I got a call last Wednesday from Chris who said his courier job was going to be taking him to Tampa and back during the afternoon. He said that he would not mind some company for the four-hour roundtrip, especially with the nasty weather. I agreed and we met-up at a friend's house downtown where I would leave my car for the day (since it would have taken him a good forty-five minutes to come pick me up at home).

We got on our way and made decent time on the way to Tampa, up until around the Lakeland area, when heavy rain slowed the traffic a bit. As we continued southwest on Interstate 4, we passed through the rain which seemed to be moving in the opposite direction and were greeted with slightly overcast skies. Our destination was near the airport, so we took Interstate 4 to the end, hopped on Interstate 275 and then exited onto North Dale Mabry Highway, a significant six-lane thoroughfare in the Tampa Bay area. As we drove down Dale Mabry, I happened to glance to the left where I saw this:



Now you are probably thinking to yourself, "what the hell?" My excited pointing and exclamation upon seeing this sign was as much to a mystery to Chris then as it is to you now. "What? What?!" he kept asking. But similar to most of my little outbursts that seem to have no relevancy, there is a valid and logical explanation for my reaction.

For many, many years, I have been a fan of the sorabji.com Payphone Project, a user-input directory and photolog of public pay telephones from around the world. You can search the database to locate pay telephones indexed in your area or from one of 22 other countries. The database contains approximately 500,000 telephones and I have enjoyed ringing a few of them on occasion to try to see what random person I might chat with from the other side of the country or world.

After we fully drove past the Mons Venus adult establishment, I got to telling Chris about the Payphone Project and how sometime around 1998 or 1999 I remember seeing a photograph of their sign and the two pay telephones situated at the entrance of the building. Silly, no? On the way back from the pick-up, we started to approach Mons Venus again, this time on the same side of the street. A few blocks away and on his own accord, Chris changes into the far right lane to aide in my viewing of the famous telephone booths. And there they were, in all their glorious splendour.

The ride back to Orlando was wet, traffic-laden and hazardous but it was a fun (and for Chris, profitable) little road trip overall. Be sure to check out the three photographs and the rest of the Payphone Project website.

[ The telephones ]
[ A closer view of the telephones ]
[ The Mons Venus sign ]

It is bad enough I have so much search engine traffic from the simple mentioning of the "Playboy™ Lingerie Calendar," now I am sure people looking for this strip club will be showing-up too. The irony makes me smile.

As promised, there are two new Gallery sections with photographs from Gay Days 2003 online. The first album contains pictures I took, while the other features those taken by Ernie and company.

There are a few more photographs I am still looking to acquire from my day at the Magic Kingdom with Chris and some of his old friends from work. Once I get those, they will be added immediately.

New job? Looks that way.
As a result of last Friday's interview? Nope.
Cryptic on purpose? Of course.

Details to come soon, so keep your panties twist-free.

Yeah, so I went and bought myself a car yesterday! I borrowed my mothers' Impala, picked up Chris and went tooling around looking at different auto dealerships, used car lots and so-called "buy here, pay here" joints. It was rather entertaining trying to be sold on purchasing any variety of the Civics I viewed. One dealership in particular tried to sell me hard, working with my $4000 offer but never really giving me what I wanted. We had been at it for a few hours and were just about to toss in the towel when we made one last stop before heading back to find food.



Only thirty or so minutes after making that last ditch effort, I was driving away in my new car with Chris in the Impala behind me. I got a Black 1994 Honda Civic EX Coupe 5-Speed. There are only a few minor items that could use some attention, but with them I am not concerned. The car drives nicely and seems to have been taken care of over the years. The interior is nearly perfect and the body only has a few minor dings here and there. The windows are tinted, there is a power sunroof (something I have wanted for a while) and a Sony CD player that works, but needs to be rewired (memory is lost when car is off). The only major item that requires attention is the air conditioning, which is not functioning. It could just need a Freon recharge or perhaps the compressor itself is shot. I plan to hit up an air conditioning repair facility that offers free estimates in order to determine what the problem is there. I thought the power door locks were malfunctioning at first, but then I remembered today how Honda configures them to prevent one from locking their keys inside.

The best part about this whole deal is the price. The dealer was asking $6000 for the car. The resold dealer value I found to be approximately $5500, with all the features included. Now consider we arrived at this lot about thirty minutes before they were set to close. Suffice it to say, the staff was helpful, but did recommend perhaps waiting until Monday to think and make a decision. After taking a short test drive down SR 50, I made my offer of $4000 cash inclusive of tax, tag and title and the salesperson, Edwin, took it to his manager. When he came back, I was told that the manager was made aware of my offer and that we would be able to negotiate. The price went back and forth, but in the end my initial offer stood. Their only prerequisite was that I purchased the car right then and with cash.

As I was able to negotiate the price down to $4000, I still have about $200 with which to use on possible repairs or maintenance. Needless to say, I am very excited to be in an automobile of my own again. I was two days shy of one full month of non-mobility since the "white Civic" was in the accident. Moreover, it is paid for and done with: no more car payments!

Since I have been on my work hiatus, it is easy to forget the value that the arrival of Friday has to the standard nine-to-five employee who likely has the following two days off from work. Now that this Friday has come, I find myself in that familiar position: eagerly anticipating the day. But in this case, it is not because of the significance of the non-working days that immediately follow, but in the day itself.

It is only a bit past midnight and I am ready for bed, only waiting to finish writing this and drinking my water before crawling into my cuddly sheets and blankets. I hope I will be able to get to sleep quickly. I had not been nervous about things until now, but as several friends reassured me online earlier tonight, I know I will do fine in my job interview tomorrow morning. So, no pressure; I am going to go into this confident, see what happens and let things fall as they may.

And now for your enjoyment and as a proximate result of my own laziness and desire to get to bed at a decent hour, here are a few bullets:

• So far the vehicle search has turned up nothing solid, but I am awaiting some return telephone calls from some possibilities.



• I have decided to stop syndicating my links on blogrolling.com. It seemed silly to me that every time I added, edited or otherwise modified my links list (which is supported on Mount Sutro using a homegrown script) I had to pop over to another site and make the same changes there. However, please feel free to still use your blogrolling.com account to link to us.



• {insert something witty here}