Today was a red-letter day. First thing in the morning I read the death and disaster section of the newspaper, also known as the Metro section, and came across an obituary for a guy I knew in high school. I met Andy Letourneau in English class my freshman year. Three of us tested out of freshman English and started in the sophomore class in at Benson Polytechnic, which was mostly male at the time and freshmen were hazed. I guess the guy who actually burned me and lit me on fire wasn’t doing it because I was a freshman, but that kind of tells you a little about my high school. In any case, he was very nice and excited about poetry at the time. Later, when I went to a Boy Scout leadership camp called Brownsea, I saw him again. In fact, I changed to his troop in NE Portland and even was a counselor at Brownsea the following year. I think he was one of the reasons I went on for my Eagle scout and got into Order of the Arrow. Really, not a perfect guy, but a great guy nonetheless. Perfect would have made him boring.

After that auspicious start, I went to work where I did not have an ideal day. I’ll leave it at that, but when I get a message from someone at the Vice President level, I start to get a little nervous. Didn’t turn out poorly, but it did get me a bit jittery for most of the day. I also had three separate phone calls about the same issue. I even had to go off campus to buy obsolete hardware to help debug the problem. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get that paid back.

Then when I got to the gym after work, THMFIC was in a mood and started yelling at two of us. I can understand why, but it really wasn’t what I needed to end the day. Yelling back was involved, though it happened later in the hour.

So, fortunately, I have TV to watch to numb my brain. Not really a way to live up to all the things given to me in the past from Andy Letourneau, who possibly died diving with sharks (seriously), but it’s a life.