You are in the Brett Bugle archives right now. The HOMEPAGE is much more important.

I don't know how to categorize today's hodgepodge of thoughts, so I'll just throw you a memo and call it "misc."

First off, I want to let everyone know that I was planning to be in St Louis today and tomorrow, but that plan has changed. The friend I was going to visit wants me to put off the trip until later in the spring, after Easter, so that some current stresses will be all worked out.

Next, pick up an Ace Weekly newspaper this week and flip to page five to see a very nice picture of someone I strongly admire. Can't give you more hints than that without facing some consequences. (She's a bit shy, and she hates that I am so open on my website.)

Big geeky news... I finally got offered an account at Google Analytics, now that they've reached my name on the waiting list. This service is awesome, a much better way for me to watch my web traffic. If you have a website with crappy logfiles and statistics reports, get on the waiting list for Google Analytics right now.

My last thought is about tonight's dance at BCTC. Hope it's a good one. If you come dance with me, we can make it a good one.

Last night I dreamed that I was going on a blind date, and when I arrived, it was actually my wedding. So here I am, arriving at my wedding, not knowing who is my wife. Eventually I decide that I can deal with that okay if I pretend I'm in an arranged marriage — I've always had a great deal of respect for those cultures who sidestep the lousy world of dating by doing the whole arranged-marriage thing.

But then I realize something more problematic. I don't have a best man! And this is not just a dream problem; this is a real problem for me. I don't have any brothers, and all my closest friends are women. The only guys I would want on stage with me would be my cousin Danny and my Dad. They live in other states and cannot be best men.

Guess I won't ever get married.

Happy birthday to Rachel! It's a big day for her today — she turns 21. She must now leave the ranks of the slow children at play.

In the past few days, I've had incoming communications that have almost knocked me down. First, an Indiana friend to whom I've been regularly sending postcards has just returned the favor with three postcards in three days. Unreal! Second, as I was walking out the door to attend a ballroom dance on Saturday night, Heather called to see if I'd attend the Berea dance instead. We went! She drove! Wow. Third, yesterday afternoon, a Lexington woman sent me a Myspace message suggesting that she's the French-speaking blue-eyed brunette I've been searching for all these years. Can you believe it??  No.  You can't.  No one can possibly believe this.

It appears that I am in the exact place that I'm supposed to be in, doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. How else can you explain all these tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, O tidings of comfort and joy?

You're dying for a recap of my trip, and I'm dying for some attention, so here is an entry that will satisfy both of our needs.

Day One, March 19
I left KY with a totally bogus preconceived notion that the drive would only take 10 hours. It took 12 hours, and it was difficult both physically and emotionally. See, I drove the entire height of Alabama, top to bottom, and I was thinking about my most recent ex-girlfriend the whole way, since she is the only Alabama person I know. Thank goodness my niece is so cheerful and so willing to eat dinner at IHOP with me; otherwise, I might have stabbed myself in the heart before seeing the beach again.

Day Two, March 20
A very relaxing day. Rachel and I were very lazy about getting out of the house and away from the music videos on cable TV, but we eventually headed over to The Donut Hole for some cheese blintzes to go. We ate breakfast in her car at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, and then we found a place where I could stock up on postcards. We needed a quick trip back to her home to get blankets and a chair, but then we stayed at the ocean for 2 hours until it got too chilly and windy. I wrote and sent several postcards.

Day Three, March 21
Again, like yesterday, we spent the morning watching music videos instead of going out, and when we did go out, we spent 2 hours on the beach. But today was different in that it was much brighter and hotter than yesterday was, so the beach was more crowded with college girls for me to admire. Upon returning home, it was clear that Rachel and I were both sunburnt. And, when my boss tracked down Rachel's cell phone number (by calling my parents) in order to contact me in a state of panic, it was clear that I am a very valuable employee. Celebrated this fact by attending the movie Failure to Launch with Rachel at Destin Commons mall.

Day Four, March 22
Another 12 hours on the road alone, which could have been horrible, but no, it was fine. Spending two days on the beach invigorates me. I hope to do it more often. (Quick change of subject: I've just changed my recent-photo page to show a March 22 photo.)

Day Five, March 23
Back to work! Long day at the office today. As I work, I think, "can I take another vacation next week?"

I'd spend a little time updating you on my trip to Rachel's beach house, but my boss is desperate to put me back to work. So I have to put off the blog entries until after I finish my work.

I am unreachable right now. If you're desperate for some Brett time, you could always try my email or Rachel's cell phone. But odds are, in the next 5 days, you're on your own! Maybe Google can help you!

After seeing an O'Charley's commercial promoting their new coconut shrimp, guess where I had lunch today? You guessed it. O'Charley's. My meal was coconut shrimp, sweet potato fries, and key lime pie. Mmmmmmmm.

Can life get better? I submit that it cannot.

In January, I went on a trip to the beach in the Bahamas. In February, I went on a trip to the beach in South Carolina. Next week, I'm going on a trip to the beach in Florida. Gotta see Rachel! Gotta soak up the sun!

Think I might plan a trip to my sister's place in April, where I can experience the Pacific Ocean again.

