Every year I volunteer at the Portland Marathon, and this year was kind of an off year. They put a weird music tent in between the medical station and the aid station that narrowed the road. That meant we couldn’t see each other and the aid station couldn’t really see who was coming. We actually had a medical emergency that required an ambulance, and it was hard to hear over the music. The ambulance took forever to show up and while only two people needed non-emergency transport, the second person gave up after 40 minutes or so and took the trolley back downtown.

The reason I say it was disastrous isn’t due to anything we did or didn’t do. There were people dropping like flies this year and ambulances were called repeatedly. This is NOTHING LIKE CHICAGO. I understand those poor people had a marathon in the unseasonable heat that actually killed one runner, but I think we may have been close to losing some people today as well. And the weather was ideal for running. I’m just hoping it was bad luck this year, and not something like toxins in the honey they were handing out. I shouldn’t speculate like that, but it was weird how many people were going down.

The spacing of the runners was weird as well. I even missed seeing my sister as she ran by.

Well, after a nap I went to my buddy Matt’s open house. I’m kind of an oddball at parties like his, because I’m one of the few non-parents there. People with kids tend to hang with people with kids. I’ve known him since high school and being an outsider now isn’t much different than being an outsider then. That’s life.

I found a bunch of stuff to recycle, including old National Geographic maps. I threw away historical documents including a book, in Japanese, from the 1930’s about the nutritive value of mushrooms. I’m sure someone could use them, but at this point I’m overwhelmed with the stuff that I’m NOT throwing away. Lots of books on Buddhism, Japanese history, etc. I even found what appears to be an English-language propaganda piece espousing Japanese-occupied Manchuria.

I also started going through my dad’s records and I found things I never knew about. He never supported the local Japanese gardens in Portland, but I found correspondence between him and Professor Takuma Tono, the designer of the gardens. I just skimmed the letters, but it sounds like he was quite involved in the early part of the design. My mom told me that he got in an argument with the head of the garden society or something, and that sounds like him, telling off some rich lady and then writing off the project completely. This also bodes ill for my plan to join the Multnomah Athletic Club for purposes of personal humor because it’s pretty evident that I’ve inherited his need to yell at rich people.

He did go on to build a small Japanese garden for a rich lady and I have pictures of that. I also have documentation on a magnolia that’s planted in SW Portland. I’m not sure what I should do about that.

I found medical records from when my sister got hit by a car in high school, a speeding “warning” ticket my mom got in the 80’s, records of my mom’s car accident from the early 80’s, his business licenses, his marriage license, and his divorce decree! I found out about his previous marriage when I was in my mid-20’s, and I never knew his previous wife’s name. Now I even know where her parents lived.

An old high school buddy is having an open house and I asked Il if he wanted to go. He says he’s even more reclusive than he’s been in the past, and I can’t blame him. Both is parents passed away this year. I keep telling myself that we’re going to have work done on the house and I’m going to go through more of my dad’s stuff, but I haven’t done much of anything. One thing I blame it on is the lack of a TV in my dad’s room, since my sister was using it for other purposes. I got it back today, so that won’t be much of an excuse any longer. I can have football games on and go through his accumulated stuff.

I was looking around today and found a tiki and a Charlie the Tuna statuette. Maybe they’re coin banks. In any case, some weird stuff. I think Charlie needs a spot on my desk, but I really should get rid of most of the accumulated junk. This is what happens when I start thinking too much about all the stuff.

So on Tuesday, at the gym, I saw a guy with an MIT t-shirt. I walked up to him and said, “NERD!” I quickly followed up with a bunch of gibberish only comprehensible to MIT grads and it took a while for him to get what I was telling him. Turns out he went there for grad school and that barely counts. The true torture happens when you’re an undergrad at MIT.

