Tomorrow is the first day of work. Oddly enough, I heard people had doctor and dentist appointments today, which I thought was a federal holiday. You don’t see those offices open on Memorial Day or anything, so it seemed kind of odd.

I saw even more people from my past today, including people I hadn’t seen since grade school. It’s a bit weird, but I guess there’s lots of people back in the neighborhood who I haven’t seen since grade school. One was even a lawyer and it’s always funny to remember how we recall our previous interactions. Like this woman who I remember always being mad at us because she’d practice the violin while a lot of the rest of us in the grade school orchestra were just kind of fooling around.

Oh, and I finally heard from a contractor friend of mine about his opinion on my window. He also thinks that the problem is the window, not the installation. (If you don’t recall, it vibrates in the wind.) Unfortunately, the wind hasn’t been blowing hard enough for the sound to get very loud lately, so I haven’t been able to experiment. Oh, well.

Started out 2006 hung over, so I figure it can only go up from here. Well, I missed one party today, but I made another, and I saw some friends from grade school! That’s always great. I saw Emily Harris of NPR fame (every time she goes to Iraq, I hold my breath) and her new baby. Plus her sister Alice’s new son Owen (I hope I didn’t get that wrong). And the most interesting thing was showing up and having to help Dr. Harris saw a tree limb that had just fallen and was blocking the driveway.

Oh, and a friend of mine wanted to know if I wanted to see “Brokeback Mountain” with him. Sounds too sad for me. And people were already on my case for having a pink cell phone with a picture of my mom on it. Heh.

I just got back from a New Year’s Eve party where my friend Steve gave me the resolution: “Go to more parties.” Well, I had a great time and I also got to play fanboy and met some webcomic authors!

When I first found out I had cancer, one of the things that got me through the first month was webcomics. While I didn’t get to meet Chris Onstad or Jeff Rowland, I did get to meet R Stevens aka the Poopmonster and Mike mumble-mumble! (I can’t remember much there.)

I’d post pictures, but I have to hit the hay.

Here’s to a great 2006!

I finished all my donations and I noticed some of the charities send all way too many requests ever year. Oregon Public Broadcasting sent more than 5, the ACLU sent more than 4, and so did Doctors Without Borders. Well, I was going to use the number of envelopes as a negative indicator, but I ended up just looking at www.charitywatch.org.
I also deposited the checks for the ham radio club but decided not to go downtown to the shoe store because it was POURING down rain outside.

Oh, and I got my new toy today:

I spent a lot of time trying to get some PC software to work with it and finally gave up and synchronized the address book with my Mac. Hahaha. I’ve had no luck with PCs this week.

So today I had two things I wanted to do:

1. Renew my Concealed Handgun permit.
2. Find out what size Blundstones I really wear.

Of course I only barely completed the first task. The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office is only open for Concealed Handgun permit renewals on Thursdays from 7:30AM to 10AM and 2:30PM until 4PM. I thought it said 10:30AM and I squeaked in there at 10AM.

I suppose this leads to another question: why do I even have a concealed handgun permit? Well, sometimes I borrow trucks from rednecks (you ever try hauling anything large in a two-seat convertible?) and those trucks can have handguns in the glove box or under the seat, etc. Rather than find out the hard way how that’s prosecuted, I just go and renew my concealed handgun permit every four years.

About task #2, instead of finding out what size Blundstones I wear (and Blundstone uses weird Australian sizes) I went to my sister’s house and found out how bad I can screw up a perfectly working computer. I was trying to get two computers to use the same printer, but after five hours I found out that having different default user names makes that impossible.

My brother-in-law had a list of things to complete and he finished his. His had harder tasks mixed in with easier tasks like, “Eat,” and “Walk Dede,” so he could feel better about his completion ratio.
Tomorrow my tasks include:

1. Depositing the checks from the radio club (postage from mailings and yearly dues.)
2. Finding out what size shoes I wear.
3. Writing checks to charities.

I have to sort through this stack of donation requests.

I already gave twofifty to the American Red Cross this year. I thought they meant $2.50, imagine my surprise when my Visa bill came back with a charge for $250! Oh, and a recipe for Red Velvet cake. (Don’t worry, I meant to give $250.) Now I have to figure out who else I want to contribute to this year. Wish me luck.

Oh, I did get some great news today that has nothing to do with my car insurance. My latest blood sample has undetectable levels of the Philadelphia chromosome using standard PCR. That means the expensive medicine is working! Hooray!

Turns out the guy I went to see today wasn’t a chiropractor/acupunturist, but just an acupuncturist. Fortunately, it’s worked for me so far. I still have aches in my back, but I don’t have shooting pains that keep me from bending, etc.

