Either that, or they think that runners are gigantic people.

I registered for a 10K (without running a step in months) since they promised that I’d get to hear some 80’s one-hit-wonder bands. But it’s a Nike thing, and they’re making us wear their shirts. You can guess that living in Nike’s backyard makes a lot of people a bit jaded about the place. Right now I don’t think I care either way about them but I do hate that they’re more a fashion house that changes shoe styles and clothing every few months.

The worst part is that I didn’t check the shirt when I picked it up and it’s HUGE. Hey, Nike, we’re runners, not basketball players. A men’s large should be a bit small on me, and I’m only 5′ 10″ and 165 lbs. It shouldn’t hang down below my crotch. I went back and tried exchanging it for one that fit (a men’s small) but they weren’t having any of it.

I mean, seriously, it’s a Drifit shirt with sticky printing on it. I’m never going to wear it as a night shirt so it’s going into the recycle bin if it’s too big. Not a great way to spend a $35 registration fee for a run.

A long one, too. On the way home, I passed by the park and I heard banjo and fiddle music. The kind that makes my ass itch. I work hard and usually get nothing from it other than upset at the clowns I work with. And what does the world give me in return? Okie music.

I even got an email today telling me that the party I missed, because of work, was a great one. The world is rubbing it in.

So, what’s worse, living a miserable life, or living a miserable life and feeling sorry for yourself? I figure I’ll just live the miserable life. It’s probably the only one they’ll give me.

The largest database company in the world, 0r4cl3, whose name cannnot be mentioned out loud, must just be messing with people. Since I’m the backup sysadmin at work, and the real (hah) sysadmin is on vacation, I have to do things like installing 0r4cl3. On an approved system, (RedHat L33tnix) you have to:

1. Install the pre-installation patch.
2. Run the installer and install the program (and get some errors).
3. Install the patch program.
4. Run the installer and install the patch installer.
5. Run the installer and install the patches.
6. While running the installer to install the patches, move some files around so the installer doesn’t die from errors.

Keep in mind that this is a program that you can’t afford if you ask about the price. In fact, when you ask how much it is, they ask you how much you have. Often they have a huge list price and make you pay as much of that as you have. You’d expect a little more from a true evil corporation.

I wish I could have known earlier about Mio Gelato’s first birthday today. They had a special, $1 per scoop, about half price! I had a couple of scoops and my friend the manager told me I’d get a stomach ache at the gym. (She goes to the same gym.) I must not be working out hard enough, because I certainly didn’t get a stomach ache.

Part of my problem is that I need to fix some of my antennas. The other problem is that a solar flare is wreaking havoc with all sorts of radio communications right now. So, I got the radio finished this weekend and now I have nobody to talk to. Oh, well….

Yesterday I finally finished my radio. The last part was the worst, but now I have a complete ham radio that works well and cost me too much compared to the one I already have. But it was a kit, which makes it all the more expensive. So, most of a month spent hiding in the basement, and it’s finished.

Another indication that I need to get out more: I was at the park for a free Celtic concert and I was sure I saw a woman holding a small corpse of a baby. It was lifeless and motionless, and everyone was going about doing their own thing. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn’t a corpse, it was a doll. I told my friend about it, how I thought there was such a macabre scene in the middle of picnicking families and kids running about. She works with Child Protective Services and she told me that when she looks out at the families, she sees all the potential cases for child abuse and molestation.

And I thought I had it bad. When I think about work and look out at people, I just think, “He doesn’t know how to use a computer, and she doesn’t know how to use a computer, and she doesn’t know how to use a computer…” You get the idea.

Anyway, I think I should quit watching cop shows and reading mysteries if I can’t identify a baby doll as a baby doll.

I was invited to a barbecue weeks ago, and was looking forward to it the whole time. Unfortunately, I had to work. On a Saturday evening. I have more to say, but I won’t. It just kind of annoys me. I’m supposed to have a regular job, and I had to work from 4PM to 8PM on a Saturday with one day’s notice. Ah, well, I’m sure I’ll get fired and the clown whose fault it was will be fine. That’s the way of the world.

At least it’s cooling off outside.

Today it was 103°F. That’s way too hot and a record for the day.

