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October 20, 2004
What's snew?
Lotsa stuff.
A week ago Tuesday, I got a call from a company that wants me to be a phone support guy for them. I interviewed two hours after I got the call. It went well.
The next day, Barb and i flew back to Dallas for Becky & Gene's wedding. Teel met us at the airport, and brought us back to Rusty & Sarah's to spend the night. I always thought that Teel and Barb would get along well, and I was right. Got to give Sarah a hug on her way to bed. I miss my friends.
The next day, we met mom & dad for lunch at this cool Texas italian joint. Yummy food. Good company. I miss my family.
Thursday evening, I went back to R&S's house to rehearse. See more below. Then we went out for dinner and met Tommy and the now remarkably un-Jesus-looking Greg. I mean, he still looks like Greg, but he doesn't look like Jesus, and that's weird. Barb and Mmree have abandoned me, and gone to play in Austin with a bunch of their dance friends. I know the two of them have been needing to re-connect, so that was a good thing.
Oh yeah, and the company called back and offered me a job. I start four days later. w00t. Not what I want, but it'll do for now. It's a contract position, so that gives everybody some flexibility. I will be making some decisions come January as to which direction to go.
Friday, I was back at my folks' house. Saw my sister. Packed a bunch of my junk. Went to the rehearsal dinner in Arlington. Met Matty & Sam & Sterrett & Barb & Tommy & Heather6 for dinner. YAY ALL MY FRIENDS! (and some new ones)
Becky and Gene got married on Saturday. I'd been looking forward to that for a long time. I am a great admirer of both of those protein units, and seeing them get married was quite an experience. They chose a Quaker ceremony, which entails long periods of contemplative silence punctuated by spontaneous thoughts from the witnesses of the union. The clerk of the Meeting of Friends (the happy couple's congregation) then read the marriage decree, and all present signed it as witnesses. I sang a duet with Gene's friend Simrit, with Rusty's accompaniment on the piano. I forgot to turn on the microphone like a freakin' idiot, but I managed to stay more or less on pitch and on tempo. Yay me. Simrit has a beautiful voice, and was a joy to sing with. Rusty was his usual staggeringly competent self, and did a wonderful job arranging the piece for solo piano and duet vocalists, and of course his playing was just great.
Then we went to the reception. Much dancing and fun. Then we went to a bar to hang out with My Dallas People. Many of my friends got to meet my ladytype, and she was favorably received by all.
Sunday morning, I led a passel to church. I'm glad I didn't try to sight-read with the choir, as it was a densely arranged African American spiritual. It was nice to be back in my spiritual home for a morning. Then, Barb and I went back to Tommy's for the Second Reception. (You know, like Second Breakfast, only with wedding receptions) Tommy was hosting a slightly more sociable reception (that is, few grown-ups) for Becky & Gene's friends. I was pressed into service as an electrician (the light fixture looks good!) and speaker hanger. I wired my iPod into the downstairs stereo and cued up some blues for people to dance on Tommy's NEW DANCE FLOOR. w00000t! Tommy and his crew, TOTALLY without my help, installed a beautiful laminate floor on his first story. It looks just awesome, and dances great.
Sunday eve, Matt and Sam and Sterrett and Jason and Barb and I went to Uncle Julio's for dinner. I ordered the Cadillac Platter for myself and Barb, which is fajitas and lobster. Since I'm not an enormous lobster fan, for me it's fajitas and toy. We had a little puppet show with the lobster while we ate. Then Sterrett and Jason ran us to the airport to go back to Portland. I almost lost my phone, which would have sucked enormously. Now, keep in mind that I've got about 100lbs of mo' baggage that I'm taking back to Portland with me, including my luscious red Kitchen Aid cookware. Yum.
But. It was not meant to be. We boarded the airplane. We sat on the airplane. We un-boarded the airplane. The pilot told us the throttle didn't work, and that was the last flight. Barb went to the ticket counter for hotel and "food" vouchers, and I watched my luscious red Kitchen Aid cookware go round and round on the baggage carousel. I was going to have to get through a plate glass window if anybody tried to rip me off, so that kinda sucked.
So we got put up overnight at a Homewood Suites (with free Internet that I totally failed to take advantage of because I was incredibly tired and so was Barb) and we remembered to call Aaron and tell him not to pick us up at the airport this morning because we weren't at that airport we were still in Dallas. *gasp*
Unconsciousness for about five hours.
Wake up get breakfast got on bus went to airport checked in collapsed in terminal. Got on airplane flew to Phoenix ran to second airplane because first airplane was late. Collapsed on second airplane, but got to watch Return of the Jedi on my Powerbook. w00t.
Got to Portland Aaron picked us up go home shower change clothes OH YEAH GO TO WORK. Ugh. Good thing I'd called my new bosses and told them I was going to be five hours late for work my first day. They were very nice to me.
So I report to the place I interviewed, and I was supposed to follow one of my new coworkers to the AAA office where I'm going to be working. He's driving a silver Toyota SUV. I start following him. Now, I'm admittedly a bit bleary, but I totally failed to notice that an almost identical silver Lexus SUV sneak right in front of me. Unfortunately, that SUV was going to Beaverton, not to AAA. That sucks. So I call back to the office, get my coworker's cell phone number, and proceed to get verbal directions in an unfamiliar city through a confusing part of town.
I got there. Met my new coworkers. Finished the day. Went out to buy work clothes. Came home and vegetated. Woke up. Went to work. Came home. Repeat x3.
Thursday, Barb got her Big Bonus, so we went shopping. We got an awesome pot rack for my luscious cookware, and a bunch of red kitchenware, and a bunch of shirts for me, and a blender, and a bunch of other stuff. My girl is cool.
Saturday, we woke up early (why? Dunno.) went to the Original Original Pancake House, ate breakfast, and went sofa shopping. Found a sweet microfiber chaise sofa. I was very annoyed that they wouldn't let me have the floor model, and that we'd have to wait a week or two. Bleh.
Sunday, I built Barb a new PC. It actually worked, which is amazing to me.
Then is this week. Same as last week. Only I get a paycheck this week. w00t.
Posted by Lee at 01:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 06, 2004
Italian is hard.
I downloaded a program that will let me check my Yahoo mail using my POP mail client on my Mac. I'd found one for PC, but nobody had ported it to Macintosh.
I found a Mac app that does the same thing, but the pre-compiled version is in Italian. I know enough French to puzzle out a few functions, but not enough to actually bother with it.
Cool thing is, if I actually got it configured, I bet it would run happily in the background forever, and I wouldn't have to deal with its Italian-ness at all.
Maybe I'll play with it more later.
In other news, Barb and I are coming to Dallas! We're gon' have some fun this weekend! We're going to B&G's wedding. It's going to be GREAT! I'm so excited for them.
I'm probably even going to be moved to song.
Posted by Lee at 12:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 01, 2004
I ate a donut today.
It was a chocolate cake donut with chocolate icing on top.
Stuck in the icing, was Cocoa Puffs.
It was a good donut.
Posted by Lee at 04:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack