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?