There are many reasons I use a Mac, but one of the reasons I liked it early on was because it was easy to use BOTH Japanese and English. One or the other is easy on a PC, but back in the day, both were kind of hard to do at the same time. I still have some 1.2M floppy disks around that only worked on Japanese laptops, not that the kids nowadays would know what the heck I’m talking about.

In any case, I can still use the Mac to send almost unintelligible Japanese email to my friends and relatives. My friends put a little more effort into decoding what I’m talking about and my relatives don’t. I think the engineers also are more likely to acknowledge the difficulties in speaking another language, since the probably have to speak English from time-to-time. In any case, I just spent a bunch of time sending an email to a guy I used to hang out with at work, who I haven’t seen for about nineteen years. I’m hoping I see him in Tokyo this year. I expect that he will be a plant manager or something and I’m the same guy I always was – a guy who has been told to actively stay away from my friends’ female acquaintances and relatives.

I was feeling quite miserable this afternoon, and by miserable I mean lightheaded and nauseous (like I said, I looked it up and I can say nauseous or nauseated). I’m not sure if it’s the same thing my mom had last week, or if it’s a side effect of my ‘flu shot, or if – like I told a co-worker – my lunch burrito was trying to kill me. In any case, I sat around being lazy instead of going to the gym, and I avoided three rounds of rowing and running around the building. I think I win! (And maybe I’ll feel better by tomorrow.)

I think I’ve been volunteering for the marathon for ten years now. Maybe more. I’m not too sure. That’s a lot of days of standing around for five hours, watching runners go by. I’m mostly there in case someone needs a ride back to the start and Mile 11 (this year and last year) or Mile 12 (previous years) is too early for too many people to drop out. This year we only had one guy who had knee problems but decided to try running anyway. I told him that the reason he should stop is because he wants to be able to do this in the future if he wants to, not damage his knee to the point where he won’t be able to do it again.

The weather this year was the worst I’ve seen in 10 years, and some other volunteers were telling me it was the worst they’ve seen in 20. It was cold with often pouring rain. The police seemed to close the course early and I heard there was a lost group of walkers.

I’ve also decided that Burgerville isn’t that great because their meat is too good. Hamburgers need a certain level of grease that they don’t provide. It was a disappointment to go to Burgerville instead of Five Guys, but at least I made it there on the following day, after Sean’s Jiu Jitsu tournament.

I think I’ve been volunteering for the marathon for ten years now. Maybe more. I’m not too sure. That’s a lot of days of standing around for five hours, watching runners go by. I’m mostly there in case someone needs a ride back to the start and Mile 11 (this year and last year) or Mile 12 (previous years) is too early for too many people to drop out. This year we only had one guy who had knee problems but decided to try running anyway. I told him that the reason he should stop is because he wants to be able to do this in the future if he wants to, not damage his knee to the point where he won’t be able to do it again.

The weather this year was the worst I’ve seen in 10 years, and some other volunteers were telling me it was the worst they’ve seen in 20. It was cold with often pouring rain. The police seemed to close the course early and I heard there was a lost group of walkers.

I’ve also decided that Burgerville isn’t that great because their meat is too good. Hamburgers need a certain level of grease that they don’t provide. It was a disappointment to go to Burgerville instead of Five Guys, but at least I made it there on the following day, after Sean’s Jiu Jitsu tournament.

I was invited to a wedding today, thought I went to a jiu jitsu tournament in the morning. I find it interesting to watch the sport, even though I think participating would be quite foolish. Why would someone of my age want to participate in something like that? And what would it prove?

The wedding was quite clever and fun, but what would you expect from two theatre people? It drew a lot of attention to the bride and groom, but who else should have the attention on them? I’ve been telling the story about the last time I saw the groom: someone asked him if the wedding was coming up and he was just tipping a bottle of beer up to get a drink. I think he started to reply at the same time he was swallowing because he did a perfect spit take and started coughing. Not the response you would expect. The bride was shooting daggers at him, but everyone else was laughing. Today he looked like the happiest guy in town, and (in my question answering mood) who else should be?

