Aud continues to amaze me. I mentioned I was going to the range (have to try to keep up with Don) and she pointed out that she took shooting in high school and took some shooting classes at the local shooting academy. Obviously this was in Norway.

Work continues to suck. That's mostly why I've not updated the journal in a few days as it would all be horrible work stuff. That's not healthy. I'm also having a mid-life crisis of sorts trying to figure out what I want to do with myself, my life, career, etc. It really sorta sucks, I don't recommend it to anyone.

I'm not sure why Dennis is freaked out by towel animals but apparently they're having and effect on him.

The trip meter on the Montero stuck at 0 after I reset it at the gas station and I didn't notice until I got home... after driving to the doctor's office in Belmont. I lost about 40 miles. Humph. I'll just refill the Montero before I leave. Gotta stock up while the gas is still cheap. :)

I added more oil, only 782 miles since the last quart. I didn't really fill it last time though. Or so I hope. It can't be using that much oil, there would be some sort of huge blue cloud out the back. When I get back I'll change the oil again and add some of that magic fluid that's supposed to keep old cars from burning so much oil. I think it's just a thickening agent but we'll see. Troy will probably know.

I watched the Married with Children special that Vareck got off Usenet (I can't believe they post 411mb binaries to news groups these days). It was interesting if you watched the show (which I always used to). It wasn't stellar though.

I talked to Cicely tonight after I finished up at the gym (doing a make-up day since I missed yesterday). She's really excited about the trip. I have to provide my own transport from the airport to her office as she's working until 8pm Thursday. That sucks. I better start packing soon, or at least making a list of stuff. Sunglasses, camera, batteries, charger, passport and tickets are important stuff.

Today's class was only mildly useful. I worry that I'm not getting my money's worth out of the classes. I need to spend more time outside of class working on things. Memorizing vocabulary is the biggest barrier I can see. I'm getting to where I can hear and parse out the words when she speaks, but I can't always come up with the meanings on the fly.

I'm really bored all of a sudden. Ed is gone off to Hawaii so now we have zero contact with the rest of the IT world. It's not like I don't have things to do but they're just not exciting. I've got one email to send out that's going to cause lots of trouble... probably should get that done before I take off. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon and then I'm going to the gym. I should go to the bookstore as well, I don't have anything to read on the trip other than homework and I won't want to do that the whole time. I will try to finish that book Ed wanted me to read. Yea, that's a good idea. Then I need some trashy SciFi book, or even better some mindless fantasy book.

Google can display itself in a lot of useless languages, including Klingon and H4x0r. Some people have too much time on their hands.

So the jazz club says that it has stuff going on Sunday night (due to the holiday weekend) but when you go there it turns out it was canceled. Bummer. So instead we went to the movies and saw Daredevil which we both thought was OK. Sue liked it more than I did; maybe I'm just old and cynical or something. I ended up staying over there last night for some reason. No, nothing happened, it was just more comfy there than it was here. Maybe it's because she's got the heat turned on and I don't. 68 is more comfortable than 58.

This morning dad and I went for a ride up Mt. Hamilton. It wasn't as cold as last time which was nice. The bike only slipped on me a few times, but it's a clear indicator that even if the tires have tread left on them, they're pretty much shot. I think they've been heat cycled a few too many times. As long as I don't ride any twisty stuff I can hold out until the new bike arrives.

Dad offered to buy me out of the cabin so I can 1. get the new bike and 2. reduce monthly payments. I'll probably take him up on the offer. I almost never go to the cabin anymore, it's just too far of a drive for me. Maybe in the summer I can ride up there or something.

Today I learned that selling stolen stuff could be easy. I wanted to get rid of the old Miata tires and instead of paying the disposal people to haul them away, I took them to one of the sleazy tire dealers in SJC. Farmer's Tires, to be exact. Anyway, the Mexican Skippy checked 'em out and we settled on a price really quick. He took the tires, paid me in cash and we went about our business. No names, no forms, no nothing. Could have easily sold him a stolen stereo, or stolen wheels, or stolen anything I'm sure. They would probably remember me, not too many white folk around that area.

I stopped by the big mall on the way home looking for a music store and got a bite to eat at the food court. Man, people are so god damn fat! Unbelievable. We're not talking overweight, we're talking spear gun time. And it wasn't just white people either, there were some fat ass black women and a bunch of chunky Asians. What is the world coming too.

