In an oddly good mood.

I’m tired from the gym, have eaten some ice cream, and my iPad 2 has shipped, so I’m in an oddly good mood. I’m feeling much better than I did yesterday, though my stomach still doesn’t seem 100% so I didn’t go all out at the gym. At least not on the shuttle runs.

That being said, THMFIC at the gym’s dog is getting minor surgery and dental work tomorrow and, for that, is getting anesthesia. Poor Jakey isn’t the youngest pup, so here’s hoping he gets through the procedure with no ill effects.

And I get to go in to play pincushion tomorrow. I figure it’s a win-win. The labwork will show what to do next in any medical treatment, and if it’s bad news at all, I’m going to buy a new MacBook Pro whether I sell this one or not. I might even do it if I’m fine. I was going to make three selfish purchases: an iPad 2, a Prius, and a MacBook Pro. The Mac is on hold because I’m having trouble selling my current one (it’s the top of the 15″ line, isn’t a year old yet, and worth a bit more than most people are willing to spend). The Prius is probably on hold because Toyota has shut down their manufacturing plant. At least the iPad is in the hands of FedEx.

Oh, and I guess I should post the link for the Google 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami donation page. Like I said, I donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society, even though it’s a foreign organization and possibly not tax deductible. The tax implications are not the reason I’m donating. I also gave a bit more than usual because, well, ¥10,000 (which is closer to what I give to local charities) just didn’t seem like a lot. It’s a lot if you convert it to US dollars, but it’s just one banknote in Japan. It’s a psychological thing. Plus I wish I could do more than just click on a web page and send money.

More good health news.

Yes, I’m being sarcastic.

In a more immediate and limited problem, my stomach was bothering me last night and that actually gave me nightmares. I didn’t feel great in the morning, but felt better as the day went on. But after I got the wood chipper running and finished using it, my stomach still felt a bit heavy. I figured it was a good reason to stay home from the gym for another night and be lazy.

Turns out it was a good night to stay in because I got a call from my oncologist and they found an increasing number of odd blood cells which means more tests and maybe new drugs. How odd. About the time my medication is about to go generic, it’s possibly not working any more. Ah, well, we’ll see what the additional tests show. I know I shouldn’t worry, but the first time this came up I felt fine but could only sleep about five hours a night. I bet my blood pressure was high as well. Stupid subconscious.

Oh, and I just donated money to the Japanese Red Cross through google. Not quite sure if the Japanese Red Cross is as good as the American Red Cross, but I figured the money would be closer to where it’s needed.

So, there you go. Kind of puts the delay on my iPad 2 (coming next week if I’m lucky) and the cover (coming next month if I’m lucky) into perspective.

When it rains, it pours.

As a preface, my problems are a lot less than  what I’ve been watching on TV. In fact, I’ve been glued to my computer watching NHK news from Tokyo most of the weekend.

So first off, a minor nit, I spend too much time on Facebook and I’m thinking of quitting since they think I AM IN NEED OF HELP DATING SENIOR CITIZENS. Come on. I have 3+ years before I get my AARP card and 23+ years before I have to start taking money out of my (very tiny) IRA.

I did decide to get away from the computer to clean out some more crap from the garage. My dad had sticks and twigs saved for firewood and while kindling is nice to start fires, there was way too much of it. I don’t burn much wood anyway, since we’re in a highly populated area and it just soots up the neighborhood. I can tell when someone else has a fire and I’m never very happy about it, so I don’t want to star a fire myself. I still have my friend’s wood chipper so I fired it up while it wasn’t raining and moved all the kindling outside. About the time we hit a torrential downpour, something metal got stuck in the chipper and I had to stop. Of course I didn’t notice the torrential downpour until I was standing around trying to fish bits of metal out of a wood chipper. I decided to wait until it cleared up a bit before I tried again, and that means tomorrow.