Because 3mp3.ru has been so very, very generous to me lately, I want to promote them a little bit here. I suspect that if I write about MP3s that can only be found there and nowhere else, my visitors will bounce over and boost their traffic. They give you one free song per day!

Bananarama - entire Exotica album Pat Benatar - "Sex As A Weapon" Chicago - "25 or 6 to 4" (1986 remix) Tina Turner - "One of the Living" Will Smith - "Wild Wild West" (a cappella)

Enjoy...

Today's magic word is STABLE. Everything has stabilized for me now, so I can just happily cruise along with no problems.

Work = stable. I've reached a point in my custom-software programming where my boss has all the features she wants, and I have worked out all the bugs. The app is stable, and I maintain it maybe two days a week, if that. This week I'm not gonna work at all.

Health = stable. After a few weeks of battling that strange dizziness issue, it gradually disappeared to the point where I would only feel it when I first woke up. Today, however, I think it's gone; I didn't feel it at all when I woke up.

Love life = stable. Ummm, there is no love at all. Which means there's no crazy-happy excitement and no crazy-angry drama. Maybe my new MySpace profile will attract me a girlfriend, considering I put on there that my income is more than $250,000. (I probably should have noted that I was choosing that as a lifetime score, not an annual score.) It is mind-boggling how many local women have MySpace accounts, compared to other online networking sites I've visited where I can't find any women in a 20-mile radius.

I tell you what, if oil companies set their price points by a graph of my life, gas prices wouldn't jump around so much. You'd pay a buck a gallon, every single day. (Today gas prices are $2.559/gallon here in Lexington, dang!)

A couple of people in my circle of influence (i.e. Heather and Amanda) had encouraged me to get on Myspace.com, so yesterday I finally did. If you're on Myspace, too, follow the sage advice of ZZTop and gimme all your lovin.

Wow, I think I'm addicted to the Natalie Raps video from last week's SNL. I have watched it over and over and over again since the last time I wrote. There's no doubt in my mind that you will hate it, but for some reason, I love it.

I've also recently gotten addicted to 3mp3.ru, a Russian website that offers one free song per day from their huge database. Being the mischievous fellow that I am, though, I've figured out how to get 20 to 30 free songs a day there, songs that are impossible to find on BitTorrent or anywhere else. Hoo-ah!

While I'm in a linking mood, my friend Heather wants me to help her boost the Google rank of a link. Here it is: High Powered Technical Systems. Go read about how that company ruined her life.

All right, I give up. It's the seventh day of March, and it's the seventh day of my health problem, so I suppose it's time for me to visit some stupid quack who will expect me to take some stupid drugs.

I could easily hold off for another week while my dizziness gradually fades into oblivion, but my boss is getting really concerned and urging me to see a doctor. Hmmm.

UPDATE — Learned something very important today: First Choice Clinic in Beaumont Centre requires a $200 deposit from those of us who have no insurance, along with a 2-hour wait. Well, they can kiss my ask! I'm not playing their stupid games. I'm gonna treat this mild annoyance on my own, with tennis and TV. That 200 bucks will go toward production costs for my movie.

Another option is to spend 200 bucks on a trip to Florida, where Dad can solve the problem and be a hero.

Here it is, the fifth day of my weird mystery condition, and I've come to accept it and appreciate it. At this point, it's just barely noticeable, but believe me, it's still there. And I think I like it. It brings novelty and variety to my life.

There comes a point in a Contra dancer's experience where he stops getting dizzy; Contra dancing has sooooo much spinning in it, your body has to adapt or step aside. Well, I think I stopped getting dizzy in about 1996... until five days ago, when I was suddenly dizzy again.

In mean, last Wednesday, when lightning struck, I was certainly freaked out, so I was strongly affected. Today, though, I'm used to it, it's faded a lot, and I've had two workdays since it started, so I know that it's not gonna "slow down my paper-makin'" (as Will Smith says in his song "Wave 'Em Off").

Good thing I don't have a career as an airline pilot, where the slightest change in my body's balancing can put thousands of lives in danger.

DIZZINESS DAY DREI - This feeling has gotten milder, but it hasn't gone away. The freakiest part of having it is that I have no other symptoms except this, no headaches, no fever, no nausea, no blood dripping out of my ears, nothing.

If my trip to Danville today ends in tragedy, since I'll be driving under the influence of dizziness, then make sure all my DVDs go to Erin.

Remember how great life was, when you could watch me dance at Swingin' on Main (see photo - June 2002) or watch me do back handsprings on the beach in the Bahamas (see video - January 2006)? Well, as of yesterday, that life is over. I have come down with a really, really bad case of DIZZINESS. Don't know why it started; don't know if it'll ever go away. It invaded me while I was sleeping yesterday morning, and it's still with me. Wow, it is the weirdest thing; I don't recommend it.

Think maybe I should hire someone to drive me to work this month? I'm even more dangerous now, having this dizziness, than I was when all I had was road rage.

make your way into my 2006 archives: February, January — or my 2005 archives: December, November, October, September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February, and January. Or just head over to my news page from 2005 and 2004

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