Other than that, I have almost nothing. I was way to awake at work and that was just making me paranoid. The co-worker I tend to bug when I’m bored (another disgruntled employee) decided to “WFH” which is supposed to mean “work from home” but really meant he was probably watching Judge Judy and surfing for pr0n. Which isn’t much less productive than I was, because they still haven’t given us much of a hint as to what we’re really supposed to be doing at work.

There’s a guy at work who keeps telling me I’m going to be fired (it’s not me). He sees conspiracies everywhere and I expect sooner or later he’s going to be correct about my job status. So maybe I won’t be fired, but like my friend Henry says, if you’re out of a job who cares what they call it? Anyway, listening to Mr. Doom-and-gloom isn’t cheering me up any. And I’ve found that my computer is having trouble with a bunch of programs including Quicken, which is a large pain in the ass.

I’m not cheering myself up by recounting the horrors of the day, so I should hit the hay, thereby avoiding reality. Whee.

Somewhere on the way to work, I stepped in dog poo. I didn’t realize it until I got to my cube at Megacorp, where I was trapped in a small space with the smell. I went outside, cursing all dogs everywhere, but was unable to find a puddle or any proper grass to get it out of my shoe. The grass in the ‘burbs is all fake and overwatered, making kind of a marshy green mess. I went on a walk for lunch and that didn’t help all that much either. I ended up spending the day feeling nauseous.

It was supposed to rain all day, so I was hoping I could wash off my shoe by walking around outside. Well, it finally let loose as I was walking from the train, which was a nice 25 minutes in the pouring rain. Lately I’ve been saying, “It usually doesn’t rain that hard in Portland,” a lot. Mostly in the fall, I think, but really the gutters usually don’t fill up with water. It just rains ALL THE TIME. Not hard, just enough to make it gloomy. And that’s the way I like it. It all kind of runs off and we don’t have problems. But today it just poured and I got soaked. Plus, my rain coat is falling apart and the replacement hasn’t arrived yet. OK, so it’s just the zipper pull that broke, but that’s enough.

And I’ve been addicted to this dumb computer game lately called Tumblebugs. Well, it no longer runs on my computer. Phooey. Just another fun thing to end the day.

There really isn’t all that much more to say about Monday. On the way home from work I tried to print out some digital photographs but the machine wouldn’t read my USB stick. So I got out the work laptop and copied the pictures to another USB stick and still no dice. So I went to another photography store but had no luck there, either. I even borrowed a memory card and copied the pictures onto the card but that didn’t work either. I’m not sure what was going on. The picture was of the family when my aunt visited. You know, I’m getting to be more and more funny looking as time goes on. Oh, well.

So the woman at work has a new female friend that she met on craigslist. I ran into them by chance at lunch last week. I thought, “Boy, she looks like someone who worked at the shipping dock when I worked at Megacorp for a short time in 1999.” Turns out it’s the same person. I also think I saw her in 2000-ish at a Quiet Riot concert, and then more recently in the building I now work in. I confirmed most of that (except the Quiet Riot thing) with the woman at work. The woman at work joked that I’m a stalker. Man, if I were a stalker I’d be really a bad stalker. I ran into her four times in 1999 (for work), once in 2000, and twice this year. Oh, and my ex-girlfriends can probably tell you, you’d get no threatening phone calls from me. Mostly boring ones, and once in a while some begging. I won’t go into detail there but you get the idea.

It’s funny to me how my to-do list doesn’t seem to carry over from day-to-day. Then again, I went to get more “rolfing” and that pretty much put most of my thoughts out of my head. It wasn’t until 8:30PM when I realized that tomorrow is already October and I needed to get a new bus pass for the month. Since I’m doing it for conservation as well as being cheap, I walked to the local food co-op, in the pouring rain, to buy it rather than driving to get it.

Other than that, I didn’t do that much. I should start buying gifts for my trip to Japan. My boss said it was OK to go, so I’m leaving in late October. Haven’t been for fifteen years. I bet things have changed.

