It must be obvious that I have very little common sense when it comes to certain things. Like repeatedly sniffing the wristband of my old Timex watch because it smelled funny. It’s not like it’s going to smell any better if I keep up that sort of odd behavior. I’m also weird about cherries. I’m a little allergic but I really like them so I used to eat them until my lips went numb. I’m probably getting a little smarter because I was given some today by Cristina at the gym and only ate a half-dozen of them and it usually take more like a dozen for the numbness to set in.

However, it probably isn’t smart to watch the Food Network on Monday nights. Monday seems to be comfort food night and today was southern food. I had dinner, but now I’m starving. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d probably get in my car and drive to Popeye’s Fried Chicken. Good thing I am also too lazy to keep ice cream in the freezer.

I should probably cancel my cable TV, but then what would I do with my time? Probably read more books. I stayed up very late reading another mystery last night. I knocked off two this weekend, which just means I have to figure out how to replenish my queue. Or maybe I should just not have any books and then I might get some sleep. I seem to have a lot of work to do so that may actually make more sense. Hmmm.

My mom got this pedometer in Japan that tracks your mileage as a trip around Japan. So there’s this pixellated little map and it tells you when you’re getting near major cities. Ever since she got it, she’s walking everywhere and today she decided we were going to walk to Peets Coffee and back. It’s only about two miles each way, but she was excited to make it to another town on the map that she’d never heard of. It’s on the way from Tokyo to Nagoya, though.

Sounds like my sister is going to bail on the fall trip to Japan, opting instead to run a marathon. I’ve already offered to pay her plane fare, and so has my mother. We were hoping our friend Megan would be along for the trip as well, but she’s unavailable in the fall. Maybe we’ll all go in the spring.

I mean, seriously, Japan vs. running for 26.2 miles with nothing chasing you? I suppose she has her own personal demons chasing her, or she wouldn’t be running several marathons a year.

My brother-in-law is off to England to study Chaucer and my sister is off shopping with my mom, so I’m stuck at home with my sister’s weird dog. I know the dog is cute and all, but she’s weird. Which is good because she fits in with the rest of the family. They didn’t want to leave her alone because, I guess, basenjis come with pre-existing abandonment issues. So now I’m stuck reading a book which is what I’d be doing anyway.

In any case, I’m sitting here hungry because I didn’t eat enough dinner last night. I had some nachos and a Cosmopolitan in a gay wine bar in SE Portland. My friend Sylvia’s idea and she got several old co-workers from a defunct startup together. She went off to a club for some dancing and the other co-worker who showed up and I both decided we were old men and left for home.

I can tell you that going to Crush, eating a fraction of a nacho plate, and drinking a fruity cocktail isn’t quite what you need after working out. So much for that theory. I almost fell asleep, but read half of a Lee Child book instead.

I’m going to have to do something about this reading affliction. It’s costing me time and money.

You may be saying, “Geez. Mariko’s brother is talking all random again. What the hell is this Fran thing? Wasn’t one of Mariko’s friend’s cats named Fran?” Fran is a Crossfit thing where they time you doing 21 then 15 then 9 sets of thrusters and pullups. The standard male weight for the thrusters is 95 pounds but I only did 75 pounds and, surprisingly, I wasn’t DFL. Well, surprising and not surprising. Not surprising because I was using 20 pounds less than the rest of the guys (and Mark the yoot beat me by three or four minutes!) Surprising because I’ve been away from the gym so long.

I have several limited measures of how well I’m doing at the gym. One of them is pullups. After going to this gym for four months, I could do ten pullups without thinking about it. Before or after a workout, I could do ten. I couldn’t do a whole lot more, but ten was easy. But now, after being gone four of the last five weeks, I’m struggling to do six pullups. Time to get back to it.

I was a little off my feed this week as well. I think it all started when I ate way too much last Thursday night. Megan and I went to a soul food restaurant, the Hard Knox Cafe, on Clement St. It was weird going to a soul food restaurant in a Chinese neighborhood; there were two young African-American men working out front, but everyone else working there was Asian. The food was great and Megan told me to calm down, my chicken wasn’t going anywhere. I think I was over-enthusiastically wolfing it down.

I got the macaroni and cheese (which had some garlic in it) and the red beans and rice as sides. Spectacular.

Megan had the fried chicken as well, but with greens and yams.

I was so full I thought I’d burst, but I still had to ask for sweet potato pie. I really overate. When I make it back to San Francisco, I’ll probably overeat again!

I was DFL at the gym today and tired and sneezing. It’s finally time for phase 2 of my yearly hay fever fun! I’m hoping it doesn’t get too bad, but with all the rain making everything grow.

But I can’t really blame my performance on my hay fever. I took 3 weeks off because of my back, went back for a week, and last week I only made it to San Francisco Crossfit once and never saw the inside of the hotel’s gym. So basically, I’m a big load.

Not only that, but I realized I’ve been at some sort of conference for a week and a half — five days last week at the Apple WWDC and three this week at a work conference where I gave a presentation. Being stuck in a room all day long is quite tiring.

A bunch of clowns people avoided the gym today because tomorrow is Fran and they’re resting up before that workout. I’m probably going to be DFL again, but whatever. I’m still trying to get back from my injury. Besides, I’m old, and I have insurance.

More and more the whole new iPhone thing sounds like a huge headache. Ah, well, that’s what I get for not buying one in the first place. I guess if you’re not eligible for a new phone, the iPhone is going to cost a boatload. That’s the cell phone biz for you.

