Hey, guess who has yet another flat on his motorcycle? That would be me. Again. And again and again and again. I’m seriously losing count.

The first time it happened I didn’t know I was starting a trend, so I didn’t document it, but it was sometime early in 2003. I wrote about the next one in this entry in June. A month later came the next one, immortalized in this entry. About two months later came this entry. And now I’m flat again. This is getting ridiculous.

This last one happened in my own driveway. I rolled up, parked it, and it was flat when I came outside the next day. Un-friggin-believable. There’s no nail or screw in the tire, but it’s flat anyway. Probably just fatigue from all the other flats. The poor thing just couldn’t keep it together any more after so much abuse.

I dropped it off at the shop yesterday for another $200 repair job. This time around I’m buying another new tire, since apparently the guys who did the last one (which one; I’m losing track) put a friggin’ front tire on my rear wheel so it’s almost worn out already. Lovely. I’m running Metzeler 880s, which are not the cheapest tires on the market. You’re only supposed to need to replace them once a year or so, not every other freakin’ month. I’ll be visiting the Honda dealership that fucked me up and getting some sort of refund out of them, believe it.

Five flat rear tires in one year. Seems statistically impossible, doesn’t it? Somebody out there is definitely fucking with me. But hey, at least they’re not killing me. Five flats and I haven’t gone down once? That too seems statistically impossible.

I ain’t arguing.

I just tried to go to Pussy Ranch, my favorite stripper’s website and access was DENIED from Shibby. It came up for second, then the screen wiped and a message popped up saying its content might not be suitable for a public access kiosk. I refreshed the page and it simply said access to that site had been blocked for sexual content.

Damn, now I’ve ruined it for everybody. Sorry, DG…

Against all odds and considerable lack of preparation on the radio station’s part I managed to get the going on our software by 1:30 local time, and then managed to snag a seat on a flight home tonight instead of waiting ’til tomorrow morning. I’m Shibbying during a two-hour layover in Denver and should be home by about 9:30 pm. Beth knows but we’re going to surprise Zoe. I just hope I don’t miss my connection out of here — I don’t want to spend the night here.

And… That’s it for now. Shibby scores again!

Back by popular demand (Okay, it was me who demanded it, but I’m popular. With me, at least.), here’s the view from my hotel window here in Colorado Springs.

Yes, kids, that’s real snow. And when I took this picture it was real cold — my sliding glass door to my balcony was frozen shut and I had to break the ice loose to open it. And, yes, I was in my underwear. The sight of it sparked a mass exodus from the hotel across the way.

I’m set up in the conference room here in the Colorado Springs offices, where they just wrapped up a Sales meeting a little while ago. The table is still littered with detritus from the meeting, including a freshly baked carrot cake still in its pan.

My co-worker Chris and I were thinking of having a piece until someone pointed out to us that it’s … not quite “right.” The outer edges are the sort of carrot cake-y goodness you’d expect, but the center — the thickly frosted center, mind you — is still soupy and raw. It’s a puddin’ cake.

Um… No thanks.

I’m finally in Colorado Springs and checked into the not-so-luxe Embassy Suites and am online via dialup on the job’s ISP — and Big Brother is watching … or at least has filters that are. Three of my regular reads (Mighty Girl, B-May and Defective Yeti) are blocked; all I’m getting is:

Access to this web page is denied by [Parent Company] corporate policy. If you need access to it for business reasons, please contact the [Parent Company] Legal Team.

I guess it makes sense, because those are three of the most offensive sites on the web. I’m glad Big Brother is making the web safe for me. I need the help, obviously.

…when your flight is delayed.

Stuck in DEN with my connection to Colorado Springs delayed until two hours, so what else can I do but be a geek and post from my beloved Shibby internet kiosk?

And… Well, hell, I don’t know what else to say. Plenty to talk about, but not appropriate for here. Timer tells me I’m on a two-minute drill now, so I guess I’ll stop here.

Another stellar entry. Woo.

I’m off to Colorado Springs tomorrow morning. The conversion spans Thanksgiving this time around, so the plan is for me to fly home on Thanksgiving Day and then back out to Colorado Sunday. The weather report out there calls for “Holy shit, that’s fucking COLD!” with a high of 19° and low of 9° to greet me tomorrow. It’ll get warmer throughout the week but dayum, 19 is COLD.

I just hope I make it out there. I recently discovered that my drivers license expired on my birthday last month, which in the eyes of the Powers That Be magically transforms it into an invalid form of ID, and I haven’t renewed it yet. All it’s going to take is one eagle-eyed rule junkie to keep me off my flight tomorrow — or even worse, off my flight back home Thursday. I don’t even want to think about how ugly things are going to get at work if I can’t get on that plane tomorrow…

I just sent my Everybody Loves Raymond spec out into the world, so everybody keep your fingers crossed for me, okay?

Zoe goes to school with the children of one of the producers of Will and Grace, and she (the producer, not Zoe) read an old draft of this script for me awhile back. She said she liked it, it was funny and made her laugh out loud, gave me some notes to punch it up, and said she could use it to introduce me to “the guys.” I’ve finally rewritten it and Beth delivered it to her when she saw her at school this morning. I’ve done all I can, now it’s just a matter of holding my breath and waiting.

This is pretty much my last shot at writing for TV. At 41 I’m “too old” and the whole meshugass with my old agent and various soul-sucking life situations have made me too tired to keep pursuing it. This woman is my last, best shot at breaking in, and it’s going to take more than my talent to make it happen — she’s going to have to want to help me … and then have the clout to make it happen.

It’s a long shot. But it’s a shot, at least.

A month ago I posted an entry looking for my old college pal Derek. Well, I found him, as well as Larry and Dina, two other friends from my college newspaper days, and we all got together Sunday night. Nineteen (!) years melted away in a heartbeat when I walked into the restaurant and saw them, and I was suddenly right back in 1984 and twenty-two years old again.

Derek and Larry were my two best friends in the world and my time with them overshadows any friendships I’ve had since. They were the major players in one of the most intense and fondly-remembered periods of my life and they helped form who I am today.

But things didn’t end well with us. This most fondly-remembered time is also one of my most painful and fractured memories. At the end, I felt betrayed and disrespected and cast aside. The newsroom that had essentially been our clubhouse and my home away from home … suddenly wasn’t home anymore. And the people I loved best had done it to me — and didn’t care. It took me a long time to come back from that. I think there’s a part of me that still hasn’t.

Seeing them, being with them, spending the evening with them was wonderful and weird. It was great to talk and laugh and hang out with them again, but it was also bittersweet because of my conflicting emotions. I was so glad to see them all again, but it woke long-forgotten memories and pain. There are wounds yet unhealed that will never be healed, and that tempered the joy at seeing them.

I’ve missed these guys more than I knew and I’m surprised at the strength of my emotions now that we’re back in touch again. I’m glad and I’m sad, all at the same time. Even now, as I write these words, I’m on the verge of tears and I don’t know why.