Hairy Fishnuts, Everyone!

Here I am lunching in my office, processing payables, updating budget projections, and waiting for a delivery of office supplies. It's the first opportunity I've had to just sit and be a vegetable since eating lunch in the office last Friday! The weekend was much like the last -- plowing through the end-of-year decluttering and mass clean-up, although we had some excitement when a transformer near my house blew Sunday morning, and we lost electricity for an hour and a half. I know this because the sound woke up my housemate. I was out cold and didn't hear a thing. When the electricity came back on, we couldn't connect to the internet. I reset the modem and router and thought everything was hunky dory, but then lost connection to the router. Steven (my housemate) figured out that if we continually renew our dhcp leases, it will work, but that's kind of a pain. I wonder if I changed some setting in the router to make it do that... or if something was partially damaged in the switch or router when the transformer blew. By the way, this, the issues I've been having with my Powerbook, the end-of-year mas cleanup and busy work schedule, have contributed to my not being online much for a couple weeks.

I'm Buddhist and don't formally celebrate Christmas, but did spend part of Christmas day with my dad and his girlfriend. I drove to her place in San Pablo and watched some tv show with my dad. They dropped a guy on some mountain and he had to get down it with only what was in his pack -- a tripod, emergency blanket, a utility knife and a couple other things.

In the evening, I went to a potluck with Steven. His friend Jay's girlfriend, Jessica, is the manager at a bar called the Uptown, and in honor of the 1 year anniversary of James Brown's death, Jessica hosted the Feast of Saint Soul Brutha. Steven made mac & cheese and corn bread. I bought the ingredients, which is more difficult than it sounds, because he sent me specifically to buy Velveeta! I looked in the cheese section... nope. Dairy? Ha! So I had to find a clerk and ask out loud for Velveeta! After he finished laughing, he led me to the correct aisle.

So we went to the potluck and I met Steven's friends, most of whom are involved with an event called the Bike Rodeo -- they create and ride unusual bicycles and do stunts on them. They are also filming a Road Warrior spoof... on bicycles, of course! I was already a little tired from cleaning the house all weekend, then I ate a bunch of food and had a beer (I usually only drink about a quarter of a beer and then my housemate finishes it off for me), then I had a shot of Jamesons... I was snockered. I was only slightly drunk, but I was SO SLEEPY it made it seem like I was drunker than I actually was. When I stood up to walk to the bathroom, a couple of guys sitting at the end of the bar looked pretty amused.

I hope everyone had a nice holiday!

What a whacky week

Here I was thinking my schedule would ease off a bit, because I finished teaching this term on Monday and I'd only have to worry about my day job for a few weeks, except of course, once extra time opened up, other activities expanded into that extra time, so there goes my down time! At least I don't have to shuttle back and forth between jobs until mid-January!

Part of the activities have been taken up by the day job. It's one of those jobs that will just expand itself into the amount of time you give it. Plus, I open my house up to friends and family around New Years every year (it's a Japanese tradition), so I've been trying to clean and fix things up before the 29th.

Last week was declutter week, and it was FREEZING, literally -- it was actually in the 20s in the Bay Area one night -- so when I did my yearly scrounging for items to donate, I included with the normal stuffed animals, kitchenware, bedding and assorted clothing, a winter coat, insulated jacket, sweaters and some long-sleeved shirts, because I figured someone would really need those this year. I recycled a pile of research papers I'd had for something like 5 years, because most of them I can get online now, and threw away a 32-gallon can of junk. I also drained the spa.

I didn't do anything in the house during the week, because I've been putting in extra hours at work to get things organized in our new office, and I've been exhausted at night. I filled the spa yesterday (Saturday) while I was organizing some files and re-organizing my closets. Except I forgot I was filling it and it overflowed. I powered it up anyway, figuring the jets would splash out the excess water, closed the cover and headed back in the house. I was tired, and after dinner I even skipped a party I'd been looking forward to attending all month!

I climbed into bed, opened my PowerBook and got a message that the OS needed updating. I started the update, clicked over to the Crossword I was working on... and nodded off! I wasn't going to accomplish anything, so I shut the 'book, turned out the light and was out cold before my head even hit the pillow. This was midnight. I normally fall asleep at about 1:30.

At 6:30, my eyes popped open, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I fed the animals, made oatmeal and coffee for my housemate, who had to be up early, went outside to the spa, and lifted the cover, looked at the display, and nothing! No lights, no error message, zip! And the water was COLD! So I turned off the breaker for a minute, flipped it back on, and still nothing! Then I noticed the water on the bricks running out from under the tub, so opened the housing and saw water running down from the depths of the insulation. I must have overflowed or overloaded something in the structure, which sprang a leak and shorted out the electrical system. Great. Now I have to call in the spa repair guys... arrrgh!!!

I went back in the house and opened the Powerbook to try and find the number. The little beachball that tells you it's in the middle of a process started its spin, and as I waited for the login window, I heard the hard disk spin down and then the display shut off. I hit a key to start it again, and it did that again... and again! So I shut down the power completely and restarted. The little Apple appeared to tell me it was booting, and the hard disk started up, and I waited.... and waited... then I set the thing on the floor and did something else for awhile and came back. Still on the same screen. So I tried a couple more times with no success. I'm on my way out the door right now to a cookie baking party, at which there will be a few computer geeks, so I'm bringing the thing with me, hoping they can fix it. If not, I may just buy a new computer!

Oh yeah, I'm late for the party!!!

I've still got it! Sort of.

I teach PE at the local community college (where we'll be moving into a brand new building in January!) and meet people of all ages and backgrounds. So tonight after work I was talking with a (relatively) young man (he's 32) who was originally from the midwest. He was very interested in my holiday plans and what kinds of things there are to do in San Francisco after midnight. When I said I was almost 41 and therefore didn't go out as much anymore, he acted surprised and then mentioned several times that I couldn't be that old. After that, he pretty much lost interest in my plans and opinion. I guess I'm flattered that I'm still somewhat attractive enough to be flirted with, even though I'm apparently too old for the follow-through!