Earlier this week I had to get up at a ridiculous time so I could be in the office for a 7AM meeting. I was just kind of listening in on that, but tomorrow I have to be in for a 6:30AM meeting and I’m the main event. Fortunately I think it’ll just be a nice question and answer sort of meeting, but sometimes the answers just mean a lot more work for me. But enough about that. Not talking any more about work, and how people live in other, more inconvenient, time zones.

I tried for a 340# deadlift today and I didn’t make it. This means that if I’m going to pretend that I can deadlift twice my body weight, I’m going to have to pretend that I only weigh 165#, which is sort of what I weigh. I’d say I go from 164# to 168#, so I’m going to have to deadlift more next time, or lose some weight. Either one is going to be kind of hard. I did get 340# up and about to my knees, but I just didn’t have it in me to get it all the way up. I started out thinking that I wasn’t going to make it and that didn’t help much. I should probably get more sleep, but the heat earlier in the week didn’t help much.

OK, so I have to get up at a ridiculous time, so that’s about it for today. Life could be more interesting, but then would it be my life?

Most days I would say something about my tedious day and, according to the stats, 20 people would read it. I think 19 of those 20 are actually just google and yahoo and whatever other search engines are still out there. I wonder if altavista is still out there?

But I really have very little to report. And I even missed Sunday and Monday. Sunday was a beautiful day and I spent it inside. I started out by finally putting marmoleum sealer on my bathroom floor (after more than a year of just thinking about it) and then paying my bills. But then I spent the rest of the day trying to write an iPhone app. I was successful in writing an app, but it did not work the way I wanted it to. Back to the drawing board.

I think the main reason I haven’t been writing as much is because I’ve been busy at work, and I still have stuff to do in the evening because i’ve been busy at work. Pretty pathetic but whatever. Anyway that’s the happy haps. Time to read the entertainment news.

I did very little actual work today and it just involved filling a garbage can with some more of the ivy my awful neighbor left in my yard. It’s just as well, I’m not a big fan of ivy. I also had some fun trying out some chemical means of controlling the weeds in my yard. Other than that, though, it was all about sitting inside and trying to get my computer to do what I wanted it to do. I wasn’t quite successful.

We went to a Japanese curry restaurant called Kale that my mom and my sister have been talking about for a while and it was pretty good though they don’t have a lot of things on the menu. Beef curry, non-beef curry (semi-vegetarian), and curry doria. I had the doria, which must be phonetically transliterated from something else, but it’s rice, curry, and cheese which is baked. It was quite tasty. The name of the restaurant is also the transliteration of curry in Japanese.

Japanese curry is not like other curries, but it was pretty tasty if you ask me. The menu is pretty limited and the location is in a café in SW Portland near Lincoln High School and I think I’ll be going back.

Oh, and I went and bought a Zagg screen protector for my iPhone 4 after being all paranoid about scratching it and I’m much happier now. I’m waiting for the bumper to actually ship and I think then I’ll be even happier. I finally made a couple of phone calls with the thing but so far I’m just using it like my last iPhone 3GS, maps, texting, and iPod. And so far I really like it.

I used Facetime today. The heat, however, is melting my brain. 85°F is too much too soon for me. So I got nothing else. Time to pass out.

I knew I’d be fairly useless today since the UPS web site hadn’t changed since I got my notification on Monday. Refreshing the web page told me that things were changing, but the things that were changing was just the time of the report. It still said it was on the way to UPS in Memphis until it was actually delivered today, one day early! My guess is that they almost crashed the AT&T system last year when all the iPhones were released on the same day, and this time they wanted to spread it out a bit. Especially since I heard they sold ten times the volume of phones this year.

Anyway, I’ve spent all evening transferring data into my new phone. I still haven’t made a phone call, but I’ve taken a picture and sent a text message to my sister. Whoop-de-doo, right? I guess I have to play with it more tomorrow.

Other than that, it really feels like Thursday. What is with this week?

My iPhone 4 is shipping or so the email said. AT&T has somehow sent it into the bowels of the UPS system and it should be delivered sometime. The problem is that I’m hitting refresh over and over trying to find out when I’m really going to get it. This is why I just wanted to stand in line and get it at the store. I’d know nothing until the day it arrived and I’d just waltz in and get it. It worked the last two times I got an iPhone. Ah, well. Not much else to say because I’m busy clicking refresh on the UPS package tracker.

I’m usually OK winging presentations, but I’m not entirely smooth at them either. I had to do a presentation with another guy today, and I only spoke for 10 minutes out of two hours, but it was still oddly tiring. And because of that my mind is drawing a blank right now.

Went out to dinner to an all-you-can-eat pizza place last night with my sister and some of her friends. Unfortunately there were other small groups there and we had to wait an hour to get seated. The problem in a group of six to eight is that not everyone is full or get the pizza they want and so you wait on the last person. Especially since you want them to get their money’s worth, too. Also unfortunately, the pizza was good but not great in my opinion. I’d certainly get it again, but someone else would have to pick it. And I over-garlicked myself and instead of just getting gas, I had more catastrophic stomach problems. Self-limiting, of course, but still unpleasant in it’s own way. I hate to think I have to avoid garlic from now on, but it would make more sense than I have to top cold-turkey. I wonder if there’s a twelve-step program for garlic.

