Broke the 600 mile mark on the RT today, I hit 607 right as I came into the garage. Perfect, I can now get the service done next weekend. I got the miles on by riding out to Leianne's place. She wasn't there but left a key outside for me so I could pop in and have a snack. She's well stocked with girl scout cookies, even had the thin mints in the freezer. :) Also, the license plate (16P1685) came already; dad brought them down from the cabin.

I also washed the Montero and did it's oil change today. I used the last of my oil so I'll have to get some quick to make up for what it will burn.

Last night Joanne and I did the hockey game thing. The Sharks lost, but it was a dramatic ending. They scored the tie goal at the last second, between the time the clock hit zero and the buzzer sounded. There was a lot of analysis of the replay footage but in the end the big boards just changed to say "Have a nice night, drive safe" which was a clear clue that the goal was made after the clock ran out. We then wandered around downtown for a while, had ice cream and talked. It was pretty good, no awkward pauses or any of that crap. To put a spin on things, we agreed that she would have to call and setup the next outing. I like that part, I'm tired of coming up with all of the ideas.

I stupidly let the win2k updater thing run and it screwed up the drivers for the wireless card. Anytime I turn the system off or suspend it the WEP config vanishes and I have to redo it. I'm going to have to figure out how to reinstall the old drivers so I don't have to dick with it every time I fire up the laptop. Stupid ass Microsoft and their 'updates', it's just like a virus.

I forgot to mention that I got one of those hose reel things today. After fighting with the hose for a year now I spent the $25 and got one (with a 10' connector hose so it will reach the outlet without me having to drag it through the shrubbery).

I ate and went to the coffee shop and had too many beverages. The sugar is making me twitchy, has upset my stomach and is making me feel depressed. That sucks, but is good to know. Maybe the "too much sugar == depression" thing has been a problem for a while? I'll have to keep an eye on it.

I checked the owners manual for the Montero. It says 5 qts + 1/2 qts for the filter. Damn. The shop manual says 6 qts including the filter. So I've overfilled the thing.

I swear that when I drop laundry from the 3rd floor down to the 1st floor that I can 'hear' it accelerating before it smacks into the ground. I makes this little 'woofh' noise half way down. Breaking the speed of laundry. :) Hey, gotta come up with some excitement to add to laundry day.

I woke up at 6am today, dammit. That's not right. I was up until 11pm which was later than I wanted to stay up but Cicely called to chat (at 1am her time). She just got back from New Orleans, some trade show she had to booth bunny at. It looks like the weekend of the 19th or the 26th I'll be headed out to Florida again. It's so cool to be missed. Anyway, after waking up too early I forced myself back to sleep until 9am to get up to watch MST3k and catch up on all the magazines piling up. After that I went for a ride. I went to Sunnyvale to get a jamba juice, then rode up to four corners to get a hot dog and some water to finish the meal. Good stuff from the juice, fat and protein from the dog. It's a balanced meal. The best part was when I stopped in Monte Serrano to get gas ($2.43/gal for mid grade). There was a blue convertible Volvo (obviously mom's car) with three scantily clad bimbos in it. I can't tell you what their faces really looked like, but their 18-21 year old bodies were amazing. I had to concentrate on not spilling any gas on the bike... and the guy next to me in the 911 wasn't having too much luck fueling his vehicle either. The girls kept bouncing in and out of the car, bending over getting stuff out of the back, etc, etc. Ouch, they were cute. Smiling at them in a full face helmet was worthless but I did it anyway.

Now I'm back at home putting info into Quicken, paying my visa bill and my fed and state taxes. I was telling dad that since I've got extra money put aside that was supposed to go to taxes but isn't I was thinking of getting a new vehicle and retiring the Montero to fun use only. I don't like the idea of it just sitting, but I don't like the idea of it getting used every day either... blah, blah. Same old argument that keeps me from getting an Insight. However, if I had to replace the Montero, I think this could be a cool choice. The Crosslander, a 3rd world turbo diesel powered SUV like thing. Looks like an old Land Rover, but only costs $18k new. Pipe dream, I know. Having a diesel could be cool (unique).

OK, enough playing around. I need to get finished with all the paperwork and get cleaned up for tonight. I've got to meet Joanne at E&O Trading Company in SJC at 5:30pm. We're going to eat then walk to the stadium so we'll need some time. It's a haul from the restaurant to the rink.

Ever wonder if you have to write checks out in English? I just filled out a magazine renewal check and put the written-out dollar amount in German. Wonder if it will work?

