Tomorrow I get to pay $100 to a lawyer to see what he thinks of my window situation. I called Pella again today to let them know that yes, the window is still a pain in my ass, and yes, the record windstorm on Friday night did cause my window to buzz. They still had NO SUGGESTIONS for me. So, I made an appointment with a construction lawyer (who, for $100 may tell me to get the hell out of his office) and then called back to talk to the local Pella Operations Manager. At least he prromised to call the main office again.
I figure talking to a lawyer is a good thing because he’s probably been present at plenty of screwings, and so he’ll know if I’m totally screwed. I know a certain person who makes more than that just to blow dry a person’s hair will tell me I’m wasting my money, but if people didn’t waste their money then the economy wouldn’t go anywhere, right? And what the hell am I going to spend the money on anyway?
Oh, yeah, on Mariko. I bought her a coat today and then SHE STOPPED TALKING TO ME. I figure she got what she wanted and she’ll start talking to me when she picks out the shoes she wants me to buy her. (It’s all for a very late Xmas present so I’m not too worried about it. Well, besides the NOT TALKING TO ME part.)
The Superbowl must have been over around 7PM or so, but we didn’t leave the bar until close to 10PM. I was watching the game with my old co-worker and my old boss. We were talking afterwards about this and that and we kind of closed the place down.
I think it would have been less distracting to watch the game where I wasn’t on the path to the Ladies’ Room, but that made for a more interesting night as well.
Spilling soup on one’s only pair of sweatpants makes for a cold walk to the gym. I figure that’s just me complaining, and I was told that a board certified psychiatrist was reading my blog and saying, “He complains a lot. He should take Prozac. It’s really cheap at Costco.” (At least I’m assuming they were board certified.)
So during the middle of the day there was a car from the Geek Squad parked out front. Kind of funny, if you ask me. My sister saw the car and said, “Geek Squad? Who need them? Just ask my brother the questions. It’s cheaper and quicker.” My buddy Greg said, “Geek squad? Don’t you do that stuff for free?”
Turns out my neighbors are sharing their wireless and they both bought laptops. The neighbor next door got a brand new iBook, I’m afraid the other neighbor now has some sort of other computer.
Early this week I decided I had until the end of January to come up with my resolutions. Most of the things I want to do this next year don’t actually come up to the level of “resolution” but weird plans to do things. Sort of like buying another pocket knife or something or getting my window fixed. But I think I have the list mainly because I ran out of time.
Steve gave me the first one: attend more parties this year. I think I’m doing OK on that one since I’ve attended most things I’ve been invited to unless, of course, the conflicted with another party.
Eat turducken. It’s time.
Visit Las Vegas or Reno or something. If I can make it to the Grand Canyon or somewhere else nice I’d settle for that as well. Just something in the southwestern United States at least.
Hike some of the trails on the gorge. Ruckel Ridge if nothing else, since I remember it being a little scary when I was in Boy Scouts.
I went to the gym two days in a row (scheduling conflicts) and I was quite tired. I was kind of annoyed at my computer and I was saying, “Have you ever had the kind of day where you wanted to smash up your computer and then cut up your boss with the shards?” In all honesty, I was mad at my computer, nothing else, and I just added the second part to make it sound better.
Now it’s morning and I’m still tired. They should have special Friday coffee.
Yesterday we had a big meeting at megacorp and I put my phone on vibrate. Not a big deal, since no one usually calls, but today I had two calls from Carolyn. I was walking down the hallway looking at my phone saying, “I’m in big trouble,” when I passed one of the office moving guys who overheard me and started laughing.
I went out to dinner with Dave the trainer and he’s on some weird diet where he can only eat fish, turkey, and something else as far as meat goes. He said he was broke so I sprung for sushi. I’ve been feeling guilty about not tipping him since I read some stupid article in our local newspaper about year-end tipping. I think the article was written in some Eastern US city because here in Oregon we don’t tip much. Dave showed me some photographs of when he was competitively body building. Yeesh. No wonder he won!