One of the clever things was a manual typewriter to be used as the guest book. It’s the only picture I have of the day (mainly because I’m not the one who should have pictures taken of, or be taking pictures).

We had cable service for 38 years and they still let me cancel without much effort. Today I called up Clear and they didn’t try to keep me either. Just canceled my service without much question. I wonder if it’s because I’m Asian.

Last night I actually thought about going to sleep at a time that would give me eight hours of sleep. But that means I get back from the gym, eat dinner, take a shower, and then have an hour or less before I have to be in bed. I have a lot of crap I have to fit into that time. And last night was the second or third night that my internet connection has been absolute shit and I was online with tech support for several hours.

I got WiMax service earlier this year and it’s been working fine for six months. Now, it’s absolutely shit. I get about 20kB/s download, which means I can’t even stream videos from YouTube. I bought the equipment so I can cancel at any time, but I think that means it cost me about $65/month for my internet service for the last six months. I suppose I can deal with that.

This is the second night I’ve been online with tech support chat, and this must be the third night that my service has been shitty. At least the tech support guy confirmed that there are limits and I’m now paying for absolutely nothing. I might as well just rely on my DSL connection.

So in summary, DO NOT GET CLEAR WiMAX SERVICE. DO NOT GET CLEAR INTERNET. JUST WATCHING TV WILL PUT YOU OVER THEIR FUCKING LIMIT, AND THEN YOU DON’T GET SHIT FOR DOWNLOAD SPEED. YOU MIGHT AS WELL DIAL IN TO AOL. Simple, huh?

I wanted to go to law school for a couple of reasons. One is that I have a degree in English (one of four degrees I have) and there’s only a couple of options for that: teacher, waiter, or law school. The other is that there’s a game being played and I won’t know the rules unless I go to law school. I’m trying to fill out a simple form that appears required after death and everyone dies. Shouldn’t this be easier? I mean, really, affiant? Devisee? Testate? Affidavit? What language are they using anyway?

My dad has some money owed to him by the State of Oregon and I have to file all sorts of paperwork to get it. And pay all sorts of fees. I called the lawyer we used to write up his will and he thought I was nuts to go to this effort for as little as I’m going to get. I think that means I get to file the paperwork and beg forgiveness if it’s wrong.

The weird thing is I used to like filling out forms as a kid. I quickly lost patience though, so my career as a bureaucrat wasn’t to be. I guess I’m filling out forms again. The weird thing is that I have to chase around to find legal forms and then I probably have to break out an old typewriter to fill them out. Old school. Weird, huh?

As long as I’m gaining weight, I figured I might as well just go for it. Actually, this is the reason I need to hang out with people who eat like birds rather than the ones I hang out with now.

My Friday escapades led me to find out several things: the burgers at Five Guys, while variable, are mostly tasty. The week before they forgot to salt the meat, I think, and they were quite bland. Krispy Creme which has only passable doughnuts, now has passable soft-serve ice cream. I would suggest avoiding the dipped cones because they just taste waxy. Just to complete my gluttony for the day, I had spaghetti for dinner.

Saturday wasn’t much better. Most of a Cuban Mixto sandwich from Kenny and Zuke’s Sandwichworks, and then dinner at the Greek Festival. That means a gyro, souvlaki, those doughnutty things that I can’t remember, a beer, some retsina, and some very sweet coffee.

Really, you know what this all got me? Nightmares. They weren’t completely uninteresting and I could probably recreate them with some coffee and a couple of beers. It also didn’t stop me from going to the Country Cat with my family and Megan and Anne and having a tasty chicken fried steak and some not-so-tasty coffee.

My mom now has a cold of some sort and standing up makes her nauseous. (Yeah, I looked it up in the dictionary and you can use nauseated or nauseous when you feel sick to your stomach in case you’re some sort of misguided grammar Nazi who doesn’t really know what you’re talking about). She was fine going to bed early until she got one of her chronic cramps in her leg, which made her need to stand up and that made her sick to her stomach again. I suppose leg cramps are something I have to look forward to because it’s probably an inherited trait. Hooray for that.