Also, I read through (or skimmed through) all 30 pages of my Fedral return, including the 12 attachments. I paid $541 in penalties for some reason, and $57 in 'foreign tax credit'. Hmm... those international holdings strike back. And why exactly do you have to pay a credit? I thought 'credit' would be in your favor and not the enemy.

I swear my desk phone must ring 20 times a day and I maybe answer it once. So many companies call to offer services no one wants anymore. I guess they just keep circling hoping something comes up. Damn, the call I just didn't take I should have. Voice mail from Claudia (the loan lady), we need to get together next week. If I pay my loan down to $332k or whatever the hell the 'conforming' number is I can lose the jumbo loan status and cut another point or so off the rate. That rocks.

I'm currently hiding. We've got a bunch of vendors coming in this afternoon to start retrofitting our racks for some new gear and I'm pretending I have to pay attention. Everyone else is stuck in an all-hands meeting... have been for an hour and half and it's scheduled to go until 5pm. Since I don't care about the web apps team I'm sorta staying out of it. All the other groups in IT are presenting except for Ed's people (my guys, the NT weenies and networking). We hardly count. :)

I got some tickets for the Sharks game on Saturday night and as it turns out Joanne is a big hockey fan (her parents have season tickets but she never gets to go) so she's all for going to a hockey game instead of a movie. That's cool, I'm strangely not in the mood to see a war movie (that Bruce Willis thing).

I went to Cal BMW yesterday and scheduled my 600 mile service for next Saturday (my birthday). I made sure to sign up to get a Triumph RS loaner, you know, just for the sound. If not I'll take one of the new F650CS bikes. It's a 'city' version of my old bike. Belt drive, really funky looking, single sided swing-arm, street tires, etc. No off-road capability but it has 'style' that Europeans are supposed to dig. Whatever. I talked to the sales droid that sold me the RT and she said my GS had been sold just the other day. They got $6700 for it. Not bad. They said they sold it to a really short woman that liked the low seat height and all of the accessories.

No update for three days, I'm starting to slack like Vareck. I've been crazy busy doing actual work stuff. Yea, scary I know. It's been fun though, not only have I been doing the usual management crap, but I've been doing some technical stuff as well. It's low level technical stuff but still I'm writing scripts again and doing things that can be demonstrated as useful.

Last night I went with Joe and some of the girls he's met via T46 to go bowling. I've not done that in a long time. I got a 98 my first game, 138 the second. That's a 40% improvement. :) It was fun, but my hand hurts and I have blisters on my foot.

I'm going home now, I'll update more later. Lots of interesting stuff to report.

OK, I'm at home now. I called Lisa (from last Wednesday) and chatted for a bit. She's really busy right now because she's got to finish grading papers and have her grades in by Monday so she can't really do much this weekend. I offered that we could go for a quick lunch or coffee or something if she wanted a break from the grading and she liked the idea and will call on Sunday if/when she gets to a good stopping point. That's cool. My Sunday will be very lazy anyway just working on the Montero so I don't feel the need for any serious plans. She was quick to offer me her email address and to ask for my number so she could call. That's a good sign. She's not a Cosmo girl either from what I can tell so maybe, just maybe she'll actually go on the date she's agreed to. :)

Now that I'm typing, I can't seem to remember the other cool stuff. Ah well, I'm sure I'll remember it sometime. Wait, I remember something else. Today I went to class and my instructor wasn't there. She was 45 minutes late (I sat outside and read from my text book, no sense in wasting the time) so there was no lesson. Turns out though that the school policy is that if the instructor isn't there then I get a free lesson. Cool, that's worth $44. Good for me, bad for her.

So with careful folding, the 4'6" coffee table can be made to fit in the 4' cargo bay of the Montero. It looks pretty good in the living room, but now the room is looking sorta crowded. A re-org might be in order soon. I might have to move the command chair to the other side of the sofa and then move the sofa down in front of the TV... like anyone cares about that. :)

I put Ed's pictures in with mine from the 4x4 trip. Most of the same crap from different angles, but a few of the Montero I didn't have. Jo didn't say anything about the Montero pictures I forwarded to her. She probably wasn't impressed by me trashing 'her' vehicle.

I looked at bikes today and found some really cool stuff. They've got hydraulic disk brakes on bicycles now. And single sided swing-arms... in the front! Wacky stuff. I'm learning a lot from Jack, our local cycle nut. He's really budget conscious too which is nice.