Speaking of stupid excess, I saw a couple of new SUVs on the road today. WTF are people thinking? Why is now the time to buy one of those things? Is no one but me worried about the whole gas thing? Must be.

I vacuumed the house and broke out the ladder so I could vacuum the spider webs out of the corners of the downstairs room.

Apparently there was a Battlestar Galactica marathon on SciFi channel today. Damn, that would have been cool to see. I think I've seen some of the episodes out on DVD. I should find that. It's part of my childhood. Maybe someday they'll do a "best of the 80s" sort of thing with the best episodes of all the TV shows. You know, like they do with music, the best of every year, etc, etc keep only those you want cancel any time. $19.95 per DVD. Knight Rider, A-team, that sort of thing. Yea, I'm dreaming.

Well, off to do homework.... I need to do some laundry too. I'll hit the gym tomorrow to make up for not going today and maybe I'll go Wednesday night as it will be the last chance before the cruise.

I had some really disturbing dreams last night. Something about a strange neighbor, arson, ball bearings, etc. I woke up in a total panic, but couldn't write down exactly what was going on.

I called Degie a few moments ago and asked if she wanted to go to the theater with me this afternoon. It was a long shot of course, and last minute which isn't supposed to work, but I wanted to try anyway. She just got back yesterday and isn't together enough to be social, but seemed genuinely pleased for the offer. That or she's a good actress.

I'm listening to Hotel California, loud, by my own free will. Something is wrong.

The play was strange. Lots of incest, infidelity, mental problems and in the end, a death/suicide. Sounds a lot like Shakespeare to me. It wasn't, that's in two weeks... I'll probably go see it. A local house is doing King Lear which I'm guessing has nothing to do with jets. It's a more low-budget production so we'll see if I can tell the difference between good and bad theater.

Speaking of budgets, I was doing bills just now and figured I would come up with a budget. My monthly outflows are (typically) $3554 not counting any food. That's just mortgage, taxes, insurance, gas, association dues, etc, etc. That's a crap load of money. Insurance (for the vehicles) is $165/month total. Not sure I can cut that down by much. Gas is the only variable. And here I am thinking I can afford a new bike in a few months. The only think making ANYTHING possible is the damn stock money and that's pretty much gone. How did I get myself into this position? Taxes are murder, I'm paying $419/month (est) for the house and $90/month for the cabin. If I had to pay for food and stuff I wouldn't ever be able to do anything. Hmm. In theory I should have a huge write off from the two mortgages, that would help a lot. I could stop doing 401(k) too, it hardly seems worth it anymore. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Tonight Sue and I are going downtown SJC to check out a jazz club. If that fails to pan out, we'll head across the street to the place that has live reggae music tonight. It's going to be cold, but she wants to dress up a little anyway. I'm thinking I should wear my lightweight thermals under my dress pants. Stupid cold. I rode to the theater today (and had no problem with parking) and it was OK but I was wearing a lot of gear and my heavy thermals.

Vareck is back at the coffee shop tonight cruising for some Russian chick. Someone has got to have a talk with that boy.

I don't know why, but I went to Cal BMW today and put a deposit down on the new 2004 R1150RT, the one that's going to have the dual plug setup that removes the surging problem. They don't know when they'll actually ship them, sometime in the next few months perhaps, but when they do I'm first on the list to get one. I'm not sure if I want to get rid of the GS or not. Commuting on the RT will be hard as it's sorta big to be lane splitting on. I'm already getting sick with worry, buyers remorse is kicking in pretty fiercely. God only knows what will happen when I actually have to buy the thing.

I need to get cleaned up and take off now. I've got to get a card for mom and then meet them out in Clements for dinner. A 60 mile drive just to eat at a crappy restaurant. I have no idea why mom wants to eat there, other than it's on the way back from the cabin. I dunno, she's getting old and weird, but it is her birthday so I'll play along.

I just read Vareck's journal. That whole black valentines thing was pretty strange. He should date a goth chick, they love that sort of thing. :) Last night I sat around watching looser TV (What I Like About You and Sabrina) before heading to the coffee shop to knock out a few chapters in the book I'm reading for work. It wasn't a horrible night, really. OK, maybe it did suck but at least it's over now and I don't have to feel all depressed about it anymore. Dumb ass commercial holidays.

