Category: General

I never got my text from Barack Obama.

I feel kind of left out.

• Possibly go dancing at Goodfoot.
• Avoid Highway 30 due to the Hood to Coast Relay
• …but watch the runners run past my house (especially hot women runners)
• Run an interval run Saturday morning
• Visit the Geek Fair Saturday afternoon
• Go see The Retros at Dante’s with Tracy and Gina, Saturday night.
• Spend Sunday doing laundry, cleaning house, and generally recovering from all that activity on Saturday.

When a bartender has reached the point where she remembers what you’re drinking and has it mixed for you when you reach the front of the line, don’t tell her you only wanted water.

In other words, don’t do what I did.

Gonna pay for that one for a while.

Cary Tennis, genius, speaking the invisibly obvious:

“If you create this condition that you must believe in yourself to go forward, you might not go forward. You must find a way to go forward without that condition. You do not need to believe in yourself. You just need to find a way to move forward and embrace the activity you are engaged in. You think that believing in yourself will give you the strength to go forward? It may not work that way. It may be that you go forward simply by going forward.”

I have 541 unread items in Google Reader.

Wait… that means I’ve been too busy to surf.

Yay! I’ve got 541 unread items in Google Reader!

I think that was the first time I ever closed out Devil’s Point. They brought up the bright lights, the bouncers chased everyone out, I made a bad play for a drunk girl walking to her car, I drove home “fuzzy”…

…it was grand.

I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop, sipping coffee and eating a delicious, Nicole-made cinnamon roll. I’ve taken a few days off from work, a little vacation.

What can I do with this time?

• I have a novel in first draft that still needs an ending.
• I have a rough collection of short stories, all about strip clubs or strippers in one way or another, that I’d like to compile into a book.
• I need to revise and extend my financial plan for the near future.
• My backup system for my two servers and my new sexy thing isn’t working right. Needs fixing.
• I want to install Parallels and Windows XP on my laptop.
• I’d like to upgrade my wardrobe.
• I’d like to spend some time with friends I don’t often get to see.
• I have had an invitation to write a recurring column for another website, and I need to work on putting together a proposal – ugh, marketing. I’m an artist!
• Need to research some real, going-far-away type vacation plans.

Mostly, though, I just like not being at work.

My friend Paul emailed me a couple of days ago and asked if I wanted to check out the Summerblast at MacForce, a local non-Apple-owned computer retailer, located in the inner industrial Eastside. Sales of cool Apple shit, a barbecue, ice cream, and raffles? Sounded fun and I don’t hang out with Paul enough, so I said, “sure!”

When we walked up, we each got a free t-shirt, and a goodie bag. In the bag was a program, showing the schedule for the free seminars throughout the day, and a schedule for the raffles. Every half-hour they were giving packages of stuff away. We were there around noon – the next one was in less than a half-hour, and it was from a company I hadn’t ever heard of. The big one, of course, was the Adobe giveaway, but that was an hour away. Each person was given 10 tickets, which were to be distributed to the various half-hourly drawings.

Summerblast couldn’t have been a more apt name, with the heat wave rockin’ the temperature over 100° F for the third day in a row. MacForce had filled up their parking lot with tents, and lots of Apple-related vendors (but not Apple itself, strangely – maybe Apple Retail sees them as competition?), but, man, standing around on asphalt for hours on end wasn’t that appealing. Paul and I figured we’d scarf our free burger and drinks, get our free ice cream, and wait for the Adobe raffle, then split.

Since we were there, though, we entered the upcoming raffle at 12:30. I tossed in three of my tickets, and we waited.

The first ticket drawn wasn’t the same color as my tickets, so I mentally disengaged. The emmcee read the number off several times, reminding the crowd that “you must be present to win!” but no one stepped forward. So they drew out another number.

And this time, it was one of my three! Whoo-HOO!

I stepped up, showed the guy my ticket, and was whisked away into a fabulous world of showgirls, luxury cars and dream vacations… OK, no, not really. I filled out and signed a model release, allowing MacForce to use my likeness to promote their store, and then they had me hold up the major goodies I got while they took a picture of my likeness (with which they will promote their store).

What all did I get?

• Freeway Pro from softpress, which appears to be web design software. OK, maybe I will use this.
• AccountEdge from MYOB, which is accounting software for small business. I probably will be selling this craigslist.
• A serial number for Parallels Desktop for Mac, software that lets me run Windows XP as a process within Mac OS, which for the non-geeky is something called virtualization
• A 1GB and 2GB USB thumb drive.
• 6 tickets each to any 2008 season Portland Beavers baseball game and Portland Timbers soccer game at what I will always refer to as Civic Stadium.
• And last but certainly not least, my favorite of all the prizes, a Timbuk2 Commute messenger bag, in black and “mineral heather”. Sweet! And it’s “sustainable”, made from hemp and PET fabric. But don’t try to smoke my sweet new bag, man. This thing has so many pockets and zippered enclosures and straps, it’s crazy. I’m still finding new ones, a day later. I love it.

I thanked Paul for asking me to tag along with him. Heh. We stuck around for the Adobe giveaway, and Paul’s wife, Ellen, joined us briefly, but when Paul read the fine print and found that contestants can only win once, I realized I had no chance. But even though Paul had 19 tickets in the Adobe raffle, some dude with the worst tattoo ever got it. So it goes.

While I was finishing my dinner (a chicken Caesar salad) at my favorite diner, A., a cute snarky waitress with whom I chat, showed up on her bicycle, coming inside to the cool restaurant from the hot hot heat of late afternoon.

The waitress that was already on duty was surprised, and asked A. about it; she responded that she had switched shifts with another girl, and they talked about A.’s beach trip, while A. took off her bike helmet, stowed her bike out of the way, and drank copious amounts of water.

I was the only customer in the diner. I waved at A. and as she ran around getting ready for her evening shift, she chatted with me.

“It’s hot outside,” I said, truthfully if unoriginally.

“Yes, it is! It’s just too hot,” she replied. “It’s so hot that I just don’t want to wear a lot of clothes!”

I perked up at this. A. is petite yet athletic and very attractive. “I have no problem with that, at all!”

“Hey,” she said, “I just like bein’ naked. Or semi-naked.”

“It’s all good,” I smiled.

32 hours to go until my five-day weekend gets here.

Unless I sneak out early tomorrow. But why would I post about that on the public internets? That’s just silly.

I’ll probably spend my time and money here in town on booze and strippers.