March 23, 2004 - Today the morning was filled with an hours worth of Pulse meeting and some other random stuff. I had lunch with Tim Waters, Kim Thompson, and Carl Wetterhan at Goldstar. I'm not much of a Goldstar fan (they're cheese fries mask the inferior taste of the chili) but I'll eat there since Kim likes it. We rode in the Buick Century. Everyone got a kick out of how it looks like it is from 1989 and the left turn signal doesn't work. I didn't know it until at lunch time that it was Carl's birthday. Carl and I had plans to play racquetball after work. I'm surprised he decided to play me on his birthday rather than doing something with him family. After work we played racquetball up at NKU. I got there early and ran 12 laps arouund the track first. My mile pace was 8 minutes, 26 seconds. I need to either improve that time substantially, or start running at least 2 miles. Carl and I had 2 fun games of racquetball and then I got home to make dinner for Vanessa. This was the first time she was coming to my apartment so I figured she would get lost and need directions. She actually ended up getting to my place with no real problems, just a few minutes late, which wasn't a big deal at all. My plan to make some kind of chicken turned into less than desirable BBQ chicken when I noticed that the chicken was actually chicken tenders rather than chicken breasts. Oh well, I made it work. Dinner was reasonably good. Since I don't have a TV, it forced Vanessa and I to talk to each other, rather than sit and watch TV. On one hand, that makes it awkward, but on the other, I like it because it forces me to be more sociable. Vanessa gave me a pretty good backrub that would be upgraded to great if it were longer. It was still pretty good, though. Vanessa and I ate ice cream, washed the dishes, and then she took off.