Dinner was pretty good, if a bit overfilling. I had "whiskey chicken" and ride which was pretty good and the soup (corn chowder) was excellent. I had half of mom's piece of cake and that's probably what's sitting in my gut like a brick. I never eat much for dinner anymore, I usually do the big lunch thing and then have a really light evening meal. We ate around 6 and here it is 4.5 hours later and I'm still stuffed. My body has no idea how to deal with all the food.

When I got back from dinner I went to the range and shot for a bit. Don is getting pretty good and if I want to keep up I need to actually go and practice now and then. I did great for the first 25-30 rounds and then got progressively worse. No idea why, it's not like I was under stress or anything. Now I'm at home reading and getting ready to crash for the night. Tomorrow I'm going to the theater to see Ghosts in SJC. The play closes next week so this is my last chance to see it. Sunday is a 2pm show. If it's not raining in the early morning perhaps I'll go for a little hike... or not. I really should organize the kitchen first, I've been putting that off for a long time. We've got Monday off, I can hike then... or not. Dad and Jim want to ride on Monday. Hmm... I also need to hit the gym Monday. I can't slack off because I'm already going to be slacking off on the cruise. It's very unlikely I'll workout while on vacation. Oh, and as of Friday I've lost 4 lbs, down to 158. That's not right, I'm trying to gain some weight (good weight, not fat). I'm not getting weaker really (maybe my endurance is down) so I don't see how it could be muscle I lost. I do have a bit of fat lying around so 4 lbs lost isn't a big worry.

Nehmen Sie die Anmerkung und "Cosmo" lesen ist nicht eine gute Weise über selbst besser zu fühlen. Ich bin nicht eine schlechte Person, aber, wenn ich Scheiße lese, wie dieses Marken ich Frage selbst ist. Viel.

Don't bother feeding that through a translator, it doesn't come out right. It's me thinking in English but using German. Doesn't work like that. My instructor told me to say "mist" when I would normally use "crap". So "crap, I knew that" is "mist, wußte ich den" and "what is this crap?" is "was ist dieses mist?". She said mist is very German. Oh. Literally translated it's "muck". Although the dictionary gives me some other uses, like Miststück or "bitch". Heh. :)

It's raining heavily now. And Vareck is home asleep after a late night at Starbucks. Damn, life is strange.

The date last night was good, but ended with a twist. We chatted for about 1.5 hours and then it was time to go. Turns out though that between the time we first talked and now when we got to go out 'for real', she's found some guy that she wants to get serious with. It's been all of 3 weeks and she's serious with someone already. Sigh. Chicks don't stay single for long I guess. It was cool of her to be up front about it though, no faking or weirdness later on. I also think this is a better ending. She was a little too advanced for me. I forget just how much of a bumpkin I really am until I run into a highly intelligent educated well traveled person. She's also a hard-core cyclist (racer) and surfer, diver, etc. I think people in sales really do have a lot more money and free time then those of us with normal jobs. Who else would have all that vacation time and time after work to go do interesting stuff?

My anti-TV quest failed yesterday. I came home and turned it on while making dinner. There was this really cool NOVA show on the Joint Strike Fighter program and the competition that went into picking it. Very worthwhile use of 2 hours. I kept watching it after dinner, I wanted to see how it turned out. They said that this should be the last manned fighter the US builds. That just seems strange. If fighters all became un-manned drones, wouldn't the enemy just go to their local Radio Shack and build up some big-ass jammers that would keep radio-controlled plane out of their air space? Seems like you would want to have a human right there keeping things under control and being able to function even with lots of ECM going on.

Today Ed and I spent about an hour making some animated power point slides for my presentation on Friday. It's pretty cool looking. I don't actually have the text made up to go with the visuals yet but that's pretty easy. I know what needs to be said, I just have to make sure I don't bungle it while I'm up there.

That date like think I canceled last week is on for tomorrow. I'm not excited at all really and it's not clear why. She's cute and all, but I think I mentioned before that I think I'm too much of a hick to really be hanging out with her. She seems so advanced in the theater and travel and what have you. We're meeting at a Starbucks on El Camino toward Santa Clara University at 6pm. I can't seem to figure out where it is on the Starbucks web page... I'm sure it exists though. I should drive over that way at lunch to verify I can find the place. It would be somewhat dumb to get lost.

