It’s 4:00 am and I can’t sleep.

I’ve been meaning to blog. Really, I have. But … There’s always a “but”, isn’t there? Of course there is. And it’s always something ridiculous like “I had to watch one more episode of Battlestar Galactica” or some other time-sucking necessity. I know. It’s true.

So, I’ve meant to blog. But tedium got in the way. Danielle’s needed help with a flat tire. Then the flat tire had to be replaced. Being the only person in the house with an abundance of free time meant I got to search dealerships for the best rates and wait with the car while all the necessary stuff was inflated and rotated and stuff.

Also, my car ran into a minor, self-inflicted issue. The check engine light appeared, alleging that the coolant temperature sensor was busted. The part was $7 and easy to replace, so I replaced it. Except I left the old o-ring in the tube, so the sensor was not secured by the clip. I knew something was wrong, but chose the moron path. The first time I drove after this repair, being cautious to verify that everything was good, I journeyed no more than one mile from my house before my car had spilled all of its coolant. I caused no damage to the car, but more days lost with getting everything back to normal.

I also bought a new car. I ordered it, actually, but it isn’t here yet. It ships today. More on this later.

Most importantly, reports that joblessness will lead to a significant increase in productivity for hobbies and long-buried dreams are all false. At least for me. I needed a break when this stretch started in April. I needed it into May and probably beyond. But at some point, I tipped from regenerating to degenerating. That point snuck by me unnoticed. In the future I’ll pay more attention should this scenario arise again because now I know it’s part of this fun.

This time around, though, wow. Now I know what it’s like to let nearly 6 months pass and have not nearly enough to show for it. This is not bad, but it must stop. If that makes sense. I want to write more, both here and not here. I must accomplish tasks for my house. There’s missing drywall in my garage from a leak many months ago, for example. Cold weather isn’t that far away, my garage is a mess, and a new car needs to park where there is now just a mountain of disorganized uselessness. And so on.

Since I’ve done nothing but scour the Internet with a less-than-focused attention, I’ll start refocusing. The internet is wonderful but only a low level of mindless wandering is worth the expense. If I’m going to surf for the blog, I should blog. I’m going back to work soon, so I expect my overall productivity will increase. I want to do more, too.

For starters, to ease back in, I liked this post from Scott Adams on freedom:

Thanks to religious restrictions on freedom in the United States, we have a long list of things you can’t do (at least whenever you want): prostitution, marijuana, euthanasia, gambling, polygamy, and on and on. You might argue that the law is just trying to protect people from harm. But if that were the case, bicycles would be illegal.

The details on some of those list items are important, but yes. Yes.

The short version of this entry is that I’m still here and plan to be here for a long time. Even though I don’t demonstrate it sometimes. Still, blogging at 4:00 am must count for something, right?