Well, her in-laws (and her sister-in-law and niece-in-law) were all in town and so she’s been busy. We all met up for dinner today and it cost me less than the dinner I had by myself in Boston’s North End. I think I know her big secret, and the secret is I WANT A NEW LAPTOP. Well, I want my laptop back and then I want to sell it to her when the new Intel MacBooks come out. The rumor on the intarweb is sometime this fall.

OK, so it’s not her secret, it’s my nefarious scheme, but whatever. Those of you who are coming here because Mariko’s not posting: this is as good as it’s gonna get. I can’t cook, I haven’t sewed anything since the teddy bear I made for my ex-fiancee about 14 years ago, and I don’t think I’ve knit anything other than a lopsided scarf in grade school. I can’t understand why no one believes I sewed a teddy bear. I can’t believe I put a whole bag of stuffing in that thing.

This is just a reminder that she NEEDS TO GIVE ME HER LIST or she’s not getting any loot for her birthday (which was several days ago.)

We’re all looking for things at Megacorp that give us hints on whether we’re getting canned or not. For example, a co-worker was the only one in his group who didn’t get asked for a “personal development plan.” Sometimes it’s much more obvious, like how my manager sent out a monthly status report and listed the members of his group, including interns and temporary contractors, but NOT ME. Kind of ominous, huh?

If I get canned, I’m taking a trip to Japan, I think. At the very least I’m going to a state or province I’ve never been to. I’ve never been to Alberta or Nevada, for example, and those aren’t too far away. Or maybe I’ll just go to Crater Lake in Southern Oregon. Maybe I’ll just go to the Lents neighborhood. I really haven’t been to Felony Flats in a long time.

At least football season is starting soon.

Sometimes Burgerville is one of the better places to go for burgers in Portland. Today I proved to myself that sometimes they serve inedible pucks. I think if you’re going to pay $8 for a burger, fries, and shake, they should be a little better than what I got today. I’d suggest Skyline Burgers or Red Coach downtown if you’re looking for a good Portland hamburger and I’d steer you away from Burgerville any more. They’re just too uneven.

In any case, I should admit that I had TWO BEERS and then I DROVE TO TIGARD today. But first, I didn’t fill the cup more than a third full, and the cup was a 4-oz taster glass. I made sure the cup had the logo of a (defunct) local brewery rather than a “URINE SPECIMEN” label on the side of it.

The reason I had to drive to Tigard was because I had to make a deal with my buddy Il’s arm to get him to go to a geek picnic. Some high-class geeks, like the guy who wrote the first Wiki software (like the stuff that runs wikipedia) but that’s just because he lives in town. Il knows all the geeks but he doesn’t come outside very often except to ride his bike. My part of the deal was to help Il drag his garden shed through his backyard of thistles so it wasn’t leaning up against his house. He has painters coming to this week, I guess, and he couldn’t move the shed by himself.

The things I do to get myself out of the house.

I should have posted something last night since I did a bit more than just watch Monk and Psych. I actually backed up my MacBook Pro and made an appointment to have the weird sizzling sound looked at. I saw on some Mac news site that AppleCare now takes care of the weird sounds made by the laptops, but they were never very clear on what sounds needed to be fixed; you just had to take your laptop to the Mac Store. So I made an appointment for 7:15PM on a Friday night, waited in line until 8:10PM, and finally had the guy take my laptop for repair.

So then I had to work with my “backup” computer, a G4 400. Holy crap is it slow compared to my new computer. It wasn’t a speed demon when I bought it back in 1998 but I never thought it was this slow. Ah, well.

Today I went to my old boss’ yearly Caribbean party. I see lots of people I used to work with who I only see once a year now. He looked pretty tired and there’s no wonder. His company just announced a 14% layoff and they haven’t said who that 14% is. I got back and tried to look up in the sky for the meteor shower, but I didn’t see anything. I think I’d rather sleep than play city astronomer, anyway.

So while my stories of the gym tend to be about the women I don’t talk to, today they’re about dudes. I was talking to a psychiatrist about running (not during therapy, at the gym, pay attention) and I was telling him how I think it gets my blood sugar down and makes me cranky. When I’m running, all the mountain bikers make me mad, all the dogs off leash make me mad, other runners make me mad, etc. He said he thought I was always laughing and can’t imagine me cranky. AHAHAHAHA. Little does he know.

The other thing is that I think I figured out the song I’ve been looking for. They like playing upbeat dance music, and I think it’s a remix of “Amazing” by George Michael. Yet another sign of my manliness.

In any case, there weren’t all that many people at the gym today, but I did speak to several (married) women and did mention to one that my boobies hurt. OK, so they’re my pectoral muscles, but I thought it was funnier my way. Plus, everyone likes boobies.

So I made it back. A whole trip to SF for a 2 1/2 hour meeting, which was actually worth it. I slept on the way down, only waking up to think, “Geez, someone farted. I sure hope it wasn’t me,” and then falling back asleep. The guy at the Hertz counter in San Jose totally led me astray and told me to take the 101 and it took 1 hr 20 min to get about 5 miles. I switched to the 280 and the rest of the trip took me 40 minutes! Keeping up with traffic on the 280 is fun. It’s somewhere between 65MPH (the posted limit) and 90MPH in the fast lanes and you know what it’s like to drive a rental car.

The first thing I did was go to Beard Papa for cream puffs. I say it was for my sister, but I got 18 of them, gave one to Megan on the way back, and ended up with 6 of them for my ma. They’re delicious, by the way. However, they slightly smell of feet, and if you have them in an unknown car you don’t know if the smell is coming from the cream puffs or from the air conditioner. (I think it’s the yeast or something in the tasty pastry shell.) The guys are totally nice and will let you pick up the cream puffs later in the day.

I wandered around before my lunch meeting to see if I could pick up birthday presents for my sister, but didn’t find much but HOT HOT HEAT. I found where they moved the Sanrio store, but she’s not doing that much Hello Kitty stuff any more. I also went to Peet’s Coffee and I found it much like Portland but no one had piercings or tattoos. In fact, San Francisco was a lot like Portland, except there were lots of Asian people, the Asian people spoke English, and the white people did not.

I almost missed my plane back, and I hope it doesn’t get back to my employer. I started by leaving the Apple WWDC late. I was meeting guys who I only know online. I told one guy, “You look younger than your picture,” (he’s a college prof), and he said, “That’s because that’s an old picture.” The other guy I knew looked more dashing in person, but he’s Irish and married and moving to Winnipeg or something. Anyway, after leaving that gathering late, I went to visit Megan, and I left Palo Alto with very little time to spare. So, of course, I stopped at In-N-Out Burger for a single cheeseburger, animal style, to go. I got to the airport after check-in started, and went to the WRONG END OF THE AIRPORT! I barely got there in time, and when I got to the counter the guy said, “You must be Todd.” But I didn’t miss the flight. It even boarded early after I got there.

When I got back, I drove straight to my sister’s place to deliver the pastries. You can see proof! I did not eat them all myself!

I have to get up tomorrow around 4:15AM, drive 30 minutes to the airport, take a 2 hour flight to San Jose airport, get a rental car, drive 2 hours to San Francisco, meet a guy for an hour or two, get back in the rental car, drive two hours back to San Jose, get in the plane for the two hour flight back to Portland, and then drive home.

And what am I doing up so late? Printing out maps to Beard Papa (I dunno, ask my sister) and to In-N-Out burger. Hells yes.

Mondays are Mondays and I had a slight mishap with the medicine I take every day. If I screw up, my stomach hurts all day long. It feels like there’s gas building up, but it never seems to end until much later in the day. It sure didn’t help my productivity at work today. Plus, I had a headache all last night and I woke up with it as well. And it was hot and humid most of the night.

Lots of complaining, or lots of things to complain about. That’s what I expect on a Monday.

I knew it wasn’t just me being nerdy when I told my sister I might go to the gym and she said, “But it’s such a nice day. You should stay in and read a book.” That’s mainly what I ended up doing, and one of the reasons I don’t like starting books like that. I end up reading them all day long. Well, I did wash the cars (like I hate doing) because the windows were getting dusty and it was getting hard to see when the glare hit them during the commute. During the summer the school yard dries out and the wind blows all the dust from the field up to the house. When there’s any moisture on the cars, like dew, the dust sticks to it and you can imagine what happens. The cars have a film of dirt on them. In any case, weekends aren’t all that exciting here.

I got my new battery (there was a recall) and I think I hear some of the noises that are supposed to require the intervention of AppleCare warranty support, but I can’t really tell. Maybe I’ll take it in. I’m not sure.

I got back from work today and I took a little nap. I think it was a little nap, anyway, but it may have been quite long. I heard another rumor today from my old boss who is very, very well connected. Two more rounds of layoffs, he says. We’ll see how that goes.

And besides that, it was another boring Friday. Watched lots of TV after getting up from a nap. What would you expect?

Sometime in the past I said I’d post a picture of Dave the Trainer. He doesn’t look like my sister thought he’d look (she imagined a tall blonde dude) but here he is.

You can’t tell by the picture, but his biceps are ginormous while mine are still quite puny. He usually has a very serious look at the gym, but you can probably see that he’s quite silly. For example, a conversation at the gym:

Dave: Wow, Ms. X is looking quite hot lately.  I’d do her after I had a few beers.

Me: I’d do her after she had a few beers.

I’m not condoning anything illegal here, I’m just saying the judgement which needs impairing wouldn’t be mine.

I was also thinking of other things that make women seem more attractive to me. Women driving Audis and Beemers do nothing for me, but I saw some woman get into an old 70’s Dodge Dart and that kind of got me going.

So far it sounds like my preference in women is tall and driving a hoopty. I wonder what that says about me.

So I figure close to no one is reading this, and that’s just insulting to the several of you who go to the trouble of starting a web browser or whatever the kids do nowadays to access the intarweb, when I got a message from SOMEONE AT MEGACORP. I am in such trouble. My co-workers (all bazillion of them) should not know what evil lurks in the heart of this man. Well, I’m sort of a “man.” And I must have some sort of heart, since something makes this thudding noise when I’m trying to get to sleep at night and I’m pretty sure it’s not a off-balance washing machine. Nobody does laundry that often.

Anyway, I’m in so much trouble that I should just come out and say again, I LIKE TALL WOMEN. I ask almost no one out, of course, so that means I do a lot of looking and not much else. You can see the tall ones from further away. Or is that farther away? That’s one I keep screwing up. In any case, SOMEONE I KNOW went out on some sort of SECRET DATE with a dude who is SHORTER THAN SHE IS. (She’s not all that tall, by the way.) Does that mean I can go out with women who are, say, 6’3″? One can only dream.