Tonight I spent 2.5 hours on the phone with Joanne, a woman from dinner last Friday. No no, it's not a romantic thing, it's just that she's really fun to talk to. She's an 80s child too, owns copies of Star Wars and Ronin and lists as one of her top 3 movie picks: Aliens. Damn. She's an amazon though, like 5'11". Crazy stuff, but she's so fun to talk to. Very un-Cosmo girl like. Worse case is I'll have a new friend to hang with. Plus, she might have some like-minded friends that are more my size. :) Yea, I am a schemer. We're going to see the Bruce Willis movie this Saturday (unless she pulls a Julie and cancels at the last minute. oh no!)

I would like to take this moment to point out that Vareck is a slacker and hasn't updated his journal in a few weeks.

Another 4x4 trip to Hollister. Pictures and 3 movies here. The Montero wasn't happy, it died a number of times and was smoking enough to be noticeable. Only 500 more miles to 170k. The nut jumping the truck and the VWs were not in our group. I'm pretty happy with how those pictures came out.

I need to go to my parents to get the coffee table and whatnot that they brought from the cabin. I don't think it will all fit but I'll give it a try.

Went to another dinner last night, met some women, blah, blah, blah. It's getting redundant. I'm not even sure I'm going to bother contacting anyone. Why? Just so they can act all weird, claim to be interested but then resist all attempts at getting together? Or cancel at the last minute (like Julie did tonight?) I don't need this.

On to positive topics. Rod and I went on a 150 mile ride today. The RT rocked! I was pushing it pretty hard coming up hwy 9 and it didn't miss a beat. I swear I was outrunning Rod, he kept falling behind by 20-30 seconds. That's so cool. At the top there were 3 speed traps, CHP doing their thing. While we were hanging out at the rest stop the cruiser came by to use the bathroom and we talked to the cops for a bit. They weren't too obnoxious. The boardwalk in Santa Cruz was open and there were people milling about, even if it was cold and overcast.

I did bills today, and then tonight I went to the range. That was pretty positive too, I managed to shoot a 5-round group into 1" or less. It was just three holes touching, very cool. I don't know why I was so calm.

I'm going to go to the coffee shop and do homework and/or read for a bit then get to sleep so I can get up tomorrow to go 4x4ing. Ed is going and is really exciting... probably can't skip out now. :(

Also good news, Jo got a job. Not a high-tech job that has anything to do with her skill set, but a job working at the San Jose Rep. theater doing something menial. It's a job and she's happy to have an income and not have had to resort to flipping burgers.

What an interesting dinner last night. And by interesting, I mean sorta bad. Maybe not bad, maybe more just sorta weird. Weird bordering on bad. Whatever. So there was one cute girl there, Lisa, that could be interesting to talk to again. I've asked to see if she would want to be at another table with me again. That's an easy way to judge interest without having to go right to one-on-one.

I'm doing another table on Friday. I hadn't planned too but Joe wants backup so I'm helping out. He also has some big bowling thing going on next Wednesday and so far it was just him and four girls so he wanted me to come along to help represent the guys. That's cool. Then, I hear that there is now a 5th girl, Degie. Hey, I know her. :) Could be awkward, could be fine. Oh, and speaking of awkward or not, Lisa was at a table last week with Julie and Bethany. I hope they don't name names when they talk!!! This is either turning into a soap opera or some new reality show on FOX.

Hmm... what else. Oh yea, the good news from the tax guy. Due to some unexplained capitol gains, and a whole ass load of capitol losses, and all the quarterly estimates I've made, I no longer owe as much as I once did. I only owe the feds like $2k and I get $5k back from the state. That's awesome. I'll have enough left over from the money I set aside to pay that last tax increment to pay for my whole Germany trip, and the RT, and a mountain bike, and an MP3 player, and some additional art work for the house, and another trip to Florida. Nifty cool.

Just got back from pool. Rod wanted to try this Korean pool place out but I wasn't so sure. When we got there we sent him and Chris (from Netapp, who is Korean) in to scout it out. Chris wouldn't even go in the door after then opened it. Scratch that pool place for being too scary. Next we went to a big place down across from the Mercedes dealer on Steven's Creek. It was pretty simple, but big and clean with good tables and a mixed clientele that seemed pretty serious about playing pool (and not so much into causing trouble). It was reasonably priced as well. Still, I miss Phantom Canyon.

Ugh. The T46 girls are annoying me playing games. Chrissie says I should "drop them and move on". OK. I can do that.

I did something last night that I've not done in a long, long time. I set my alarm, but didn't remember to turn it on. Doh! I woke up all rested at 7:30am which is way, way too late to go to the gym. Instead I rode the RT in today, just to see how it works. What the hell, right? It's lovely to ride, but a little tough to lane split on. It's like trying to lane split in a civic, it's just a little wide. On the way home I'll head down 237 as it's got a car pool lane and I won't have to split at all.

