Here I am, up late and drinking again, because that’s the only way to do proper system administration. I tried to upgrade my server and it’s slower than ever. There’s a good chance you’re not going to read this until the end of the week when I finally figure out what’s going wrong. It might make more sense for me to quit fooling with this crap and to just get a real life, but that seem unlikely at this point.

I did go down to the Apple store to buy iLife TWICE. The first time I thought there was something wrong with the DVD because it popped up an error message that said something like, “Get a new DVD, this one is broken all to hell.” Turns out that it may not have been the DVD, but that my system was weird and that’s the generic error message. It’s installed now and the part that I tried, iPhoto ’09, is working great. Which is more than I can say about other things, like work. Oh, well.

Everyone at the gym is talking about their Jackie times and why should I be any different. In my class, I was only beat by three people, one who is 15 years younger than me and competes in the Crossfit games, one who is 17 years younger than me, and one who is 20 years younger than me. I could have done better (though not faster than them) if I hadn’t hurt my knees doing proper, deep, front squats of 180lbs beforehand. I doubt anyone else stopped in the middle of their thrusters to stretch out their quads, hoping that would minimize their knee pain. In any case, Jackie is:

• Row 1000m
• 50 thrusters (squat to press) of 45lb
• 30 pullups

My time was 9:42, which is probably two minutes faster than my best time. I usually suck at the thrusters, and I’m getting better. If it wasn’t for the knee pain (which reminds me of how I felt when I was training for the marathon) I probably could have done a little bit better. Whatever.

So, I think my New Years Resolutions are shot to hell. I think I should just do whatever makes me happy. For example, my new drawer pulls make me happy, even though I haven’t put anything in the drawers yet. The thought of buying iLife ’09 tomorrow makes me happy. And I just realized that I have some work to do tonight, something that doesn’t make me happy, but something I better get to before it gets too late.

Honestly, I make a pretty crappy hedonist. Maybe I should take lessons from our depraved mayor.

Several of my geek goals for the day have been completed. I netbooted my old SPARCstation 20, I got NetBSD-5 running on old SUN4M hardware, and I helped my neighbor with his wireless and network printing. But the big adventure for the day was walking to Grand Central Baking for lunch and to the hardware store to buy soap dishes and towel hangers for my new shower. I also went to Restoration to get some drawer pulls. I can’t believe I spent $100 on random stuff for my new bathroom, but I suppose that’s the way it goes.

I’m not sure about the rich weird people that shop at expensive hardware stores. One guy had two beautiful throw pillows and thought they were $19. But it was $19 for the cover, $20 for the down insert. Instead of saying, “Oh, I guess I don’t want them,” he tossed them at the guy at the counter and said, “Keep them!” I, on the other hand, had a handful of chromed handles and gladly paid $9 for something that wasn’t bigger than a shiny metal jawbreaker. Maybe that’s why he had the tall model girlfriend, and I was shopping with my mom.

And, as it usually occurs this time of night, I can’t remember what else I did. I am wondering if I should really quit going to the gym so much. I was wearing the only jeans that almost fit me when I started going. Today they kept feeling like they were falling down. I’m sure I could just go out and buy a new pair of jeans, but think of all the slacking I could do if I just quit going! A new pair of jeans costs more than a full set of drawer pulls from the yuppie hardware paradise of Restoration.

Today was a partner workout at the gym and it was my partner’s first time. I don’t think he’s had a 20-minute long crossfit workout, even though the guy is all muscle. I’ve talked to him at my old gym and today and I know the crazy things he’s capable of. Today, after the workout, he was able to climb the rope without using his legs. In fact, I heard he was in an L-sit position, with his legs out straight horizontally. Woo.

My day was pretty nondescript otherwise. I just realized that I was supposed to be picking out drawer pulls for the upstairs bathroom. I have a hard time picking things like drawer pulls, because the ones I like are usually quite expensive. I’m sure they do this on purpose, make everything look kind of nondescript except for the really expensive hardware. At least my towel rack was cheap. Maybe it’s just time to go to Home Depot.

