Friday night I went to the Eagle. It was a very somber. I ran into the 50yo cigar smoker again. We talked a while. I asked him if he wanted to have dinner sometime. He said no, he wanted to date a smaller guy. He made a bold counter offer-- I could blow him as long as I swallowed and left immediatly after. If I was good, he I could do it again someother time. One more beer in me and I might have accepted. But, I don't want to have quick tricks. I want to get to know the man. But still, It's pretty hot to selflessly please a man like that. Maybe one day I can have both.

Took the afternoon off. Trying to sleep off what I've got. It's not really a flu. I have stomach cramps and low energy. I don't feel that sick, I'm just tired.

I talked to Harry. Sounds like he is one step closer to ending it with his BF. He mentioned that he doesn't want to have sex with the BF. The BF has been wanting to have sex for a while, but Harry kept putting him off. Last night Harry gave in.

Harry mentioned that the BF reads most of his email. Last week I sent Harry some email telling him the slug slime story. Harry said when he saw he received email from me, he got a bit nervous-- the BF was reading his email over his shoulder. Harry was worried I would mention something abd set the BF off. Fortunatly the email was innocent.

Other than that, Harry's sister is traped in Hawaii. It looks like jet flights are resuming today and tomrrow so she should be able to return soon. I guess there are worse places to be trapped.

I haven't been doing much this week. Like almost everyone else I've been paying attention to the news, hoping to hear something new about NYC; something important. Instead the same facts are repeated over and over, and a rotating line of polititions offer their commentary.

I've been kind of sick this week. A stomache flu. I still go to work, but I've been sleeping 9 or 10 hours a night.

Amazing day. I'm not posting this thinking you haven't heard. I'm posting this so I'll remember when I look back.

Today the World Trade Towers in NY, and the Pentagon in DC were attacked. Serveral 767's were hijacked and rammed into their targets. I saw video footage of the 2nd 767 hitting the World Trace Center. Both towers have since collapsed.

The news is everywhere. Currently very little is known. Mostly it's speculation and rehash from talking heads.

Colin and I went on a killer hike yesterday. First we hiked down to Snoqualmie falls.kind of easy and fun. Then we hiked all the way up Tiger Mountain. Colin is very fit and kept going at a good clip. By the time we reached the top we were both covered with sweat. The view was good though-- clear and sunny. About a dozen paragliders were out.

We've reached a weird time of the year in Seattle. Sometime in the next few weeks the clouds and rain will return and we won't see the sun for months. So every sunny day everyone goes out-- it just might be the last sunny day.

Had breakfast with Bruce and M at Van's. We really have to watch our conversation. Sometimes when we started talking about gay things, you could tell that the tables around us were trying to listen in. It's not that we were talking about gay porn or anything like that. Just gossip-- so and so broke up, so and so had a steroid rage and attacked his partner with a knife. But still, gay people seam to lead much higher drama lives than straight people.

Another double date day. Andy says I shouldn't do that. Bad karma.

I had lunch with Sean. He replied to my personal ad. He's a good man. He has two kids. Seams to be a fun guy to hang around. But I don't know. We had lunch at the Issaquah Brew pub. Afterwards we took a walk arournd the salmon hatchery. They have a display there, "Discover Your Salmon Fate" My salmon fate was to make it out to the ocean, but upon returning to fresh water, I'd be scooped up by a bear. Sean's salmon fate was to be trapped in Lake Washington because he couldn't figure out how the Ballard Locks worked.

Went out for dinner and a movie with John, the fireman. I don't think it's going to go any where with him. Part of me wants it to. He's great husband material. His last partner lasted for 9 years, till partner died in an auto accident. But, I don't really have feelings for him. He's a nice man; no a good man. He's good looking, and interesting. He has a good job. But I just don't care. He's not really my type which makes the situation awkward. For someone else John would be a 10.

John and I had dinner at the Six Arms. Then we saw American Pie 2.

I'm trying to figure out what I want. What I really want is to find a good husband and to build a life with him. What I want more than that is Harry, however Harry is dating someone, so he's out of the picture.

I think I'm going about husband hunting too aggressvily. I've got to slow down. No more than one date a week. And no over lapping dates.

I've met some nice guys recently-- even attractive guys. But I haven't really met one that I want to get to know better. I haven't had that feeling in a long time, to really want to get to know a man and to spend time with him. I had it with Harry when I met him so I know I can still feel it. Am I too jaded? Have I just not met the right guy?