There were some weird things I noticed. They use disposable needles now to avoid contamination. His office was in an “old” hotel that wasn’t so old. The offices have card-lock doors, newer carpet, and non-operating bathtubs. The sink for the bathroom is outside in the main room. And it’s hard to get in unless you go to the “lobby.” Plus, he may not have been wearing gloves when he poked me with the pins. I’m not sure, since my back was to him while he was doing the poking.

But right now my back is feeling much better than it has felt all this past week. I’d recommend seeing him. Shinichi Moriyama in Portland.

Since I’m supposed to be on vacation this week, I’ve been entirely lazy about doing much of anything. That, plus my back still hurts. Well, the least lazy thing I’ve done (besides stuffing my fat face) is to get an appointment with an acupuncturist/chiropractor so maybe I’ll have one less excuse. Of course, I don’t think I need an excuse to be lazy. Just a bunch of repeated James Bond movies on cable is enough.

It’s the time of year to post the exact same picture I post every year:

Other than that, I have almost nothing. My back still hurts and it wakes me up at night. Mariko called and she’s coughing now, so I’m guessing she’s not sleeping much either. I’m just watching whatever is on TV and you know there’s going to be a lot of James Bond and, “A Christmas Story.” I watched the communist tract, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and I’m waiting for, “Scrooge,” with Alastair Sims.

Happy Holidays.

So I’ve been working late all week because we’re not supposed to work next week. According to my boss at Megacorp, whether we work next week or not, we’ll be working a lot next year. For that reason he wanted us all to take next week off. I was also going to take Friday off since I’m supposed to be watching my sister’s dog while she and my brother-in-law go back to California for Xmas.

My sister developed a sinus infection that makes her head feel like it’s going to explode and that’s not exactly how you want to feel when you’re flying. My brother-in-law is flying down by himself and I don’t have to watch the doggie. Looks like I can go to work tomorrow.

And my Megacorp-issued laptop has some serious problems and I have to bring it in next week for some servicing. So I have to go in sometime next week.

Ah, well. I was at work at a little before 8 this morning and left a little before 8 this evening. The only surprising thing is how many different people keep telling me to ask out the admin in the next row over. THE NEXT ROW OVER. When things go badly that isn’t very far away.

Since my back still hurts, I’m still not going to the gym. Figured I’d spend some extra time at work since I’m not supposed to be going in next week. Let me tell you, I’m pretty tired of work. Plus, my megacorp-issued laptop has slowed to a crawl today. Somehow I’ve also filled up the 40GB hard drive with SOMETHING. I’m not sure what, though.

Anyway, staying at work late watching an hourglass icon on a computer isn’t my idea of fun. It may, however, be megacorp’s idea of fun. I’m doing my best not to limp around because of my back, but I’m afraid I’m walking around like I have a stick up my ass. It’s not improving my reputation with the single women (and I think there’s two.) One is the lunch lady who was rounding up the dirty dishes that made their way out of the cafeteria while saying, “THESE DISHES ARE COMIN’ BACK TO MAMA!”

And you thought megacorp was megadull. (Well, it is pretty much.)

The window guy came by today and found nothing wrong with the installation. I called the company and they’re willing to keep working with me on trying to fix the problem. They have some odd ideas regarding the weather stripping, etc, but the seem quite willing to work with me on trying to figure out what is wrong with the window. Unfortunately, that also means I may be losing some more sleep if it’s windy in the middle of the night.

I also bought a program for my Mac that’s supposed to start recording when the sound gets loud enough. I set it up in case the window started to make noise, so I could have some proof that it wasn’t just me being nutty. Unfortunately I set it up wrong and there’s 7 1/2 hours of my rustling around in bed and the fan of the Mac laptop going on an doff.

Oh, and my back still hurts and I had to skip my trip to the gym. I also screwed up and worked until almost 7PM. Yar.

OK, first the promised picture from yesterday:

Today it mostly melted and while I was hoping that it would mean that my jury duty was cancelled, we were supposed to show up 2 hours late instead.

In Multnomah County we currently serve one day every couple of years. You sit in a huge jury room with a giant TV and a lot of strange looking people until you randomly get selected for a jury. Previously, jury duty had been much longer and I’ve spent a whole week in that jury room before. I finally was called up to a courtroom for a DUII case and they asked us questions for an hour-and-a-half before they sent us off for lunch. Of course, I wasn’t selected to be on that jury (or any other). For some reason, this rejection doesn’t feel that bad.

And now my back hurts. I don’t remember lifting anything besides my fat ass out of a chair, so I may be coming down with something. I rode the bus twice today, so it’s likely to be the plague.