I have never liked Sam Adams. He worked for one of my least favorite mayors, Vera Katz, the mom of a classmate from grade school times. Sure she was a proponent of liberal causes, but she made the City of Portland a hellish place to work for all my friends who had jobs there. Sam has been a proponent of expensive boondoggles such as the Portland Streetcar and the OHSU tram which both are competing with and are less financially efficient than the buses that run in Portland. He also wanted to tax all grocery sacks even when the city REQUIRED our recycling to be sorted in grocery sacks. Did he want us to pay extra for recycling or did he want us to just chuck it all in the garbage? He just never made any sense to me. And I really didn’t care who he was screwing, as long as it wasn’t me. The trolley, the tram, the grocery bags, they were all screwing my me or my causes like education.

And now he’s been caught fooling around with a kid who was turning 18. There are several reasons our mayor’s case bothers me.

First, I’m not saying I wouldn’t entertain fooling around with an 18-year-old even though anyone under 25 is incredibly annoying to me, but everyone knows that I wouldn’t keep that a secret if I did. I certainly wouldn’t perjure myself. And if I was foolish enough to fool around with an 18-year-old, I know I’d take all sorts of grief from everyone in my life and I’d probably lose enough trust and respect that I’d have to change my life. Like maybe stepping down from public office, if I ever got to that position. I’d certainly take responsibility for my actions.

Second, Sam seems to have no sense of humor when it comes to what he’s doing. I’m not a big fan of anyone with so little self-deprecation in their personality. Someone who’d lie about their situation, calling it a “mentorship” when it was a romance. He made me doubt the guy who brought up the rumors of this affair back when Sam was running for mayor. He smeared the guy, as did I, because I believed Sam when he denied his dalliance. And now t Sam hasn’t even apologized to the guy.

Third, Sam is quite calculating and he should know that people in the public eye are held to a high standard. I’m not saying it’s a higher standard than others, because what would happen if a teacher were to go out with an 18-year-old? Or me? Hell, I’d probably have to quit going to the gym because of all the grief I’d get and that’s most of what I do with my free time.

Maybe my problem is that I’m expecting Sam to pay as much for his actions as I’d have to if I did what he did.

I know. Life’s not fair. All I had was one vote and “Anyone but Sam” really wasn’t on the ballot.

Il and I had a very nice dinner and Ringside and now I’m trying to sober up. I was supposed to work over the weekend (programming for my sister’s job) but that fell through in a huge way. I may end up doing something even more exciting: my taxes. I love my life.

There’s always signs when you’re overdoing it at the gym. Cramping up when taking a shower is one, but my big sign is that it took me forever to mop the floor. I’m pooped. One of the problems is that I have very little sense, and I keep asking the master of the blowout whether I should make big jumps in the weight I use. His answer is, “Sure, why not?” Sheesh. I mean, the dude hurt himself and even then he was still doing spectacular weight today. Oh, well, I’m not beating anyone else’s records, but I’m getting my money’s worth.

Tomorrow is Il and Todd’s biannual Ringside event. It would make sense if it was spaced out evenly throughout the year, but it’s a birthday dinner so we don’t have that much choice. January and April we go and spend too much on some of the finest steaks you can get in Portland. The sad part is that I bet this is the closest thing that either of us is going to get to a date this month. I suppose this is why I used to always introduce Il as my heterosexual life partner. At least we’ll be well fed.

I think I’m giving up on a particular dating site because my reading comprehension skills have gone to hell. They probably peaked about the time I was studying for the MCAT, back when I was trying to get into medical school, but that was a decade ago. As it is now, I’m reading a whole lot of fluff about what a person is like and missing the key point, like not being born a woman, or dating even though they’re pregnant. These aren’t things that are highlighted in bold, blinking font, but I should still be able to catch things like that a lot quicker than I have. I guess I could blame the drinking but I’m not sure that I drink enough to be able to blame any of those things on simple inebriation.