The school called (and sent email), my instructor won't be there tomorrow morning. Damn. I guess I just have some extra time to review my homework and try to read ahead. It does mean though that I can go to the gym tomorrow morning to make up for this morning and I won't have to try to go tonight. I hate the gym at night, it's too crowded and my energy level is low.

I also hit Julie with some email this morning to see if she made it back from Vegas. Sounds like she had a crazy weekend, much crazier than my Vegas trip for sure. Hard to believe, I know. She won't say much else in email. I got the vague notion that she wasn't interested in getting together anytime soon either. Not sure why (I have the feeling), but it's there. Hmm. Sounds like it's time to sign up for some more tables and refresh the harem.

Wow, it's after 5pm already. The day went quick. I'm working on hiring a new admin and it's really tough. There are so many people out there with bogus resumes that you have to sort through. The good people are stuck in with the liars. I did get a resume handed to me via our VP, the guy is a IT manager now, was a Director of IT before and is willing to 'settle' for admin work. Yea, that's what we want, someone who will 'settle' for what we're offering. Whatever. Pass. What's really amusing is that he was Director of IT at 3dfx for a while and actually takes pride in building their infrastructure on his resume. Their infrastructure was a joke! Drunken college kids do better work than that. Hell, Weatherford net and CS support at OSU was better than 3dfx. What a bozo. That said, I may steal some of his layout for my resume. I actually did some of the stuff he's claimed to do.

Chrissie sent me some email, she's got me in a table this Wednesday. Damn, that girl works quick.

I just watched the (tape delayed) presidential announcement. Bush didn't do too bad, he only screwed up a couple of times (pausing in the wrong place, using the wrong word, etc). Not bad vs. what he usually does. Peter Jennings(I think that's who this is) looks really old and tired and somewhat worried. He must be 70. I get a slight sense that he doesn't agree with what's going on. It's slight, but there is more human emotion in his voice than I would normally think he would show.

Reporters were told to get the hell out but they're not. I wonder if they're using web cams and satellite phones. The video feed is really low bandwidth... they're abandoning the video.

I got a drunken phone call from Cicely and Michelle (FL chicks I went on the cruise with)... It's St. Patrick's day and they were out celebrating. I forgot all about it. Anyway, they were trying out cheesy pickup lines on guys because I had allegedly said that they wouldn't have to make up good lines, that guys would respond to anything. I was right, even using the line "Say, I couldn't help but notice you over here noticing me across the way..." they were able to meet guys and get phone numbers. They had to call and tell me this. It's 1am there and they're still up (and drunk) on a work night. How does this work? It's only 10pm here and I'm finishing up before going to bed to get up early tomorrow. Maybe we CA people do work harder than most. Or maybe it's just us high tech types that can't loose our jobs? They suggested I fly back out and visit for a weekend. I probably will, maybe toward the end of April. It's not like I'm doing much of anything until the Germany trip.

I just got a text message from Jo on my Nextel phone. I had no idea it could do that. She's really into all this technology. And man is she pissed off about the war thing. It's getting a little old. She hates the US, hates Australia, hates the UK, blah blah blah. Whatever, get over yourself and move on. She likes to say that my personal problems are trivial compared to the 'big picture' going on. Maybe to her, but I couldn't care less about a situation that I can't control. Why sweat what the government is doing? We can't control them, we just have to hope they keep up fat and happy enough not to notice what's going on.

I went downtown Los Gatos with Bethany for a few hours today, she wanted to shop at some of those little trendy kitchen stores. She is such a girlie girl it's almost unreal. How can she be like that and yet still drive her manual trans Volvo (she ordered it that way)? Total contradiction. I didn't think things went so well today though, sorta awkward and all with no real plan. She's busy next weekend (tons of activities with friends) and I mentioned that we wouldn't see each other for a while then. She said that since we work close we could do lunch sometime this week. That shows interest. How strange.... have a said how strange yet? I gave her my card so she can email me. She says she doesn't use her non-classified accounts very much during the day but that she would email me her work phone so I can contact her during normal business hours (when her cell phone is blocked by the building she works in).

I'm at work now picking up my crap and I'll head home and then to the store. Too bad the store isn't on the way home, I could save gas that way. If it wasn't cold and wet out I could take the bike, I could load a lot of groceries in those bags.

