I found a lot of weird things in the closet, including a box of mini-liquors today, but the weirdest thing I found was a banner my grandparents sent when I was born. It’s SIX METERS tall!

It’s also custom dyed and we thought about putting it in the Goodwill pile until we unfurled it. I gave up a lot of things with strong memories attached to them including clothing from VICA where I actually won first place in the US for a competition in Industrial Electronics. There’s no such thing as the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America any more and I should probably have something to remind me of times when I was actually competing on the world stage, even when it was for something as silly as soldering parts together. But really, a red blazer with a big VICA patch on it? How about just a picture of me with my big 80’s hair wearing the jacket?

Other than that, I made a trip to Goodwill to drop of nine boxes of closet stuff and to Peets to feed my caffeine addiction and finished yet another mystery novel. I suppose that just means I need to get out more.

The carpet is finally supposed to come in, so they tore out the old nasty carpet out of my old bedroom. The missed the closet, however, because it was still full of stuff. My old room was partly my dad’s storeroom and when I moved back I had to clear out a lot of cardboard boxes to get in. It was pretty cramped and it took a kind of dance to get to my closet, so I only went in there if I needed to get my wedding & funeral suit.

Of course, it was a large closet filled with all sorts of weird things. I started pitching out clothes to take to Goodwill and half of it was 20 pairs of slacks that I can’t get my big ass into, and 20 dress shirts. I filled three full boxes of empty clothes hangers. The suit my mom made when she got married was in was there. There’s also some nice suits of mine that I should try to give away before I just give them to Goodwill. My dad bought them for me when I was in my 20’s and much smaller.

I also threw out my dad’s old model airplanes and I hope I don’t have another dream where he comes back looking for them. I suppose my sister is right, he didn’t seem to care about them much when he was alive, so why would he care about them now? He liked putting plastic models together and painting them but after they’re together they just kind of took up space.

My lumbago!

So while my nose is clearing steadily, I somehow had a weird stomachache last night that was probably caused by taking vitamins, Advil, and Claritin at nearly the same time. Or it could be something different, because I ended up with some intestinal upset that my sister said she also had this week. There’s all sorts of things going around, so I’m not surprised. This all hit this afternoon and wasn’t clearing up when I was supposed to be at the gym deadlifting. I didn’t think this particular brand of intestinal discomfort would mix well with that sort of weightlifting.

In my weakened state (again) I was able to finally finish Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. I’ve decided I liked it, but it was long and not nearly as amusing as his earlier books. I suppose Straight Man was kind of meandering a bit as well, but not to the extent of this book. Now I can get back to reading about awful murderers and the cops who catch them. I have at least three books my sister lent me and it’s time to get back at them if, of course, I don’t get stuck catching up on TV shows from the past week. Apparently I still need a life.

I’ve been asking everyone the same question, “Guess how much it cost me for my repairs?” The answer is $17.95, because I had my windshield wipers replaced as well. I guess it was all covered by warranty. It’s nice to have my car back. Commuting by light rail is much more environmentally friendly, but in the time it takes me to walk to the light rail I’m already at work. The light rail and shuttle bus add another hour to my commute each way. I’m paying for that 1-2 hours back each day, even though sitting on the train is more relaxing. I did notice that the plastic train seats cut off the circulation to my ass.

Today’s workout at the gym was a taxing cardio torture. Fifteen minutes of running around the building twice and 10 pullups to see how many rounds you can do. I did five rounds plus one extra lap and was cursing whoever came up with this idea the whole time I did it. Ah, well, this is what I pay for and it’s good for me, right? Even though my mucus was the consistency of rubber cement and wouldn’t leave my sinuses.

I was tired at the gym today, but it was a hard workout. I think I ended up going through the warmup too quickly because I didn’t see many other people finish it and run around the building twice. That’s OK, I needed to try to sweat out whatever I had left from my head cold. What I did reconfirm is that I can’t count worth beans when I’m working out. This happened to me during Fight Gone Bad, too. I swear I did a lot less than my partner counted, but I was tired and not thinking clearly. At least today and Monday I did extra to make sure I was at least where I thought I was when I lost count.

I felt a lot better today and slightly less cranky, which is a good thing because Honda of Hillsboro was still trying to annoy me. I finally got an appointment for them to look at my “Check Engine Light” and when I pulled in they kind of rolled their eyes. Then they made me wait for an hour for a ride. They called a couple of hours later and told me that I needed a software update and my fuel/air sensor was bad; they didn’t have a replacement and it would take a day to get it. So I asked if I could pick the car up and drive it until they got the part and they told me the car shouldn’t be driven with a bad fuel/air sensor. These are the same clowns who told me to KEEP DRIVING THE CAR.

So here I am with no car, and no keys. I thought this would be a short service and they’d have the car back to me in a couple of hours so I gave them my whole key ring. This also means that I get to take the light rail to work tomorrow. Instead of a half-hour drive, I’m going to walk half-an-hour to the Max, and then ride for 45 minutes to the closest station, and wait probably fifteen minutes for a shuttle, and then take a 10 minute ride to work. Just thinking about it cheers me up.

I wonder how much meth is made from one 30mg tablet of Sudafed. According to the newspaper, which is completely suspect, most meth is trucked in from Mexico, but the Oregon State Legislature was afraid enough of OTC Sudafed to make it a prescription drug. I can’t believe a 24-blister pack of the Sudafed is going to make any significant amount of methamphetamine. But what do I know?