Vareck and I have been chatting via email a lot about a number of topics relating to current events and time management. He reads a lot of newspapers, spends about 3 hours a day on it. Since he doesn't watch TV he's got more time. I need to stop watching TV and start reading more. It could be fun to not be so out of it all the time. Then again, I'll probably get depressed because the world sucks so much more than I thought it did.

For starters, tonight I turned off South Park. It's stupid. I mean, I've known it's stupid for a long time but I continue to watch. Why?

I also spent about 30-45 minutes paying bills and putting stuff into quicken. I'm still spending a lot of cash on gas every month and it's only going to get worse. Prices hit $2.21/gal today. Must be crazy in SFO. I feel bad about driving the SUV around all the time, but it does get at least 20 mpg. I looked for used Insights today. Other than one lame one without AC there was nothing to be had. Guess other people are thinking the same thing as me.

Whoa, I managed to spell the date and the time correctly without looking them up. I must be getting better.

Last night I was watching n-tv and it showed that on Dienstag at 21:30 they were doing a car show. It's like Car and Driver TV or whatever but it's in German (obviously). 21:30 is 12:30 here so after lunch I fired up the web browser and watched. I managed to pick out about 10 words which is pretty good considering it was all technical stuff.

Right now I'm just hanging out in my cube watching TV (I have that cable widget and USB tuner) waiting for dinner. I also managed to pound out some more slides for my presentation on Friday and draft up a new status report format for the team. I'm a real manager now.

Wow, I didn't think I had gone so long without an update. Lots going on I guess and it's just a little tough to login and write about it. I've been spending time away from the laptop while at the house.

Last Friday I went on a date with Degie and I think it went well. We went to Midori and there were no awkward pauses or anything during dinner. It was a little freaky that she paid... when I was in the bathroom she had them bring the check and paid it. Strange. She did keep talking to me after she got in her car, she rolled the window down and kept going. That's cool.

Saturday morning I cleaned the bathrooms and worked on the house until Don showed up and then we went up to the rifle range in Los Gatos. Don has been practicing quite a bit and it shows and I've not fired the AR in over 2 years, and that shows too. :) After the range we came back to town and hooked up with Rod for dinner and a movie. We saw The Recruit which I liked, although the part about the "it's just blanks" bothered me. Come on, anyone that should have fired a gun as much as those agents should have should have been able to identify blanks vs. the 115gb FMJ rounds loaded in the gun. And blanks should not have ricocheted off the train...

Sunday I went on a hike with the Table for Six people and that worked out OK. Debbie brought her dog... and you know what? I really don't like dogs. I tried to like the dog but after it turned on me and decided to start growling and frothing at me (after we had been hiking together for 4 hours), I just gave in and hated it. Stupid dog. Really though this is bad news for me. I don't like kids and I don't like dogs. That rules out about 99% of the women out there.

Here are some pics from the hike. It was really dark under the trees so they're mostly blurry but here is the best of the waterfall shots and a closeup of the message in the letterbox we searched for:

I canceled my date for tonight (actually did it last night) because of the weird fever thing that was going on. I got very bright red and started burning up with a massive fever, my whole body was warm. It was not a good thing. I felt sorta woozy, but not really sick. Anyway, I didn't want to have to bail out at the last minute so I canceled it then. It's not a big deal really, I don't get a good vibe from her.

However, once I got home and rested I was feeling better so I called Degie (pronounced Dee-gee) which is the cute chick from last week. We chatted for a bit and made dinner plans for this Friday. I'm not thinking it's a real date or anything which is probably a good thing; I'm not really feeling ready to date. Hanging out is OK though. That date pressure though, whew, that's just going to have to wait.

I talked to HR today about vacation and how much I get and what's the max and all that. The official numbers say you can have 35+1 days saved. I currently have 28+1 and accrue 19 per year. They say that I took 21 days last year. Damn, that's a lot. I had no idea I took that much vacation, but I suppose I did take some days for Cancun, and Vegas, and the Death Valley trip, and some random stuff at Thanksgiving and Christmas just to burn the time so yea, maybe 21 is right. This year I already have 19 days scheduled (15 for Germany, 4 for the cruise). Plus I have 2 comp days which I should use for something. I don't want to mix them in with the 'real' holidays because those are long enough that people will be paying attention to when I go/return and taking those extra hidden days off won't be very PC.

