I think I'm dehydrated, my joints are really sore. That or I'm just cold.

Tonight I went to a wilderness survival class at REI. They didn't sell too many products and the instructor was pretty good. He teaches up in Washington (has his own school) and I signed up to get updates in case Kenny and I want to take one of his classes.

I got the bike worked on today. It's not leaking oil anymore, but they screwed up the clutch adjustment so it engages way out toward the end. Makes it hard to ride, I'll have to figure out how to put it back. I also smacked a truck with the right side bag this morning. The bumper of the truck made a nice dent in the soft aluminum cover of the bag. Why they're not just plastic instead of metal over plastic I'll never know.

She was sitting on a large rock in a quarry, not unlike the one we used to go shooting at on Mary's peak (not on the top, but lower down). Her blue VW/Audi/convertible something was sitting off to the side. She was casually shooting rocks with a chrome plated buck-mark .22 (there is no such gun, BTW). "She" was apparently a composite of K2 and Camille. I arrived and we talked, there were some other people coming (a girl) who I was going to show how to shoot so she left the gun on a picnic table. Those people arrived and I took the gun and the paperwork from the table and put it in the trunk of the Mustang (my old red one). She and I ducked between cars so we could talk, we obviously wanted to kiss one another. Some guy showed up and made fun of us and dragged her away to get her to leave so I didn't do anything stupid. I followed them around the car and found ourselves in an auto shop, there was a large car battery tester to the left which I touched for some reason, it seemed to have significance. There was a battery in the tester but I don't know if it was good or not. She got ready to leave, but said she couldn't find her keys. I whipped out the switch-blade VW key and gave it to her and she left. Pulling out the car looked like Clay's mom's old Volvo, but it was blue and a convertible. Can't figure that one out. After she pulled on someone closed to door to the garage (not a roll up door, but large side-by-sides) and we started going into the basement where there was a dance club. It was my birthday. Halfway down the stairs the alarm went off and I woke up and ran downstairs to type this out so I could remember the dream. Freaky eh?

After my eye checkup this morning the doc said I'm fine and I should come back in 5 years. At that point I officially gave up my 'patient' status and I was free to ask out the cute assistant chick. One bad thing (other than her boyfriend), her name was, um, well, Kelly. Yea, yea, I know run away, run away but the universe kept it from happening anyway by making sure she was in a happy relationship. She was flattered and whatnot and the cool thing is that I actually got the guts to ask. Whew, glad that's over.

Paige asked me to stop by to help her move furniture so after the gym tonight (didn't go this AM due to the doc appointment) I cleaned up and went over. I didn't help paint, just moved stuff and entertained Murry (the dog). After she got fed up with painting we went to Mountain View to the open-late noodle house for dinner. She had to return a call on the way over, her girlfriend from Seattle. I got to hear all about "Eric", the guy that Paige was set up with the other weekend. He's 30-something, 6'3", blond hair, blue eyes, "rock hard body" (her words), into art, wine, food and travel, runs, mountain bikes, etc, is a controller for a valley company, got his MBA at UofW, blah, blah, blah. Sounds like a turbo stud. They're going out Saturday again to some fancy French restaurant in the city where he knows the manager so they can get some perks. Yea, she can go to SF with the studly controller guy, or to the dive noodle bar with the IT geek from next store. Versatile.

The / partition on pong is almost full, the /var/tmp/pacct file is like 8gb or something stupid. Guess that's what you get when you have accounting turned on for 300+ days. I didn't know I had it turned on.

Jimmy was at the gym tonight and I talked with him for a bit. Apparently I'm a totally looser in the eyes of the sport bike guys for selling the R1, but I can sorta redeem myself if I get the FJR instead of the RT. Oh look, electrically adjustable windshield and factory hard luggage! :)

I gotta go to sleep now, I've got to get the BMW to the dealer in the AM to get that oil leak fixed. Crap, I left my bag on my desk. I can't use the luggage when I go to the dealer because I don't have the luggage on the loaner bike. Guess I'll have to stop by the office first. That means getting up even earlier...

I went to the doctor today about the chest pains and she did an EKG. I've got a copy I'll try to scan in but the results say 'normal' she says. Two things of note, one is that my resting heart rate is 63, which is OK for me being nervous. The second is a little worrying "Probable early repolarization pattern". What the hell is that? Is that a condition of the machine or my heart?

We talked for a bit, I went over my 'conditions' (mentally) and she says I'm depressed and gave me the big lecture on how it's not so bad, etc, etc and lots of people are like me. 18 million Americans... sounds like a sales pitch. Anyway, she's suggesting counseling (which I'm trying to setup now) and, if I want, she'll set me up with some anti-psycho drugs (no, not lithium). The current range is Venlafaxine HCI which goes under the name Effexor XR, like that's any better? I checked out the web site looking for the side effects of this chemical soup. Here is the core of the info:

When you first start taking EFFEXOR® XR, you may experience nausea, but this lessens in most people and usually goes away within 2 weeks of starting treatment. You may also experience dizziness, sleepiness, delayed ejaculation, sweating, dry mouth, nervousness, insomnia, anorexia, and constipation.

I'm really worried about the anorexia part. I've already got the rest of that crap (other than dry mouth) so I'm not too worried. Still, I'm going to put it off if I can. I want to give counseling a chance before I get all chem 101 on myself. Didn't my little episode with the stripper prove that drugs are bad, um kay?

