Now I remember why I joined the gym instead of running. I get very, very lazy and once I have my fat ass in my chair in front of my computer and TV, I don’t want to get up. When the gym is on the way home, I’m already active from walking and going into a building I’m walking by isn’t that hard. I haven’t made it to my chair yet. And besides, I’m usually not tired from moving the office.

I made it to the gym for the first time this week, and Jen was working the front desk! She spent last term in Italy, and nobody knew if she was coming back. Heck, she didn’t know until last week, either. She’s the most cheerful and friendly person working the front desk in the evenings, so it’s nice to see her back. We chatted about Italy for a few minutes before I went to pretend to do myself some good by moving some weights around.

We finally were paid today, and that’s also a big plus.

So far, so good. The movers came and moved everything that wasn’t nailed down. Just like I expected. The new office was just painted yesterday so we worked most of the day breathing latex paint fumes. The offices are smaller than before and, even better, our paychecks are delayed!

On the way to the new office I ran into an friend from high school and he told me of the joys afforded to him by the Portland Public Schools. I’m cynical and disenfranchised so all his ranting about the school board didn’t affect me much. I feel sorry for his kids, since they were in a school that’s getting closed down for reasons of odd political expedience. I’m not sure what those reasons really are, but the school board decided to kill the school but played with the parents like they were cat toys.

Anyway, working all day means nothing interesting happened.

It’s moving day tomorrow, so I was just doing goofy stuff before I started packing up. Waited until early afternoon to start packing, got some free Starbucks ice cream, and thought I’d be done in time to leave early. Of course, at the last minute, we realized we should back up some of the data and that took FOREVER. Well, I left work around 8:15PM. You can guess that’s not exactly early. I was thinking more around 4PM.

Oh, well, it’s not like they don’t pay me overtime (and they don’t). If I left at 4PM I would have missed the email telling us that payroll could be late this month. Lessee, if I interpret the BOLI laws correctly, the fine is 8-hours of pay for every day they’re late with my paycheck. I’m not sure who gets that fine money, though.

The office moves on Thursday and you can imagine how much I’m thinking of anything else at work. Pack up the crap and shoehorn ourselves into smaller offices out in the middle of nowhere. Well, nowhere compared to where we are now in downtown Portland.

Other than that, a friend in NYC called and told me how she was working on the long way around trying to get into a relationship with a guy. A dangerous game played by most of the guys I know, who usually end up hearing the “F” word instead of getting anywhere. (Friend, if you didn’t get it.) Well, she got hornswoggled by a friend who muscled in on her game and here I am trying to be obtuse about the whole thing.

Holy crap that was some of the worst writing I’ve done in years. OK, maybe some of my technical writing is worse but you get the idea.

Anyway, the friend reminded me of some of the people we went to school with who fell off the map. I tried emailing two guys, Terry from Portland State, and Steve from high school, and both their email addresses bounced. Yeesh. I guess Jason is right and all the guys are bad at keeping in touch.

My mom goes in for some odd laser cataract surgery tomorrow. Wish her luck!

Had to leave home early to get my blood drawn because the brain trust up at OHSU lost my blood samples. I’m not that angry, because last time they lost a bone marrow biopsy. I’ll gladly give ’em more blood, but if they’re drilling holes in my hip they better not frigging lose the sample again.

For some reason, I couldn’t sleep last night. I’ve had the problem before when I drank Coke for dinner, especially Coke from McDonalds. I think Mickey D’s overloads the Coke with sugar and caffeine for some nefarious purpose, though I haven’t figured out exactly what that is. It could be the weird weather, and it could also be my allergies. Didn’t have any troubles while I was sleeping, but this morning after my shower I had junk just pouring out of my nose. Ick. I’m sure you’re happy I shared that.

My friend Greg had his annual ATF party yesterday. It’s really just an all-day barbecue, but he did buy 96 cans of Bud, Miller, Hamms, and PBR just to be funny. I think we drank about one 6-pack before a co-worker of Greg’s came with some homebrew that we finished off. Lots of beef ribs out of Greg’s smoker. I ended up with a huge headache. I think drinking beer raises the blood level in my caffeine system, and that makes my head hurt.

Today was mainly fixing a program I wrote for my sister’s job, so I sat in the basement and played with the computer, just like any other day. Whee!

So earlier today I thought of something to write about but I’ve already forgotten it. Last night I went to bed early, only to be woken up by kids playing kickball and making all sorts of noise. 11:30PM is no time to be yelling in the park.

This morning I had a dream I remember. I went to a Jewish community center (how I knew that I don’t know) and I was first in the wrong room. It was the “women’s” room and there was a woman on the stage with a towel on her head. I just kept my eyes covered and made my way out of the room. I found the “men’s” room and it was covered in that heavy quilted cloth that they put on the walls in elevators when you’re moving furniture. I thought to take my shoes off but an elderly gentleman at a table near the entrance stopped me and said, “Today you honor yourself.” Then he handed me a sticky bun.

