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I need some advice, PITF readers. Since our office move I have lost my gym, and I need to find a new one – stat. I am reasonably sure that my several months of lethargy have been the root of some greater issues – including a creativity lapse that would make Jayson Blair do a doubletake. I’m not looking to join a spinning class or get into Yoga – I simply want an eliptical and some freeweights. Maybe a bench press thrown in for good measure. Where should I look?

It also has to be close to the Financial District and/or North End. If I have to take a detour on the way to or from work to get to the gym, it’ll be easier for me to justify not going. Know thyself. Know thyself does not like to go to the gym. Once I get into the groove it’ll be easy. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. I simply need my location of cardiac enhancement to be proximous to both my dwelling and workplace, old chap. I also don’t want it to be mobbed at all hours of the day and night. I’m not interested in any social aspect. In fact, if I could work out in a parallel dimension, I would.

Help me out, kids. Where’s good and where’s close? My arteries thank you in advance. Of severe clogging. Maybe start here.

I’ve been like that little Dutch boy with his finger stuck in the dyke for the last couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah – so you’ve heard. I’ve done it to death. We get it, Pye. You’re busy at work. We know. I’ll bet you didn’t know that I’ve been coming up with some interesting methods of keeping organized as a result. I bet you also didn’t know that she gave me a ride on her Harley after the Indigo Girls concert.

I’ve tried Outlook tasks and meeting reminders. I’ve tried BaseCamp. I spent an hour on the phone getting a Salesforce plugin demo. I read Covey. I started getting to work earlier and staying later. I began delegating things I wouldn’t have dreamt of letting someone else do a month go. And then do you know what I did?

I went to CVS and bought a little maroon notebook. And now everything is fine.

People are wired differently, and I suppose when you’re in the eye of the storm you really learn a few things about yourself. What I’ve learned is that I benefit greatly from writing down every little thing I have to do over the course of a given week, because otherwise it may slide off the plate. And I mean everything. I’ve got potboilers like “haircut” and “cat litter” in there at the moment. We make my grandmother do that so she’ll remember to take her medication, so I’m not exactly over the moon about my new solution. Or not being able to steal my Grandmother’s medication anymore.

So if the next time you see me I’m jotting stuff down in a little notebook, and I tell it’s for impromptu Haiku, I’m lying. I’ve probably just reminded myself to flush the toilet.

I have never experienced a blog lull of this magnitude in my 2+ years of writing. I hate the “I’ve been so busy” excuse with a passion. You know the one I mean. That annoying cop out that some people feel absolves them of any and all guilt, regardless of what they happen to be apologizing for. It’s just before “Whatever” in the short list of Manchurian Candidate-esque trigger words that will one day land me in jail for murdering someone with an air conditioner.

“Say, weren’t we supposed to get married last weekend?”
“Yeah, sorry I got really busy. So, did you see Grey’s Anatomy?”

I am not going to rattle off all the hectic stuff that’s going on. That would be about as interesting as Grey’s Anatomy. So please just empathize a little bit with your old pal Dave. I’ll wander back soon.

I’d love to have a moment of silence today, as I usually do on September 11th, but I’ve already been deep in the middle of an entire week of silence, apparently. Life gets in the way but I shall return to the blogging fold, more prolfic than ever, this week.

In the mean time, please read this. And never forget it.

Actually, believe it. Skype lets you make free calls in North America with just a plugin microphone for your PC or laptop. Vonage costs $30 a month. Again, Skype is less functional but free. You can even call people’s actual phones from your computer. One of the reasons I talk on the celly so little is that I hate holding the tiny things in my big monkey paws. Skype allows me to chat away for free while I’m hacking away on the idiot box as per normal. So I am attempting to adopt the technology and I encourage you to check it out too. If you become, or already are, a user – I can be reached at the username Pyeman73. What’s the matter, you can’t call nobody?

Not that I spend a lot of time blogging on the weekends due to conciousness issues, but the head’s up is I am off to Canada until Monday night. Building headaches have been driving me squirrelly as per usual, and although it’s poor timing being September 1st and all (as everyone moves in/out on this date) I am frigging off and becoming incommunicado for the next 72 hours.

You’ll be fine without me. I’m off to drink Canadians on my folks’ new pontoon boat. And drive 20 hours – so feel the sudden burst of jealousy quickly fade away. There’s a True Value down the street if you need lightbulbs. I don’t do lightbulbs.

Congratulations to my friends Emily and Nick who got engaged last night – and that brings me rocketing into a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while. I seem to have developed a knack for setting people up, or at least being a peripheral catalyst in them getting together.

Nick and Emily are both former roomates of mine. Meredith and Seamus, also a building related connection, are getting married in June. Neither of those introductions were facilitated for the purposes of dating, though. I am a non-deliberate matchmaker. You could sell me a hot dog in Faneuil Hall next weekend and then probably meet the woman of your dreams in line behind me. Granted she’d be slathering mustard all over a footlong and drooling after 3 shots of Jaeger at Ned Devine’s, but Cupid doesn’t worry about overserving.

We’re talking about marriages here, not dating, which is why I thought it worthy of note. I don’t like to introduce people, because I’ve seen it go so horribly wrong many times in the past. The worst is when someone sets you up with a complete ditch pig because you’re then forced to ask yourself why the mutual friend went so far out of their way to connect the two of you. Is this what they think your league is? “Not to be a dick, but your friend has ridges on her back and I think I see a tail poking through in the back. Either that, or she’s crapped herself“. And then you get a little offended/hurt/a condom.

So I stay away from it. But if you want to meet that someone special come hang out in my orbit for awhile. I seem to have some sort of accidedntal magic power. And obviously the other major dating bulletpoint to take away from this is don’t crap yourself in line at the hot dog stand outside of Ned Devine’s.

I am pleased to announce that I now have my own Watchdog Blog. For those of you scratching your head, here’s a definition:

“Watchdog journalism refers to forms of activist journalism aimed at holding accountable public personalities and institutions whose functions impact on the social and political life.”

So thanks very much, Jason. The world needs to stay current on how frequently I mention Eric Bana on PITF. We can sleep soundly now. I hope to see you at the lake this weekend.

I really want to share some of these amazing new “Web 2.0” sites with y’all readers. If you’re uninitiated, Web 2.0 is defined as sites that “let people collaborate and share information online in a new way.” You’re all familiar with MySpace and YouTube – but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg is large, and hidden mostly under the ocean of wet webiness or something.

This is the ultimate Web 2.0 site list in existence, and here is a great Web 2.0 ranking list by marketing guru Seth Godin. Some of the sites I’ve been enjoying are Squidoo, Digg and Del.icio.us of which I’m attemptimg to learn the benefits as they relate to search engine marketing, SEO and SMO. I’ve just bought a desk microphone so that I can begin playing with Skype, and Wikipedia is an incredible resource that you may have already come across. But again – large piece of dangerous ice just out of eyeshot.

If I had to pick one that’s been flying under the radar I think folks will want to check out, it’s Meebo. If your company has a firewall, or IM applications have been disabled by your network administrators, stick it to them with this “web based IM that lets you log into your IM networks from any computer with a browser and internet connection with no firewall issues. It employs technologies that make it act more like a desktop application, which dramatically improves usability.” Improves, usability – yet is shockingly detrimental to office productivity. Still, very neat.

The internet is still in its infancy, and it’s only going to get more interesting and fun. This really is a great time to be alive, and I hope you click through and check out some of the next wave in web functionality. Even if it’s just so I don’t look like as much of a toolshed.