The guy just came by and picked up the R1. He was totally psyched as was his buddy that rode down with to check it out and his GF who came to drive the car back. I'm pretty damn happy it's gone, not that it was bad or anything it's just one less thing I've got to worry about, insure, service, store, etc. If I had friends like his (total sport bike fiends) I would have kept it. My friends aren't like that. They're riders, but not that hard core. Rod's going to be upset. :) Hmm... one car, one bike (the free Honda doesn't count, and the Suzuki is a permanent resident at the cabin now). Having the Suzuki at the cabin is sorta family tradition. My uncle had a cabin and a 1968 Honda Trail 90 in ugly yellow. Dad used to take me for rides on that thing all over Mariposa. Now, I have my own cabin and my own (modern) trail 90. If I had any brothers or sisters who had any kids they could come visit me and go for rides. It just dawned on me that I don't have any brothers or sisters... why is that so surprising? Maybe I secretly hoped that K5 and I would get married so I could have brothers in law? That's just wacky. Actually, he must be my great uncle, he's my grandmother's brother. When he finally dies I'm going to try to get that Trail 90 if he still has it.

Leianne called, she's talking with the guy she met at the party. Paige has been contacted by the two guys she gave info to, and Sue has been contacted by one of the two so far. Looks like all the girls made out pretty well date wise from the party.

One more thing and then I'll retire for the night (I'm still up surfing the web listening to music). Today at the Veritas executive briefing I realized why sales people are uncomfortable talking to me (I've been told that on several occasions, that I have too much of poker face and they can't tell if I'm agreeing or not... I do that on purpose, BTW). I watched Bill and Ed and during the whole presentation they're sitting there nodding along with everything they're told, even if they have no idea what is being said (I know for a fact Ed has never setup VCS so he can't know what the guy was saying was true). I don't nod, I just sit there listening with this "impress me" sort of attitude. That's probably hard for them to deal with, a special case they don't cover in sales school. God help me if I ever have to do sales.

I wrote to BMW about their films and suggested they throw some BMW motorcycles in the films too. It's a form letter, but they did respond:

Dear Kelly,

Thank you for your recent suggestion regarding the BMW Film Series. We appreciate you taking the time to provide us with your comments.

Please know that we will pass along your suggestion to the appropriate representative. And since we rely on user feedback to make our films as entertaining, visually stimulating, and as enjoyable as possible, suggestions such as yours are appreciated.

Best regards,

BMW of North America, LLC

I just noticed an error, they started a sentence with "and". I'm pretty sure that's not technically correct (although I do it myself from time to time).

A guy came by tonight to check out the R1. He wants it and is supposedly coming back tomorrow with a check. I'll be happy if he comes through.

Went for a ride up to Alice's for breakfast again, this time Jim came along. He may have logged 5000 miles in the last 5 months of riding, but he still hasn't gotten out and actually "ridden" much. He can't turn at all, but is great at doing 80 down the super slab. He wants to go to the track and learn stuff now. I figured we would be the only nuts up there, since it's freezing cold and we're bundled up and using all the electrical goodies to keep up warm, but as you can see from the photo of the parking lot across the street, there were a ton of sport bike guys up there. I recognized Andy, the owner of Honda of Milpitas (and Honda of Oakland), so I'm thinking it was their monthly shop ride? Is it the 3rd Sunday of the month or something? Anyway, here are some new images too, one of the gas station we always fill up at (notice the prices are the same as the stations in Fremont, so they're low for Saratoga) and a picture of downtown Saratoga.

Oh, and as Vareck pointed out, the UAE is the United Arab Emirates, not United Arab Empire. I trust the spell check too much. :)

I rotated the tires on the Montero only to discover one of them has a huge ass nail in it. If it was a normal tire I'm sure it would have blown. Guess I need to go have it taken out and patched.

So much for free tire patching, they now charge $15. At least it's done. I was stuck in the mall for an hour while Sears did their thing so I spent the time annoying the foo21 list, sending email on various observations and generally trying to amuse myself with just a blackberry.

After the mall I went to visit Troy, or at least find out where his new house is. I found it, but it looked deserted... so I went back to the old house. He's not there, obviously, but I got to talk to Maggie for a while. She's doing OK with the divorce. I figured it was just one of those "we can't get along" type divorces, but it's not. Troy cheated, he's been seeing someone on the side. Damn, I thought only women went off and cheated. This changes everything, I'm not sure how to act around him anymore. Cheating on your wife? Very lame.

Tonight's dinner was Italian herb risotto and that trout I got at whole foods the other night. The fish was good, the risotto was only fair. You just can't get that stuff right unless you make it for real (like a restaurant does). Now I'm going to bundle up and walk over to 7-11 for some junk food dessert before packing for tomorrow and heading to bed.

OK, that was strange as hell. I left the house to go to 7-11 and I decided to go out the front door instead of the garage. My neighbor across the way was outside smoking and we started chatting. I figured it would be a 2-minute hey how ya' doing sort of talk but she did everything but beg to get me to come inside for a visit. She's doing the stay at home mom thing and you can tell she's dying for adult conversation. Anyway, after about a minute of talking to her I can tell she's way drunk. She's in the stumbling/giggling phase and smells of wine. Her husband is at the baseball game and has to take his friends home so he won't be home until late (I'm praying he comes home soon so I can leave!). Today she bought the kid a Siberian dwarf hamster. Looks like a small mouse with no tail to me. Anyway, she must have dropped that thing on it's head a half dozen times trying to show it to me since she doesn't have a lot of fine motor control. 20 minutes of watching the rodent roll around the floor in a transparent ball and her husband comes home. He's not thrilled about the rat and seems glad to have a guy around that he can try to bond with and bitch about the Giant's loosing. I couldn't care less but I'm playing along. He's pretty drunk too and wants to sleep so I use that as my cue to get the hell out. Man what a crappy life they have. I'm glad to be me! (and I think that's what the universe wanted to show me with this whole episode anyway).

I'm watching this really cheesy adventure moving on channel 36. It's got English guys (funny accents, driving land rovers, etc) and some Arab looking guys in desert gear, but they're in caves and a forest. The hero's big weapon is a browning high-power with a shoulder stock. Very un-spiffy. I can't tell what's going on though, the dialog is too muffled. It looks like a movie I would make if I made an action movie. Wait, now it's getting Indiana Jones like, they're riding around in mine carts. There is a helicopter, so it's not set in the 30's, and both good and bad guys are using FALs.