I sure wish we could use our new refrigerator to cool off the house somehow, but that’s not what it’s for.

On the way home I walked by lots of empty outdoor seating at lots of popular and trendy restaurants. Not a soul outside anywhere except for at the fake Chinese restaurant, P.F. Chang’s. I always thought people eating faux Chinois were not the sharpest pencils in the box and today they proved me right. At 6:30PM it was still over 100°F outside and there they were, following the trendy herd.

I called my friend Il and I asked him if he knew anyone who still owned a convenience store. We could tell them that, yes, popular belief was true and white people do steal. We, being Asians, do not. We would work as unpaid interns for them as long as they let us inventory whatever was in the walk-in cooler. We wouldn’t steal a thing. Just work back in the cooler.

Obviously, the heat is getting to us.

Work is getting odder, but the refrigerator is in, my mom’s eye seems OK, and soon it won’t be 100°F. It was only in the mid-90’s today, but the next two days are going to be over 100°F. We don’t need that up here in Oregon. Maybe nobody needs it.

Had a nice chat with a man from Belgium yesterday on my “old” radio and that just makes me want to finish my new radio all the more. I should have the parts tomorrow. They keep shorting me on parts in my kit. Can’t be perfect, I suppose.

My ma had cataract surgery yesterday. The paperwork told her to show up at 7:30AM and that the surgery would take 3 hours. At 11:30AM I called the hospital and they told me she was just going in, and it would be another couple of hours. They told us that they’d called us about it last week and we should have called them back.

The doctors offices have a new trick: they call you after 5PM (sometimes as late as 6:30PM) and tell you to call back during office hours. So, if you’re a few feet away from the phone and let the answering machine (or your confused father) pick up the phone, you can’t call them back for up to three days, if they call you after 5PM on a Friday night. For me, that’s asking me to forget.

I have to take my ma back to the doctor today, but so far, so good.

The joys of getting old. I had two beers and a scotch yesterday, and not all in one sitting. I think they were spread out over about four hours. I had a beer celebrating the retrieval of data out of a dead computer, then a late lunch down in the grand metropolis of Scappoose, Oregon, and finally had a scotch while we tried to download data from a bullet chronograph into a laptop.

That led to a nice migraine headache. Another hobby down the tubes. My liver will probably be happy for it. I wonder if they’re giving me Anabuse instead of Gleevec.

There really isn’t much else going on during the summer doldrums. The woman I was pretending was my girlfriend (we had lunch once in a while, nothing more) is traveling the country and then is off to India for a couple of months. The attractive women at the gym have quit coming now that it’s so darn hot out. And you’d think there would be more attractive women working downtown.

There’s a modelling agency across the street from where I work and we can see in their window. The kids I work with find it quite interesting, but I finally decided it isn’t all that much fun looking at teenage girls with eating disorders. It beats looking at the 400lb guy that also works there. He likes lifting his shirt and scratching his huge belly and you should see him eat a sandwich. I should say, “You should see him INHALE a sandwich.” It’s all quite disturbing. I think he could eat a couple of the models and still be hungry.

As an Oregonian, I see about two weeks of 90+ degree weather a year. And both of those weeks I’m miserable. Tomorrow is supposed to be 93°F. Yeesh.

I sure hope they’re right about the 79°F day on Sunday.

The only other interesting thing is that I have to do this weekend is buy a new refrigerator. Ours is only 17 years old and it’s already ready for the scrap heap. It’s not nearly as cold as it should be, and we even cleaned the coils (the easy fix). According to a repair company, 10 years is about all you can expect.

Sears, here I come!

So I guess I could describe this week as hot and muggy with little sleep happening. Last night, I some miscreants pulled into the driveway at 2:30AM and started honking. I’m assuming it was the kids I chased off a few weeks back. That’s life for you.

I’ve been trying all week to make a contact on my new radio. Someone finally heard me tonight, but his signal faded in the middle of the contact and I lost him. Well, that was the best I’ve done so far.

It’s been so hot that the gym is crowded later in the evening. That makes sense, since everyone is waiting for it to cool off. I found out that hearing a woman say, “And the chart was in the shape of Mount Olympus and represented the projected sales goals,” makes her very unattractive in my eyes. Funny, huh?