I’ve written several blog entries about how much email I send. For instance, late in 2003 I publicly admitted that I had sent 4600+ emails that year. I’ve also written about particular days in which I’ve sent strangely high amounts of email. All these figures count every kind of email I send (personal, professional, etc), but they only count ones that I’ve typed myself. No automation.

Let me break it down like this, in super-geeky-way-too-much-detail-push-up-your-glasses-and-snort fashion:

In 2003 I sent 4600+ emails.
In 2004 I sent 3501 emails. Perhaps I was in a slump.
In 2005 I sent 4571 emails. I was pickin’ it back up.

I’m proud to announce that this is a record-breaking year. So far this year (so far mind you) I have sent 5060 emails. 5060!!! It’s June 20th, and I’ve sent more since January 1st, 2006 than I sent in the entire year of 2005. What is that… almost 30 emails per day on average? Including weekends. Yeah.

I guess I’m hitting my stride.

If I keep up this trend, by 2010 I’ll be doing about 550 a day. Maybe by the time I’m on my deathbed, over half the Internet’s email traffic will be me. I’ll be there, wheezing and typing, thinking, “Just one more…”

Tomorrow is my good budddy Kevin Hendricks’ birthday. I was thinking about Kevin recently because another friend of mine and I were talking about radio shows, and somehow I got around to telling him about how I was once kidnapped while on the air at a college radio station, and my cohort Kevin was held hostage in the station itself. This all happened live on our radio show, Mission Control. He was aghast until I explained that it was done by people we knew, and it was a practical joke. Then I remembered I still have the recordings of that event, so I shared them with him, and he really liked them.

I went back and listened to them myself, too. I’ve gotta tell ya, Kevin totally takes the cake in this recording. His timing is right on, his reactions are perfect (and totally unrehearsed). It was our best show ever. So for anyone out there who enjoyed Mission Control, didn’t enjoy Mission Control because WBCS’ signal was too weak, or took part in the kidnapping itself, enjoy. It’s been over seven years since that event, but I feel like it was… well… maybe like it was three.

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

Mission Control – The Kidnapping (3/22/99) (5.4 MB zip file)

Read Kevin’s retelling of the event (see “03.22.99 – Monday”), written later that same night.

Update (6/15): two of the “terrorists” involved in this event have responded privately to me today, and I have been supplied with a local copy of a website written around the time of these events, chronicling what happened from the perspective of one of the lead terrorists, who we’ll call “Nate.” Because that’s his name. Read his twisted account of the events, view exclusive photos taken amidst the chaos of that dark night, and understand the mind of a dangerous criminal!

Do clams have eyes?

You’ll probably never see a spider on a commercial airliner.

Since I don’t have much time, I’ll keep it simple. I just bought one of these:

…to replace one of these:

I’m extremely excited about it. The Element has an auxiliary input jack for the stereo, so my iPod’s sound is totally pristine. No radio fuzz or tape wheel squeaking going on. I’ve even got a sweet little iPod mounting arm on the dashboard that charges the iPod and holds it in place as it plays music. It’s got seven speakers and a subwoofer, too. And five cup holders. Add the dorky-yet-hip, orange-lunchbox-on-wheels aesthetic, and it’s clear this is the perfect car for me.

Aside from that, you can take the back two seats out and have more room than you’d ever know what to do with. You can literally hose the Element’s floors off if they get dirty. It’s got a power outlet in the front and in the back. I actually considered setting up a little desk in the back with a power strip, and just war driving around to see what I could find. Yes, it’ll take surfboards to the beach. Yes, I’ll actually do that with it, too.

Steph wrote this up pretty well already, so I’d encourage you all to take a look at the entry she just wrote. In short: new puppy.

Also, I put a few more pics of Ella up on my Flickr page.

We came back to California from our Minnesotan Christmas vacation at midnight on the morning of the 31st. Just after I woke up later that morning, Comcast had problems with their ‘Net connection, and the whole thing went down until about 10pm. It was due to “weather-related difficulties.”

Then, on the morning of the 1st at about 9:40am, the power went out. Actually it went out, came back, and went out again. And it stayed out until this morning at 6am. This was also due to “weather-related difficulties.” We had no heat. It was raining outside and the whole place felt damp. The laundry piled up (you know how it can get after a vacation). We cleaned our house by fluorescent lantern light. We didn’t vacuum. One part of me says it was a fun, unique experience. That’s true, but a larger, more vocal part of me says it sucked.

I am so glad the power is back. All my initial anger about the long loss of power went away entirely when I woke up and saw the glow of the ceiling light coming from the hallway, and realized I was too hot because the heat had come back on and I had optimistically turned it up a bit yesterday afternoon. I just pray the power stays on this time.

If PG&E wasn’t a monopoly, I’d be switching right now. But they are, so I guess they’ve still got my business. I know, “weather-related difficulties” is a really good excuse, but I want a company whose systems are more robust than “weather-related difficulties.” You could say I’m being unreasonable. You could also tell me when the last time was that you were without power for an entire day.

Happy New Year!