Some miscellaneous notes to bring everyone up to speed with what's been going on the past few weeks...

* Last week marked my third flat tire in three years. I'm beginning to think that there are little highway gremlins that scatter nails and screws in the left shoulder just for me. Either that or the more believable theory that the highway maintenance crews do just a crappy a job of cleaning the roads as they do maintaining them. The unfortunate part of the entire experience was that I still hadn't gotten the currently unremovable bolt cut off the spare...which wouldn't have been much help since I couldn't get the flat off with the crappy provided tire iron anyway. On the ever so slight bright side, it inspired me to get a car charger powered air compressor.

* The end of last week marked "The Great Cleansing" - I actually got around to cleaning both the apartment *and* the interior of the car. It was nice to actually get around to putting things in order and having a somewhat clean place.

* I've been participating in Yukino's short story club. Having never applied myself to writing fiction before, it's been an interesting experience so far. All in all, it's been quite enjoyable getting the creative juices flowing in a way I've never really exercised before.