I WAS ABDUCTED BY ALIENS.

So, about the time that Bones should have been on (instead of American Idol which I’ve never watched), I was wondering how early I could go to bed. I’ve been tired all week and, of course, haven’t been getting enough sleep. Somehow I’m missing time from 8:15PM to 9:00PM. The snoring coming from the room should have no bearing on the FACT that I was ABDUCTED by ALIENS because of the MISSING TIME. Well, I don’t feel like I’ve been probed and feel a little more refreshed, but that’s my story and I’m sticking with it. It makes my Wednesday night sound more exciting.

Comic relief.

I think my position at the gym is to be comic relief. Most people there probably don’t think I’m funny, but that’s OK. They had the stair climbing things all moved around to clean underneath them, so I got on the one that was furthest in front and told the other people that I was winning. Stuff like that.

It snowed last night but of course it didn’t stick on any of the roads in my commute. I stayed up a little late trying to un-screw-up my computer thinking that I had a slim chance of getting to sleep in. Of course I didn’t get to sleep in. There was also a low pressure zone that made everyone sleepy and getting less sleep didn’t help things. I really should learn to plan ahead for these kind of things.

Why do plumbing problems show up at night?

I have great respect for plumbers, but I still try to fix things on my own. That is where I am foolish. But one problem I have is that plumbing problems seem to show up at night for me. My nemesis, the upstairs toilet, wouldn’t shut off the other night. I fixed it temporarily and got back to it on the weekend, but it clogged itself up last night. I was taking care of some BUSINESS before I went to sleep and I thought it would overflow. I still had to scramble to find the plunger and then use the plunger on an already occupied toilet bowl. Ick, ick, ick.

I remember finding most of the water pipe leaks in the basement at night, and the bathtub drain finally completely clogged up when I was taking a shower just before I went to bed, after going to the gym. Like Earl (my buddy Greg’s brother-in-law) says, “It’ll never happen when your bonus check comes in. You might as well fix it now.”

Not such a ‘mo after all.

I didn’t watch the Academy awards AT ALL tonight. Instead, I first watched a Harry Potter movie and then went to a friend’s house to drink mead and watch Amiga demos. That’s kind of strange in itself but just geeky strange.

Not much going on this weekend. I went to a friend’s birthday party, but he failed to mention it was his birthday and he also invited people at the last minute. This meant there really wasn’t anyone there except me, and I didn’t get him anything. Of course the two beers I had made me comfortable enough that I slept in quite late today. It was such a miserably rainy day that sleeping in was probably the best idea. When I got up I continued my odd hobby of destroying my perfectly working computers. Now one in the basement won’t reboot without my standing in front of it and typing things. All this expensive computer equipment and it never seems to do exactly what I want. I wonder if there are any cheap hobbies I could take up instead.

So what’s this Chapstick for?

I wonder. Chapped lips wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for all the coffee I drink.

That’s pretty much as much thinking as I can do on a Friday night. I can’t understand all these kids who go out on Fridays. I’m lucky if I make it somewhere to take a nap.

I think I’ve been here before.

I think I mentioned a time in the past month when one project lead told me that I had a deadline but I had to ask the other project lead what it was and then finally had to ask the project manager for clarification. Today I was told by one project lead that I had a deadline next week but I wouldn’t be getting the software until next week and that I better talk to the other project lead for clarification. I immediately emailed everyone, asking for clarification. Turns out it was a false alarm. The weird part is that the first project lead came by and flatly denied that he had ever told me anything. I thought I was going nuts until I was told by others that he pulls this stunt all the time.

I remember a dream last night where I was at a fancy party with one of the women from the gym who happens to be a recent nursing school graduate. What I remember is being in a black suit (like the only suit I have that halfway fits) and she was wearing a green dress with a shawl. She has red hair, and I think it was up. The more I describe it, the more it sounds like an ad from a fashion magazine.

In reality, I went to the gym today and put all my stuff, including my wallet and cell phone and car keys, into my locker and latched my combination lock but I FORGOT TO CLOSE THE DOOR ALL THE WAY. So the door was locked, but it was wide open. There’s the difference between dreams and reality.

I wonder if dreaming in ads from fashion magazines mean I am playing for the other team?

Not much Wednesday, either.

So I was having one of those days where I was told that I had to get some programs working on Microsoft Vista (which nobody’s given me) on a computer I don’t have any more by a guy who couldn’t understand my explanation of what we have been doing in the past several weeks. I think I currently have two layers of management who know nothing. I’m surprised they remember to eat or to put on clean clothing. In any case, after I explained to one guy how the eight-year-old program we were given that has been obsoleted for about five years will never work on Vista, and how the thing we’ve been calling a “script” is in fact a compiled program so we can’t fix it, he didn’t understand. Heck the other guy is from China and he understand English well enough to get what I’m saying but this guy does not. Anyway, the confused guy tried to get someone else to do my job because I’m waiting for an email for more information from a guy who isn’t in the office this week and non-English-understander thinks that means I’m refusing to do work.

