I went to another session of my “Structural Integration” again. Man, did it hurt. But the pain is temporary. For example, I was getting work done on the bottom of my foot. If I stepped on a rock that hurt that much, I’d be in pain for days. When Fred stops, the pain stops. So that means he’s doing something that hurts that doesn’t really damage anything. There are places that are sore for a couple of days, but if anything else made me hurt that much initially, I would be in great pain for days. I wonder if I explained that properly? Today was some work on the abdominal muscles and it’s really hard to breathe through the pain there. Especially since it kind of pulls on the diaphragm.

In any case, that’s the fun I had today. It was a beautiful day and I did make it outside to put some leaf screens into the gutters, but I even woke up late today. I blame the ‘flu shot I got yesterday. It’s probably really just because it’s sleeping weather.

I’m not sure why there are so many unpleasant people in the world. I suppose there just are, and you have to put up with it. I just got another comment on my blog from one of the unpleasant people, and I decided just to delete it and quit thinking about it. Heck, it’s my blog. I didn’t go to his house and start calling him an asshole in his living room. He came here and started telling me about my life. And, by looking at the comments and the email I got, nobody wanted to hear what he had to say. It’s kind of a weird coincidence that he showed up about the same time with all the other random non-knitting people.

I’m not the only one with weird problems. A neighbor had a flyer glued to her front steps about a missing dog with the note, “I know you can give me more info!” When she called the number on the flyer and asked what they meant, she was told, “You know what I mean!” and the person hung up. She was kind of disturbed by this and called me to see if I had seen any bulldogs lately. For some reason, I can only remember pugs, a few beagles, some terriers, and a whole lot of Golden Retrievers.

My next door neighbors had problems with the light in the laundry room, and they had to use the hall light. But the hall light would wake their very young kids, so they had to do laundry in the dark. Eventually they were so annoyed that they were calling electricians on a Saturday morning, knowing that if they found one to come out on the weekend they’d have to pay through the nose. Fortunately, they didn’t find one, because it was easy to fix.

It’s going to be harder to fix my chimney cap. I took the pieces to the hardware store and they think it’s just epoxied together with JB Weld rather than being a specially made chimney-cap-doohickey. I don’t know the knitting/sewing equivalent of this (knowing the usual audience of this blog), but I do remember seeing someone use a hot-melt-glue-gun to put jewels on a wedding dress. I remember thinking, “Is that really the way they do that sort of thing?”

Normal life away from computers continues, and it’s a life.

I am amazed by the number of morons I’m attracting lately. I suppose the number is only really two or three since “Jason” and “Sam” appear to be the same person and Greg is the other one. Ah, whatever. I’d think they’d be better served surfing the intarweb looking for pictures of Britney Spears’ cooter, but I’m not their boss. Or they may be here hoping I’ll have naked pictures of myself online. Not happening (and I’m sure most of you are happy about that.)

My Mac laptop is still in the shop and I’m not real sure why Greg is so ignorant about getting computers serviced. In most of the world, people only have Dells and Apples. A couple of people have Sonys but they’re aberrations.

• If you need to get a Dell fixed, you call India and are put on hold until they can string a phone wire from the border to the call center to service your call and they tell you to reboot a bunch of times until they’re convinced you’re serious about getting your computer fixed. Then they might start to help.
• If you have an HP/Compaq, you just junk it and buy a new one at Staples or OfficeMax.
• If you have an IBM/Lenovo, you cry salty tears or just get your company to fix it for you because real people don’t own IBM/Lenovo computers, just corporations.
• If you need to get a Mac fixed and you’re lucky enough to live in a town with an Apple Store, you go online to make an appointment and then you show up, in person, to talk to a tech support person who isn’t really a genius but is called an “Apple Genius” who will at least look at your computer and see the problem first-hand. The face-to-face interaction is key. If they find something wrong they just take the computer in for repair right there. They can even ship the thing back to you if you want. Elapsed time is 2 minutes to fish around the web site for the appointment link, travel time to the store (15 minutes for me), wait time at the store (usually 5-20 minutes for me), time to talk to the genius (10-15 minutes), and travel time back (10 minutes for me because I don’t have to look for parking when I get home). Then I wait.

So, basically, it’s a lot easier for me to get my computer fixed, and I don’t pay extra for support. I know I’ve paid a huge premium up front, but I like the fact that I don’t feel like throwing the thing through the window like I do with things running Microsoft OSes. I even got my mom one. Or two, if you count the replacement MacBook Pro I got her this year.

Today I found out that one of my co-workers is forwarding my blog posts to management. While it was pointed out to me that things are looking much better than I was remembering last night, the fact that I have such co-workers is kind of disheartening. It’s not a surprise, just disheartening.