So, my sister’s old classmate emailed me and pointed out that my window is just like a girlfriend. I suppose in some ways, it is. High maintenance, always demanding attention, expensive, and waking me up in the middle of the night when I’m trying to sleep. OK, so my last girlfriend actually didn’t do that; it was her cat.
Oh, and there goes the window again! I wish I could get some sleep so I can be ready to get yelled at again. My project lead at megacorp doesn’t like what I’m doing with my computer and he blames me for the trouble I’m having. The IT guy seems to think my problems with my computer are just the way things are, but I don’t think he’s prone to yelling at people like the project lead is. Mariko reminds me that I don’t like getting yelled at, and in most cases I would have given him the finger and started walking out the door, but I suppose I’m a kinder, gentler person now. Heh.
Last night it rained a lot. We’re talking landslide and flooding creeks sort of a lot. It rains all winter here, but we’re not big on volume, and this January was in the top 10 of rainfall somewhere. Just where I don’t know because I wasn’t paying enough attention during the weather report. Anyway, the sound of the rain PLUS THE SOUND OF MY WINDOW were waking me up last night. I called Pella again, and the guy knew exactly who it was. I mean, he seems nice enough but he’s not doing all that much for me. Oh, well, I figure I’ll keep bugging him until he tells me to shove it and then I’ll just have to remove the window and leave the shards in the Pella parking lot.
In any case, I’m still writing about it here because I haven’t written it down anywhere else and I may need a coherent record of what I did and how annoying the window is to me. Just in case, you see.
And that’s about it. I was going to be put on another megacorp project, but it looks like that’s not going to happen. All the same old stuff. My paychecks keep coming in and I keep staying late. It’s a megacorp tradition, after all.
Today I woke up with sinus pain that developed into a headache. But that didn’t bother me at all since I was spending the day reading silly books. I don’t want to admit what the books were, but those of you who know silly books will know “discworld.” Pretty soon it’s on to the Ian Rankin mysteries I have, but I’m finishing up the “Young Adult” books I checked out first.
I better scare up some ear plugs. It’s windy tonight and the window has already been making some noises.
My window, which was supposed to be fixed by removing the covers on the electrical wires, still made noise. In other words, they’re still not fixed.
My nose plugged up while I was sleeping, and this was the first time my nose plugged up at night since I started using my Neti pot.
OK, so neither was much of a disaster. Today I spent an inordinate amount of time in a gun store, because, I’m a guy and sometimes I like to make loud noises and play with guns. All we ended up doing is talking about weird assault rifles and how we own them but don’t shoot them. Not me so much, since I don’t own any rifles, but they were trying to get me to order this weird-ass looking thing that they use on Stargate SG-1 (an FN P-90). I guess they think I’m the weird-looking gun guy or something.
I finally made it to Poor Richard’s in Portland’s Hollywood district. It’s an old-school steak restaurant that’s been around since the 50’s and always had a deal where you could get a discount for buying two steaks or something. It turned out to be pretty tasty, but with a neighborhood feel to it. There seemed to be an older clientele at first but there were plenty of families with small children as well. It’s just another one of those places in town that have been around forever but that I’d never been to.
Today we had a going away lunch at megacorp and we went to Macaroni Grill. In the ‘burbs, it’s all corporate food and the place has really narrow aisles because it’s crammed full of suburban drones waiting for their feedings. I first sat down on the aisle and decided to move and as I reached back for my coat I ACCIDENTALLY TOUCHED THE WAITRESS’ ASS. Yeah, that’s the most action I’ve gotten since 2001.
Looks like someone sent me an email from match.com tonight. Several co-workers used to tell me to try harder on match.com, but they finally looked at the women’s profiles. Earlier today they summarized the profiles as, “Hello. I have treated men poorly for years now and this is my only recourse. You better not suck.” In other words, confirmation that most of the profiles sound unappealing. Since it would cost me money to read the email that was sent to me, I think I’ll pretend I never got it. I think I’ve had three emails on there so far, and two of them were from deep inside China somewhere. No need to be treated poorly by someone that far away when there are plenty of women nearby who work at keeping my self-esteem low.
