The single life chronicles continued: sorry for taking off a week. Life is settling down and getting much more enjoyable than it's been in months.

I must say that usually I blog for selfish reasons. I like to write and I like to talk about all the folks I know. But, this month my blog is doing something different. It's connecting with people in a way that I've never seen before.

See, when you admit you're having troubles, all sorts of other people say "hey, I screwed up too, wanna compare scars?" It's the first time that people have written me and said "your weblog really helped me cause I'm going through the same thing."

It's interesting now that I'm on the other side and things are getting better. Patrick, my eight-year-old son, is taking things great. I'm worried about that.

We're having such a ball. We haven't had so much fun in months. We had a pillow fight tonight and I realized we were just having fun. Awesome.

We're in the middle of a movie marathon. Buying a DVD player was a very good idea. Yes, save your emails, I already know about NetFlix.com. You won't believe how many people have told me about NetFlix since I got a DVD player. I think they are well on their way to surviving the economic downturn.

I notice that Blockbuster is busy. Hey, if you're laid off in Silicon Valley, what's better than a $3.79 DVD rental and a bag of $.79 microwave popcorn? No, I'm not laid off, but a lot of people in the valley are. Things seem to slowly be getting back to normal, though.

I notice I'm taking stock of a lot of economic indicators in the valley lately. Watching for the rebound. Guess what, I think it's here. Apple and NVidia's parking lots are always full, even late at night.

I am getting stuck in more and more traffic jams again.

Speaking of economics, hey, you haven't lived until you've been at the Sand Hill Road version of Bank of America. Now, since I'm doing the books at UserLand I have to go to the bank every so often to drop checks into our account.

I've been in probably five different branches, but the Sand Hill one says "big money" like no other.

First of all, they have two flat-panel screens surrounded with nice couches and expensive coffee makers. None of that cheap swill here. Over to your left and right are stock market tickers. Further yet to your left is Simi. She takes care of me and knows my name when I arrive and always says hi. The rich do get better service. Simi always treats me like I'm some sort of millionaire. I keep thinking I have her all fooled.

Sand Hill, for those of you who don't know, is where all the big Venture Capital firms in Silicon Valley reside. The rich are still rich here.

Which gets me back to single living.

Today I went grocery shopping at one of those warehouse stores. You know the ones. Where they have a 20x20 bin of Jalapeno peppers. Youch.

I haven't done my own shopping for years. Now I gotta decide between 40 different types of bread? Man, what a world! And people say weblogging is too difficult. Hey, if you can choose between 40 different types of bread, and feel confident that you made the right choice, you're ready to write a weblog!

Single life: it's rough. I never had to make so many decisions.

But, it's rewarding. I look at my house now and messy as it is, and unfurnished that it is (it's getting better, all my friends are using me to "upgrade" their furniture ) it's all mine.

I'm so glad to come home now. Hey, I'll have you over soon. Sushi and swimming and weblogging. It's gonna be a great year!

Sometimes I think I'm not rich. But I live in a world of 20x20 bins of peppers. Does it get any better than this?

Hey, my new ISP just bought a nice new building. I met Dane Jasper, Sonic's CEO, for lunch a few months back with Leo Laporte, that guy who's face is all over TechTV. Sonic is the place where O'Reilly and Van Halen stores their servers too. Great ISP. Oh, if you ever need tech support you might meet my friend Jeff Basham. He's one of the old-time Laporteans (we frequented the KGO chat room and were on air a few times together). Oh, you'd love Dane's Porsche: his license plates are the ones that read "Linux."