Category: General

So, I get to work today, and I’m working like I actually care. I do computer support, so I’m installing stuff, and closing tickets left and right. I wanted to end the day with no work assigned to me and waiting for me. I wanted to clear out my queue. I was within striking distance of doing just that.

Then my friend Ken calls me.

“So… uh… what are you doin’ today?”

“Why?” I ask.

“Well… I have a huge favor to ask you.”

“What?”

“I was kinda sorta hoping that you’d be available to, um, help me haul around some shit.” Turns out that ever since Ken was promoted, he’s been given the task of gathering up all of the county’s surplus computer equipment and getting it to the recyclers. It has not been a happy or fulfilling task, since there are hundreds of different county offices and buildings, and the task of installing new computers and removing the old ones is pretty much an ongoing project. But, hey, that’s what he gets paid the slightly-larger bucks for, right?

And now he’s in a bind because he’s got to clear out some space in the only storage area he has access to, by loading up a bunch of old monitors and taking them to a recycler, then going out to another site and getting all of that equipment into the now-cleared storage space.

Today. He’s got to do all that, today.

I tried a couple of lame excuses, like “I’m not dressed for hauling around garbage” or “but I was trying to close out all these low-priority tickets”. Finally I said, “Hey, management’s lack of planning does not mean… Um… I forget how that one goes. How does that go?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Ken admitted, “but I liked where you were going. Keep going.”

I tried several times to regain my train of thought on that one but failed. It was too early in the day (this was around 9:00 AM or so). Finally I gave in and said that I’d help him before lunch. Ken promised to buy me lunch in gratitude, which I thought was sorta fair.

So I spent the morning loading up a cargo van full of 15″, 17″, 19″ and 21″ computer monitors. You know, the old-school picture-tube ones. Heavy, bulky. We only dropped one, and, contrary to a long-remembered quote from my father from long ago, picture tubes do not, in fact, “go off like a minor A-Bomb” when dropped. However, Ken suffered tiny cut on his finger, a bruised knee, and a scrape on his ankle.

Then, lunchtime rolled around. Ken asked me where I wanted to go; I said I wanted to go to Montage. Mmmmm… Cajun food.

Ken agreed, but, he said, “I’ll have to find an ATM.” Then he remembered it was the day before payday. “Um… how do you feel about Big Town Hero?” I’m not sure what the difference was (Montage is a bit spendier but not that much) and asked him. “How about we go to Big Town Hero today, and I’ll owe you lunch at Montage later?” OK, fine, I agreed. I was wearing my Easy-Going Guy Togs today.

We had found a parking spot at the closest Big Town Hero when Ken remembered. “I need to find an ATM!” Argh. This free lunch thing was getting more and more complicated. I was hungry, though, and Ken figured that there would be an ATM in the lobby of the nearest building (the Metro offices on Grand Ave.) Sure enough, there was.

However, Ken had forgotten his ATM card. How that happened I have no idea, but it seemed awfully convenient. Luckily I had some cash. So I ended up buying his lunch and he still owes me lunch.

I feel a bit like Br’er Fox being tricked into the briar patch… But it’s OK. I know where Ken works.

Ran to work this morning. I did pretty good this morning, in part, because I didn’t run on Wednesday (rest day) and couldn’t drag myself out of bed Thursday morning as planned, so would have had to run Thursday evening… didn’t want to have only 8 hours or less between two long-ish runs, so I just walked 3 miles last night. The weather was nice, if a bit muggy, and the cottonwood trees were spewing their allergy-inducing cottonwood-y tufts all over my neighborhood, but it was still a good walk. Even if it was interrupted with my accidentally walking past the Iron Horse restaurant, falling in, and having a delicious chicken Belize tostada.

Today: 5.5 miles, total time 55:55.00, for a per-mile pace of 10:10 even! Yay!

Waiting for the bus earlier today I was approached by a young man, maybe in his early 20s, hard to tell. A stout fellow, dark-haired, wearing a tank top and shorts and sneakers. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but… are you a basketball fan?”

I was intrigued. That wasn’t a line of inquiry I’d expected. “Well, yeah, but I haven’t been following the playoffs this year much.”

“But you like it, right?” I nodded, and he continued. “Do you remember when Portland played Detroit for the Finals?”

