Story Archive (08/2003)
First Kisses (8/30/2003)
My friend Debbie is attempting to write a travel article. She's been told
not to write stuff that sounds like, "I went here. I saw this. I did that."
That's the kind of stuff I generally write. So here's something a little
more personal.
I was talking with one of my cousins this labor day weekend about first kisses.
Do you remember yours? Does everyone remember their first? I'm not sure.
I remember mind quite vividly.
I picked up my first girlfriend at summer school at the Academic Talent Search
at CSUS. My parents more-or-less required one academic activity and one sport
activity each summer while I was in my youth. Summer 1992 I was barely qualifying
by taking typing at ATS for my academic activity and golf lessons for my
sport. I don't consider typing academic. I don't consider golfers to be atheletes.
Still, it all worked out well. It was the in between my freshman and sophmore
year of high school. I would have been fourteen, approaching fifteen in October.
She was a nice young girl in my typing class named Jennifer. I fell out of touch,
and cyber-stalking has produced no results. Anyone know her? Anyway,
we did the standard fourteen year old picking-on flirting throughout the class.
I clearly liked her. She cleared liked me. We had no clue how to express
that in a mature way. So you do what you can.
On the last day she asked to exchange phone numbers. Ya know, cause I'm
hella shy and don't make first moves. We did. She called that night. She
was still taking classes for another few weeks at CSUS. My father's house
at the time was right across the river and simple bike ride over. So, we
decided to meet up the next week at CSUS.
She actually asked me out on the phone. "Do you want to be my boyfriend?"
I said yes. Obviously. "I can't believe I had to do that." Yeah, like
I said, I'm hella shy. It all worked out. In my troubled relationship
history there have only been one lady I have specifically asked out. The
irony is that it is the only one that I have specifically dumped as well.
All the rest of my relationships have either started organically, or she's
been the aggressor.
Anyway, that first day was great. During the time between her classes, we hung
out under a tree and talked. I wish I could remember which tree. I would go pay a visit to it.
At the end, when we were saying our goodbyes, she puckered and lightly kissed me. *SMACK*
Ya know, cause I'm hella shy and don't make moves. She skipped off.
Yes, she skipped off. She was pretty cool. Any girl who skips has to be. I
was jubilant. I think I may have skipped off as well. I remember jumping
my bike a lot on the ride home out of elation.
The next day we met again. The ice was broken and we went into a horrible
public make-out session under the tree. You know the type. It's where you look
at people and think, "get a room... and be, like, older!" In retrospect,
the fact that this was on CSUS campus just made it all the more icky. Still,
it's not the sort of thing I thought about at the time. Anyway, she
stopped going to class at CSUS a couple weeks later. We never saw
each other anymore. I had a two week vacation with the family to Arizona.
I bought her a nice necklace. When I got back she dumped me over the phone
because having a relationship with someone you never see is tough.
At age fourteen with no car at different schools, it's just not meant to be.
There is one last chapter with Jennifer in my life. At age seventeen, one
week before leaving for college, she called me out of the blue. She said
something like, "I really thought you were a great guy when we were seeing
each other and I like to see you again." I was dating Margaret at the
time, which I told her, but I figured there would be no harm in seeing
her. She swung by my cool pad for a couple hours, and tried to make
the moves on me. I was a good boy and stopped her multiple times and
eventually sent her on her way. I gave her the necklace I had bought
for her three years before. She cried. She was pretty cool. She expected
me to keep in touch. I meant to call the next week. It just seemed a bit
awkward with Margaret in the picture. I didn't really need another girl that
I knew I could have feelings for complicating my life. So weeks turned
into months, and then it just seemed gauce to try at that point. So we fell out of
touch. Sorry Jennifer! I really did mean to call,
but ya know, I'm hella shy.
Dreaming (8/25/2003)
Prednisone is one of the craziest drugs ever. The
body produces around 5mg a day of the stuff, but
I'm currently taking 50mg a day in pills. There
are all sorts of wacky side effects to it. One
I recently discovered is that when I taper my dosage
I tend to get horrific stabbing disabling joint
pains in my knees in the middle of the night. I
was prescribed codeine for it, but it doesn't help
at all! I swapped around my time from taking all
50mg in the morning to 30mg in the morning and 20mg
at night, and magically the pain hasn't come for the
last few nights.
Instead, I've had these crazy lucid dreams for the
past two nights. There hasn't been anything to
exciting about them. One was up at my dad's compound
just hanging out with friends. Last night I was back
home at my apartment. What I find strange is that
at around 6am (when I normally wake up) I realize
in the dream that I'm suppose to be in Memphis, but
for some reason I'm not. I get really nervous and
confused like I don't know what's going on. I
try and rationalize in the dream why I'm not in
Memphis, and make the realization that I must
be dreaming. Then, BAM! I literally shudder
and I'm awake in my hotel room. It's bizarre.
