It’s been a productive weekend. I started ripping apart my living room in the hopes of clearing out some shit before I move. I still don’t know exactly when I’m moving. The fact of the matter is that I have a great opportunity to look for exactly what I want. As Beth has pointed out to me, I tend to fall in love with the first place I look at and then regret it six months later. She’s absolutely right. I will say that my place in Providence was a good impulse. This place, not so much.  My place in Dorchester was an absolute disaster. Both times, I was pressed for time to find a new place. Now, I have time to wait. I just need to find the patience to cherry pick what I really want.

Reggie and I drove out to Beth and Paul’s house today. Sam and Murphy were up as well as Dave and Rita. Another friend of theirs came out as well. We had some good food and good times. I roasted potatoes and carrots. Beth thought my potatoes were underseasoned while Sam found them to be salty. This tells me that they weren’t mixed up very well. That doesn’t surprise me. I had trouble mixing them up because the bowl was so full. Maybe I need to buy Beth a few bigger bowls.

Anyway, I’m going to settle down a bit, watch some TV, and get to bed soon. Tomorrow is the start of a busy week. It’s all hands on deck in the morning for the upgrade of the PMS and I’ll probably be in New York on Wednesday or Friday.

I was working from home this morning. I had an appointment with my chiropractor at 10:00 in East Boston, so it was just easier than coming into work, leaving, and then going back to work. I have to be here later this afternoon due to an upgrade of our PMS. That’s our Project Management System.

So after the appointment, I went home, put on something a little more appropriate for work (I was just wearing a t-shirt) and got Reggie. He came into work with me. Shortly after our arrival, I took Reggie for a stroll through the office to see who was in. Reggie got to meet my office crush. I think they hit it off okay. It turns out that Patrick has two Chihuahuas. At least he likes dogs.

Our IT department went F1 racing tonight. There are some things gay men were not meant to do. This is one of them. It was fun, slightly. I did two races. Hey, I’ll try anything twice. But then I was done. In fact, I got blue flagged, meaning “hurry the fuck up, grandma.” Worse yet, I got blue flagged twice. Some of my coworkers really got into it. Good for them. Me…. not so much.

The best part was after the racing, much food and drink was consumed. THAT was enjoyable. One of my coworkers asked what the connection between gay men and pugs was. It was a good conversation starter for sure.

On another note, one of my online communities is going through a bit of an upheaval. It’s a long story, and the fact is that nobody really has all of the facts except the two or three people directly involved. Everybody else is jumping to conclusions and taking sides in stuff they don’t understand. Sure, we can all speculate and guess at what’s happening, but the fact is that we don’t really know what happened. We’ll probably never know the whole story. Nor should we. Or should we?

It does bring up an interesting point. When you put everything out there on your blog/profile/site, are you giving up your right to privacy? When you post every detail of your life and start to have people read this every day, do you really expect people to mind their own business? They’re minding your business because you’re giving them the opportunity, right?

Tonight, I waved to my neighbor and her dog, welcoming them back. Now, I know that my neighbor has just come back from a trip to Germany because I read it on her blog. She never told me she was leaving. Am I stepping over a line by commenting on something just because I read it on her blog? Probably not. But it’s a fine, fine line. And it’s one of those social rules that just hasn’t been written yet.

I went to the dentist this morning. Going in, I had anticipating the visit to cost me about $900. Instead, it only cost me $200. I can live with that.

Long story short, I had a cavity under a crown. So he had to remove the crown, and fix the underlying tooth. He was afraid that the tooth would be too far gone and might have to take it out. In reality, that might not have been a bad thing. It would have meant getting another implant that would become part of a bridge. Still, this tooth is going to become part of a bridge after my dental insurance kicks in after the first of the year.

Right now, I’m without dental insurance because I’ve hit my annual maximum. My insurance company will only pay out a certain amount, and I hit that in May. So until I have insurance (and my flexible spending) again in January, no major dental work for me.

It’s been one of those days. One of those anger management days, I mean. On top of that, my office is stifiling hot. At least Reggie has air conditioning at home.

Speaking of Reggie, I bought him a two and a half-foot bully stick today at lunch.

The next time I bitch about work, somebody remind me that my boss is a good guy. My raise went through.

I’m on the phone with Business Objects support again. I got a North American call taker who gets basic information before routing my call. I asked if it would be possible to get a North American engineer instead of one in India. He said he’d try but couldn’t guarantee it.

It’s really sad when they wish you luck before transferring your call.

Last weekend, I picked up some chicken at the store. So last night, I wanted to use it up while it was still fresh. I had watched Ina Garten make Parmesan chicken, and that inspired me to make chicken tenders.

First, I cut the chicken into smaller pieces. Then I dredged it in flour, followed by an egg. Finally, that got dredged in some highly seasoned bread crumbs. Those went into some hot oil for a few minutes. I have to say that they were really good. The only problem is that I forgot one thing, the Parmesan cheese.  Still, they were really good.

What I tried in the seasoning is to come up with my own house seasoning, something a lot of TV chefs/cooks do. I started with some salt, a little bit of pepper, some onion powder, garlic powder, and a hint of cayenne red pepper.  A lot of people have their own signature mixture, but I think mine will probably be an evolving/changing thing.