I’m not sure why anyone would care about what I say, and I was surprised that anyone even reads this drivel. (It’s practice for me, to keep up my writing chops.) But it has now been pointed out to me by friends that in this day and age I’m not allowed to have any public opinions, at least not about work. That’s even though I’m quite simple in my opinions. I don’t try to mislead anyone and it’s pretty obvious how I’m feeling whether I write it down or not. It’s just in this case, people who are assuming I’m fat, dumb, and happy realize that I’m only two of the three.

It should also be obvious that I exaggerate things. I don’t usually name names, and even when I do people can be caricatures of the way they really are. I mean, how much fun would it be if I listed every little mundane detail about a person? It’s much better to point out interesting characteristics and anomalies. I just hope that anyone in a position of power above me possesses a sense of humor. In any case, I will now try to quit talking about work.

I usually don’t comment on comments left on my blog, but I should point out that the theme of my blog is not wowees me. It’s WOE IS ME. I am aware that I am a bit of a sad sack and it does not need to be pointed out to me by strangers. However, I find that I must correct malapropisms. I hope this has helped to increase the literacy on the web.

The high point of my day, at work, was getting yelled at by an “architect” who is basically an engineer who is at the same level as my manager. He gets to decide what we do next year, IF we do something next year. Well, I should say, if I do anything next year because I’m not sure anyone else got yelled at today.

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS?

Well, in all honesty, I’ve been doing what I’ve been asked to do, when I haven’t been so depressed about the crap I’m being forced to do. The “architect” wanted me to do certain things and my manager (the guy who writes my performance review) wanted me do do other things. Things that didn’t make sense, but my manager is my manager and really should be the one telling me what I need to do from day-to-day.

Not only that, but I was having a hard time with the transition from, “Linux development,” to, “Windows torture.” I mean even compiling programs downloaded off the intarweb required lots of right-clicking on random things to set this and that. And running the compiled programs required copying libraries around. Holy crap, what a pain in the ass. I never got to the point of writing my own programs because of that and other things I was assigned to do, and I got yelled at. I even got an email from “the architect” telling me that I was no longer useful to him. Basically, it was an email that said, YOU FAIL.

Earlier in the day I was reading the final email from the woman I went out with earlier this year. Two whole dates. She told me,

You’re cute and you’re funny, but you seem really young — nothing wrong with that, but I feel kind of old at this point, and I don’t want to date anyone who feels much younger than me.

She’s telling me I’m immature, right? I told her early on that the best rejections were short and sweet. I don’t need people telling me what’s wrong with me. It’s not like I’m going to change.

I’m feeling really good about myself right now. How about you?

I got up this morning unable to walk straight. I figured it was something odd with my inner ear and sinuses, so I went back to sleep. I figured I could go in late, since I had an 8PM conference call. But I’d forgotten a dinner with neighbors, and I’d forgotten how little I want to go to work. I ended up working from home, setting up my computer to do some of the programming I do at work.

The dinner was at Pok Pok, which was named the best restaurant in Portland by some hipster doofus which just means it’s insanely crowded and pretty good. Not excellent or exquisite. Just pretty good. I’m not in the mood to be bullied by people in the service industry who can get away with it because their restaurant is popular. Or having my ears ring because I’m in a tiny room with a bunch of women at the next table screeching at each other because, well, I don’t know why they were shouting at each other but it was loud. Maybe I’m just not as enamored of Southeast Asian cuisine. I certainly don’t like cilantro. But nothing was bad, so I wouldn’t not suggest it to anyone.

Every year I volunteer at the Portland Marathon, and this year was kind of an off year. They put a weird music tent in between the medical station and the aid station that narrowed the road. That meant we couldn’t see each other and the aid station couldn’t really see who was coming. We actually had a medical emergency that required an ambulance, and it was hard to hear over the music. The ambulance took forever to show up and while only two people needed non-emergency transport, the second person gave up after 40 minutes or so and took the trolley back downtown.

The reason I say it was disastrous isn’t due to anything we did or didn’t do. There were people dropping like flies this year and ambulances were called repeatedly. This is NOTHING LIKE CHICAGO. I understand those poor people had a marathon in the unseasonable heat that actually killed one runner, but I think we may have been close to losing some people today as well. And the weather was ideal for running. I’m just hoping it was bad luck this year, and not something like toxins in the honey they were handing out. I shouldn’t speculate like that, but it was weird how many people were going down.

The spacing of the runners was weird as well. I even missed seeing my sister as she ran by.

Well, after a nap I went to my buddy Matt’s open house. I’m kind of an oddball at parties like his, because I’m one of the few non-parents there. People with kids tend to hang with people with kids. I’ve known him since high school and being an outsider now isn’t much different than being an outsider then. That’s life.