OK, I have no idea where that came from but there you have it.

So I watched the basketball game, watched “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” found out that Greg Kihn is very right wing (second-hand information) and watched a rerun of Reno 911.

Really, that’s a list. That’s not interesting. To be interesting, I’d have to have something to say about the basketball game, or about the TV shows, but that would require a bit more energy than I have. I think it might be something to do with the weird weather. 80°F and then thundershowers. I guess 21st Avenue looked like a river yesterday. The average rainfall is like 40.5 inches per year. Well, I have nothing to compare that to, really. LA is like 11″ per year and San Francisco is like 20″ but how does that compare? I don’t know.

Yeah. Obviously, I need to get some more sleep. Maybe I’ll rewrite this all tomorrow.

Well, I ain’t buying in. I see that my sister and Carolyn aren’t posting today, but I thought I’d fill up my allotted daily space with, well, something. In all honesty I don’t have much to say so maybe I should have followed along with the crowd.

Yep. I’ve been staring at the empty box for a good three minutes now and nothing. Good thing I’m not being paid by the word. I could fill in the space with my anti-physician ranting or something, but that doesn’t sound all that interesting either. I was a bit tired today and even thought about avoiding the Stepmill at the gym today. Maybe I should try sleeping instead of rambling on…

I finally read Carolyn’s blog and saw that she actually updated it. She had taken some of those “online tests” so I decided to take some myself. The first was a sort of an IQ test. Not quite accurate, but kind of tells me that I don’t know as much as I thought. I think genius means you got all four right and they weren’t exactly hard.

See how I only got “exceptional” in general knowledge? Means I didn’t know something simple.

Slow and Steady

Your friends see you as painstaking and fussy. They see you as very cautious, extremely careful, a slow and steady plodder. It’d really surprise them if you ever did something impulsively or on the spur of the moment. They expect you to examine everything carefully from every angle and then usually decide against it.

This demonstrates the accuracy of the tests, or demonstrates how I don’t answer truthfully. I suppose I don’t do a lot of things impulsively except tell people when I think they’re being idiots. And, come to think of it, it’s not impulsive, it builds up and I really ought to keep my fat trap shut but, of course, I don’t.

I really have no analysis for this last bit. At least it’s general enough to say, “Oh, yeah, I can see that.”

Today we went to the building where we could be relocating our office. It’s mostly sure we’re moving, but since I work for a small start-up, things are never completely certain. The space is much smaller, it’s further from downtown, and next to a place I used to work. Sounds like the last of the workers from back then was just let go, so it’s just the owners and new people now. They’re still doing OK and are even expanding their customer base. Good for them. More proof that life goes on without me.

I could have SWORN I hit the “Publish” button, but there isn’t even a draft saved. My browser crashed and probably deleted whatever I wrote.

But yesterday, besides being too hot, had nothing interesting going for it. You didn’t miss much. I did like the TV show, “The Closer,” but I didn’t mention that. Not even anyone being a weirdo at the gym.

Apparently one of my intolerant neighbors (well, THE intolerant neighbor) is thinking of moving back east because of all the horrific events taking place in our neighborhood. I guess his car even was egged! People parking on the street in the middle of the night and no police to harass them! The horror! Well, there is one very odd neighbor who likes doing senseless things like peeling out in his pickup for no reason, driving around a Budget rental truck instead of his $100K+ Mercedes SUV, and pressure washing the street every week, but that guy is a millionaire so he’s part of the solution, not part of the problem. The intolerant neighbor is a right-wing Republican nutbag from what I can gather, so I’d think that an obnoxious millionaire would be just his kind of people.

I get mad about people talking crap about Portland, but if they don’t like it they can get the f*ck out.

Or so I was called. Went up to the Scappoose Strawberry Festival and I stopped by Greg’s house to pick him up. Unfortunately, an old friend was there with his new girlfriend. Greg and the new girlfriend got into this horrible pro/anti gun argument and while I didn’t share all of Greg’s Libertarian sentiment, I also thought that the woman was a goofus who had no grasp of real human nature. There was a lot of “everyone get along” and other woo-woo crap that was truly annoying. And all her “we must teach peace” crap and “anyone can be like Martin Luther King, Jr.” nonsense just made me angry. I hope I never see her again. Later, I told Greg that and he told me I was an intolerant right-wing freak.

So, Il and I ditched them and went to the Strawberry Festival. I told Greg’s wife Keeley and also his daughter Bridget that I had to leave him because he was embroiled in a senseless argument about guns. Keeley just said, “Oh, no,” and laughed. Bridget said, “What gun argument are they having? Which gun to shoot?” AHAHAHA. Best quote ever!