Last night was the costume party at Dan's place. I don't know if there were 200 people or not, but there were a crap load of creatures there. 95% of the people were in costume. I went as a crusader, rented a bitchin' costume from a shop in Sunnyvale, Sue went as a cat woman (very revealing body suit thing and fishnets), Paige went as a naughty school girl (Eric would have totally dug that) and Leianne changed her mind at the last minute and decided to go but didn't have anything. She just dressed up sorta sexy and people thought she was Heidi Felice. Funny. It was a chick fest, I bet it was 50% women, most all of them cute. All three girls exchanged phone numbers with various guys, but since I was all weirded out and being anti-social and depressed for some reason I hardly talked to anyone and definitely didn't get any numbers. There were three good things about the night. The first was Eric coming to the rescue. We were totally lost and I called Kenny, figuring he would be at home, but he was out on the town. I called Eric next figuring he would be working but he was in fact playing some game. He used earth viewer to get us there. The girls were amazed that he could somehow tell us what buildings we were driving past. Satellite imagery rocks. The second cool thing was this chicky dressed up as a nurse. She was maybe 22 or so, built like a goddess and press-fit into this little white skirt. You could bounce a quarter off that ass! Everyone admitted she was the hottest woman there, too bad she was very attached. The third thing was the one game of pool I played. They handed me a stick after the break (there weren't enough cues for everyone) and I ran 6 balls in a row before looking up and noticing everyone staring at me. Heh, heh, heh. Pool shark. These new eyes are pretty amazing.

OK, the movie is over, maybe it will give the name in the credits (which are written in a very 80's A-Team style font). Nope.

I put the Techlusion 83i fuel injection fixer widget back on the 650 and tuned it. Turns out the printed instructions I have are wrong, they show the settings for a modified 650 with a modified intake and an aftermarket exhaust. Since I have neither of them, I was running too rich, hence the cloud of smoke when I revved it in neutral. The web page shows the correct settings for a stock bike and once I dialed it that way it runs right. After tweaking, I went to Cal BMW and rode the RT. Yum. It's a little soft, I'm not sure if I really like it or if it's just different. The wind protection does do wonders for making highway riding uneventful. I also picked up a brochure for a tour company. They do tours in the US and Europe and the United Arab Empire. UAE? Funky.

I'm going to a performance seminar hosted by Sun today so I'm sorta hanging around the house right now dreading going. They're up off hwy 84, which means I'll get caught in all of the bridge traffic. I'm trying to come up with a back way but since traffic backs up for 3-5 miles and the Sun campus is only 2 miles from the bridge, I think I'm screwed either way.

Last night I went to one of the REI free lectures on photography and mountain climbing. Basically it's a guy that started out as a hard core mountain climber and then started taking pictures of it and writing books for a living. Pretty interesting stuff, the politics of climbing. At least now I know what the Everest base camp is all about, and why you have to have a $10,000 permit just to climb, and about the ice fields and whatnot. Living at base camp looks like you're living on the moon, very harsh. Could be fun for a few days. The biggest score of the night was the REI adventure company brochure. They've got all sorts of hard-core adventures all over the world (hiking, biking, climbing, rafting, etc) but they also have some less hard-core ones, like 30-50 mile/day biking tours they claim are good for beginners. The important thing is they provide the gear and the guide. I'm thinking I should sign up for one for next spring and see what Europe is like with a real guide (so I don't freak out and decapitate every person that comes up to me like always happens in Mexico). In the same vane, there are always those motorcycle tours too. If only I could find one that was short ranged, like 3 days. I don't think I could do 7 days on a bike. Guess it would depend on the bike and how long your butt was in the saddle each day.

All right, enough stalling. I need to get moving so I can get a jump on sitting in traffic. It only gets worse closer to 9... and doesn't lighten up until 11. Who is still going to work at 11?

I had some weird ass dreams last night, something about golfing... I can't remember, they were too freaky and faded too fast to write down.

My Linux box video is going out again. Last time it started to do this I rebooted it and when it came up the video card was totally trashed. Cheap NVDA cards! (or I just need to quit taking them out of the junk pile). My desktop box has been up for only 180 days, but pong has been up for 291 days which is pretty much the whole time it's existed on the new hardware. I think I moved desks 180 days ago which is why my desktop has only been up that long.

I'm trying to figure out which bikes I might want to get/keep. The 650 was perfect for zipping around SF yesterday, a larger bike never would have made it through some of the stuff I was doing. Basically I need a short range bike with some luggage capacity and a long range bike. A track bike would be good too, but keeping the R1 just for that seems sorta wasteful. So I could do:

F650GS, R1: what I have now. 650 is a great all-arounder, but isn't so great for long trips. R1 is perfect for the track, but mostly useless the rest of the time.

F650GS, R1150RT: 650 is good to commute on, go to the city on, zip around town on, etc. 1150 is perfect for long trips and two-up riding. For the track, I would have to use 1150... not exactly a sport bike.

FZ-1, R1150RT: FZ-1 works for an all arounder (not as city safe as the 650 though) and is pretty good at the track as well. 1150 is again, the long distance hauler. The question with this one is, could I stick enough luggage on the FZ-1 and put a larger screen on it and turn it into the long distance bike too, thereby eliminating the need for the 1150 all together (other than two-up touring which I don't see myself doing)? That would be great if I only had one bike.

VFR800, R1150RT: Like the FZ-1 combo above, the VFR could almost be a touring bike if properly equipped...

F650GS, FJR1300: Like the 650/1150 combo above but way cheaper because the 1300 is $5000 less than the 1150. However, I won't be able to actually get a FJR anytime in the next 6-9 months. :(

As you can see, there are a lot of choices. It's a puzzling thing trying to balance cost, function, etc. Could I somehow deal with only one bike to do it all? Could I lane split on the 1150RT?

