I took the day off from work today. Not only was I feeling under the weather, but the clock-radio was announcing all the schools that were closed due to inclement weather and all the car accidents on my usual route to work. It was icy out and I was too tired to get up. I’ve had a sinus headache for the past few days, but I compounded it with stomach problems.

Last night I went out to a crab feed with my sister and brother-in-law and had all sorts of crab and raw oysters. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the oysters, because that usually isn’t a “single-ended” problem. I’m fairly sure it wasn’t the crab, either. It might have been all the horseradish I ate with the oysters. Who knows? In any case, I was up fairly late listening to my stomach grumble ominously.

So now I think I’m just going to pretend that I’m better. It’s probably much easier that way.

I am so ready for Friday. Not real sure if it’s just old age, the cold, or what, but this week at work is just dragging along. I like my job so far so that’s not the problem. But this morning it just felt like it should be Friday.

I have to stop this head hurting thing, too. It’s getting old.

I wonder if I’m getting better or worse. My cough is about the same except now I’m coughing stuff up. Enough about being sick.

I went out to dinner with my mom and on the way back home we saw a pink Honda Fit. My sister has been talking about those for months, ever since she saw one when we were in Japan. I called her on my cell phone and left her a message. My brother-in-law didn’t understand what I said and thought I was calling about, “A big shit,” rather than, “A pink Fit.” Sheesh. The scallops and risotto at the Industrial Cafe were excellent, by the way.

So now I’m trying to figure out what the difference is between an “oil change and lube” at one Honda dealer and an “oil change” at the other dealer besides $10. Just how much lube does a 2-year-old Honda Civic need, anyway?

So usually the stuff I download is for personal use and you can imagine it’s all sorts of nonsense. A lot of it is programming nonsense, or at least normal people will think it’s that way. Oddly enough, tonight I’m downloading all sorts of stuff for work. Sometimes it’s faster to get it at home than at work. I’m not sure why. It’s all open source software and stuff I play with anyway, but now it’s work. Yow. Who woulda thunk it.

My cough isn’t getting much worse and I’m glad for that. I cough maybe a dozen times an hour? Usually when I have a cough it seems almost constant. It feels like I’m coughing up stuff so that means a doctor would ask what color the stuff is I’m coughing up. They’re weird that way. But like I said, it’s not that long and it’s not that bad and I’m knocking on wood that it doesn’t get any worse.

Good thing the writer’s strike is on. I just borrowed the Clerks II DVD from a co-worker and watched every commentary track and extra feature, which is a lot of stuff. And I’m not even a Kevin Smith worshipper. I didn’t like Clerks when I first saw it and I really got tired of how his characters stood around and made speeches to each other. But the vulgar stuff is funny to me. Ah, well, I guess I should just grow up. It’s a little late for that, though.

Last night I went to my friend Zach’s birthday party, even though it’s like a month after his birthday. I saw a lot of old friends who live close enough but I never see. That’s just the way it goes, I’m sure. Zach’s wife Alice got her degree in CS and then hit a dry stretch where no one seemed to be hiring so she went to culinary school. She even worked as a chef for a while before she went back to her geek roots. Anyway, for Zach’s birthday party she cooked a tasty goose.

In any case, I was supposed to go to my buddy Il’s birthday party tonight and it’s actually his birthday. However, we were going to hit a Moroccan restaurant where you have to eat with your hands. I’ve been coughing for the past two days and I didn’t want to touch any community food. I ended up going to a neighborhood pasta place with my mom, sister, and brother-in-law.

There was a strikingly attractive woman at the pasta place looking unhappy. I told my sister I found unhappy attractive women even more attractive because, hey, I’m not going to make them any happier. I had chicken parmigiana because I couldn’t imagine anything other than frozen cafeteria chicken parmigiana and I knew that our local pasta place would be much better than that. Somehow I got stuck with the bill, though. Clever, those relatives of mine.

Yet more proof that my Japanese thermos actually works: I was in so many meetings that I didn’t have time to drink my coffee. I got back to it after lunch and I still burned my tongue. Sure beats the merely stylish cups I had already.