I had to make a presentation at work today and I think it went OK. I was afraid that the two guys who actually knew the topic but who didn’t want to create the Powerpoint slides were going to bail on me, but they showed up. It sure beat having me stand up front and wing it. My part was over pretty quickly and I was afraid it would be a big mess. Fortunately the charts and graphs generated lots of questions, and the guy who created the charts and graphs was the one who answered them all. I guess I didn’t look too silly after all and I might be able to keep my job. I’ll need the money to pay for my new iPhone.

Made it back to a crowded gym today. For some reason they had the two old dudes using the same weight as the yoots. It was fun, though, and I’m glad to be back. Maybe I won’t feel as lethargic as I did when I got home today. I thought about just going inside and sitting in the La-Z-Boy and reading a book. I suppose I can still do that, even though it’s my bed time.

My horrible diet of last week led to some stomach problems. I thought I was fine until I ate at the fine cafeteria and also had the audacity to eat too much fruit. I was in an all-day meeting and I ate a little of what was there, an apple in the morning and a banana in the afternoon. I guess that was too much for my stomach, which probably just wanted a deep-fried Twinkie or something. Needless to say, I missed going to the gym today.

I have two more days of meetings this week and even have a presentation to make tomorrow. My Powerpoint slides look weak compared to everyone else’s and I’m counting on just bluffing my way through them. It’s really just me presenting other people’s material anyway. We’ll see how it goes.

I got home late, I suppose, after watching the basketball game with some people from the gym. The Celtics fans (also known as “Portlanders who would like to see anyone but the Lakers win”) were few, but that was OK.

Earlier in the day I went out to the Dixie Mountain Strawberry Festival where lots of strawberry shortcake is sold. I made it home in time to mow the lawn. It’s not that all the dirt roads and greenery made me want to chop up the grass and it wasn’t that the rather large rural population (large in terms of weight, not numbers) made me want to work off some of the shortcake. It was just that the lawn was too long to let me take a nap instead.

And now I’m up late because my stupid sister made me edit code on her stupid blog. It’s in Movable Type, which I hate with a passion. Whatever. I guess she’s not using her local gallery any more so I can delete all of that. Hooray for deleting things.

My last morning in San Francisco, I hid out in my room. That week of trashy lunches and overindulgent dinners did a number on my stomach and I was unable to eat much of anything for most of today. So I finished the book I bought on Wednesday and took it easy. I barely made it in time for the plane because I was trying to back up my hard drive. Stupid, since the backup didn’t work at all.

I got home in time to deliver some presents from Megan, eat some dinner with my mom, and go off to the Apple Store to get my keyboard fixed. Fortunately they had an extra “Return” key laying around and I was good to go. I also bought a wireless mouse since my buddies were telling me how I was no longer cool without one. It’s actually pretty nice. I also went to REI to buy a new pair of shoes, since I realized just before I left that my Keens were worn out.

Currently the rest of my unexciting evening is consisting of trying to back up my laptop. Of course it’s not exciting, but it’s something I need to do.

One of the biggest secrets of the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, even bigger than what Steve Jobs is going to reveal at the keynote, is what band is playing at the WWDC bash. Last year it was Ozomatli. While my LA Mexican buddies (or at least my buddies who think they’re Mexican) really wished they could have been there to see Ozomatli, I’d never heard of them. This year, however, the band was the Barenaked Ladies, a band that I thought was more fitting and a band I’ve wanted to see. Basically, a much geekier band as well.

So I got to see some live Barenaked Ladies. I suppose that’s as good as it gets for me.

After two months and two days and I finally caved and had a cheeseburger. And not just any cheeseburger, but a double-double animal style at In-N-Out burger. I even walked the whole route of the cable car to get to In-N-Out at Fisherman’s Wharf.

I walked back to work it off, but I had to make a pit stop and In-N-Out didn’t have a rest room. Some clown told me to just use the one in Hooters. (He really was a clown; he had a red rubber nose and floppy clown shoes and was juggling flaming pins while riding a unicycle.) The waitresses at Hooters all looked like they were in high school and it made me feel kind of creepy to be there. Fortunately, I just used the bathroom and got the heck out of Dodge.

I was going to have dinner with my friend Megan again, but it was probably for the best that I didn’t. Monday night was Suppenküche with Megan, Thuy, and JG.

Tuesday was Conduit with Megan and Vivian, super fancy.

And super fancy desserts.

So when Megan couldn’t make it back in time to meet for dinner, it was time for me to go for the cheeseburger. I’m on vacation, after all, and most times I’m in California I make it to In-N-Out. I even hit the drug store for some bandaids and the book store for another book to read. I’m all set.

My room at the Hilton pretty much sucks. It’s big but it’s really a living room and I was sleeping on a sofa bed until a woman from housekeeping told me to just get the roll-away bed. The mattress on the roll-away bed is a lot smaller, but it’s thicker.

Not only that, but I had a bunch of yahoos next door (like I said already) who were having a party when I got back last night at around midnight. I called the front desk and they make a lot of noise leaving. Lucky me, they came back around 2AM and I had to call the front desk again. They were making lots of noise for at least half-an-hour and I wasn’t able to get back to sleep. I finally gave up and read the book I brought down with me until 4:30 or so. The worst part about that is I’m not going to have anything to read on the way home unless I hit a bookstore. Or steal a book from one of my friends.

There is an advantage to the room, and that’s the view. I’m not spending a lot of time in the room so that’s that great an advantage for me, but it’s still a nice view.

The big disadvantage is the yahoos. I sure hope they’re gone tonight.