I have trouble at my job because I actually care about what I’m doing. I also have a low tolerance for stupid people. There’s one guy at work who kept asking me about my schedule and I kept telling him that I had no idea since I’d never seen the program I was supposed to be working on. Nothing has changed but he just keeps asking me the same question. This morning, I even told him, “&*!*$ marketing, what do they know? We need a working computer to figure out how long this will take.” This afternoon he asked me again and again even after I called him a <bad word> moron. I don’t know what persistent questioning is going to do except trigger my utter rage.

The good news (for a co-worker) is that the co-worker, who had been telling our manager that our jobs were nonsense, has found a new job. This gives me a little hope that there are ways out of this group. I’ve had nightmares where I’m the last one left, though.

The term I remember about things like sinus infections is “self-limiting” which means they either get better or you die, and then you won’t care if you have a sinus infection. But really, my nose is fairly clear, my snot isn’t green or bloody, and most of my problems are from the neck down (not including the nuttiness that’s housed in my skull, of course.) I still have a cough and yesterday I had a sore throat. How’s that a sinus infection?

I got up this morning feeling pretty tired and it wasn’t getting better as the morning progressed. I decided to call it another sick day and thought I’d take a quick nap. 7AM – 12AM isn’t what I’d call a quick nap. After I got up I had some more time to install stuff on my sister’s computer. I think I found out the original problem was her programs were too old. Weird, huh? Things change in the OS level and Microsoft made some incompatible change in their latest update. Nice of them. We didn’t have to spend the $55 and two days to do all the stuff we did, but whatever.

So tomorrow it’s back to work. A couple of days ago I was helping one of the project leads, a guy with a Masters degree in Computer Science, with a programming problem he had. As an ex-lab-tutor, I know the sorts of problems they get in 100-level (i.e. college freshman) programming courses and this guy had no clue what he was doing. He couldn’t even do simple binary math. And I can’t get a programming job. There’s something seriously wrong with this picture.

Guess who is reinstalling XP Home AGAIN on his sister’s computer? You can probably guess. I figured out what I was doing wrong yesterday (USB floppy disk stops being recognized in the middle of an installation), but there’s always something else that will screw you with a Dell computer. I guess I can’t say that much because my non-Dell computer started acting up again as well.

I had to leave work early to take a nap because I am BEAT and here it is, close to my bed time, and I’m still working on my sister’s computer. Oh, well. Take a look at the $100 hair cuts on those two:

Megan gave us hair cuts and she knows what she’s doing.

Oh, and to get more cake info for yesterday’s cake picture, ask my sister. All I remember is espresso, shortbread-something, and double or triple or quadruple chocolate. Mmmm, cake.

I suppose I wasn’t at work for a full day because I left early to try to fix my sister’s computer. I was only half-successful at the repair and it took me six hours! I am not enamored of the Dell way of taking perfectly good hardware and twisting it into their own proprietary hell, but I suppose that’s what they do. Oh, and Windows blows, too. In any case, I could be back at this in a couple of days. Work is also not my favorite place to be, either.

And once again, sick boy is not properly convalescing, but he’s up late screwing around. I can’t just come home and hop into bed, for some reason. This morning I had a LARGE VOLUME of boogers draining from my head and I hope this ends soon. I’m sure no one wants to hear about it any more, either. Even worse, my cough is keeping me from the gym, and the gym is what keeps me semi-sane.

I was going to post something more about the trip we took, and how we met Megan’s neighbors and friends as well as people Mariko went to school with, but I’m not sure why I’m still up at this point. I really should be asleep. Well, I should be lying in bed coughing, wishing I was asleep anyway.

Much like I couldn’t figure out the kanji in my stupid camera, I’m having troubles with iPhoto and I can’t figure out how to show you Megan’s three giant cakes. I’m afraid there’s nothing near them to show you just how ginormous they were. The one on the right (if I ever get the picture up here) was a foot and a half tall. Or more.

So the quick story is that my sister and I were down in San Francisco for Megan’s 40th birthday party. I was still a little sick, but we got on a plane around 1PM Saturday and got back past midnight Monday morning. The combined effects of my lingering cold, hay fever, and the switch to daylight savings time were a joy to behold and I may be a complete zombie today. I think I was only in one photograph, and I can only remember taking one which I should post tonight. Cake!