Yet another late night, but at least I wasn't making out in a parking lot. I picked up Bethany and we went to the Improv in San Jose. It was raining and she just about slipped and killed herself at least a half a dozen times trying to walk in these very fashionable boots. She admits they're not made for wet surfaces. Anyway, the comedy show was good and afterwords we went to E&O for a while, then to some little "dive bar" (not very scuzzy, really) until 1:30am-ish. She was getting sorta tipsy I thought so I took her home. It was sorta awkward and all but eventually we got past that and start making out. :) Girls are soft. I made it home and into bed just after 3am. Come 6:15am though I woke up without the alarm. My body just wouldn't sleep.

I got up, watched some MST3k then went out and waxed and photographed the bike. Here are the images. That last picture is a closeup of the titanium ring I'm wearing now. I never noticed how rough the edge looks, but I've never had it magnified like that before. I wonder if those were in there when I got it? I know it's brittle, but I don't recall smacking it on anything. I did get a short ride in after waxing it. Didn't really go anywhere, just back over to the dealer to let them know it was all going well (they called to check up on me), up to Fremont and then back home. I guess it was actually 40 miles. It's so easy to ride and has such great wind protection you really don't notice so much. I probably won't miss the GS after a few more miles on the RT!

Dad called, we're going to the driving range. He's just bought new clubs and is going to give me his old ones, which are way better than the other old ones he gave me before. I don't really want to play golf, but we've got a vendor outing and I sorta have to go to keep up appearances.

After golf I went with my parents to dinner and then to an art auction in Walnut Creek. The auction was pretty interesting to watch, and mom got pretty agressive bidding against someone else for this piece she wanted (she got it, eventually). The piece barly fit in the back seat, mom was crushed in there with it; it was quite amusing.

Bethany called me back this afternoon as well, we're going to do something tomorrow at 2pm. I don't know what yet, but something. I probably should start thinking. I also need to go by work tomorrow to get my gym bag (which I've forgotten every Friday for the last month it seems) as well as my other jacket.

Today is "Pi Day" around here, the engineers think it's funny that today is 3.14.2003... get it? 3.14? Pi? Anyway, they brought in a dozen pies to share and I got a slice of a pretty good chocolate pie so who is to complain?

Here are the pictures of the bike in the showroom yesterday. I'll take some more this weekend in my usual take pictures of everything way if it's not raining and I can roll it into the driveway.

I just went and read Kenny's journal, he sold his bike. Oh well, he wasn't riding it anyway so it's best that it's found a new home and he's got more cash to put toward his house so he can get a real garage.

Good news, good news. I picked up the RT today and it's safely in the garage out of the rain. I got hit with two raindrops as I walked back into the building at work. Whew. I've got some photos I'll upload later that show the bike on the showroom floor. :) I sure is a big ass bike. Kinda scary, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

At work, watching TV, eating some sort of chicken and noodle dish from the cafeteria, waiting for traffic to die down. Does it get any better than this? (yea, maybe, but let me have my moment).

Talked to Cal BMW today, they've got the top case mounted on the bike and it's ready to go again. They got email from BMW corporate; apparently 22 bikes were shipped with radios that weren't ordered so the dealers weren't charged for them. Woohoo, the free radio stays.

Strange how I keep doing journal updates at :55 after the hour.

So it was a good news/bad news sort of day. First the bad to get it out of the way. The two doctors from the other night... both declined my offer. I thought they were out of my league and apparently they were. Hey, at least I can tell.

Now, for the good. First, the checks from the ESPP sale finally showed up, that's nice. Bastards holding onto my money as long as possible. This is good because my new RT showed up today at Cal BMW. Woohoo! I went over on my way up to the doctor and took a look. It looks right, exactly like an '02-'03 model but with "2 spark" on the cylinder covers. However, it has the radio installed. I didn't order a radio, they say they aren't charging me for a radio, but it's got a radio. I'm afraid they'll try to actually make me pay for it (which I don't want) or rip it out. I hate the idea of them pulling out the factory radio. It seems like a hack. I'll pick it up on Saturday, I don't want to mess with trying to pull the lights off the GS now and then rush down to the dealership. On Saturday I can take my time and look around. I have that $750 coupon from the tour people for accessories and the top case only burns $400 of it so I can pickup some new pants, or gloves (which I'll need to color match to the bike) or something like that. It's also supposed to rain on Thursday; it should be done by the weekend? No one really knows.

I went to the witch doctor tonight and he tweaked my neck again. Not much of a tweak, just a little pressure. It made my sinuses start to drain which is pretty strange. I really don't want to go to the gym in the AM because I'm still weak but if I don't go I'll get out of the habit.