Lots and lots of stuff going on. Friday night was Cicely's going away party... and I freaked out. I got there and the place was packed and I panicked (some social anxiety or some shit) and ran. Not literally ran, but I did a nice little high-speed tactical walk out the door. I called Leianne and she talked me down, or more correctly up. I was pretty down. Cicely called after about 20 minutes and asked what was going on and I told her that I had gotten paged from work and was furiously debugging a problem. She wanted to know if she should order me something and I said yes. I pulled myself back out of the depths of self-pity hell and went back. When people wanted to know what was going on I replayed the emergency of the other day when I had returned from the track. It wasn't a lie, it was just the absolute truth shifted in time so it's consistent and easy to remember. People were sympathetic and Gerald said I just needed a few drinks. He was right. Once I was at the table (but before drinking anything) I turned into turbo social guy entertaining and being generally up-beat. About half way through Cicely and I traded places at the ends of the table so she could talk to the people on my end and I could entertain at the other end. After dinner everyone wanted me to go with to some bar. Was I making friends? At the bar I met some people (from Cicely's party, not total strangers) and they invited me up to SF, one of them was an artist and was taking part in the open studios tour this year. I had plans for Saturday but said I would come up Sunday. We broke up the little party around 12:30am and I went home (hence the call for a medic and my head hitting the table at 1:04am.

Saturday I woke up and went to the open house at Cal BMW and rode some bikes. I rode a 2003 R1150RT and loved it. The bike seems to loose 200lbs when it starts moving, it handles pretty well for a big sport touring bike. I also rode a Triumph Sprint ST just for the experience of riding a 3-cylinder bike. It's a ho-hum liter class bike all around until you whack the throttle open... VROOM! It makes the sweetest sounds, sort of this throaty metallic growl that that just begs to you to keep the power on and snap shifts off at red line. I found myself slowing down just so I could speed back up again and listen to that sound. Everyone says Triumph's make a really great sound, now I know what they're talking about. Someday I bet I'll get a triumph just to be able to listen to that sound. OK, here you go, through the magic of the Internet I've found some sound samples of a 955i engine so you'll know what I'm talking about. Here it is staring and driving away and here it is passing. Tell me that isn't a beautiful sound. There was no one there under 50 except myself, the BMW crowd is old. I chatted with a number of people including a guy that ended up buying the R1200LT super cruiser that he test rode. I told him not to play with the radio but he did anyway and got hooked.

After riding the bikes and eating the free food, I went for a ride up Hwy 9 just to get some miles in. Then I went right after getting down the mountain and went to Campbell to get a SoBe at whole foods then came home. Sue called and wanted help hanging a mirror so I went over and did that then we went to Chevy's for some food and went and saw The Transporter. I was very disappointed, they used generic car sounds. In Ronin they used the real sounds a BMW makes under hard driving. I can tell the difference. Dennis should get used to hearing this sound. Way different than a Taurus being flogged.

This morning I got up, did some laundry and headed up to SF to check out the art. I met up with the people from Cicely's party and after hanging out in her (tiny) studio, eating carrot sticks and watching parts of The Matrix, I ended up buying an oil painting. I know it's not anyone else's tastes, but you gotta admit it looks like something I would own (when you figure I paid money for that Laura Field's print I have over the fire place everyone hates). They're twitchy about cameras in the studio but here is stuff from the artist's web site. Here is a picture of the artist and the painting I bought, called Dragon Smoke. The color is way better in real life but you get the idea. It's now hanging in the living room, it really adds to the room (since everything else is white). Her boyfriend totally wants to go to Vegas and be hooked up with the stripper for a wild time so I'll see if I can set it up when he's ready to go. When she said he could go have fun I don't think she knew what she was giving him permission to do. Anyway, they're going to invite me up next time they go out and do some fun stuff. Maybe I'll get some friends out of this yet.

I couldn't pick it up on the bike so I rode home, got the Montero and headed back up. That's a crap load of driving. On the way home I was playing with the camera and snapped a couple of images. Obviously this guy is lost. Here we see that these people only support politicians with 3 letter names, Lee, Yee and Jew. So maybe there is that Teng chick. It started getting foggy on the way out and somewhere on the Dumbarton Bridge the Montero clicked over from 159,999 to 160,000 miles. Yes, I am speeding on the bridge (speed limit 55). I'm also playing with a camera while driving, I'm a bad person. :) When I got home (after stopping at the parents for dinner) I got startled by this nasty surprise. Little bastard was moving pretty fast, too bad I didn't have a shotgun loaded with rock salt. For those of you with poor monitor gamma, here is a picture of the rat bastard as if you had night vision equipment. Not too happy about a rat running around the complex.

Medic.... *whump*

OK then, it seems as if the world has turned around. Today Ed made me install the MSN instant messenger thingy. Apparently it's the greatest thing since email for keeping in touch with people. Unfortunately it only works when you're actually at your desk so it's about as useful as the phone in some ways. I still like email because I can get it on the crackberry which I have all the time. I suppose if I could chat from the crackberry I would like it more. I'm sure it will come in time.

The IM thing isn't that big of a deal. What is a big deal is that Kenny seems to have found himself a diving/ham radio chick who is single and apparently interested in dating him. At the same time, Vareck has been chatting with some Bulgarian chick in a coffee shop (on campus I'm guessing) and they've exchanged numbers and are doing the dating thing. Dennis as we know is all serious with his woman and has been for a while now. So apparently everyone in the known universe is now seeing someone other than myself, and Don. Now Don I haven't figured out yet, but he's normally not with a woman so that's not so unusual. Have I pissed off the universe so much that it... whoa, wait a second.