Maybe I should just go back to Master Mark. At least that was simple. I knew what to expect and what to do.

I got another mention on Tommy's site I can't tell if it was a compliment or not. I probably need to keep my libido in check a bit better. I don't enjoy one night stands. They get me off, but they don't make me happy. If I do have sex with someone I want to spend the night with him, and have breakfast the next morning.

Thursday I had dinner and sort of a date. It went ok, but we probably won't go out again.

Friday I went out to the Eagle. I met this guy there. He was pretty hot. He was about 50, good body, smoking a cigar. I don't know what it is about a cigar, but when I see a masculine guy smoking one, it get's me kid of horny.

He was looking for someone smaller and smooth though. That seems to be the story of my life. When I meet a guy that really turns my crank, he's either interested in hairless twinks, or is involved with someone else.

It's frustrating.

Oh well. Off to bed.

Tonight I had date #3 with Colin. We had dinner at my place and sex afterwards. He is really just comming out of the closet. He said he's never slept with a guy before.

We've played together in the same hockey league. He told me that he's had a crush on me for years, it just took him this long to ask me out.

He's a very nice guy. Very masculine. We'll see.

Not much happened last night. Went over to Brians for dinner. While I was there, a friend of his called and they got into a big fight on the phone. I think the friend didn't call Brian on his birthday, so Brian was pissed. After the friend apoligized, Brian's mood wrapedly changed.

I think that Brian has a build up of anger-hormone, so every couple of weeks he has to blow up at someone or something.

Well, Bruce and I went to the Ellensburg Rodeo. We had a great time. There were a good number of hot guys there, so I had to remember to ogle discreetly.

The Ellensburg Rodeo has the 17th largest prize pot, so while the competition isn't as strong as in Houston or Calgary, it is still a very good rodeo. I enjoy the steer wrestling and the calf roping the most. I'm not really into the bronco or bull riding-- I can't spot a good ride. When I thought the rider should get 85, the judges gave him 75. When I thought he should get 75, the judges gave him 85. Wresting and roping is easy though. I can easily scope the parts of each heat (chase, rope, wrestle, tie) and judge how well each cowboy was doing.

They also had wild cow milking. It's not treated as seriously as bronco or bulling riding, even though it's probably more dangerous.

Bruce and I drove back. Went to the Workshop. Had dinner and a pitcher of beer. Then we parted ways.

All in all, a good day.

Took it easy today. Washed my hockey equipment (1st time in 4 years) worked out twice.

In the evening, I went to the Cuff. I ran into a friend of Harry. He mentioned that Harry has put on a lot of weight. I wonder if I'll feel any different for him when I see him next. I'm hoping he would want to lose weight if we got together. I'm much more active, and diet consious than his BF. But who knows.

Over the phone, I got into an argument with Brian. He wanted to sleep together tonight, I didn't. He's not used to anyone saying no to him. When someone does, he doesn't stop till he gets his way. Well, I said no and I wouldn't change my mind. I hung up on him after he started insulting the rodeo I'm going to tomorrow.

I'm half expecting him to drive to my place. I hope he's got more brains than that.

I've had a fun couple of days. Saturday was Brian's birthday so I took him out for dinner at Beck’s. Latter we went for drinks at the workshop. Brian was in a real party mood, so we had 3 boilermakers (Pint of beer with a shot of whisky) in about 1 hour. The bartender cut us off. Luckily I didn't have a hangover Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon I went to a great BBQ at R&J's place. One of the guys there, JB, brought his two daughters. Now JB is an entomologist for the U.W. He raised his daughters to be unafraid of bugs and slugs. One of the girls started playing with a large brown slug. While it was sliding over her hand she would show it to anyone to try and gross him or her out. After a while she got bored of the slug and stopped playing with it. Of course her hand was still covered in slug slime. When she tried to wash her hands, the slime wouldn't come off! She and J scrubbed for 20 minutes. They used comet and a pot scrubber. It still wouldn't come off. JB told us this was the natural defense of the common brown slug. The slime also has anesthetic properties. When they are attacked; the attacker is all gummed up and goes numb.

JB said that once when he was teaching, to demonstrate the anesthetic properties of slug slime, he licked a brown slug for his students. His tongue went numb and he started talking weird.