I usually don’t blog on Fridays because Fridays are excitement time for me. A guy like me spends all week working for the weekend and parties hard on Friday night. And by party hard I mean I watch all the TV shows I have queued up on my DVR. Now that it’s summer, though, I’m not as popular with the DVR and I have to find something else to occupy my Friday night.

Actually I was so tired that I tired that I lied down for a few minutes before dinner (or is it layed down? this isn’t a grammatical rule I have to use much) and when I woke up I couldn’t remember what the hell I was doing. In fact, I thought I was late for the gym.  This contributed to lots of stumbling around before eating dinner.

Anyway, I’m actually Mr. Popular My usually quiet phone rang SEVEN TIMES today! Unfortunately, it was a number iI had blocked myself so it didn’t ring through. I wish I could say it was something exciting like an ex-girlfriend or a government conspiracy of some sort, but not only do I have an ex-girlfriend who calls me but I’m probably way too dull for the conspiracy parts of the government. From what I’ve heard, the number is some sort of telemarketing service. Ah well, II’m going to keep thinking it was more exciting than it was.

How you like me now? It’s WordPress 3.0 beaches with a new theme! I figured I needed a wide picture, and the only one I could think of is the view from Megan and Nadeem’s. Anyway, here it is!

Yesterday I went to dinner at Sushiland with Erin and MattyG after the gym and then hit the Nook Cafe next door for a drink. It’s in a house where my sister’s grade school classmate lived and I keep hearing that the house is haunted! I don’t believe in ghosts, but I love a good story. The guy who runs the cafe doesn’t believe in ghosts, either, but he said he felt something bump into him as he stood in the middle of the room with no one around him. It’s a nice little spot either way.

OK, time to hit the hay, I think.

I did make it back into the gym today, where I think I almost broke myself. I’m exaggerating, but I am tired.

I recorded the basketball game and I watched it, but really why do I always miss watching the Lakers get beat and have to watch them win? Perhaps it’s better for the Celtics if I just don’t watch the games. You know how this superstitious stuff works.

The worst news (which I realize isn’t all that bad) is that I don’t think I’m getting a new iPhone on the first day it’s available. I almost had it ordered this morning at 7AM, but I thought if I went to the AT&T store I could get in-store delivery and I wouldn’t have to worry about waiting for it to be delivered and then being unproductive at work while I waited for it to arrive home. Well, it turns out that EVERYONE wanted an iPhone 4 today and the ordering computers crashed. When I got to the AT&T store, they were taking orders on paper and running credit cards using one of those old manual machines. I got a call late in the day from the store telling me that the computer looked like it was limping along finally, but I also saw online that the pre-orders were all sold out and I probably won’t be getting mine until after July 5 or so. That’s two weeks after the launch. Oh, well.

Now I’m tempting fate by updating my Kindle software. These things happen in threes, right?

Sometimes it’s nice to get home from a beautiful week in San Francisco to a beautiful warm Portland weekend, but it really doesn’t help if you’re running a 100°F fever and want to stay inside napping. In fact, rainy and cold is usually better because my bedroom gets hot when it’s 80°F outside. In the true spirit of last month’s sinus headaches, my head felt like it was going to split open once again. Advil and holding still made it possible for me to finish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, like everyone else on the planet.

My return to work today wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. There’s a lot to catch up on, but at least it’s not all on fire. Thank goodness for that.

Last night was the big WWDC bash, and the music was OK Go! I wish i could say the sound quality was good enough but it really sucked ass, sort of like the food this year. The sessions were very iPhone/iPad based and after seeing so many of them I think I really want one. But I’m still holding out for a video conferencing camera, even though I NEVER VIDEOCONFERENCE. It’s my weird hang-up, so I’ll have to deal with it. Anyway, the lunches were especially bad and we didn’t get as much loot this year. Usually we get a t-shirt mailed to us, a laptop bag of some sort, and a DVD with the latest OS on it. This year we got a nice American Apparel jacket which I’m sure I’ll use much more than the bags, but it still seemed like I should get more swag. I did score a “square” so I can take credit card payments. Not that I have anything to take payments for, but it’s still swag.

Anyway, I did get to spend some time drinking with an online friend from London who no longer seems like he’s 12, though he was born in the year I graduated from MIT. This morning it was tough staying awake at the WWDC sessions. After the conference ended at 2PM, I sat in the hotel lobby for the afternoon, feeling a little sick. I finally realized it was my allergies that were bothering me.

The worst part was trying to make it back home. I got on the Super Shuttle and they had no idea what they were doing. I scheduled a 6PM ride to the airport and they spent an hour driving around San Francisco picking up other people. Then they finally picked up two random people at a hotel and crammed nine of us in that van somehow. I got to my flight 10 minutes before boarding started and I was in a bad mood. At least I made it home.

So now that I’m here I have to move my data around my hard disks and do all the weird stuff I was thinking of doing at the conference. Or sleeping. I think I really ought to be doing the latter.