Yesterday, when I got home from they gym and not talking about Matt Gonzalez, I was so tired that I just wanted to take my dinner and put it in a blender so I wouldn’t have to chew. Pretty sad, since it was a salad and I bet it would have tasted like doodie. Today I deadlifted a personal record weight, I think, 345 lbs. Old target was to deadlift twice my body weight, which seems to be 165# in the morning and 170# in the evening, but my new target is four times my IQ which would be 4 x 90 or two-hundred something. Hahaha.

I’m about to ditch the bathroom scale and lend it to a buddy who’s cutting weight for a jiu jitsu tournament. Last time he cut way too much and got weak, so I figure this might stop him from being as foolish, but he’s a little like me and lacking in the common sense. His wife was saying it would be better if he just had a scale that said “OK” or “NOT OK”. Maybe that’s what we all need.

I pulled out another box of my dad’s stuff and I’m supposed to be going through it. I wish I was energetic enough to put some of it on ebay but really I’m not. Who wants an old Casio CQ-1 calculator/watch/stopwatch anyway? How do I get rid of little trinkets? (Goodwill Industries, that’s how.) I usually just stare at them for a few months and then off they go. It’s just as well anyway.

Looks like our trip to Japan is getting planned. Fly into Tokyo, drive to Toyama where family friends are and stay for a few days, train to Osaka near where I used to work for a few days, train to Okayama near where my sister used to work for a couple of days, train to Tokyo for a couple of days, and then fly back. Since my sister is going, there’s going to be a lot of shopping going on and a lot of baggage coming back with us. Woo. And, unfortunately, the yen is quite strong right now. Whatever, it’ll be fun and I won’t be at work!

There’s a partner workout we do at the gym where we row 200m, swing a kettlebell 20 times, and then run halfway around the building, five times. Usually I do it with Arune, so he goes, I go, etc. I think he’s carrying me and we usually get the best time on the board, but since most of the times are erased I can’t tell if it’s the best time of the day or not. Probably not. In any case, it was awfully humid today and I felt like throwing up before we even started (leg circuits of squats and lunges beforehand) but we still did pretty well. And by we I mean Arune carried me through another partner workout. I figured I wasn’t talking about the gym enough lately.

It’s funny the kind of relationship advice I get. Most of the guys tell me things like, “Move on.” In fact, I think that’s exactly what they told me. The women, however, range from, “You need to try harder,” to, “I think if you find someone who is willing to touch your d*ck, you should probably hold onto them.” I pointed out that I was willing to touch my d*ck but then was told that I’m also a bit needy so maybe I should find someone else.

Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing.

Most of the month of September, and into October, the Vaux swift migration has a bunch of birds going into the chimney at the school across the street. The birds aren’t a big pain, but the huge crowds they attract are a big pain. It’s hard to park on the street in the neighborhood in the evenings, so if you leave you can’t come back until after dark. In addition, today was the Northwest Portland Portland Parkways and I thought they were going to block off the street all week. What a pain.

But I thought I’d make the best of it since there were businesses coming to pass out swag, and vendors coming to sell food. I’m not sure Dixon’s Barbecue Pit made any money, because here’s the size of the pulled pork sandwich they gave me.

That’s a large plate and the meat is spilling out because it’s piled as high as they could get it. And it was tasty. I also had some ice cream from Scoop Organic Ice Cream (the salted caramel and brown sugar & oatmeal were excellent). Even better, I got swag from my bank (the nice one), Kaiser Permanente, complained to the urban forestry people about the awful trees in the parking strip I’d like to get rid of, and got a free shoulder massage.

Portland has several massage schools, and I think every student needs to do some number of hours of massage before they get licensed, and you often see free chair massages at “wellness” events. I’ve finally realized that I should just get as many free massages as I can because it benefits everyone involved.

Anyway, I also saw a lot of neighbors and I think I’m getting rounded up by the precinct chairpersons to deliver voting materials to the people of the neighborhood. That’s what I get for being a supporter of the democratic system.