So I’m still not 100% and my throat was slightly scratchy and I was fairly tired. So I punted on the gym again. Yeesh. My brother-in-law actually had to take a day off work because he was feeling sick so something must be going around.

I paid for several years at LA Fitness, but I’m doing most of my exercising at the small workout spot down the street from that gym. Ah, well. As long as it’s good for me. The high intensity stuff kind of makes my knee hurt, so I may have to lay off the “new stuff” pretty soon.

I guess I missed a doozy of a workout last night. I made it in tonight and it wasn’t easy either, but just the description of last night made me feel tired. Who wants to go on the rowing machine TWICE?

I bought an Ergo Sit seat cushion because my sister had one and my last seat cushion was leaking feathers. I swear the thing is not as full as it was before, but I could be imagining things. It’s kind of like a squashed balloon you sit on so I hope it’s not leaking.

I felt much worse today than I did yesterday. When I got in my car after work, I thought I should just take a nap when I got home. I felt better after arriving home, but not well enough to go to the gym. Coincidentally, this is the second time it happened after eating garlic. It won’t stop me from eating garlic, but I can come up with conspiracy theories nonetheless.

Oh, and one of my co-workers has heard of the kind of exercise I’m doing at Everyday Athlete (now Recreate Fitness). I guess he thinks it’s “high intensity interval training” or something of the sort. I hope it’s good for me.

I feel better today and Monday wasn’t all that bad. Even though I spent it watching training videos for the whole day. I didn’t even fall asleep watching them. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

I guess they came to check our roof today and they found a reason for the leak. The high winds had moved the shingles around enough to cause water to find its way in. Phooey on that. Now I also have to get the mason to come fix the furnace chimney and I have to call the arborist to come cut an out-of-control maple. I have lots of ways to spend money now.

So yesterday I meant to say something about the Garmin Nuvi 650 GPS I got from Costco. The GPS only cost $299 on sale and I spent another $179 for an FM Traffic Receiver that plugs into it. Some of the local freeways have speed sensors and the GPS figures out if it would be quicker to just take surface streets. I think it just calculates freeway conditions against ideal surface street conditions because I don’t think there are any sensors in the surface streets.

It’s taken me off the freeway twice in three days and I wasn’t stuck in traffic either time. The other day it just told me that I’d be delayed for a few minutes. So far I really like the thing because my commute can take 30 minutes to an hour depending on traffic and I really only have a couple of choices of roads to take.

Today I had trouble getting up and I think I’m coming down with a cold. I’ve felt quite poky. Other than watching football, I’ve done very little. At least I had an excuse.

I got my laptop fixed at work, which is a good thing because nothing happens without computers at Megacorp. I had a very short week at work and I was still fairly tired from it all.

In fact, I only worked two days and spent Friday volunteering with part of the group. There was a flood in Vernonia on December 3rd and people are still cleaning up. Some of us loaded and delivered firewood and others tore out flooring. I spent the morning helping a man move things out of his house so it could be re-sheetrocked. In the afternoon I helped load firewood.

Basically, I say all this to make an excuse for not doing anything today. In fact, I think I only left the house to eat dinner at the fancy Korean restaurant in the neighborhood. The restaurant is not too cheap, but oddly enough there are always a lot of little kids there. I think there were only four Asian customers and the rest were whiteys with little kids. And I thought little kids only liked fast food and places like Red Robin.

Well, so far so good. My co-workers seem a bit jaded, but they’re all customer support engineer-type people so I can understand. I’m still trying to get up to speed so I’m just hiding and reading training materials.

On the way to work I was wondering why everyone was driving so slowly. It was making me nuts. Then I noticed that a car had slid into the ditch. It was icy, and I don’t drive like a maniac so much any more, so I didn’t notice. I mean going from an S2000 to a Civic Hybrid pretty much means boring driver, doesn’t it? I guess it got even worse after I got to work and there was a head-on collision just outside the entrance to the parking lot. My boss had to work from home because his driveway was a sheet of ice.

I will say one more thing about work: my laptop is starting to die. If I pick it up, the video goes blank and I can’t get it to come back. A blank screened laptop isn’t worth all that much but I don’t think I’m in line for a new laptop for another year (they replace them on a scheduled basis). Weird.