You are in the Brett Bugle archives right now. The HOMEPAGE is much more important.

Had more work than usual this week, including a day in Nicholasville, a day in Lawrenceburg, and half a day (today) in Danville. And that's not including all the phone support I provided to the Owensboro office.

I've definitely earned some time off, so I will be chilling out all next week while my boss has some business to take care of in Utah. I'd love to drive to Florida and kick back there, but gas prices are too high. Paying off my mortgage is much more appealing to me than lining the oil companies' pockets with my hard-earned cash.

Last night I dreamed about a cherished companion, so, naturally, I did not want to wake up and return to my empty bachelorhood. Dang, what I wouldn't give for one of those Dumbledore things you see in Harry Potter 4 which lets you re-experience anything you've ever experienced! If I had one, I think I'd stop any sort of progress in my life and just watch my top ten favorite moments over and over, for decades. It'd be like Groundhog Day for Brett.

Think I need help? Yes, I know you do.

Lately, I've been a magnet for advice. Several of you in my circle of influence have been telling me how to become more attractive to women. Here are a handful of suggestions I've received: try eHarmony.com. Fix up your house. Take cooking classes. Join a group, any group. Hold back just a little on your approach because women are more attracted to men who really don't care.

Thanks, everyone, and thanks for helping me pick out frames. (I'm still waiting for Kari's vote before I post survey results.)

As my Saturday (yesterday) began, I thought it would be another boring day. But then three people sneaked into my calendar and stole the boredom away from me.

First off, I had a phone chat with my actress sister (who has recently insisted that I stop calling her "my older sister"). She was very excited to tell me about a new project she's been recruited to work on. Dark Honeymoon is officially in pre-production, and she's ready to rock it hard. Congratulations, sis!

Next, the little neighbor boy Zach knocked on my door and asked if I could come out and play. Of course I could — the weather was quite excellent yesterday. Zach and I rode our bikes down the hill to Gardenside Park, where we exuberantly destroyed the playground and the creek.

Finally, when I returned from the park, I had a voicemail message from Salina Ramsay letting me know that she wanted me to go to Keeneland with her. Sweet! What a thrill. I made bets, I met a famous jockey, and I even crossed paths with a former dance partner who moved to Illinois a while back. Much obliged for making all that happen, Salina!

Ah, and then today I had the day to myself; no invitations. And that was all right. I'm coasting on the social uplift of yesterday.

By the way, here is an online album which will give you an idea of one of the goofy things I did today. (Pick a letter between A and P. Write and tell me what you picked.)

Who is going to treat me to lunch today? It's the sixth anniversary of me signing a mortgage. Yep, I've been a homeowner for exactly six years.

If all goes according to plan, I'll wipe out this stupid mortgage debt before anniversary number seven, at which point I'll be able to buy my own movie theater and then have all my friends and family over for a popcorn-and-nachos lunch.

In other news, I'm also celebrating the tenth anniversary of me learning how to ballroom dance; I attended my very first ballroom dance in April 1996. Prior to that, I was a Baptist, and Baptists are not allowed to dance.

I'm starting a five-day weekend right now; my valuable computer skills are not needed until Tuesday. So that leaves me a lot of free time to download television shows and e-books. Oh, yeah, starting yesterday, I'm on a whole new path regarding my BitTorrent downloads. Are you aware of just how many computer programming books are turned into torrent files? Wow, I can spend the next five days learning and mastering the C# language, PHP, and MySQL, with the expert help of a few quick and dirty downloads. And then, of course, with new programming skills, I can charge a lot more money for my work. Boosting my travel funds! (Or getting a new roof. I haven't decided yet.)

My boss doesn't need me to work today, so I have the entire day free to wander from one Lexington Kroger store to another, picking up as many half-priced bags of Cadbury Mini Eggs as I can find.

The chocolate is necessary for several personal celebrations I am holding today. First, today is the birthday of that blood-center employee I mentioned on April 5th, so of course I called her and wished her a happy birthday, and she and I had a warm conversation. Second, when my tax payment did not go through on Friday like I expected, I freaked out, so today I called the KY Dept of Revenue and got some reassurance that they have me on file as making a timely payment (which will actually take them 7 to 10 days to process). Third, I got a fantastic email this morning from a friend who offered her own special guide to lady-hunting. Fourth reason to celebrate: I found Cadbury Mini Eggs at half price!

Oh, and I don't have to work today!

Did y'all watch 20/20 last night? It was all about the fun riddles presented in the bestselling book Freakonomics. Since I never get invited out on Friday nights, and I currently have no girlfriend to invite out on Friday nights, I was home watching this show. And then, this morning, I downloaded the e-book and read the first three chapters. Before I leave the house today, I expect I will have read the entire book, cover to cover.

The reason I'm writing about it is that I found this phrase on page 50: "overdeveloped sense of entitlement." When you read that, do you think of me? You should. I am starting to see that I am pretty spoiled, just as my two older sisters always believed. At present, I spend a lot of time finding different ways to get something for nothing (downloading e-books included), and if I can't get something for nothing, I strive to get "more for less," a phrase seen on page 25. (Have I told you that I only work two days a week now?)