So I went back to watching more Japanese TV and I’m still thinking of moving back. In all the devastation and empty food shelves, I don’t see any rioting or looting. In fact, I saw an interview with a guy waiting hours for gas. The TV reporter told the guy that the station he was waiting on was probably out of gas and there weren’t any attendants outside. He replied, “What?! Well, I suppose I should wait. What else am I going to do? What about the station across the street?” Here I’d expect him to say, “BLEEP BLEEP THE BLEEPING BLEEP GAS STATION! EAT HOT BLEEPING LEAD!” Fewer earthquakes here, though.

9.0

So far all the friends we’ve been able to contact have been fine. Most of my family and relatives in Japan are much further south than the earthquake and everyone on the coast was shielded from the tsunami by islands and coastline. My uncle in Osaka didn’t even know that there was an earthquake and my aunt on the coast of the inland sea was fine as well.I still haven’t been able to contact my old co-worker Suzuki-san in Tokyo, but other friends sound OK and are on Twitter and Facebook.

I should probably quit worrying about changes at the gym I go to. They’re threatening to add spin classes to a small gym that mainly has other classes. Really. Spin classes. I’m afraid that the gym is becoming a “girlie gym” and another woman at the gym agreed. I was hoping she’d just tell me I was wrong, but she thought there seems to be a growing divide between the “strong women” and the “fast women” and she also was afraid that there were more of the “fast women” who didn’t like to lift heavy weights. Not that I’m on either list of the women. If I have to join 24 HR or L.A. Fitness to do deadlifts and barbell squats, shouldn’t other people have to join 24/L.A. to get their spin classes?

I figure that I really shouldn’t worry until it actually affects me; the workouts are still tough and they haven’t eliminated any of the class times I attend.

The big problem is that if I really cared about my “career” (and I use that term loosely) I would find a gym much closer to work because that would make it easier to spend more time in the office. But, really, what am I going to do with a “career”? What would I spend more money on? I think I need an exponential gain in pay to actually increase my attractiveness to women. And what would I do with more responsibility? I guess it would be nice to annoy more people at once with less effort, but there’s no guarantee of less work. I really don’t want any more reasons to push me towards making changes to my schedule and working more.

Another huge earthquake in Japan.

I was about to say that I’m not going to stay up late to get my new iPad 2, because I have to be alert for grand jury tomorrow, but I was just informed by all sorts of alerts on my computer that there was a huge earthquake in Japan. I’m watching a live stream from NHK and there are huge floods I don’t understand, a tsunami watch, and aftershocks on the live feed. So far I’ve heard from one friend who says she’s OK but her room is a mess.

So everything else I was thinking about doesn’t really seem very important. However, I will say that Dorio on 23rd and Marshall in Portland is pretty tasty on my first trip. I was told by a Greek-American friend to check it out.

New glasses.

My last few pairs of glasses took some getting used to because of the astigmatism correction. For some reason my eyes got a bit better and my astigmatism went away so my new lenses are easier to get used to. And the prescription is the same as my contact lenses. I don’t know how that all works. I was also able to avoid bifocals even though I’m getting to that age.

I’m having a harder time selling my laptop than I’d like, but for good reason. I think most everything you need to do can be done with an iPad nowadays, and that’s thousands of dollars cheaper than my laptop. And, really, I don’t need to buy a new laptop every 10 months. I thank my friend Sean for having more sense than I do. I’m sure a much better laptop will come out soon enough and there are plenty of toys I can spend my money on, though computers are probably one of the safer hobbies I have. Ham radio needs ridiculous antennas, guns are guns, and reading makes my eyes worse. Well, so do computers so maybe it’s time to do more reading. Maybe I’ll get a new Kindle, even though my current Kindle is fine. Heh.

Don’t walk into the wrong courtroom.

So I thought I’d finally get to see the start of a normal jury trial today. After a long morning of taking notes for a case I can’t comment on, I went into a courtroom where they were hearing pre-trial motions and talking about bringing in 40 people to seat a 16 person jury. I came back after lunch to hear the motions all be dismissed for good reason, and then the defendant decided to waive his right to a jury trial. OK, one less thing to watch. I thought this was going to be an assault and kidnapping, but it was a rape of an older Lao woman by a door-to-door magazine salesman. Nothing I wanted to see. And the translator was possibly screwing up, according to two Lao speakers observing the trial. I sat and watched for some reason and as confused as the testimony was, I still believed her. I’m glad I’m not on that jury.

