It was my buddy Il’s birthday today so last night three of us went out and hit a bunch of strip clubs. I must admit that some were better than others and there was even one that was quite frightening. I can’t remember the name of the scary place. I’ve never been brave enough to enter, and now I know why. I should have been speaking Spanish to go in there. I was frisked as I entered, and while Il and I were the only two Asian guys in a lot of the places, Andrew doubled the population of white guys in there. There was one white woman in the corner, and she looked scared. There were lots of tiny tables with women working them and it reminded me of an Asian bar where you get to buy expensive drinks for the women at the bar. I paid $5 for a glass of tonic water (it was supposed to have gin in it) and we got out of there quickly.

In case anyone is asking, I’d suggest Sassy’s. Punk rock girls and heavy metal music.

I took a nice long nap this afternoon to recover. Unfortunately that meant I didn’t find out that the doohickey I bought this morning at Harbor Freight was just plain broken. Tomorrow I have to return it and not miss the football games. We’ll see how it goes.

I was in a piss-poor mood this morning and it only got worse when I found out that “my” test computers at Megacorp were altered while I was gone. It was the kind of day where I used a certain word quite often, in the sentences, “KISS MY …,” and, “SHOVE IT UP YOUR …”

Fortunately my mood got a bit better after I got in a meeting and let everyone know how I was feeling. Several people in charge agreed that I didn’t need to work around the clock this weekend and I only had to promise a bunch of stuff by Friday.

Even better, I made it to the gym. It’s quite crowded with the resolution people there. I had to walk away from one guy because I moved something he was about to use so I could get some space and he had a hissy fit. He’s a big guy who wears SAE t-shirts and I wanted to hit him with a dumbbell. (I think his SAE stands for the fraternity Sodomy And Ecstasy, and not the Society for Automotive Engineers.) Fortunately it clears out about 7PM, and I was in a much better mood after some light torture.

The snow is melting and the sledding hill is a muddy mess, but there’s still a lot of trash left.

This is the cardboard people left at the sledding hill. Meghann, you’re on my list. (Her name was on some of the boxes.) I gathered all the cardboard and put it in our recycling bin.

Here’s the random trash people left. The pink bag on the left is “Mini’s” pink “My Little Pony” backpack and has three dolls and a small dollhouse inside. I took it to my next door neighbor’s house on the off chance that it was his daughter’s. I left it there because it would be weird for me to have something like that.

I got several emails and phone calls from work today, asking me how long it would take me to finish the stupid crap I’ve been doing for weeks. They asked me how much longer it would take, and I gave them an actual estimate this time. I also told them, “There is ice on the roads in my neighborhood and you can ask me to risk my life to get these numbers out, but I’m likely to tell you something that is inappropriate for the workplace.” Of course they asked me to come in anyway. We’ll see how nasty it is tomorrow.

So it’s crazy here when it snows. For one thing, a lot of the roads aren’t really flat, so people go sliding around. For another thing, we only get this every few years, so there’s no reason to be prepared for it all the time. And yet another problem: the weather forecasters here have no idea what they’re talking about. The last few times the said we’d get snow, we got nothing. Last night they said we’d get a couple of inches maybe and it would be gone by noon.

I didn’t get a very good nights sleep last night and I woke up feeling like doodie, but when I looked outside I knew my trip to work would be delayed.

It turns out the roads were a mess and there was no way anyone was making it to work. If you go to our local news station’s web site you can check out a video of a Volvo SUV sliding down the hill and hitting five cars on the way down.

So I just stayed inside until I decided it was time to shovel the walk. Sounds like it’s not going to be any better tomorrow, so I’m not going anywhere.

I did go for a walk to the food co-op with the neighbors, and I did shovel the walk. I did not make it to the gym, but I’m not even sure they were open. That makes it a week-and-a-half since I’ve been to the gym. I wonder if I’m losing weight.

I got nothing good to say, so I’m saying nothing. Except maybe that my Costco credit card makes it easier to buy gas at Costco. Other than that, nothing. Oh, and I got a call from someone who wanted to buy my domain name (twofifty.com). Several hundred dollars is too little for a domain I’ve had for almost eight years. In any case, I got nothing.

Yesterday, while I was watching football, I was trying to fix a program called, “Jeweltoy,” for my mom. It doesn’t store the high scores properly, but I’m not all that good at programming on the Mac. So it was mainly a lot of fooling around and repeatedly playing the game until the score got to be about 1000 and then seeing if the high score thing would work. I sure wish I knew how to use the debugger as well. In any case, I say, “Trying,” because I never did get it to work correctly.