Kenny called yesterday, he wanted to know if it was too early for his woman to move in with him. I said yes, and I think he agreed. It's probably pretty confusing for him, he doesn't have as many failed relationships as the rest of us to judge these things by.

The sickness continues, but it's clearing up. Maybe a few more days, I hope. Last week I'm benching 235 lbs, now today I'm down to 135 lbs and struggling. Being sick really takes it out of you.

I got some email from Julie today.... and I now have her last name "Potashnick". No wonder I couldn't remember it! I suggested we get together before she takes off for Vegas.... didn't hear back. That sorta worries me. Also, what was funky the other night was that she had a card for another guy at nVidia. He's in finance, she said he's a friend of hers. Gayla thinks she's really dating the guy, that you don't give your card to friends. Hum? Gotta find out if this guy is married.

I didn't know that ispell had been replaced with Aspell. There is just a script that translates ispell calls into Aspell calls that someone put into the Linux distribution. Handy, but for once I would want them to give the warning that the old command was being replaced.

Anyway, last night Julie and I went to see The Life of David Gale which was good, but I saw the ending coming half way through the movie. Fortunately I had fun company to distract me. Unfortunately my cold is getting worse so I wasn't able to talk all that much as it was physically painful. We called it an early evening after the movie as she wanted to go to class in the morning and I desperately wanted to sleep. I hope that wasn't a limiting move. It didn't seem like it but you can't tell these days.

I found some Tylenol cold medicine in the cabinet (that wasn't expired) and took some this morning. It's pretty impressive, it's actually made my sore throat calm down a little and my nose isn't so stuffy. Maybe the chicken soup helped too?

I keep reading Dennis' journal about his tax return. I've put most all of mine into the accountant guy but I need to find the cost basis for my Ameritrade stuff and fax it in. I'm pretty sure it costs me more for the tax guy to report it than the amount of money I make trading by myself. I'm down to just a few holdings; I'll not be doing much of that in the future.

I've been wanting to write a little app that mails me a couple of random vocabulary words every so often so I can practice all through the day. Well, I just did that. I wrote a quick Perl script to pick some words and definitions out of a file (which I typed in as further review, all 195 words I'm supposed to know) and mail them to me in a format that works with the blackberry. I just scroll to see the translation, then scroll to see the word. I think going English->German is harder so I'm doing it that way for now. It's easy to flip in the script if I want to go the other way. Hmm... maybe the order should be random too?

Yes, it's 2:30am for those of you who haven't figured out the German stuff yet and I'm just getting back from dinner. The food was just OK, nothing special (seems a lot of these restaurants are just so-so). The girls were pretty good. One in particular, Julie, was worth mention. I only say that because after dinner we (the whole group) went dancing, then after walking everyone to their cars, she and I went back to her car, then tossed a bunch of innuendo around, then went back to another bar and sat until last call then went and made out in the parking lot. Yes, it's all good. Did I mention she's an ex-gymnast and works out 4 days a week? Yowza, she's got a tight butt!

Apparently staying out late all night didn't help my sore throat any; I'm feeling pretty stuffy.

I'm watching MST3k and they're reusing old Battlestar Galactica footage, they just blacked out the label on the side of the ship. As Dennis would say: "lame!".

Company meeting today and I'm watching the web cast. Sitting in the cafeteria for hours on end is just really hard anymore. My bladder is just too small. :) After it's over we're getting a BBQ lunch outside. It's got to be 70 out there.... summer is close! Where is my RT?

Last night I called Bethany and we setup a date (or whatever) for next Friday. She gave me her home address and invited me to pick her up so she must trust me enough to know where she lives and drive. She's seen the Montero, I think she knows what she's getting into. Or I hope so anyway.

Lydia called me today and invited me to go to Jamaica with her to the 'Hedonism II' resort. For those of you not familiar with it, it's club med on NOS. Naked people, partner swapping, drugs, etc, etc. Totally not my scene. It was very flattering to be asked though. I should make a trip out there to Vegas at some point to say hello at least.

The BBQ was pretty damn good, I had 3 pieces of cornbread. Dennis and Jimmy were making fun of me but I pointed out that cornbread is one of my race's foods. It was amusing.

I keep forgetting to mention my gym accomplishments. Today I set a new personal best on bench press: 235 lbs. I realize it's not all that much compared to some guys but it's not bad for a skinny little guy. I myself weigh 160 lbs again so another 5 lbs and I'll be lifting 150% of my body weight. I would like to make 275 lbs my max lift so my rep weight could be 225 lbs (which is two plates on each side). That would be pretty cool, but I don't know if it's really possible. My frame isn't really suited to power lifting and I'm not willing to do all the crazy stuff Charles does to get up to the heavy weight (lots of protein shakes, no-carb diets and 'roids).