I had to leave work early today because of my worsening head cold. I tried taking a Claritin earlier, but that didn’t do all that much. I just drove home 1 1/2 hours early and went to bed before dinner. So imagine I had some Sudafed squirreled away, from long ago, and I took the standard dose (60mg) before dinner. It would have cleared my head and made me feel much better, but also would have made me much crankier as well. And since my current job involves talking to outside customers, my current “surly” demeanor would probably be downgraded to “outright hostile.” I’m not taking the stuff (assuming I have it) while I’m working.

So there you have it: Head Cold 1, Me 0.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to decide whether to go to the gym or not and even after I go it’s hard for me to judge whether it was a good idea. Today I finished the workout with a fair time and felt at times where I was just about to need to take a nap to finish the workout. But I never did get there, so I figure I’m not THAT sick. Just very close. And I’d probably better a lot quicker if I’d just sleep more. I’m probably going to be dragging around work tomorrow but that’s the nature of work and life, isn’t it?

I slept in this morning but kept waking up because my nose was stuffed up. I kept dreaming about my dad. He was sad that I had cut down his trees, and he wanted to see the model ships he had built but I’d thrown them away. I kind of like having feverish dreams because they’re novel, but these guilty dreams aren’t what I need. At least he seemed in good spirits.

I was supposed to be out taking my first snowboarding lesson today, but due to a serious miscalculation I was busy being hung over instead. I attended “Singles CPR” yesterday and ended up drinking beer and talking nonsense with several people afterwards. So today, instead of being up at Mt. Hood in beautiful conditions, I was lying in bed reading, Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. He’s one of my favorite authors, but this is not my favorite book of his.

Serendipitously, my friend Megan from San Francisco changed her plans as well and I got to hang out with her this afternoon. She and my sister came over to give me a bit of verbal abuse about acting my age, and then she gave us all haircuts. I got to eat dinner with her family, which is always an amusing event.

Oh, and in case people were thinking that I wasn’t going to a serious gym, it was 80’s day on Saturday and here’s a picture I stole from Aaron Buck:

I was told that I would be excluded from any prizes because I didn’t actually buy anything. This was all stuff from my closet.

Sometimes you hear about a movie that’s supposed to be so great that you’re expecting way too much by the time you get to see it. Clerks was that way to me. Kevin Smith really just likes to hear people recite his dialog and you really need a good actor to make a soliloquy sound believable. To me, Jason Lee has great delivery of Kevin Smith’s dialog and Ben Affleck does not. I saw Slumdog Millionaire today, and it was a good movie, but it wasn’t what I was expecting and I didn’t really like it. I don’t like movies this grim. I realize that life is awful and if I need a reminder I watch the news. Sure there was a happy ending, but that didn’t make up for all the horrible stuff I saw on the way. I can’t believe so many people like this movie. Also, I don’t think I’m giving anything away because NPR has been talking about this movie non-stop for months.

I proved to myself that I can climb a rope today. I usually take Fridays off from the gym, but today was the start of a deadlift cycle, so I went in. You’d figure deadlifting would hurt your back, but it usually makes my back feel better. After deadlifting, there was a bit of “goofing around” which included climbing the rope. I have the strength to do it and I’ve been to the top before, but there’s really only climbing on Fridays now. Odd how that’s the high point of my day.

So at a 4-way stop, the only real rule is that if nobody gets hit, everyone wins. There are rules of courtesy, like whoever gets there first goes first; rules of right-of-way, like the person in the intersection has the right of way or the person on the right has right-of-way; but really, if there’s an accident, everyone loses. Today, I was following the, “I was here first so I’m going first,” rule, and someone just about ran into me. He didn’t like the fact that I was going when he wanted to, so he honked and I rated his driving, with my right hand, on a scale of 1-to-5. He followed me closely and even turned followed me as I turned and I started my deep breathing and thinking, “What do I have in my car that I can hit him with?”

Fortunately he turned off. He was a porcine dude, and I’m not sure I have the strength to keep whaling on a big dude until he feels me hitting him. I’m lucky I didn’t get out of the car to confront the guy as I’ve done in the past, but you know how it is, even when you’re trying to follow the rules.

I wonder if I miscounted at the gym. I seemed to finish faster than others, but really, one minute out of 30 is probably not a big deal. I’m so tired that I called my sister instead of my buddy Il. Of course, I usually mistakenly call my buddy Greg instead of whoever I’m trying to call, but the tiredness is throwing me off my game.

There are also things even more consequential than having my customer issues escalated to the director level. On my way home, the CHECK ENGINE LIGHT came on and it’s just taunting me with its impudence. I called the dealership and they told me to wait a couple of days because it might just reset itself. WHAT IF THERE’S SOMETHING CATASTROPHIC GOING ON?

Yeah, I know. I can’t get worked up about it either. There really isn’t all that much going on lately, and I’m so tired from the workout at the gym that I can’t think of much else. I’ve already flossed my teeth, so I guess the day is done. Sleepy time.

I work with a bunch of computer geeks, so there’s no surprise that our group lunch outings are almost like watching Rainman.

Today, however, I was scheduled into meetings from 11AM to 2PM. Fortunately I had a half-hour break where I went down to the (ugh) cafeteria and had what they call a Chicken Caesar Salad. It’s OK, but I think the lack of rice and beans probably contributed to my lethargy at the gym. Actually I think it was yesterday’s front squats that tired out my core and just the incessant work at work that made me so tired. (I can’t get any more specific because I actually like my job, even though it makes me surly.)

Hey, it’s about a third of the way through month 2, so I should have been on one and a third dates so far. I’ve only been out to dinner with Il and my mom and neither of them count. I wonder if Crazy Carolyn in Chicago is doing any better, or if she’s safe from having to eat her hat.