Today I moved memory around in other computers and then I tried to figure out how to invest in my 401k. I shouldn’t say, “How,” when I really mean, “Where.” I just wanted a nice S&P index fund, but I didn’t see one offered. So now it’s spread into a lot of random places. It’s not like a normal person should know how to predict the future.

OK, so I’m not really wicked. Or maybe I am. I’m just quoting a David Byrne song that has a nice dance remix. I actually left work on time, and I was going to head to the gym, but I was tired from all of the weirdness at work. Sitting and babysitting computers while they ran odd, uninteresting programs. And what am I doing doing instead of exercising at the gym? I’m actually watching three computers compile programs on three different windows. All sorts of scrolling geeky text. For some reason I find it comforting.

I’m trying to figure out how to run a virtual machine on my new computer so I can compile a different release of NetBSD. What that really means is that I sort of promised a guy I’d give him my spare computer and I’m trying to figure out how to cut down the number of running computers I have in the basement. I still have to make sure I can keep my sister’s blog updated and that’s why I have to go into the virtual machine mumbo-jumbo. It also makes me seem cooler than I am, doesn’t it?

The snow never stuck around so I had to go to work today. I left at 11:42PM and got back at 7:45AM or so. I tried to leave early today, but it was another day of babysitting computers while they ran. I think it was around 8PM when I finally left.

This overabundance of work is not making the job look any better. There’s nothing interesting coming down the pike, just more work. Ah, well, that’s probably why they give me money to show up.

I’ve told myself that I’m only killing myself to finish the first round of data and any amendments or fixes will have to happen on a regular schedule, but I bet I’ll get more grief about it all. Well, we’ll see what tomorrow brings. It sounds like it will be black ice on the roads.

So I never made it to the gym tonight, mainly because it closes at 11PM and I’m writing this at 11:15PM FROM WORK. It’s supposed to snow, so I figured I’d better get some stuff done if I’m not coming in tomorrow. Well, lots of things have gone wrong, the thing I was supposed to get done can’t be done because we don’t have the proper “licenses” for the software we’re running, and I’ve had to cobble together tools to get things going as well as I have (which is not very well).

When is the last time a normal person had to use FLOPPY DISKS to work on brand new computers? Fifteen years ago? More? I’m in a lab and I can’t find a screwdriver to save my life. Sheesh.

In any case, there’s some good news. Let me think of what it could be. My dinner, perhaps? A Payday bar covered in chocolate? (And who thought they needed to improve the Payday bar, anyway?)

Looks like it might actually snow again, and so I might have to work late tomorrow to make up for not showing up the next day. That means blowing off the gym, but Dave the Trainer is off in NYC this week anyway. Good enough reason for taking a week off, or at least screwing up my own schedule. Of course work is doing their best to screw up my schedule and I can’t say that it’s unexpected. That’s just the way the high-tech industry is. Life is for the company.

In any case, I’m counting on more continued misery this week. We’ll see how it goes.

I noticed that I was having trouble writing a coherent sentence yesterday night and I awoke today feeling like I had a cold. I also noticed that the football game to watch was the one I missed last night between Seattle and Dallas. I suppose that’s just what I get.

So today I spent some time eating Advil and wondering if my cold would get worse. I did, however, make it out to see a video at a friend’s house and this reminds me that one of the friends there was supposed to come up with a New Year’s Resolution for me but so far there’s nothing. Maybe I should resolve to eat at least one piece of fruit every day. That sounds OK.

OK, so my job is pretty darn cushy compared to most, but I do recall a conversation that, paraphrased, went sort of like this:

“Do you think you can do all this by next month?”

No way in hell.

“Great. You’ll be working weekends until it’s finished.”

You can probably guess that most of the stuff isn’t even working yet, and we’re coming up on a deadline at work. I got to stay at work until after 8PM on two consecutive days. The second of those days was today, Saturday. I’m lucky because I’m just running some programs and recording the results. Other people in my group don’t have any results to show.

Yesterday my buddy Greg was working late, too, so we had dinner together after work. Today, not so much fun to be had. For some reason, I’m really tired from this little bit of extra work.

Oh, well, maybe this means we get to keep our jobs. We’ll see.