I just had a flash of insight. I was about to say "so much that it's decided to pass me by" and that triggered something just now. I do feel as if life is passing me by. I'm still here at a company poised on the edge of destruction (but let's all hope it doesn't in fact take the plunge), living a life of confusion, and am not motivated to do anything about it. That's what is getting to me, I'm unmotivated to do anything about it. It's not that I'm trying things, but I'm just sitting back in my chair taking pot shots at ideas and not leaping in head first. I don't know why it's like this, but... well now I'm just rambling and not even aware of what I'm typing. I'll go sit for a minute and see if my head clears.

My head is not clearing.

Cicely's going away party is tonight in Palo Alto at the Empire Grill and Tap Room in Palo Alto. I'm guessing it's going to be swank. I'm dressed for it no problem. Jim has been laughing at my wardrobe as of late because everything is black. Right now I'm wearing a black silk shirt, black slacks, black socks, black shoes, black belt and I have my black jacket to go with it. It's like I'm an artist or something.

Forgot to mention, Troy moved out of the house away from Maggie and Mark (his kid). Apparently their 21 year marriage couldn't take it. I have no idea what happened, I've not had a chance to go over to his place and talk. I never really noticed anything wrong with them other than the fact that she's off with Mark playing hockey 99.5% of the time. I figured that's just because I visit on the weekends when people are normally out doing sports type activities. He's rented a house in Fremont and is working from home for two companies, one local and one in Taiwan. I'm not sure why he would want to continue to live in Fremont if he didn't have to be there for work unless it's so he's in the same school district as the old house so Mark can stay with him some of the time (one of the divorced with kids rules I learned from Larklyn).

I've looked up the location of the restaurant. It's a few blocks off Alma and University. For those of you for which that means nothing, and I'm guessing that's everyone other than me, it's right down off of the center of Stanford University's yuppie shopping area. You would think that downtown Palo Alto would be nicer to go hang out in but when I've been there it's had too many homeless people hanging around. Probably living off donations from the students. Mountain View is way nicer to walk around. Anyway, I hand drew a map and will leave in a couple of minutes to hit an ATM and then fight my way through 11 miles of traffic on 101, on a Friday. That's going to take 45 minutes so I should be right on time for dinner.

I've done something today that I've never done before. I forgot my wallet at home. It feels totally strange, I don't like it.

Track day photos are up. Two batches to look at, my camera and the stuff from the professional photographer. Per my prediction, Jimmy crashed. Last lap of the day, it almost didn't happen. He did get hit from behind by some big ass dude on a F4i, so it's not really his fault. Notice the red paint marks on the tail where the guy hit him. The guy was a total ass and wouldn't even talk to Jimmy afterward. He sent his wife over to apologize and swap insurance info. How cowardly.

I helped K5 move the rest of her stuff tonight. It took 1.5 hours to drive out to her place, then another hour to load and an hour to get to the storage unit. Skippy met us there so unloading was really quick. She didn't pay for gas nor offer to take me to dinner with them. That sorta sucks.

The big email retention policy kicks into high gear this week so I spent the morning hiding all of the email I want to keep. You can't store them on the server or the official .pst server, you've got to squirrel them away on your local drive. Instead I put mine in my unix home directory where it will be safe. I did clean up a lot of old mail though, probably blasted half of what I was keeping.

Since the traffic was light this morning due to the 'holiday', I took the opportunity to go to the rich folks gym up in Mountain View. From my house it's only 3 miles further than the one in Santa Clara and with no traffic it was actually faster as I could use hwy 237 which doesn't have any lights unlike my normal route. Anyway, it was about what I expected. Way more cute women, better lighting, more cardio equipment, more mirrors in the right places, etc. The whole facility is smaller though, so the equipment was packed in there pretty tight. I did realize how much my workout is geared toward the order of the equipment in the gym. Doing my normal routine I move back and forth across the gym with the water fountain in the middle. At this new gym I was bouncing around like a ping pong ball trying to do things in the same order, regardless of machine location. The other weird thing was the parking lot. Other than the Montero and one 4-runner, there were no other SUVs. Everyone had 3-series BMWs or IS300s or Audi TTs in either a dark slate color or a dark metallic blue sorta color. Very popular color this season it seems.

Went hiking with Cicely as planned. Left the office at 4:15pm, hit the trial head around 5pm, hiked until 7:15pm (quite dark at that time, we were using moonlight to navigate). I'm really tired now, after monster garage I'm going to sleep.

This morning I woke up in a foul mood; I had another really weird dream only in this one I was annoyed. A lot. I wrote it down as soon as I got up. Here is pretty much exactly what I wrote. It's not a very well written 'story' but I was just putting crap to paper as fast as I could.

I'm with Anne in SFO, going to see some play. We stop at her house for something and then go again, don't know what we were getting. It's raining really hard. I crash the Montero down a pedestrian walkway and it teetering on the edge about to fall down some stairs. We get out so I go back for my glasses and camera. I took a lot of pictures. A dirt/dust cloud kicks up with I'm taking photos, it gets all over me and the lens. We're arguing a lot. I'm very angry because she's taunting me about crashing, much like K5 would.

The Montero is now crashed in someone's house, but still on the edge of falling [off a deck]. Anne sands their deck while I try to figure out how to get the Montero out. [Editor's note: K5 and I were fighting when we sanded the deck on the cabin last year]. The house next door is under construction, you can see people walking on it while we inspect the deck. We go into the downstairs living room and she prays because the black woman that lives there just died. She asks God to save the Montero too. Suddenly, I throw open the doors to the room it's crashed into and it's out. The husband of the dead woman gives them [the construction guys that lifted it out] his "Olympic size gas grill" as a reward. He has a large kitchen with a professional stove. He and the ghost of the dead woman are now cooking breakfast. She drops an egg he hands her because she's not really there. I am angry and full of despair the whole dream.