Now that your eyes have glossed over: I left work early with a headache. You probably got a headache by reading why I got my headache. I felt hot and I felt tired. I ended up taking a long nap after I got home and worried that I was catching whatever my interviewer had yesterday. I feel much better, though, and even had an odd dream that would have been a certain type of naughty dream had I been much younger. As it was it was quite clinical but novel. Sort of like watching CSI but different. Well, I suppose it would be like watching CSI if it was just an hour of Jorja Fox or something. I could swear she plays for the other team though.

Flat Tuesday.

I knew there was something wrong when the garbage truck was blocking my commute again. They don’t stop very close to the curb so they can wheel the garbage can up to the truck and then they don’t care if they’re blocking traffic. I know they’re just trying to do their job, but I’m not harming or impeding them, so I can complain since they annoy me, right?

There was this really cute woman at the gym who just signed up today and had incredible musculature. Just looking at her back you could tell that she’s training for competition. One of the guys who seems like he plays for the other team and who also owns a Civic Hybrid and I were both saying, “Man, I wish I had her muscles.” The interesting bit was that she didn’t have the Hapsburg jaw you see in many women bodybuilders. Maybe there are just more inbred Austrian female weightlifters in my life. Who knows?

Oh, I think my interviews went well, but there could be more qualified applicants. We’ll see.

Why didn’t I study?

Well, there’s a good answer to that question but it all probably boils down to procrastination. Sort of how the dorm room got cleaner near finals week. I know I was supposed to study up for my interviews on Tuesday, but I haven’t been a crammer of facts since I was a pre-med. They surely could quiz me on engineering trivia and I’d do a poor job of parroting back facts to them. Mainly because instead of buying a book on programming, I read two mysteries and tried to get kernel debugging working over a serial line. Oh, and I went to that ham radio swap meet where, really, the best part was seeing a bunch of people I hadn’t seen since the last ham radio swap meet.

I was also supposed to meet up with some friends who told me to call but then refused to answer their phone when I did call. Drinking mead and watching Amiga demos. In other words, circling the geek drain.

I’m scheduled to go to the gym three times this week and my biceps are sore from last Thursday. I think I saw a bunch of women I’ll never ask out and it’s just as well. Who has time for dating when they’re doing ham radio and computer stuff all weekend?

My lost Valentimes day present to myself.

Yeah, I misspelled it to keep the evil spirits away.

Apparently the $20 Harbor Freight Sawzall knock-off was only on sale until the 14th of the month and I no longer have a chance to have something that funny. I’ll have to wait until it goes on sale again.

Yesterday there was a dude at the gym who smelled horrible. He wasn’t even wearing gym clothes, just a tank-top undershirt and slacks. He was even wearing dress shoes. The worst part is that it smelled like he bathed in onions before he showed up. Yuck-a-doodle-doo. I also found out that one of the trainers had broken up with his girlfriend, and that lead me to have more fantasy fodder. But heck, it’s not like I ever ask anyone out and get put on dontdatehimgirl.com. (I actually know someone listed on there!)

I had the day off today. My boss told me, “Take Friday off. I won’t be there,” so that’s what I did. Didn’t accomplish all that much, but I wasn’t at work either. Yay.

So many plans to be lazy.

I had spaghetti for dinner tonight, which means I was sitting around thinking, “Dear god why did I eat so much,” when a friend’s dad called. His step-daughter was playing host to a couple of little girls from Japan and no one spoke Japanese. They had a English-to-Japanese translator gizmo, but the keys were labeled in Japanese, making it a bit useless. In any case, I spoke about three sentences to the kids who were perfectly happy playing around being kids. It was nice to see the step-daughter and her family; I hadn’t seen her in at least fifteen years because her son is now fifteen!

It’s all kind of strange, because my friend works in the next building at Intel, and I also house-sit for his dad about once every two years, and the stepsister/stepdaughter lives about two blocks from the dad’s house but I still haven’t run into her in years. She’s even a hairdresser like Megan.

In any case, that was my excitement for the day. That and the realization that I have TWO computers I can use to replace the one I’m supposed to give to Mr. Jr. Slab. Oh, plus that the ham radio swap meet is probably this weekend. Yeah, lots of opportunities to make myself even more attractive to the ladies: computers and ham radio.

Drinking wine, spodeeodee.

So would you expect that rather than go to the gym I’d be drinking beer on a Tuesday at the beach? It was a quiet end to a day where my sister and I drove out to the beach for our friends’ grandfather’s funeral. I didn’t even know his name until last week, since they just called him Boppy.

After the funeral, several of us went to the pub down the street from the grandparents’ house and, for some reason, ate a bunch of salads. This means my lunch for the day was reception cookies and a green salad plus several beers. For those of you lucky enough to be in Oregon, you may know the effect of Terminal Gravity IPA. Fortunately, my sister doesn’t drink, so I let her drive the hour-and-a-half back  to Portland.

Coincidentally, the bar at the beach is owned by a old neighbor who went to grade school with us in Portland. He went to my high school as well. He always kind of had a crush on my little sister, but she’s pretty oblivious to things like that.