I found a document just now while sorting through some work crap... the original bill of sale that I used to buy the Montero. It's dated March 18, 2001. Damn, I've almost owned it two whole years.

Speaking of the Montero I checked the oil. At 167409 it was a quart low again. That's 1346 miles since I checked it last on 1/15... wow, that's a lot of oil used! It's not smoking but it must be using it pretty solid now. Bummer. I'm going to make notes and track it. I even made an alias so I just have to type 'oil' at the command line to edit it. Just like the journal. :)

Just for Vareck's amusement, I took pictures of school this morning, and the route I walk to the bagel shop, and the shop itself, and inside the shop and finally the classroom with the instructor Frau Schwartz.

My PC crashed again (it's been turbo unstable since I stupidly let yahoo! upgrade it's version of messenger) so I switched over to the Linux box to do some work on the journal real quick which I almost never do. I ssh into pong from my Linux box but always check the HTML code using exploder on windows. The old version of Netscape on the Linux box won't actually real '.shtml' files. Why I'm still using that extension I don't know as I don't actually have any code in the html pages anymore. Anyway, from now on I'll make it regular .html so Netscape doesn't get confused.

My headache is back, but it's caused totally by stress. This day has been pretty bad, but I knew it would be all weekend due to the crapola going on with Gopal on Saturday. I won't go into details, it's really not needed nor will I give a rats ass about it in a few days anyway.

Friday afternoon the whole group cut out of here for a 1pm showing of Biker Boyz. Man, what a crap movie that was. I mean, I knew going in it would suck, but not suck that bad. The network guys went as well as Ed so there was more people to share in the pain. Netapp paid for everything which was cool. Turns out everyone pretty much has a nickname now, even me. No one uses mine much though, they're "afraid" I'll freak out. Weirdos. Anyway, the group is now: D.W., Bubble Boy, Chubby C, the Canadian, P.I., Kimchee, Mad Dog, and Robocop. The last one is me, they say it's because I walk just like him. Oh. I kinda like it though, I've never had a nickname before.

Friday night I went to another Table For Six dinner. This one was pretty good as well; the restaurant was about 2x as much as the first but the food was much better. There was a chicky there that's been to Germany four times now so I've asked the hostess if she can hook me up with her so I can find out everything about her travels. No response back yet other than the hostess telling me she'll find out. It's very much like high school. :)

Saturday I went for a hike with Larklyn in the AM which was interrupted by Gopal's "emergency" that lead to the trouble this morning. Saturday evening I don't think I did anything, or I can't remember doing anything. I'm pretty sure I went to bed early as to be ready for Sunday. I did go to the coffee shop to read and found it to be stone quiet. It's Chinese new year and most the Asians in the office said they were going out drinking and gambling all night. Apparently it's a whole weekend of celebration, not just one drunken night like the white folk do.

Sunday was the big activity day. I picked Jo up in SJC then met Rod and Jim and we all rode up Mt. Hamilton and then back the downside of the mountain on Mines Road. We went all the way to Livermore, had breakfast and then zipped back down to the south bay. It was freezing ass cold on the mountain (I've got 3-4 pictures only as it was too cold to keep my gloves off to use the camera). There was solid ice in the parking lots and the wind was blowing pretty hard. It was nicer once we got into the valley. I couldn't keep up with those guys as I'm 50-100 HP short in the power department compared to their bikes and I had the extra 130lbs of Jo on the back. She still enjoyed the ride. I do need new tires though, the front slipped out three times and the back out once. It was freaky. What's even more strange is that I don't really have an urge to go get a bigger bike. I like riding kinda slow.

Stupid PC has crashed for the forth time today and I've already un-installed the yahoo! messenger crap. Damn, I don't want to have to reinstall but it looks like I may have finally asked too much of the system. Maybe it's time to scrap the whole box and move to a P4 based thing with real graphics. One of the NT guys showed me that you don't have to use the fisher-price interface to XP, you can make it look more 9x like with the small non-retarded buttons. That's cool.

Whoa, I got a refund check from the DMV. Apparently I overpaid my registration on something. I've not renewed a vehicle in a while. Strange. Aud just came home.