JB's two girls are 5&6. They latched on the Kam and kept trying to tickle him. Kam's ex, Margaret, told the girls about wet-willies and got the girls to try and give one to Kam. It was hilarious. Kam was a good sport about being harassed by the girls. I couldn't let an opportunity like that go by-- I pinned Kam down and let the girls give him a wet-willy.

Imagine being given a wet-willy by a girl whose fingers are covered in slug slim.

It was Kam's birthday. After the girls left we opened up Kam's presents. He got an inflatable love-cow, some really gross porn, a case bullets, and a teabag. Why? That's a very long story that Kam tells best.

B&M were there. M is pregnant and expecting any day now. They mentioned that every time M has an ultrasound the doctor or nurse makes a joke about how well endowed the baby is. They are not sure what to expect. They are ‘selling’ relationship status with the baby. For 5 diaper changes you can be called an uncle. For 50, you get to be the God Father. For 150 000, you get to name the baby.

We had a lot of good conversation-- most of it normal. But with R and Kam, normal isn’t good enough. So we had a long talk about bowel movements, why R is afraid of public restrooms and how Kam can pee in an Evian bottle while driving in a snowstorm. Another long story; one that they tell best.

We won the finals... 6-1 against Team 1072. I got a tripping penalty. Other than that it was a fairly quiet game. We all played our hearts out.

Now don't go thinking I'm some kind of hockey genius. This was an adult organized rec summer legue. But still, it feels good.

Someone has been trying to hack into my computer. I don't think they've succeeded though. My computer has a wake-on-lan feature-- you can turn it on remotly over the connection to the internet. Over the past week or two, i've noticed that sometimes the computer was on even though I thought I turned it off. So, last night I shut down the computer and put a note on the keyboard saying "I turned the computer off." Then, at about 1:30am I heard a beep. I got out of bed and walked to the office, sure enough the computer was powering up. I shut the computer down again and disconnected it from DSL.

I played hockey last night. It was the semi-finals We won 11 to 7. What a great and terrible game. As you can see, defense sucked, but offense rocked. Too bad I'm on defense. Two days ago I pulled a muscle in my neck. Now I can't turn my head to the right. It made for a weird game as D. I played along the right boards so that I would never have to turn my head.

Finals are tonight.

Big company meating today. So, for all intents and purposes, I get the day off.

Worked late today. Afterwards I raced home to work out and eat. Bruce and I got together later on for some beer and to chat. His dating life is frustrating right now. In the past month, he's had dates with a couple of guys that he finds attractive. But both of them are into bare backing. So he's understandably weary.

In the fallBruce is going part time to film school. He's also thinking about joining the public access chanel board of directorsl. Bruce always signs up for a lot. Not only does he work long hours but he volunteers for PSBRC (A disability benefits counseling org), teaches computer skills to Sudanese refugees, films a couple of TV show on cable access, plus in the winter he’s a snowboard instructor. It is kind of frustrating to be his friend because he often doesn’t have time. Even worse is when he no-shows. He has a problem with saying “No” But then, something will happen, schedules will align, and he'll have a week of free nights. When that happens he wants to do things with me almost every night. So I'll go from not hearing from him for weeks to talking to him almost every day.

I went out to the Cuff last night. I talked to a few people but didn't put an effort into meeting anyone. I have to slow down. When you have dinner and drinks with two or three guys a week, it's hard to get to know them; that's not fair to them or me. If I like a guy, I can't think about it because next night I'll have a date with someone else so I have to put the first guy out of my mind.

I met Brian at the Cuff. He's finally clueing in that we are not getting back together. Although, I did spend last night at his place.

I cycled around Redmond today-- along the Puget Sound power trail. While I was cycling up a large hill my chain popped off. I guess my derailer needs to be aligned. It was a pain in the ass. One second I'm peddling hard trying to make it up the hill, the next I grind to a halt, have to unwedge my chain and re-rail it. I lost my momentum and had to walk the rest of the way up the hill. Going down the hill was still good.

I had another date tonight. John, a fireman. He's a nice guy but a bit more Nelly than I'm attracted to. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Queen Anne. Then we walked through Seattle Center, past Pike Place Market and back to the restaurant. I'm not sure if I'll have a second date with him. I'll wait to see if he calls. It may be a couple weeks before I have to decide. Being a fireman, he works odd shifts that don’t match up well with a 9-to-5 life like mine.