I don’t do much on the weekends, so I usually just pick something on my “to do” list to make it seem like I’m doing something. Watching several football games and catching up on the TV shows from earlier in the week is good, but it really doesn’t amount to much. I went out to breakfast with friends and out to dinner with my mom, but I didn’t really accomplish the things on my list.

Today I was going to clean the gutters, find a “leaf plug” for one particular downspout, fix the chimney cap, go through some more of my dad’s stuff, and move my dad’s books into one room. I did clean the gutters but that was about it. Somehow I need to make my list bigger or just post it on all my walls, so I don’t forget it. Ghostly letters following me around would be good, too. What I know doesn’t work is things like Palm Pilots.

Oh, and I found out that they changed the voicemail number for my cell phone. The AT&T web site didn’t say anything and they didn’t mail me anything. I had to call and ask. Sheesh. Good thing I hardly get any phone calls.

I didn’t get in any trouble at the gym today because there really wasn’t anyone there. I didn’t do any cardio because I had no poop. Why, you might ask, did I have no poop? Well, the air was let out of my balloon today when the General Manager of our group at Megacorp said some pretty silly things.

First he said we need to, “Be at work 100%” OK, so I have been slacking a bit but I’ve also been told to run around in circles a lot. Why tire myself out when I know I’m not doing anything of worth? Just the fact that someone that important told EVERYONE to work “smarter” just goes to show that there’s something wrong.

Then he said, “Something something 10% headcount reduction.” So I started paying more attention. He then said that the group I’m in is being de-emphasized because it didn’t sound like a good idea. Under his breath he said that the interesting thing I’m working on is detrimental to corporate strategy. So, not only is there a headcount reduction but what I’m working on is now declared harmful.

I started out the day thinking I’d ask for a couple of weeks off to visit Japan since I haven’t been for FIFTEEN YEARS. I was going to go a couple of years ago but got this awful job at Megacorp and they told me I had to start right away and eat my plane ticket if I wanted the job. The headcount announcement is supposed to happen about when I wanted to be in Japan. Well, I may not have the job limiting my travels if I wait this out.

I was kind of told today that there are gym rules. Don’t talk to people. Don’t make eye contact. The only verbalization is to say, “Hey buddy, need a spot?” But I have to say, “Eff that.” Already I’ve decided that the last guy who is mad at me is humorless and should be nicknamed, “Precious.” I want to say, “HEY BUDDY, I WAS MAKING FUN OF YOUR TOO-TIGHT MUSCLE T-SHIRTS. YOU WEAR THEM EXCLUSIVELY. YOU DO THAT TOO MUCH AND PEOPLE ARE GONNA THINK YOU’RE A NARCISSIST.” I was going to say, “THINK YOU’RE GAY,” but he is gay. Wouldn’t be making much of a point there.

I’m probably being a little harsh there, but humorlessness should not be tolerated. That and poor use of grammar even though I have noticed that my muscle memory on the keyboard makes me type, “you’re,” even when I mean, “your.” I have to watch that. I broke up with a woman once because she couldn’t spell, “Surprise.” Well, OK, that’s just one reason and it’s just because I have issues, but I can say it’s because she couldn’t spell.

Man, I’m always getting on someone’s bad side at the gym lately. I think it’s because a lot of the employees are on edge because the place is getting close to going under AGAIN. My gym seems very poorly managed, as far as I can tell, and the last two times I’ve gone someone has been talking about how they’re financially circling the drain. Good thing I prepaid for two years membership. Ah, well, that might have been about a year ago, so I could be only slightly screwed. I heard they’re opening an LA Fitness fairly close by. I could also try to join the Multnomah Athletic Club if I was feeling especially rich.

I told my sister about my inquiries into joining the MAC club and she was speechless. I’m not really a big fan of rich people, so the whole idea seemed ludicrous to her. That’s really why I was looking into it. I need more levity in my life. I sure ain’t getting it at my gym.