie posters on the wall and lights shaped like flying saucers over the booths.

I sense, dear reader, you are not surprised by my affection for this establishment.

In other news, I can take heart that after a couple of hiccups (including an exploding heater), the post-angelfish life of my secondary fish tank is settling in nicely. Fishwise, it’s a handful of various danios (including a couple of genetically engineered, patented glofish) and a small fleet of panda corydoras who are very cute. What makes me like the tank so much,though, is that it’s got lots of interesting non-fish things in it.

Things like a big zebra nerite snail and several of her pea-sized offspring. Best algae cleaners you’ll find, and pretty brown striped shells that look like expensive parquet hardwood flooring.

Also, the local big box pet store had cherry shrimp (which I’ve been looking for for years now) in over the weekend, so I bought a bunch, figuring I’ll never see them in retail ever again. They’re cool, and should happily breed in there, meaning I’ll never have to buy them ever again, and will soon have more than I could possibly need.

The centerpiece of the tank, though, is the bamboo shrimp, who is the size of my pinky finger and hangs out on the plants filtering food out of the water with his little fan claws. He’s totally harmless, but looks like something out of Starship Troopers, especially after he moulted this weekend and left a slightly smaller, translucent copy of himself lying on the bottom of the tank.

So yeah, it’s really a shrimp tank with some fish in it, but it makes me happy, and is often more fun to watch that television.

And, since I’ve been blathering on long enough, here’s the …and finally:

I’m not entirely happy with the little story in the previosu post, but I but let out into the world anyway. The idea had actually been brewing since Black Friday, but I hadn’t done anything with it. However, it seemed like something to amuse myself with for forty minutes or so this evening after braving the cold, wind, and holiday shopping traffic here in Northern Virgina to pick up a couple of necessities and maybe, just maybe, one or two gifts.

That’s really about it. Please forgive my near total lack of transitions.