I thought a moment. Yeah, early ’90s, I think. Maybe ’92? I’d have to google it later. “I think so…”

The entire time he’d been talking to me, he seemed distracted by some thought, a strange but pleasant smile on his face. His smile deepened and he avoided making eye contact with me as he asked the important question he’d been leading up to. “Do you remember Charles Barkley being on that team?”

I shook my head. “Oh, no. No, he never played for the Pistons. He played most of his career for Phoenix.” I racked my brains for details of the lineup for Detroit 15 years ago, but all I could remember was the ol’ flop-master, Bill Laimbeer.

“See, it’s the strangest thing…” the young man trailed off, lost in thought. After a moment he continued. “I can clearly remember Charles Barkley in a Detroit Pistons uniform, playing against Portland. My dad tells me I’m wrong, even the internet doesn’t show him on that team…” He was wistful and sentimental. “But I can clearly remember it.”

“Yeah, he wasn’t on that team. Now, more than likely we had to go through Phoenix to get to the Finals, so I’m sure we played against him at one point, but, no, he wasn’t playing for Detroit that year. I can’t remember who their center was…”

“I was thinking as a power forward or a guard, not a center.”

“Yeah. No.”

He just shook his head and stared off into space. “I can clearly remember it…”

“Memory is a strange thing” I suggested. Why was he hanging on to this thought? He wanted some complicated explanation, or he was convinced that he was right and the rest of the world was wrong. But the simple explanation is that he misremembered it. And yet, in the face of so many counter examples, he was still confused by this errant memory? Weird.

For the record, the Portland Trailblazers lost to the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals in 1991. So sayeth the internets, RandomGuy’s dad, and me.

Registered for the Mt. Tabor 5K today.

Had a brief moment when I thought I’d try the 8K, but… naaaaahhhh.

Also didn’t get the t-shirt. Got enough of those to last a lifetime. Or at least years and years.

Quick note:

Today (25 May 2005) was Towel Day.

I still miss Douglas Adams. The world will always seem less funny to me with him gone.

Actually met him once. He was not only a hoopy frood, but very very tall.

Ran my 3.5 miles last night. Mostly I wanted to get out and move and be in the sun, since yesterday was a perfect spring day, sunny and warm. The kind of day that puts smiles on Portlander’s faces after a long cold rainy fall and winter.

I did, in fact, time myself on my run, however I didn’t push myself too hard and simply maintained a good pace. I’m happy with my time but am not going to record it for my future reference. It was just a good decent run.

Everybody has a favorite pirate.

Mine is Jean Lafitte.

OK, technically, not a pirate; more of a smuggler or fence. He operated several shops in New Orleans, including Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, which is now a bar and the oldest building in North America being used as a bar (which has to qualify for the most-convoluted superlative ever).

Lafitte and his brother also supplied arms and ships from their fleet of “merchant ships” to aid Andy Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans against the British, during the War of 1812 (note: the Battle of New Orleans took place in 1815, even though the Treaty of Ghent had been signed the year previous to end the war) and recieved a presidential pardon for his efforts.

And he probably had a crazy French accent, too.

Went for a long walk this afternoon, trying to burn off some of the delicious food I ate the night before (mmmm… ginger stir-fry with chicken and papaya salad… mmmm, black velvet cake…)

Walked from my neighborhood down through the Hawthorne area and across the Steel Bridge into downtown. Only got caught by the rain once, while I was on the Esplanade; I hid under an overhang until the rain passed.

Took a lot of pictures. Did a lot of thinking. Most of it positive.

Like before, sometimes I’m surprised by the apparent contradiction I see in some signs, like this one; doesn’t “creative” clash with “office space”? Really, the only creative office space I can think of is the movie.

But sometimes I just like the way certain colors look together, like the spot of green against the orange-ish brown of a building. Or the bright yellow plastic lining this construction site.

At any rate, it’s fun to go looking for images. If I look for them, I always find them.

Ran to work today. I ran 5.5 miles, but because I forgot to time the first half-mile I only have a total time for 5.

But the total time for those 5 miles is 50:10.91, for a per-mile pace of 10:02.2.

Whoo-hoo…

Almost 10 minutes better total time than the last time I ran to work — and that was when I timed the full 5.5 miles. Wait, does that invalidate the comparison? Yeah, probably. OK, it’s 42 seconds-per-mile better on average.

Today is the 1,346th day since 9/11.

Which is the same length of time from the attack on Pearl Harbor (7 Dec 1941) to the end of WWII on V-J Day (24 Aug 1945).

🙁