OK, so what the hell does all that mean? The dream book I looked in at the store seemed to pin down the last dream exactly (I was worried about an uncertain financial future is what it came out to mean), maybe I should go back and buy the book since I seem to be so dream prone these days (and writing them down). I had forgotten most of the dream completely until I just now typed it in. Good thing I wrote it down or it would be gone forever.

All bike related work that needed to get done has been done. The Honda has a new fuel petcock and both Rod and my R1s are ready to go to the track and are sitting in the garage to be loaded into the trailer on Tuesday. To prep the bikes we had to flush the coolant and replace it with just water and "water wetter" (this stuff that breaks down the surface tension of water making it transfer heat better). They won't you run coolant as if you crash it will make a slick mess on the track. We also had to tape up all the glass, pull the mirrors and license plates, pull the fuses for the head lights, turn signals and brake lights and tape the wheel weights. We also had to polish them up, you can't go to the track with a dirty bike.

I rode up to the Budweiser brewery north of Benenica and took the tour. They wouldn't let cameras in but just imagine a huge futuristic factory. Almost totally automated, there are only 6 people working in the whole thing during normal operations (not counting office people). To get the 'beechwood aged' thing they don't brew in beechwood barrels, they line the bottom of a 56000 gallon stainless steel tank with beechwood chips. There are 42 tanks per floor, 3 floors. Remember the scene in V where they show the water tanks the aliens are filling? It sorta looks like that. Impressive. It's also very loud in there and unlike everyone else, I had a ear plugs (I was still in all my riding gear).

After the tour I went back south and turned on Hwy 4 and took it all the way through farm country to get to Discovery Bay and Leianne's new place. Her and her mom were painting the garage. We had lunch and then I headed out of there fast to avoid any painting. :) The GS now has 7148 miles on it. The 6000 service was just a few weeks back.

Tomorrow Rod is supposed to come over and we're going to prep the bikes for the track (take off the mirrors, tape all the lights, change the coolant out for water, tape the wheel weights, etc). Cicely called and bailed on tomorrow, she's got to do more research on the company in FL that she's going to go to work for. They're going to give her the offer on Monday and she wants to be ready. We're going to go hike and/or do dinner on Monday afternoon or evening. It's all good, I want tomorrow to goof off.

I got a copy of Finding your own North Star on the recommendation of Larklyn... who got the idea from the Oprah book club. We'll see, I'll try to be open minded.

I forgot to mention that I picked up the M6 Scout last night and test fired it there at the range. It works about as well as expected. The only surprising thing is that the .22 has recoil. Not a lot, but it seems like more than any .22 I've ever fired. I guess the gun is light and all, but a .22 pistol is lighter and seems to have zero recoil. The .410 shotgun makes a nice pattern, but it's a little too the right. It still hits with 75% of the load in the center, but it's an oval shape out to the right. I know my old Mossberg's pattern is a lot more consistent but we're not talking high-tech weapons here. For some reason it was really fun to break it open after each shot and pluck the spent shell from the chamber. There was a little curl of smoke that rises out of the breach when you pull the shell too which adds some character. I bet the coach gun would be fun in much the same way but would hurt every time you had to fire it. Maybe I'll get a recoil pad installed some day.

Got some email from K5, she's been at home the last few days getting ready for Friday. They've sorta delayed her firing until then; she's just been sorta hanging out in limbo all this time. I don't know how to feel for her, it's what she wanted (being gone) but is it happening according to plan? How does it feel to get fired? Laid off would suck, but being fired is personal.

It's pretty quiet around here right now. I think all the managers are gone, I don't hear Bill yelling at anyone (the NT group communicates by yelling across the room so we're aware of when they're here and when they're not). I'm guessing they're off in an email retention policy meeting. That's gotta be ugly. A lot of thing things coming down the pipe as of late are all politically motivated, or they start from the lawyers and get more screwed up as they move down hill.

Minor freak out tonight. I kept trying to faint and/or puke, I actually fell over at one point (hit the couch fortunately). Turns out I was just hungry. I don't have any food other than power bars so I went to the store. I couldn't figure out what to eat so I went to visit my parents. Mom had some home made soup from my grandmother. Dad I talked for a while about life and where I'm going and whatnot and it really helped sort me out. I've been feeling pretty lost lately and the talk really helped. I now have the beginnings of a plan. Let's watch it unfold.

Shakira is just a Spanish Britney, I just figured that out. I'm slow at times. Speaking of Britney, I've done it again. Ha, ha. I put that concert poster up in the lab formerly known as the conference room "Stonehenge". Anyway, I kept calling it the "Britney Shrine". Today Ed and I were in there talking and he asked me to call Bill. I did and he asked where we were and I said to meet us in the Britney lab. He knew exactly what I was talking about. Yet another successful nicknaming of something. Apparently they're also crediting me with the term "pimping" although I don't think I made it up, I just started using it at work. We're not talking about pimps and Ho's here, we're talking about adding useless or tacky features to stuff.

I should go to sleep here, I need to be at the gym in the AM. I took the armor out of my bike jacket and pants and washed them. Turned out great, the looks brand new again! I'll need to re-spray them with water repellent but that's not a big deal. I can't believe how well my 6 year old jacket cleaned up. The Velcro is still worn out, but that's fixable I'm guessing. The knee armor in the BMW pants was cracked, probably from hitting the snow so many times while boarding. (no one seems to notice I'm wearing my motorcycle pants while snow boarding and the armor really protects my knees).

I think Vareck is mocking me by putting "Focus on Deliverables!" on his web page. Another useless observation: there is a sign by the on-ramp to 880 that says "no pedestrians or motor driven cycles permitted". Is a "motor driven cycle" and thing like a "motorcycle" I wonder?

The dad on the 70s show is the same guy in Robocop, Kurtwood Smith. Sounds like an alias.