All week I’ve been suffering from a weird cold that I can only describe as being a weird cold. It started out with my head being so congested that I couldn’t sleep. When I got home from work on Monday, I slept from 5:30PM until some time the next morning. I got up at my regular time, took a shower, and then decided to go back to bed. Wednesday I was at work late and went out to dinner with some guys traveling on business, who wanted to clue me in on the Megacorp political situation as they saw it. Thursday I felt so bad I had to turn around and go home and take a nap before running some errands. And today, Friday, I found that I had to take a couple of naps that I couldn’t wake up from.

One of the weird things is that I haven’t been able to sleep through the night. And when I wake up I’m in the middle of an agitated fever dream, the kind where you know that you have to fit the framistram into the back of the computer and you just feel off like you need a drink of water at work and you can’t get one because everyone including the boss is coming into your cube asking if you’ve fit the framistram into the back of the computer. But I don’t have a fever!

What an annoying cold. Ah, well, it would probably be worse if I actually had a fever so I better be happy with what I have. At least my cough isn’t as bad as my sister’s so far.

I stayed at work late today so I could score a free dinner from some guys traveling for Megacorp. I got a steak, and an earful. Apparently they think all the hard work I did earlier this year was USELESS. Honestly, that’s what I was saying all along, so I agreed with them and kept chewing. They have some ideas for shaking up the status quo, and since I don’t really give a crap I may just follow along. At least I survived my 4 1/2 hour long meeting.

In other news, my sister and I scored some cheap tickets to SFO so we can see Megan on her birthday. But really, turning 40 sounds so 2004.

I was at home sick today but I did the usual obsessive Megacorp thing where I checked my email anyway. Turns out our group sort of reorganized itself. This means I’m doing the same stupid work, but now they’ve added pointless meetings! In fact, I have a 4 1/2 hour meeting tomorrow that goes from 10-2:30! No lunch for you!

I watched a couple of movies but got a little bored and started googling myself. Nothing much interesting there. Then I started googling an old girlfriend (the crazy college girlfriend who makes me want to avoid Hawaii like the plague). I wanted to see if there were any pictures of her, but no luck. I did find out that she GAVE MONEY TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. I suppose it’s a good thing I didn’t end up marrying her.

Well, I suppose I should hit the hay so I don’t sleep through the whole meeting tomorrow. I love my life.

The good news is that I finished my taxes and they’ve been accepted. The bad news is that I had a cold and slept in for sixteen hours, was turned down for the job I was applying for, and it was Monday. Plus, since I was sleeping, I missed all my Monday TV shows. Oh well.

Just in case people don’t recognize this as being a joke, IT IS A JOKE. I’m not even going to name the person who I was not stalking because she is a public official.

In any case, I met my friend Greg when I was in grade school in Boy Scouts. He’s 3 years older than me, so I was in 5th grade and he was in 8th grade. Like any 8th grade boy, he had several girls he was always talking about, and I mean ALWAYS. One of them is now a prominent local government official so I’ve seen her name in the paper and I’ve been wanting to meet her since I was in 5th grade. Like I said, Greg was ALWAYS talking about her. She was at my neighbor’s birthday party yesterday and I finally was able to tell her this story. 5th grade was 27 years ago so I just sounded like a crazy person, but that’s not too far from the truth.

It was a beautiful day today and you know I spent it indoors. You’d think I would say I was playing with my computer and I couldn’t deny it. However, to make it an extra-special day, I was DOING MY PARENTS’ TAXES. Woo baby, that’s fun. Good thing we’re not rich and don’t have weird investments. They’re getting a whole $18 back from the state, I think. I’m getting a refund because I bought a Civic last year and there’s a tax credits for us weirdos who like that sort of thing.

Oh, and I think I’d make a really bad wine taster. There was a wine tasting “game” at the birthday party yesterday, where the wine bottles were hidden by paper bags and you were supposed to rate them and maybe even try to guess what they were. There was one unpopular white wine that I though smelled like a mop bucket and tasted like cheese. Somehow I don’t think those are proper oenophile terms.

All I can remember at this point is going to the gym today and thinking that if I could get my forearms bigger, then I could buy some of those weightlifter pants. You know, the baggy ones like clown pants. THE 80’s ARE CALLING!

I had pho for lunch. Is that interesting?