Anyway, I'll take bizarre confusing dreams over
crippling joint pain any day of the week! Heck,
now that the pain is gone, I bet the codeine will
be way more effective!
Memphis Hospitality (8/24/2003)
I've been pretty impressed with friendliness of people
out here in Memphis. Almost everywhere I go people
are asking me, "Where y'all from?" They give me advice
on things to see and do. I was at TCBY's just relaxing
with some ice cream and the girl behind the counter came
out and talked with me for a while till I had to
leave. She was quite a cutey, but she's seventeen
and in highschool and... well... ya know even I have
limits. I SWEAR!
I headed out to Graceland today. It wasn't very impressive.
I suppose if Evlis meant anything to me, it could be
something? Perhaps not. His "mansion" is really just
a big house. There's a lot of stuff on display, but
it's all very low key. I guess I was expecting
blazing music with glamour and exicitement. I made
sure to buy my one and only Evlis CD. I figure, if
you go to Graceland, you should leave with a little Elvis.
I did a little photoshooting tour as well. I drove
down across the border to Mississippi so that I could
drive back up and take a picture next to the "Welcome
to Tennessee" sign on the side of the highway. I'll
throw the picture up when I get home. It was hard work!
The sign was WAY off the freeway. So I had to hit
the time shot on the camera and SPRINT. I tried about
three times and barely made in the shot on the third
one was but was completely worn out. I'm out of shape.
Thunder and Lightening (8/23/2003)
There was a severe thunder and lightening storm in Memphis
last night! The hotel I'm in lost satellite, phones and
even had a couple blackouts throughout the evening. The
phones are still a little wacked because I can only dialup
at around 19.2 Kbps. It's horrid!
We're working very hard this week cranking out code. I
was working 8am-10pm every day. The estimation for
the work was a little off. They were made for someone
who had some context of the application. I have none,
and that means it's a lot harder to figure out what
I need to do when things go wrong. Because I had
to spend the first week ramping up and I'll be
flying home early next week, I basically had to do
all three weeks worth of development in four days.
I did. Not too shabby.
I get my Harrah's ID in a week or two. I can add it to
my collection of badges. I think I've only had four at
this point, but I should scan them in a put them up.
I totally forgot to bring my digital camera cable as well.
I'm taking a few pictures out here. I'm heading to
Graceland tomorrow to take a few more. All this fun!
I miss being home.
A Weekend Home (8/18/2003)
By request I've changed the "Health-o-meter" into a
"Sick-o-meter." People where commenting that they should
only see Red on the meter when I'm sick. Done. See,
I listen to people!
Good weekend! I went up and saw Tim and Cristi's new house in
Natomas. The Yahoo directions almost got me there witout
incident but there was one small issue where it didn't give
me the direction of a turn. It still has that new house
feel to it where they still have enough room to put
everything. That will probably change when they start pulling
things out of storage.
My travel out to Memphis this week is amazingly better
than last week. United might be bankrupt, but they
treat me right! I got upgraded to Economy Plus on the
first leg out to Chicago, got to watch a (not so good) movie,
"Down with Men" and got fed! There's no food or movie on
my second half of the flight cause it's a little commuter jet.
Still, the commuter jet is on the hour and half segment instead
of the three hour segment!
Chicago O'Hare was a bit of a problem as I went searching for
a power outlet that worked. I found plenty of them all over
the airport, but none were supplying power. Where are the
modern airports with power outlets scattered everywhere
and free (or reasonable) wireless networking? I always get a kick
out of throwing in my wireless card at airports and seeing
what happens. The main problem is that some airports
are AT&T, some are T-Mobile, some are Wayport, etc.
I don't want to pay $25 a month to get access at just one
or two airports.
McDonald's is actually doing it right! I sit down at
the McDonald's in San Francisco pull up a browser and get
a screen where I can $5 for a day with of internet access.
In general I'd prefer to pay $1 for an hour, but it's still
a better model than the $25 a month unlimited one.
No porn here... (8/16/2003)
So I'm just about to go to bed after upgrading my web site stat program.
I do a quick run to take a look how this month is progressing and the top
sites that people have come through to get to my page are all PORN SITES?!?!
WTF?!?! I took a peek at these things and I sure don't see a link to my
site anywhere on there.... but sure enough there they are on August 13th
and 14th I was the lucky enough to be linked by tons of Porn sites... for
some strange reason.
Gripe... (8/11/2003)
8 p.m. on Sunday night and the lights go out. The dreams come.