Last night I went to see Sweet Home Alabama with Cicely, Gerald and a guy named "Lee" who seems pretty cool (he rides an F4i, how could he not be at least OK?). Total chick flick, not even a token car chase or anything. Cicely said I look WAY too tense like I'm going to hit someone. This while standing around the theater just chatting. Today Dennis said I look way too tense, and I walk like Robocop. Maybe the job is getting to me? Speaking of Robocop, it was on TV the other day and I finally figured out where the dad on "that 70s show" is from. He's Clarence Boddicker, the 2nd level bad guy in the movie. Like me, he had more hair back then.

Must.... hold..... on...... must..... not..... break!

Count to 10, or something. Slowly. Slowly.... keep typing, there you go. See, no reason to panic, no reason to quit. It will all be good. Must survive until Oct 24. Must hold out. Take a few deep breaths.

Interesting note from Ed:

You are way to sensitive and you need to take things with a grain of salt! If we really thought all you did was sit on your ass, do you really think we would recommend a 7% raise! Not on your life! You’re a MANAGER now and you need to take the SHIT that's dished out just like everyone else takes it. I'm sure you know, you don't take half the BULLSHIT Bill deals with on a daily basis and I'm not sure you can. If you truly want to be the next director of IT Ops these situations need to handled much better and with more tact. It's a package deal with the job.

Basically we're fighting because our VP is all pissed off that some engineer deleted some other engineers files which caused some problems. No one ever though to put in a help request to just have the files restored, in fact, no one thought to tell IT anything. So when engineer #2 bitches to his VP about engineer #1, their VP in turn bitches at my VP who freaks out about how I'm causing tape out to slip because I'm not doing my job. I am confused.

Talked with the investment people. My head hurts, I'm actually taking some aspirin. I want to go home. I need to go pick up my medication for tomorrow at lunch today; at least I can take my mind off work with a little riding.

The brokers are not liking my decision to pull out. I faxed in written, signed instructions and I don't think they're really acting on it. They want to talk about it tell me that I'm being crazy... hold on they're on the phone!

Stay in, stay in, put more money in, that's all they say. I can't figure out why. Ed (my boss) just dumped another $100k into the market last week, he's down $20k already. He's OK with that, uses the old "easy come, easy go" line of bullshit. Why are people happy with the idea of putting money in if it's just going to go down? Why not just sit it out until things shake out and re-stabilize and then get back in? If I go all bonds I'm 2 years out from getting back to where I started. I'm still going to do that. Who cares if I miss the 'big massive upswing that's just got to happen'? I don't care so much about making money at this point, I just want back what I had to start with.

I must have failed my saving throw vs. mind control, I'm actually thinking of doing what the investment people are suggesting.

I rode to Alice's for breakfast this morning, it's about 100 miles round trip as it turns out. I realize it's a little out of the way just to get some ham and eggs but it was a nice clear weekend and I wanted to have some reason to get out of bed today before noon. I used the electrics for about 5 minutes right past Saratoga but it warmed up nicely after that. There is a new church in Saratoga and it's got grape vines all setup in front of it. It would be pretty cool if they're growing their own grapes to make their own wine. I don't know why it would be cool, it just seems like it should be. Sorta like a monastery of some type.

Motivation strikes again. I picked up a Hoover SteamVac LS3500 carpet shampooer thingy, complete with powered accessories. I cleaned the carpets in the living room, family room, bathroom and the entryway by the garage. Then I got crazy with the little attachments and did the lower stairs and then did one of the seats in the Montero (passenger side, just to try it out and see how long it takes to dry). It's hard work, but the carpet looks way, way better. Not good enough to make me want to keep it but better so I'm not embarrassed to have people over.

I forgot to journal my dream from last night. It was very vivid and in color. Here is what I can recall with the aid of my notes: Lydia (the stripper) and I were traveling somewhere, I don't know where. We couldn't find a place to stay so we ended up staying in a mini storage place (must be a Snow Crash reference?) that had a great view of the city and a bridge. It was a huge bridge, two levels, 5 lanes in each direction and covered in red and blue lights. It was foggy toward the other side so I couldn't see where it went but there were cars on it moving around. At this point it became clear that 'something' was wrong. We were in some future Earth type setting, but not very far in the future. At some point here we started having sex (I'll leave those details out) and then we had to hide because someone was chasing us and was just outside the unit/area. We closed the door and were having trouble with the lights trying to figure out which switch turned off the outside light. I think we got the lights off but at this point I was waking up.

Quite the productive day. I woke up early and got to working on the Perforce server move. Nick was 90% done by the time I woke up so no worries on that end. I finished up while watching MST3k, then since it was 11am I went downstairs to work on the Honda.

I setup my portable home office in case anything when crazy while I was working and fired up LaunchCast to entertain whilst I wrenched. First thing was figuring out how to get the carb out. It's easy to see, but how exactly does the damn thing come out?

After much fumbling I finally figured out to take the intake manifold (what there is of it) off and it was easy from there to wiggle it out. There isn't a whole lot to this thing really:

After draining out the remaining fuel I decided that I was going to need some carb cleaner to finish the job. Dad called saying he was coming back from Hollister (he went to Corbin to have a custom seat made for the KTM) and wanted to go look at gear and stuff. I figured I would get the cleaner then but still wanted to get out of the garage to take a break and to get away from the fumes. I rolled the R1 out and went to whole foods for a sandwich. On the way I stopped by the Honda dealer and ordered a new fuel cut off which I'll put in next week (it should be in on Wednesday, I'll pick it up on the way to the dentist).