This weekend, I bought some multi-colored potatoes and roasted them. Obviously, I seasoned the hell out of them. This time, I tried a different herb combination. Normally, I use fresh rosemary and then assorted dried herbs. This time, I used rosemary, parsley, chives, and dill—all fresh. They sure had flavor, but I could have done without the dill. I’m not sure it’s a flavor that I care for.

It was about this time five years ago that I first started noticing the symptoms that would lead to my diagnosis of having MS.

My neurologist in Pittsburgh was good. My neurologist here in Boston is better. The neurologist in Pittsburgh assumed that I had relapsing-remitting MS. That’s perfectly reasonable. For four years, I thought that I was having ups and downs in my MS. My new neurologist told me that my profile was more like transitional-progressive MS. It means my symptoms won’t come and go. Instead my symptoms can be expected to be progressive instead of up and down.

It makes me wonder if all of the ups and downs I’ve faced over the past few years really were the MS or if it was something else. I can’t exclude that it could have been in my head.

Now I’m trying to do some research on TP MS. It’s really rare to find any references to it other than things that are cursory.

The holiday season is rapidly approaching. I wrote this advice in December of 1999 when I lived in Philadelphia, and most of it’s still valid today.

Speaking of flying home to see my family… If you’re like me, you’ll be taking to the skies this year on your way to be with your family. Don’t think this is going to be easy. Airports will be crowded and flights will be delayed and cancelled. The airline will have just about every possible person working, and they still won’t be able to handle the volume as well as passengers would like. Here are a few of my travel tips to help you get through this mess.

Mike’s Holiday Travel Tips

Best Practices:

• Get to the airport an hour and a half to two hours before your scheduled departure. Count on the fact that there will be very long lines.

• Be patient. You have no other choice.

• Expect delays.

• Treat the airline staff kindly. If you’re cranky with them, they’ll be less quick to help you resolve a problem than if you’re nice to them. Make sure you thank them for working so you can go be with your family.

• Call several days ahead of time to confirm your seat and reservation. You won’t have much of a choice in seats the day of your flight.

• Thinking of upgrading? Yeah, right!

• Every flight is going to be full. If your flight gets cancelled, it’s going to take them quite a while to accommodate you. Remember, the person who is rebooking you had nothing to do with the flight being cancelled. Allow them to quickly do their job and get the next person accommodated.

• Avoid flying through Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston, or other cities that are prone to snow delays.

• If you haven’t purchased your ticket by now, don’t even think about getting it at a low cost.

Carry-on items:

• Don’t even think about getting on-board an aircraft if you have more than two items in your hands. If you have a bag of gifts, a carry-on bag,  and a laptop case, the airline can refuse to allow you to board. In fact, they’re subject to a fine if they do. Federal regulations limit you to two carry-on items. This regulation also states that the airline can limit you to one. I’ve already seen Northwest and AirTran state that passengers on some flights will be limited to one item.

• If every passenger has less carry-on luggage, you will be able to board faster, and you might not be as late.

Checked bags:

• Most airlines limit you to three total items of luggage. This includes your carry-on luggage. If you have more luggage than this, the airline is permitted to charge you a fee for each item, based on weight.

• Make sure you have your luggage well-labeled. My luggage has a side pocket where you slide in a business-card sized form. Strangely, I just put my business card in there. I also have a luggage tag attached to the top of each piece. It’s not a bad idea to put a piece of tape on the other side of your luggage tag that has the airline’s confirmation number for your trip. A Sabre locator code is easy to spot. It’s six characters that never spell out a simple word. An airline employee will know what to do with this in a heartbeat.

Gifts:

• Make sure you bought one for me!

• If you’re afraid the airline will lose your precious Christmas gifts, do the safe thing. Ship them via FedEx or UPS. I’ll probably be doing that this year.

• Another alternative is to do your shopping on-line. Have your items shipped to your Christmas destination. Wrap them once you get there. Better yet, have them wrap it for you. I purchased several things from Amazon.com this year. I didn’t see the need to have them shipped to Philadelphia for me to wrap them and then haul them with me to Pittsburgh. I simply had Amazon.com drop-ship them to my parents’ house.

Mike’s Travel Secrets for Cancelled Flights:

• Keep your cell phone well-charged. As soon as they announce your flight has been cancelled, call the airline’s reservations number. They can help you too! However, stay in line at the check-in desk. They might get to you faster.

• If you’re delayed or re-routed, make sure the airline at least gives you a voucher to get something to eat.

• When delayed, if you can’t be at your destination within three hours of when you were scheduled to land, you might be entitled to compensation. Ask why the flight was delayed. If it was weather, runway delays, or an airport shut-down, thank them and move on. These are things beyond the control of the airline and you’re not entitled to squat. However, if it’s a crew problem, equipment problem, or anything the airline can control, see what kind of accommodations you’re entitled to receive.

• If you’re delayed more than three hours, you are entitled to a full refund of your ticket. However, you’re then stuck without a ticket to your destination.

• If you have an unrestricted full-fare coach ticket (Y-Class), any other airline will accept your ticket for one of their flights without the originating airline signing it over first. However, if you have a restricted ticket, the originating airline must sign your ticket over to the new carrier first.