The Athens Diaries: Day Two at 6:57 PM

Note: The posts for this week will be posted the day after they are written (I have to post at work, and I write them after work).

I don't know how people do this. I've been here for a day and a half and I'm already lonely. I guess that comes partly from not living by myself, but still. I guess I'm just not used to it. But I still don't think I could travel all the time for a job. I hate talking on the phone (which my wife wants to do since we're not together), I have no friends or anyone that I know here, and I go back and forth between work and a hotel room. Ugh. Oh well. Also, if I want to watch a movie, it's 10 bucks. Ten bucks! That's just regular movies, too. (I just checked, and porn movies are also 10 bucks. But why spend 10 bucks to see some boobs when...I'll let that comment trail off before I get myself in trouble.)

I guess Luke is smiling more often now. He was just doing it a little bit on Saturday before they left for Delaware (I don't know if I mentioned it--Jessica took Luke and went to her parents' house for the week). Now Jessica's telling me he smiles all the time. Did I mention he's the cutest baby ever? I'll have to post pictures when I get back home. Remind me or I'll forget. Funny story about him, by the way. When they flew out on Sunday, they went to visit my parents, who didn't know that they were coming. It was the first time my dad got to see him, so that was nice. Also, my mom was taking a nap when they got there, and my dad brought Luke in to see her. My sister just had her baby a few weeks ago, so she thought (since her eyes were still kind of closed) that it was Nathan (that's the baby's name, and there are a lot of parentheses in this post so far). Then she opened her eyes and freaked out. That's the end of my story.

I was all ready to have Papa John's tonight, and then I found out they don't take American Express, which is the corporate card that I have. That did not make my day. But then I got Bob Evans and took it to the hotel, and it was really good. I got some slow roasted pork tenderloin with cole slaw and mashed potatoes and cranberry bread. The cranberry bread was excellent, as was the loin. The potatoes were not so good because they tasted like broccoli. Oh wait, that's because they gave me broccoli instead of potatoes. I know I'm a big guy and all, but do you really have to sabotage my order to make me eat healthier? Another thing about traveling--it will make you gain weight in a hurry. With my free meals, there's now no debate over whether I'll get dessert. I will get it every time. Tonight it was blackberry cobbler with ice cream. This would have been great if I liked extremely tart things with seeds in them. But I'm not, so it wasn't so great. Tomorrow I'll be sure to get something chocolate. Can't go wrong there. And maybe a steak for dinner. Steak is good. But enough about food.

I've realized that without TiVo, I have no idea when anything is on. Not that it matters much, since everything's being recorded. I just thought I'd mention that. I thought I might catch a few shows, but I haven't. I actually watched a show called Carnivale tonight. It's one of those HBO original shows. Now, I've watched a lot of TV in my day, but I've never seen anything as weird as this show. I don't know if it would have been less weird if I knew the storyline, but I doubt it. From what I gathered, it's about carny-types in the '30s. Interesting premise, but I don't know if I'll check it out again. It just kind of creeped me out.

I'm pretty much ready to go back to my own workplace in Kokomo. It's fine here and all, but it's just not the same. Being in an FDA regulated industry, you'd think that it's the same everywhere, but it's not. The basic idea is, of course, and procedure is identical, but there are so many center-specific things that you never even think about. Anyway, that's enough for today.

Song of the day: "Whipping Post", by the Allman Brothers. If you don't have this song, download it immediately. A guy sang it on American Idol the other night (you may commence laughing at me for watching American Idol), and it was great. It reminded me what an awesome song this is. It's one of those ones that, when it's sung live, is either excellent or terrible. This one was the former. It was so good, I thought about voting. While I'm at it, are there any other American Idol fans out there? I know my live night crew mocks me for watching, but what about the rest of you (if there is a rest of you)? Watergirl? You with me here?

(As a final note, I just ran spell check, and "boobs" was not in the dictionary, but "boobies" was. I'm just sayin'.)