Lately I’ve been working on some oddly written code for megacorp. And since megacorp has no sense when it comes to software schedules, I’m very, very late and there’s no leeway given. That means I’ve been spending a lot of my evenings and weekends trying to catch up. And just being stuck in this mess is kind of tiring me out.

Anyway, I’ve also been too tired to worry about much else. No more of that looking at match.com, no more looking at fastcupid.com, all just looking at code.

Somehow I’m not sure this is any better.

I think I’ve posted every picture I’ve taken, and obviously that hasn’t been many. Today I have a picture of the camera bag my sister made for me.

I spent a lot of the weekend trying to get some work for megacorp done. I haven’t progressed beyond what I had on Friday, which is about a quarter complete. I’m supposed to have it done by today. (Yeah, Sunday.) I think I’m going to be a disappointment here.

Someone asked how I knew the people at the party tonight. I said, “The porn store.” It was easier than explaining and I was getting close to being the last person at the party: the guy who gets kicked out. I can tell I’m getting old because I’m getting the bum’s rush at 11PM. It was a housewarming party and a lot of my friends aren’t having housewarming parties lately. In fact, many of them are hiring movers rather than asking friends for help. I think we’re all getting old.

I seriously need to do some more abs workouts. The gym keeps getting filled with odd people. Why do people need to be naked to stand on the scale? Gym clothes can’t add that much to your weight. And standing on the scale while you’re all sweaty and hairy is pretty disgusting. Megan was complaining about people who don’t wear underwear with their gym shorts (and I don’t ’cause there’s a liner in there already) but today there was some freaky guy wearing spandex underwear who wore bright-green Robin shorts into the shower.

I suppose that’s enough talk about the locker room. But it was Friday night at the gym and fairly uneventful.

There were some flakes mixed in with the rain on my way to work today, but nothing that stuck. The trip home was slow and filled with accidents because of heavy rain rather than anything novel.

So I’m headed towards another dull weekend. Dull because my project at megacorp is to untangle this mess of software and get it all into a format digestible by our database. Thanks to the author of the software, the untangling is taking a lot more effort than I wanted to put into it. Basically that means a lot of tedious work over the weekend. I suppose that’s why they pay me money to do this job.

We’re supposed to get some snow tomorrow, and there’s usually a couple typical scenarios. One is that the snow starts in the middle of the day and everyone panics and heads home. The streets are clogged and I walk to lunch if I can. By the time the evening commute starts, everyone is at home and the roads are clear of snow and traffic.

The second scenario is that it starts snowing and keeps snowing, making the trip home exciting and slow.

Most high-tech jobs are out in the western suburbs, over the west hills of Portland. I live close to downtown, on the east side of the West Hills. So if snow does fall tonight, I’ll see it on the way to work.

In other news, the gym is being sold. I may be going to a “Gold’s Gym” soon. I realize I spend too much time going to the gym and flailing about, plus I spend too much time talking about the place. Well, we all need hobbies, right?

Sheesh, what do I expect? I think I’m actually gaining some muscle. Nothing spectacular, but noticeable to myself when I flex in the mirror like a teenage boy.

I have a minor complaint that my buddy Il told me was a lame complaint: at work someone took the plastic insert out of the large Tabasco sauce bottle in the cafeteria, and so when I tried to use it I poured Tabasco sauce all over my lunch. Fortunately, it made the burger much tastier. Unfortunately, I sweat so much that my hair was actually wet. I was still sweating a couple of hours later.

Oh, and a quote from the gym that made Dave the Trainer and me laugh so hard that I couldn’t work out as much: “I had a cold and I smoked a cigarette before it was time and now I have a bad cough.” HAH. Before it was time!

It’s sort of a rhetorical question. I think the true answer is to reload the computer completely. The idea doesn’t bother me that much, but it is a pain in the tuckus. Megan came over and we ran a virus checker over and over and over on her dad’s computer from about 8:30 until 10 when I told her to take it home and try it a few more times. Yar. He wasn’t running a virus checker beforehand.

So, which of Megan’s suggestions do I take:

1. Make out with dudes (not likely).
2. Shave my head (sounds a little cold).
3. Ask out the woman in the next row (a little close if it doesn’t work out, I’d think).
4. Become a sperm donor for her (and I don’t think I’d be comfortable siring a little axe-murderer without some sort of direct supervision).

We’ll see what suggestions she gives me when she comes back for Xmas.

You can imagine the fun I had towards the end of the night, running a virus scanner over and over and having the same thing (probably a Trojan horse, actually) deteced over and over. I finally gave up. I’ll have to look at it later.

Anyway, got to hang out with Megan and Craig. Eventually I’m sure I’ll fix their dad’s computer, unless they find someone else to do it.

Had a fun dinner with my friends Megan and Craig, and Craig’s friend Lila. I guess I was dragged along to make the numbers more even. In any case, we went out to Caldera, near my sister’s house, and we took a couple of pictures with my camera in “food mode.” Megan was kind of upset because she wanted the same camera. The food was good (as far as I could tell). I had the pork chop, Megan had a pasta dish, Craig had some sort of eggplant sandwich, and Lila had manicotti. We only have pictures of my pork chop and Megan’s pasta, and here it is. I’m off to sleep off my 2 glasses of wine (and the nice Cosmopolitan that was mostly juice.)

So yesterday I forgot to include a picture of my mom, so here it is:

Today was fairly non-eventful because I didn’t do much. I went shopping for a memory card because the one that came with my camera holds only FOUR pictures at the maximum resolution. ONLY FOUR. Why do they even bother? I guess a SD card that small is close to disposable. OfficeMax had more employees than shoppers. The rest of the day I sat at home doing something with my computer, but I can’t remember what. Oh, well.

I told a vegan friend at the gym, “Happy Tofurky Day,” but she didn’t catch it. My sister got a complete dinner from New Seasons (which, I understand, is a local grocery chain) and it was great! Since my mom came back from Japan today, it was me, ma, pa, Mariko, and her husband Peter.

You’ll notice that there are some gifts my mom brought back from Japan. You may notice the shochu and the sweets on the table. She also brought me a new camera! I think they’re cheaper here but she got a color that isn’t available in the US, and the instructions and the menus are all in Japanese.

You can also see the toys my pa got:

and his “Drip On” instant coffee, displayed by my sister.

I figure while we’re at it, here’s a picture of my sister and her husband, and one of their dog Dede.

No pictures of me, my dad (who was being cranky when I tried to take his picture) or my mom (whose picture I forgot to take!)

Well, that’s about enough for now. Since I didn’t go to the gym last night, I went this morning. Not only that, but I’m sore from standing on a wobbly board and having Dave the Trainer throw a medicine ball at me.