Traveling magazine salesmen. Just another thing to be worried about.

Who forgot how to post on this thing?

Today I spent a lot of time destroying old furniture. I’m sure it had some sentimental value to someone because it was made from old shipping crates and some of it even had government tags from when whitey locked up all the Japanese-Americans during WWII and warehoused very little property. But as it is, I think my dad put it in the garage in 1970 and here it is, 2011, and I’m demolishing it and finding out that it’s full of rat’s nests and rat poop. It’s really not worth refinishing. I’m hoping I don’t get some weird respiratory ailment because after I finished I blew my nose and it was black as soot.

Not much else going on, really. Jury duty, gym, etc. I did put together a Concept 2 rowing machine at the gym and it’s an odd contraption. I could feel it in my “core” when I used it, but it sure looks funny. Oh, and I got my jury duty check and I now have a whopping $14.70 to add to my savings account. I’ll try not to spend it all at once.

Oh, and it turns out that my buddy Sean actually has some sense and doesn’t want to buy my MacBook Pro because, well, the one he has is good enough. I don’t really remember anything that made the current one feel that much zippier than the one before. It has a higher resolution screen, making everything tinier but how is that an advantage?

I have, however, decided that I’m going to die alone, and why not have a new MacBook Pro when I do? (And a new iPad2.) After being on the Grand Jury I’m not going to trust Craigslist, but I’m fairly sure I can find a moderately legitimate buyer for my laptop somewhere. We’ll see.

Glum day follows cranky day.

Today is Wednesday, but it’s just the second day I’ve made it to the gym this week and I’m guessing my blood sugar level is low right now. For some reasons, I feel a bit down on Tuesdays and I figure it was just transferred to Wednesday this week. It doesn’t help that I only had a Muscle Milk for lunch.

We got out of Jury Duty early, but I wanted to see some other court cases so I looked around the courtrooms (which are public) to see what was going on. Some weird sentencing (one 19YO kid who looked like he had a baby with a 16YO and one 10-year-old DUII) and one civil suit against Thriftway. Also had a guy sitting next to me get hauled off in handcuffs because he had missed his hearing. He looked quite out of it and missed his hearing by a day. It was pretty interesting, actually. Tomorrow we’re actually off, which means I’m going in to work.

So that’s about it. I could tell you why I feel glum, but it’s silly and we’ve all been here before. Plus the blood sugar thing. Or maybe not enough bacon fat. Who knows?

Cranky day.

I started the day out OK, but I was cranky by mid-afternoon. It started with my chili-cheese dog at Superdog. It tasted a bit like curry (cumin?) and there were blue spots on my bun. I couldn’t tell if it was something odd in the chili or if it was mold but the bread looked fresh enough and tasted fine so I just kept going. Then I had to wait for my appointment with the Ophthalmologist.

And while I was waiting, I got a call from the place I used to pack fudge, telling me that the lying sacks of shit at FedEx had returned a birthday present I bought a friend as “undeliverable.” I’m getting ahead of myself. They sent me emails telling me that they tried to deliver, but they told the company that they held the package. My friend, the intended recipient, never saw any door tags and never heard the doorbell ring on the day she worked from home waiting for the package. And the when she went to place they were supposed to be holding it, they didn’t have it. I told the chocolate company that 1) FedEx is boning me, and 2) I don’t trust New Yorkers further than I can throw them.

Then I got to wait some more for the ophthalmologist, who happened to have an emergency appointment that made my appointment 45 minutes late. Turns out my eyes have changed for the better, and I have to get new lenses. Fortunately, stumbling blindly into the optometrist’s office was expected of me, and they just kind of laughed at me.

My pupils were still dilated when I got to the gym. I had to tell THMFIC that I really had gone to the eye doctor and that I wasn’t “tripping balls.” Things look really bright when your pupils are dilated.

Oh, and I had a pleasant conversation with Jay the Contractor about five new windows he’s going to put in which will cost me a small fortune. He also had a cranky day and, oddly enough, we were both laughing about how cranky we both were. Huh.