1 a.m. in the morning and I'm awake drenched in sweat. Well, not drenched, but somewhat sweaty. Freddie had come. Freddie had shredded me in half. I can't remember the last time I had a nightmare. I certainly can't remember the last time I'd been woken up in terror by a nightmare.
3 a.m. and I am still awake when the alarm goes off. I swear loudly. It's time to get ready.
4 a.m. and I'm pulling into Oakland. I learn the "Long Term" lot no longer exists because it's been transformed into another more expensive "Daily" lot. I start to make the circle again to head out into the "Economy" lot and then decide to screw it. I'll pay the extra. Well, more specifically, Harrah's Casino Gaming will pay the extra. I saved them hundreds of dollars finding a cheap flight, they can spend a little for a few extra minutes of morning convenience.
4:45 a.m. and the security guards have my luggage strewn about the table. All my various power plugs for the phone, Palm, camera, MP3 player and my electric scale didn't sit well in the metal detector. I'm forced to put the battery back into the scale and demonstrate that it does in fact tell my weight. They seem unimpressed.
6:00 a.m. and the plane takes off from Oakland. Zoom... zoom...
8:15 a.m. and the plane lands in Phoenix.
8:30 a.m. and I learn that my next flight has been delayed by thirty minutes. I'm happy. I'm hungry and I know that there's no food on the three hour flight to Memphis.
8:35 a.m. and I get in line at the Burger King (the only food I can seem to locate in terminal B)
8:55 a.m. and I have my food in hand and leave the register. That's right. TWENTY MINUTES!
9:30 a.m. and the plane boards. I discover it's a little commuter plane with two seats on each side of the aisle. I'm in the second to last row right next to the rest room. There are four business men in suits around me. Two of them are in the row behind me the other two next to me. The will spend the next three hours complaining non-stop about setting next to the restroom. They will make fun of anyone who goes to the restroom more than once. They will constantly ask the flight attendant if he will turn on the fasten seatbelt sign to keep people from using the restroom. They will place bets on how long someone will be in the restroom and use their stop watch to measure. They will, in general, be non-stop talking asses the entire flight. It makes sleeping hard.
2:45 p.m. and the plane lands in Memphis and I'm starving.
3:30 p.m. and I arrive at Harrah's Corporate HQs and have the front desk call the person I'm suppose to meet. He's not answering.
4:00 p.m. and the person I'm suppose to meet show up at the desk to greet me. He drops me off in the testing lab and shows me an analog line to dial in. He then says he'll be back in ten minutes with some more details.
4:30 p.m. and the person I'm suppose to meet comes back. He says there's nothing for me and I should just head to my hotel for the evening. So I do.
Man I'm glad I went through all that so I could get here on Monday before the work day ended...
Mothballed (8/9/2003)
I finally decided to mothball the old computer fleet today.
Off the computer recycling center for all these poor guys.
Sure, it costs a few bucks, but it means all these boys will
get new fresh lives as... something else. I think I'll
miss the old ChaosServer the most. He went from his birth
as a 486DX266 through a Pentium II with MMX! He served
a long and good life. I wish him well in his next one.
I also discovered that the San Leandro Library has audiobooks on both
tape and CD. I checked out "Lord of the Flies" read by the original
author, Sir William Golding, and I ripped the whole the to MP3 and
stuck it onto my Archos. It should be good listening on flight
out to Memphis. Plus I can return the whole book tomorrow for the
next soul. That falls under fair use, right?
Goin' South (8/7/2003)
Well, I knew the weeks of working from home couldn't last
forever. I only made it three weeks before the call came in.
Where am I heading this time? The lovely city of Memphis, Tennessee.
The most "southern" like city I've ever spent time in was a couple
weeks out in Kansas City, MI. This
time the work is for Harrah's Gaming.
I actually looks like fun work, and the travel arrangements
are pretty good. I'm flying out Mon-Fri most weeks, but they
are cool with me doing Mon-Thru and working from home for
one day a week if I want. That should groove well with some
of my personal requirements these days.
My Health-o-meter is still only sitting at four of ten. Which
may cause some concern, but in actuality it's improved over
the last few weeks. The progress is slow and steady, but
that's okay as long as it's progress.
Just Another Day (8/2/2003)
I finished up the latest crazy math book given to me by my Grandfather
titled "What Counts" that was all about how every human is hard-wired
for math. It's a lot of psychology that I don't really agree with.
Yet, he made mention of a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin called
"The Masters" which is about Mechanics that use roman numberals vs.
the necromancers that use the arabic number system. Anyway, I got
myself a San Leandro library card and checked out the book. I've
been meaning to get one of those silly cards for around three years now!
jTunes (8/1/2003)
Just whipped up another new Java application today called jTunes. It's made
to let me transfer my M3U playlists from my main server to my Archose jukebox.
I couldn't find an easy little program to do it.
jTunes