Dad pointed out that if they're trying to fire me they're going about it all wrong. Joe approved a new position req. for my team and wants me to fill it ASAP and we just went into an engineering meeting where I was basically given budget to buy ~$2.5M worth of gear (550 more 3.0ghz Linux nodes, 9TB of fast disk with F960 heads, couple dozen small sun-blade systems). Humph. They weren't even worried about what form I bought the nodes in (blades vs. racks vs. whatever).

Tonight at 8pm I have another T46 (table four six, get it?) dinner at "Global Village" in Mountain View. Isn't Global Village a modem company?

Mild cheddar doesn't do it for me, it's being overpowered by the cracker even. Unfortunately they were out of medium. It's like we're living in Russia or something.

This morning I did a stupid thing, I blew out my lower back. Again. I was doing military presses and 'wiggled' at the wrong time and had to try to catch myself. I couldn't drop the dumbbells so I just muscled everything back into alignment using my low back. Bad idea, it wasn't a plan, it just happened. I stopped working out right away, but it was already sore. Hopefully it will recover quickly.

Oops, I did it again. Or more precisely, the VP did it again. He got his teeth into a 10 hour old email describing a problem that's already been solved and went ape shit. I wrote a nice calming email, and in it I took responsibility for the problem. I mentioned that my guys wanted to work on a solution to this problem months ago but I didn't think it was high enough of a priority so I had them work on other things. We're just short on resources and something has to be pushed down, blah, blah. So, I made the guys look good, stepped up and said that I made the call and that we need some more resources all in one well worded happy sounding email. I just might get the hang of this game. Maybe. I'm still worried about Jim though, he's got to scrape together enough of his old work and put something into production this week that's been shelved for a month. Scary stuff.

We had a huge ass meeting with the arch group today about various issues and I made it a point not to loose my temper or anything. It worked, from what I can tell, but I do know there was some anger/hostility in there. That's not good, but I'm learning. It's too late to worry about, I'm still insecure in my position but improvement never hurts.

I think 10:30 has got to be my favorite time in German. On the half hour they say "half XXX" where XXX is the next hour. At 10:30 that's "half eleven" which is "halb elf" which is really close to "half elf". Funny, eh? OK, maybe not.

I made a copy of Dennis' USB toothbrush so we would have it long after the funky web site went away. I'm guessing it's just using the USB adapter to get DC power and not really being controlled in any way by the computer. I mean, who the hell would want to have to bring a laptop into the bathroom just to brush their teeth? The Japanese can't be that strange, can they?

I think it's all a conspiracy. First, candy goes up by about 10%. Then today McDonald's is offering stuff at 2 for $2.22 vs. the 1 for $1 they were doing before. Hmm... I may be a state educated American, but I think they're now just selling you two for 10% more than you could buy two for last week. Why is food inflating by 10% all of a sudden?

Dinner date with Bethany. It went really well. The not talking much thing was just nerves on the phone because we sat at the restaurant for 4.5 hours chatting away with no dead spots at all. If it weren't for the fact that we were falling asleep we probably would still be there. She gets up at 5:45am to go to the gym vs. my 6am but the effects are still the same. We both die around 10pm. That's cool. We have different tastes in music, movies and hobbies but hey, we still got along. :) The guys she's gone out with in the past have been some serious big-time losers and psychos so being better than them should be like zero problem. It really gave me a confidence boost, that's for sure. I want to ask out one of the doctors from Saturday now. Also, she changed her hair from Friday. Then it was pulled back, very 'classy' styled. Today it was down (it's very blonde when it's down) and frizzy, or curly or permed or whatever. A very different look. She also has light blue eyes, first time I noticed. Boobs are in the B-C range and I didn't get a good look at the backside (it would have been a little obvious). Car is a dark blue Volvo S70 two door. Her first car was a Volvo D240 wagon. Something about Volvos...? Vareck will probably make a chart.

I tried to probe her for information on T46 and how many guys want to call her after every dinner. She says that there aren't very many which I think is really odd. Why wouldn't every guy want to try to talk to the cute girls at the table? Are they afraid of rejection (like I am) or are they just not interested in the smart cute girls with brains? She did say that she doesn't want to go out with any dumb guys. That's good.

I can hear the neighbors making noise through the wall. That's pretty rare, usually things are pretty sound proof.