I found a bunch of stuff to recycle, including old National Geographic maps. I threw away historical documents including a book, in Japanese, from the 1930’s about the nutritive value of mushrooms. I’m sure someone could use them, but at this point I’m overwhelmed with the stuff that I’m NOT throwing away. Lots of books on Buddhism, Japanese history, etc. I even found what appears to be an English-language propaganda piece espousing Japanese-occupied Manchuria.

I also started going through my dad’s records and I found things I never knew about. He never supported the local Japanese gardens in Portland, but I found correspondence between him and Professor Takuma Tono, the designer of the gardens. I just skimmed the letters, but it sounds like he was quite involved in the early part of the design. My mom told me that he got in an argument with the head of the garden society or something, and that sounds like him, telling off some rich lady and then writing off the project completely. This also bodes ill for my plan to join the Multnomah Athletic Club for purposes of personal humor because it’s pretty evident that I’ve inherited his need to yell at rich people.

He did go on to build a small Japanese garden for a rich lady and I have pictures of that. I also have documentation on a magnolia that’s planted in SW Portland. I’m not sure what I should do about that.

I found medical records from when my sister got hit by a car in high school, a speeding “warning” ticket my mom got in the 80’s, records of my mom’s car accident from the early 80’s, his business licenses, his marriage license, and his divorce decree! I found out about his previous marriage when I was in my mid-20’s, and I never knew his previous wife’s name. Now I even know where her parents lived.

An old high school buddy is having an open house and I asked Il if he wanted to go. He says he’s even more reclusive than he’s been in the past, and I can’t blame him. Both is parents passed away this year. I keep telling myself that we’re going to have work done on the house and I’m going to go through more of my dad’s stuff, but I haven’t done much of anything. One thing I blame it on is the lack of a TV in my dad’s room, since my sister was using it for other purposes. I got it back today, so that won’t be much of an excuse any longer. I can have football games on and go through his accumulated stuff.

I was looking around today and found a tiki and a Charlie the Tuna statuette. Maybe they’re coin banks. In any case, some weird stuff. I think Charlie needs a spot on my desk, but I really should get rid of most of the accumulated junk. This is what happens when I start thinking too much about all the stuff.

So on Tuesday, at the gym, I saw a guy with an MIT t-shirt. I walked up to him and said, “NERD!” I quickly followed up with a bunch of gibberish only comprehensible to MIT grads and it took a while for him to get what I was telling him. Turns out he went there for grad school and that barely counts. The true torture happens when you’re an undergrad at MIT.

Other than that, I have almost nothing. I was way to awake at work and that was just making me paranoid. The co-worker I tend to bug when I’m bored (another disgruntled employee) decided to “WFH” which is supposed to mean “work from home” but really meant he was probably watching Judge Judy and surfing for pr0n. Which isn’t much less productive than I was, because they still haven’t given us much of a hint as to what we’re really supposed to be doing at work.

There’s a guy at work who keeps telling me I’m going to be fired (it’s not me). He sees conspiracies everywhere and I expect sooner or later he’s going to be correct about my job status. So maybe I won’t be fired, but like my friend Henry says, if you’re out of a job who cares what they call it? Anyway, listening to Mr. Doom-and-gloom isn’t cheering me up any. And I’ve found that my computer is having trouble with a bunch of programs including Quicken, which is a large pain in the ass.

I’m not cheering myself up by recounting the horrors of the day, so I should hit the hay, thereby avoiding reality. Whee.

Somewhere on the way to work, I stepped in dog poo. I didn’t realize it until I got to my cube at Megacorp, where I was trapped in a small space with the smell. I went outside, cursing all dogs everywhere, but was unable to find a puddle or any proper grass to get it out of my shoe. The grass in the ‘burbs is all fake and overwatered, making kind of a marshy green mess. I went on a walk for lunch and that didn’t help all that much either. I ended up spending the day feeling nauseous.

It was supposed to rain all day, so I was hoping I could wash off my shoe by walking around outside. Well, it finally let loose as I was walking from the train, which was a nice 25 minutes in the pouring rain. Lately I’ve been saying, “It usually doesn’t rain that hard in Portland,” a lot. Mostly in the fall, I think, but really the gutters usually don’t fill up with water. It just rains ALL THE TIME. Not hard, just enough to make it gloomy. And that’s the way I like it. It all kind of runs off and we don’t have problems. But today it just poured and I got soaked. Plus, my rain coat is falling apart and the replacement hasn’t arrived yet. OK, so it’s just the zipper pull that broke, but that’s enough.

And I’ve been addicted to this dumb computer game lately called Tumblebugs. Well, it no longer runs on my computer. Phooey. Just another fun thing to end the day.