When I returned dad and I went to Road Rider and I got a spine protector (needed for the track event that's coming up), some "water wetter" (again, for the track, they'll only let you run normal water and the wetter, no coolant in case you crash) and the carb cleaner. Just for his amusement we went by the BMW dealer and checked out the new RTs. Too rich for my blood. Anyway, I popped the carb open and cleaned out the crud that was holding the floats down and therefore never allowing the shutoff to work properly. It's just like your toilet, if the float doesn't come up the toilet "runs" forever. Unlike the toilet though when the carb "runs" with the bike off the fuel just gets dumped onto the floor. Ick. Here is a closeup of the floats and you can see the number "58" on the secondary jet. No idea what the size is measured in.

After cleaning everything and un-wedging the parts that needed help I put it back together. Since the carb was out, I put the camera inside the frame and took a picture looking into the manifold. If you've ever wondered what happens to old gas when you let a vehicle sit, this should be of interest:

If that's not a 'before' picture for some ad for a deposit cleaner I don't know what is. After bolting it all together I took it for a little test ride around the parking lot. I had to do the happy dance, it still runs and isn't puking fuel all over the ground. Big Win!!!

Since I was still motivated I washed down the patio which I've been meaning to do for about 6 months. After that I went for a little ride, then stopped by City Beach for some chicken strips and a salad. Next came the coffee shop for hot chocolate and to read for a while. Finally, home again to download the pictures and update the journal. Now that that's complete, it's time to go watch some bad late night TV then crash for the night.

Oh crap, the pager just went off.... I hate being on call!

Whoa, harsh day. The market is way, way down again. The R1100RT I was going to buy was going to be sold out from under me today (apparently) but on Wednesday the owner got hit by an SUV driving soccer mom and the bike was totaled (and he's just now getting out of the hospital). If that wasn't enough, they're messing with our salary. Raises were canceled for those due (that would be me) and there may be 'other salary changes' according to the memo. It's worse than I thought around here.

I pulled the Montero out of the garage to pull the Miata in. I promised Leianne I would replace the burnt out headlight so she stopped by. As I was waiting for her to drive over I noticed a couple of serious sized drops of oil on the floor. It's not engine oil, it's coming from the transfer case. Apparently the Montero is a little more banged up than I thought, the zillion year old seals in the t-case must have not enjoyed being heated by the heavy 4Wed usage over the weekend. I'll have to scramble under there this weekend and see if it's just the output shaft seal or something more serious. If it's the output shaft seal I can probably do it myself since I don't have to drop the whole trans/t-case assembly. Otherwise I'll just put some cardboard down on the floor and check the fluid regularly. I don't want to mess with the whole thing too much. I could do it, rent the transmission jack and all that, but it sounds like a dirty job. The Montero is a working vehicle, it needs to have a leak or two.

I've got to present at the director's meeting tomorrow morning. Our VP has some news he wants to share. No wait, let me guess: it's a crappy quarter, the market is soft, the channel is full, we're going to have to cut back again, etc, etc. I've already cut most everything out of my budget; I left only $500k in there as absolutely needed. I talked with the heads of engineering and they want some additional capacity and want a cost per CPU which includes infrastructure and back-end resources (the storage). Our VP loves quoting prices without any of that 'extra' stuff on there because it looks good, but it plays hell with real budgeting. Our 'standard' 300 CPU order is $500k for the systems, plus $500k for the back end storage plus $20k for networking and $20k for support systems. So our VP is off by 100% every time he quotes stuff. I think he's coming around, if slowly. I think what confuses me all the time is they say "absolutely NO spending" so I'm like "OK, I won't order anything". Then two weeks later they claim IT isn't keeping up and we're not ordering anything. At this point our VP freaks out and starts pushing to order, and we end up doing some quikcy order.

I've not automated the month rotation. I guess I can just keep doing it the way I am, it's only 12 times a year.

Some serious, serious shit is going down here at work. When I get a chance today I'll put it all in here.

I had dinner with Paige tonight, it was pretty good, both the food and the company. She seems a lot older than she really is (32), I think it's just because she's so independent. I asked her if she wants to go out with Greg Hewett, our Veritas rep. She's looking for an older guy, he's 37, has two places (one in Palo Alto, one in SFO) so he qualifies for her 'together' requirement and is in sales, just like her previous three boyfriends. She's marketing so they're naturally drawn to sales (apparently). The other interesting thing I learned about her tonight is that she doesn't want kids. That makes 3 women that don't want kids (Leianne, Jo and now Paige) and several that do (K5, Cicely, Krista, others I'm forgetting).

So the big news it work is that the main VP of engineering (Chris) is stepping down into an individual contributer role. He's tired of all the BS of being a VP and is happy to just be designing chips again. He's appointed Gopal, the guy I hate to be in charge of engineering. So now I'll get to work with Gopal every week. I've got to justify all spending through him, which is going to be rough because he doesn't exactly trust IT. He likes our service, but thinks we cost too much and are wasteful. It's going to be a rough ride. I'm trying to get along with the guy but it's been slow going.

The other interesting news is that I've heard rumors that K5 is going to be fired this week. The other BSA was cut today, she's out at the end of the week. K5 is next.... hope she's ready. Her house rental fell through so she doesn't have her place wrapped up like she hoped but that's about to be the least of her worries. I think.

I've been sucked into working this weekend because I'm scheduled to be on call. It won't be much, just watching over a project someone else is working on and making sure they don't do anything stupid. They're starting a data move from one server to another at midnight on Friday and will be in the 'tricky' phase of the cut over around noon. I'm going to look at a bike in Antioch at 10am so I'll be home in time. (It's a 2000 BMW R1100RT if anyone is interested).

I almost forgot, which seems hard to do, that I'm in a big political battle with Phil. He's shooting his mouth off to our VP about my group trying to make us look bad. I think he's trying to discredit me to make it easier to prove I don't need my people and to steal one of my positions. Sounds crazy but since the company is grinding to a halt, people are starting to feed off one another.

I also should point out at this time that I think I'm jealous of Vareck and his return to school. It's too early to tell yet if I'm really fully jealous or not. We'll have to see how it turns out for him in 3 months... when finals kick in. :)