I met Jim at the French bakery in Los Gatos this morning and we headed out for a ride. Rod couldn't make it, he stayed out late last night and was toasted this morning. You know, the more I experience it, the more I think I'm right about this whole drinking thing. It's just dumb. You have fun, but then you spend the next day all jacked up and feeling like crap. Why not just go out and be social, dance or whatever and skip all the heavy drinking? While we were out having a great time riding in the 65 degree weather, Rod was at home puking. That's sad for him. Good for us though, the roads were clear and dry and thanks to the $2.50/gal gas, sorry, the $2.49+9/10s gas, there weren't that many cages bumbling over the mountains. There were a zillion bikes out, but they were all going the other way. We went south on 17 then west on 'ridge road' which runs down to some dinky town in the mountains. Not Aptos, but something that starts with a "G". Then we hit 1 going north (trying to outrun the nasty clouds from the south) to Santa Cruz then up Hwy 9 back over to Saratoga. Everyone else was doing the normal loop which starts in Saratoga instead of SC. This could have been my last ride on the GS. Next weekend is busy and the weekend after that could be when the RT gets here. Woohoo. I was pretty jealous of Jim today, that nice big windscreen would have helped a lot to keep the cold off me.

I got the nerve up to call Bethany, the chicky from the other night. We're going to go to dinner tomorrow. She doesn't really like sushi! Oh no! We're going to the Mexican place in the Mercado Center, it's easy for both of us to get there. When I called her she was sitting in a park somewhere reading and lying in the sun. I hope she was just nervous on the phone or this is going to be a long dinner as she wasn't too talkative. She was fine the other night, so I'm going to go with the nerves theory.

I played with Kenny's "where is Kenny" app. That's just freaky, especially when you can get the areal maps of where he is and actually see houses. Way too big brother-ish.

Vareck's March web page is still broken, it gives a 404 error. Slacker.

Lazy afternoon for the most part. I've run all my laundry and unpacked from the trip, paid bills, entered everything into quicken and cleaned up a bunch of papers lying on the kitchen table. I also took a short walk over to 7-11 to get a snack to go with my soup. Apparently we get our candy from the middle east too, they raised the price from .69 to .75 this week. Humph. Good thing I don't get candy very often.

Social overload. T46 called yesterday morning and had a last minute cancellation, Chrissy (the organizer) wanted me to fill in... she needed someone my age. I was supposed to go play pool with Rod and the guys but they agreed that it would be better for me to go meet chicks. It was a decent dinner with one really cute girl. Worth the trip. After the dinner, Degie (other T46 chick) invited me to go meet up with her and her friends at the Los Gatos Bar & Grill, a twin-turbo yuppie club. I went, but it was so packed that I couldn't find them anywhere and eventually gave up and went home. Bummer for me, but you can only wander in circles in a packed bar for so long before you start to feel conspicious and/or stupid.

Today I'm supposed to have lunch with Leianne, then go to Charles' 30th birthday party, then tonight is yet another T46 dinner. Sunday I'm supposed to either go hike, or go ride with the guys. I'm going to ride I think. I'm a little burnt out on being social and want to do something actually fun (to me).

I'm trying to watch MST3k but it's really, really bad. A better use of my morning would be to get cleaned up, wash the Montero and go to REI and replenish my stock of power bars. It's a little cold to be playing with water though, so I'll just do the REI run. I don't really want to go to Charles' birthday party, but I should go "represent" as he puts it. He promised that of the 70 guests there would be at least 1 other white guy.

What a great day. Rod and Chris picked me up and we went to the birthday party. I was the only white guy there and it was kinda fun. There were some Asian hotties there (as Rod put it) as well as some 'celebreties' from the BARF list (Bay Area Rider's Forum). The food was awesome, I wish I didn't have to eat dinner later because I could have filled up on Korean BBQ and egg rolls. I did one shot of vodka but wouldn't touch the home brew stuff they claim is a tradition. Um, yea.

The dinner tonight with T46 was pretty damn awesome too. There were two, yes two (2), doctor chicks there, both very cute. One was a Japanese/Caucasion mix who was very hot, and the other was a blonde from Texas. Chrissie (our table coordinator) is doing a good job. Joe was there as well (the guy from the first table and the hike). After dinner he and I went to the yuppie bar down the street (we were in Mountain View, are they any other type of bar there?) and chatted for a bit. It's cool, it's like having friends.

I stopped by CalBMW before Rod showed up and checked on my RT. It's actually going to be here in the next few weeks which is much sooner than I expected. I had them appraise my GS for a trade-in and I offered it to dad at the trade-in value but he doesn't want to buy just now. He's going to wait and either get an RT or a springer soft-tail Harley.