Anyway, I plan to reflect on this book for a while; afterwards, maybe I'll get back to you. While you wait, go read it, cover to cover.

I know that you must have seen the RSS link in the header of my website (a link I first posted in May 2005), but have you taken advantage of it yet? If not, I'd like to strongly encourage you to jump on the RSS bandwagon, just as you've recently jumped on the MySpace bandwagon. I mean, if you like the "subscribe to this blog" feature you find inside MySpace, you will love having a greater variety of feeds and greater control of those "subscriptions" outside MySpace!

See, with a news aggregator program or a feed-reader, you can accumulate summaries of any of your favorite news sites or blogs in one place. These aggregators are amazingly handy; they save you lots of time. I have been storing RSS links to my friends' blogs in this personalized My Yahoo page, but you can choose from lots of other options if you want. Mozilla Firefox has "Live Bookmarks." Google has the "Google Reader." Do a little research and tell me what you pick.

Now here are some hints I want to pass along to you.

To add someone's LiveJournal to your RSS reader, create a link like this:
http://__{USERNAME}__.livejournal.com/data/rss

To add someone's MySpace Blog to your RSS reader, create a link like this:
http://blog.myspace.com/blog/rss.cfm?friendID=__{ID_NUM}__

To add the blog you're reading right now, here is the link again:
http://www.lexjb.com/rss.xml

Since my primary audience here is Mary, Cheryl, Mom, and Dad (and occasionally Rachel and Danny), I feel like using today's entry to propose that we all start a business together. Wouldn't that be fun? A family business. We can build it up and pass it along through the generations.

Because Cheryl, Dad, and I are all computer gurus, this business will most likely be a computer business. Cheryl and Dad will build hardware and write some software, and I'll just write software. Mom can do executive or administrative stuff, and ML can handle publicity and promotions, which includes building the company website.

It's unclear at this point what the mission of the company will be. That will probably be obvious once we start telling people about our skills and potential. They'll respond with, "wow, we sure could use you guys to automate our private probation agency. All of these probation cases are currently handled on paper, and it seems so inefficient with all the constant filing of folders and searching for court documents. Think you could build us some workstations, write us a database, and revolutionize our industry? We are out of time, but we have plenty of money. Pleeeeease help us."

Yeah, it'll be great. And if the business gets too big and starts tearing our family apart, then we'll sell it to Google and finish out our lives in globetrotting luxury.

Women are a problem. Women are my only problem.

When Dad called me the other day to tell me about his stroke, he said he's been reading my blog, and I appear very "flighty" about all the women I'm rotating through this year. I replied that it's not like that at all — I haven't had any girlfriends this year — my entries have all been about the hollow, pointless pursuit of a girlfriend. Man, my life would be so much easier if I weren't so caught up in this date race, this woman chase.

Work is a breeze. Money is not a concern. My health is normal. The weather is pleasant. Bowling is a fun distraction. Albert Einstein was divorced twice.

Sure wish I wasn't so SEUL AU MONDE.

Here are three reasons why you might find me a bit over-excited today:
(1) It's opening day at Keeneland, and my cousin Danny promised to come visit me when the horses were running again.
(2) There's a swing dance and a salsa dance tomorrow night, followed by another swing dance on Sunday afternoon.
(3) The Best of Lex list I uploaded four days ago was quickly spidered by Google, and I am already seeing a boost in web traffic.

Two notes about my trip to the blood center today:
(1) they gave me a free box of Girl Scout cookies just for signing in, even though I was deferred because my iron level did not meet their donation requirements
(2) what would be a nice, effective pickup line for a blood center employee? I would love to get to know this one young woman who recently moved off the front desk to the "mobile scheduling" department. You know the one; her voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson's. Write me with your thoughts and ideas.

looking through my logfiles, I see that some random stranger found my page by searching for will brett email me, and I want to tell that person no

Lately, when I walk around Fayette Mall, like I did yesterday, I think "look at all these hundreds, maybe thousands, of Lexington people I've never met." It's a weird feeling, to have this unwelcome idea that you'll never meet your next girlfriend, but at the same time, you look around and see hundreds or thousands of local citizens you still haven't met.

Danielle and Salina are helping me meet new people. On Friday night, Danielle encouraged me to go to a Big Maracas concert at BCTC which was also a dance. I went, and I met some nice young women. Then last night, Salina and I went to a formal event for the Woodford Hounds (foxhunting) group, and I crossed paths with a whole new world of women. It was quite a thrill, especially since a good percentage of these women were wearing spaghetti-strapped or strapless dresses, mmmmm.

If I ever settle down with one of these women, and if we ever have a son, I am definitely pointing this boy toward ballroom dancing when he reaches adolescence. He'll resist, but it won't be difficult to convince him that women are attracted to a good dancer. "If it weren't for my waltz skills, you'd've never been born," I'll say.

make your way into my 2006 archives: March, February, January — or my 2005 archives: December, November, October, September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February, and January. Or just head over to my news page from 2005 and 2004

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