I think I might just give up golf altogether. I didn’t play once last year because I hurt my back just moving the bag one day. I figured it was a sign that I shouldn’t start up again. My sister got me a driver for my birthday last year and I never used it once. I suppose I can go to the driving range or something, but that sound like a slippery slope to me. Golf is supposed to be bad for your back anyway. I’m still convinced you can’t be a successful Asian man without playing golf, but playing golf probably doesn’t guarantee an Asian man’s success. I wonder if my buddy John Maeda plays golf. He’s the President of RISD, so he’s probably a successful Asian man. I think I’ll ask.

Today, at work, I was going to sneak off to see President Obama’s inauguration. At the very least, I wasn’t going to miss seeing him take his oath of office. I knew there was a TV in one of the lobbies, but on the way I found a break room with several TVs, all on MSNBC and the room was filled with people. So like many Americans today, I was with in a room with manh others, watching the historic moment when President Barack Hussein Obama became our first African-American President.

This didn’t make my day seem any more exciting. I went to work. I came home. I went to the gym. I wondered if the contractors came by (they didn’t). I wrote this. I realized I should be in bed already. You know, life for us normal shlubs.

Note to self: finished dead-hang pullups with improvised 40lb vest (2x20lb vests) and dips with the same 40lb vest because the lighter weight vests were in use. KB snatch with 24kg kettlebell (or was it 28kg? whatever Sean was using) and SDHP with 28kg kettlebell because I am stupid. Lapped people 2x on the frog hop because of the stupidity thing as well.

I’m just going to post a link to the video and let everyone else figure it out. A couple more pieces of hardware (drawer pulls and towel rack, etc.) and it will really be finished. As it is, I can now use the sink along with the toilet and the shower, so it’s pretty much a bathroom to me. I’m not going to move all my stuff in until the contractor gives me the OK, though. I don’t want to get in his way.

I should have a more systematic fitness journal where I figure out things like how to progressively lift more weight. For example, it was a bad idea to go from front squatting 155lbs to 185lbs in one step, but I was on a bar with Sean who can do those sorts of things and thinks other people can as well. I still feel OK, but I think I should have been a bit smarter about it.

In any case, I’m still no closer to any of my New Year’s resolutions. I should just go buy the “Piso Mojado” sign for myself and declare victory.

I tried out my new shower today and it’s pretty darn nice. There are high windows around and the bright, sunny weather just added to the fun of actually being able to use the shower for the first time. My sister was running in the neighborhood, probably on Leif Erikson, and she tried it out as well. The sad part is that one of the guys who worked on it just suddenly died of liver cancer. He was only 29 years old and was one of the guys who was doing the carpentry, something I haven’t complained about at all.

Besides that, I was doing the Mark Football Season Workout, keeping a chair in the bar from hitting the ceiling and curling 16 ounces. This is what I figured I’d have to do when I canceled my cable TV. I had an chiliburger and a pulled pork sandwich to round it all off. Hey, it’s the playoffs. Also, after hearing about the carpenter, I didn’t feel like sitting around and ordering pizza.

My week of aches continues. It’s all because of a cold, or so I hope. I took a day off from the gym because my lower back hurt, my shoulders hurt, and my forearms hurt. It all got better but now my knees hurt. I’m hoping that this is all due to my cold, but it’s probably because I’m old and creaky.

Cognitive dissonance is an easy answer for lots of things. I don’t believe in astrology in any sense, but I read my horoscope hoping that anything hopeful in the predictions might actually occur. Today it was that, “You might be surprised by someone’s affection for you, HISASHI.” There are seventeen more minutes for this to happen. I’m not holding my breath.

Eventually, there ought to be some vague and happy prediction that comes true for me.

In any case, this is probably the reason I buy lottery tickets even though I know the math and how unlikely it is that I’ll win. I only do it once in a while and it gives me a chance to imagine what I’d do if I actually won.