Having a kind of quiet day. I bought a new pocketknife. It’s very sharp and has an assisted opening feature. I know this because the first time I sat down with the knife I hit the open-up button. The blade sprang out and stabbed me in the thumb. The cut was clean and painless. With a few minutes of pressure the bleeding stopped. I felt stupid; like I needed to go back to the boy scouts and take a knife safety course.

I walked around the Value village thrift store-- lots of crap, some good stuff. The next time I need a spatula, or a pair of tongs, I’ll go there instead of a kitchenware store. Outside of the store I ran into my manager and a friend of hers.

I hooked the computer up to the stereo using the “Akoo Kima” wireless stereo transmitter. At first it acted weird and flaky. The volume the Kima transmitted at depended on the speaker volume. I couldn’t figure out why so I just chaulked it up to bad design. Then I unplugged the speakers from the Kima and noticed that the transmitted volume still depended on the speaker volume. Since that didn’t make sense, I knew I screwed up. I looked around and discovered that I wired the Kima into the computer and speakers in a strange way. Once I corrected the wiring the Kima acted perfectly. Now I can listen to CD quality Internet Radio over my stereo.

I cleaned the inside of the truck today—vacuumed and Armour-All’d. Then I washed the outside and spent some extra time on the windows—washed inside and out, no streaks. The truck looks damn near new. Not bad considering it’s almost 4 years old.

Wow. Reading over this post, I sound like a materialistic shopper. I’m not usually like this. I can go for months buying nothing but groceries. It’s just that recently I needed to buy a few things, so I’ve gone all out and bought a few extra things on my list of “Nice-to-Have.”

I got my George ‘W’ refund cheque today. $300.00. Woo hoo. I’m kind of annoyed that it’s not really free money, but an advance on next years tax refund.

I just heard a short of shocking, weird news story. I'm posting it here so one day when I look back, I'll remember it.

A 6-year-old boy was seriously burned when he climbed into a bucket of chemicals used to make meth-amphetamines. He may need reconstructive surgery. The 16-year-old mother has been charged with various things. She waited more than 14 hours before bringing the boy to the hospital.

Washington seems to be developing a meth-amphetamines problem. Outside of Seattle and the Puget Sound, there are many poor people and a miles of hills and forests. It’s easy to hide a meth lab in the mountains. Then within a couple hours drive you’ve got the big market of Seattle.

I got another mention on Tommy's website. Tommy and I have been emailing each other. He's kind of cute. Maybe I'll go visit him in the fall. I'd like my life to settle down first.

This morning, Bruce, M and I had breakfast at Van's Kitchen. Bruce has been taking film courses and is involved with the production of a couple of cable access shows. Now he wants to make porn. He's convinced he can make a good living at it. M and I just sort of shook our heads and made a token effort to talk him out of it.

M gave me a watch. It's a meaningless gift. Over breakfast I mentioned that my watch died and I needed a new one. M said. "Hey I found this watch. I've got it in my car. I've been hoping someone would steal it, but no one has. Want it?" So I said yes. It's an O.K. watch. A Fossil. A little bit dressier than I usually wear. But hey-- free watch.

I cycled to and from Van's Kitchen. I've been kind of hyper lately-- my legs have been twitchy. So, bicycling took the edge off. I also worked out this morning.

Tonight my date was with Walter. It went ok, although I'm not going to ask Walter out a second time. Walter is a tester for a Computer firm. He's also a land lord. Occasionally he buys a building, renovates and then resells it. It was kind of weird Walter lives down in Tacoma. That's where Harry lives. Every time he mentioned the area, I'd think of Harry. I guess I know who's caught my fancy

Afterwards I went to the Cuff and talked to a few people. Two drinking buddies that have been a couple for years, Joe&Chris, have split up. I didn't poke for details, but Joes said Chris attacked him with a knife.

As I was leaving I ran into Bruce. He sort of made a joke about not returning any of my calls. We're going to have breakfast tomorrow morning at 9am at Van's

Tonight I went though my address book and deleted addresses I no longer needed. It was kind of a weird trip down memory lane. My address book contains phone numbers for restaurants that are now closed, co-works who moved away, and busness contacts I haven't used in years. There were a few addresses I kept, not because I would ever call those people, but because I just wanted to remember them again at some point in the future.