I went to Target tonight to pick up a couple of little things and I saw a Lufthansa A340 taking off from Logan. It made me smile. There is something graceful and beautiful about the A340.  Sometimes I get jealous because I want to be on the aircraft that are taking off.  That wasn’t the case this time. I just smiled and wished them clear skies and safe travels.  A little later, I looked up the flight and saw that it was Lufthansa flight LH425 enroute to Munich. It’s scheduled to land at 8:10 AM local time. I’ll still be sound asleep when it lands.

A little later, I saw an Aer Lingus A330 taking off for Dublin. It was flight EI0132. It didn’t excite me as much.

“I’m not needing to lick my plate, and that makes me sad.”

It’s warm today, and I was in the mood for something refreshing. While out on a little drive, I stopped at the grocery store for limes, mint, and sparkling water. I made mojitos.

This is quite possibly one of my favorite cocktails. It’s light, refreshing, and outright tastey. And they’re so easy to make. It’s mint, lime juice, sugar, and sparkling water. Yeah, it’s that easy.

I had a few steaks in the freezer that I pulled out for dinner tonight. I can easily sear them with salt and pepper, but I’ve done that too much lately. What else could I do?

Well, they were already in a zipper bag from the freezer, so I coarsely chopped some garlic, added some salt, pepper, and a bottle of beer. Now they’ll stay in the refrigerator until I’m ready to have dinner. Not only will the beer help thaw the steaks, but it will penetrate the meat and help break down some of the more fibrous tissue.

This has the potential to really suck. On the other hand, it could be really good, too.

I was craving ice cream tonight about 9:00 and set out on foot with $4 in my pocket in the hopes of finding ice cream.  About two blocks away there is a convenience store that I’d never been in, so I tried it. I got there just as they were closing, but I got my cold confection and I was happy. As I was walking, I noticed that the runway that causes planes to fly over my apartment was in use. I believe that runway is 15R.  I started walking to find a better vantage point, and I most certainly did.

American Legion Playground is down the street from my house about three blocks, and it’s the perfect place to watch the planes coming in. I saw the usual Northwest A320, JetBlue A320, American Eagle ERJ, but the big sighting tonight was a FedEx Express MD11. I don’t get to see those very often, so it was exciting. Keep in mind that most of the FedEx flights come in overnight or very early in the morning. Who the hell is out taking pictures when FedEx is landing their planes?

Oddly, the plane I see on the ground but never in the air is the UPS A300. It’s a good looking aircraft, but I’ve never flown on one.

The links in this entry are to photos of the planes I’m referencing. They’re from airliners.net, one of my favorite sites on the net.  I’m not the photographer, but I do have my own collection of pictures posted on there.  Hopefully now that I live near the airport I can get some more photos published.

I’m now running Expression Engine 1.4.2.  All appears to be well.

If you read my blog via IAM, you might recall reading about the guy in our marketing department that I had the hots for when I first started. This guy seriously put my gaydar into red alert. It turns out that Eric is straight and has a beautiful wife.  Well, Eric is leaving us, and tonight we celebrated his going away for greener pastures.  It was a load of fun.

His wife is awesome. She has some great ink and she’s interested in suspension. I showed her a few of my scars and told her about the ROP BBQ in August.

I have to say that being openly gay at work is really refreshing. I don’t have to pretend to be someone else nor do I have to hide who I am. This is really the first place I’ve worked where I’ve had the luxury of not hiding my sexuality. Even though the company still has some of the “good old boys club” mentality, it’s a very open and accepting environment. My work speaks for itself.

I have a few pictures, but I’ll send them to my coworkers directly instead of posting them here.

I’ve mentioned that I sit by a window that overlooks our cafe. I wave at people passing by way too often. Today, I waved at Vanessa, one of our project accountants. She came running into our office. It turns out that she was having issues with Outlook and needed to get into her email to find out what time her flight left this afternoon. I helped her get into her e-mail via the web client on my computer and she was stunned to learn that her flight left in an hour and a half. She hadn’t even packed yet.

Very quickly, I jumped into travel agent mode, clacked away at my computer for a few seconds and scribbled a phone number on my pug post-it notes. I explained that she needed to call the airline and make alternative arrangements and that most airlines were usually more apt to help reaccomodate her if she called BEFORE missing her flight.

It’s not the only time I played travel agent today, but I’ll let Sam tell the story when she gets back from Texas.

Sometimes I think I should have been a travel agent.

A friend of mine once described me as “So gay it hurts.” Today, I was listening to this megamix of gay anthems and it’s 90 minutes of music that is… well… so gay it hurts.

Shawn, I salute you.

The mix is Tuffcub‘s RVT Almighty Mix, and it’s pretty awesome.

Oh, this is funny.