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April 6, 2000 |
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Got to work at a reasonable time today, admittedly it is because I had
lunch plans, but who's counting. One of my friends, Neil, is moving to
England; he's staying within the company, but he's moving to a position in
England. I suppose that I can't be that surprised, since he is originally
from England, but I suppose he's been here for a while. We always joke
around that he is Australian. Yeah, I know… Dumb Americans!
On a side node, I also wanted to get new tires for my car today. I figured
that I could drop it off before lunch and pick it up after lunch. All I
had to do is sweet talk one of my friends to give me a ride before and
after; I was able to talk Tom into doing
this. It only took an extra five minutes or so.
This extra five minutes didn't really matter because Tom and I were to
first ones to arrive at the restaurant. We had talked about going to this
Vietnamese place, which had pretty good food. I won't deny that. However,
most of the guys went there because the waitresses were… Uhmm,
well-endowed and wore fairly tight fitting clothes. We got a table for
eight and waited for the rest of the folks to arrive.
Note: Neil is notorious for being late. He and Brent often carpool, and Brent predicts that he has made him a total of about 360 hours late or so over the course of the past few years.A couple of more folks arrived, Brent included. Being typical Neil, he was late… Not merely fashionably late, but over half an hour late. Actually this was late even for Neil. Neil is an incredibly fun guy… one might even say "jolly". We were predicting that if nothing else he would have an incredibly entertaining story to explain his tardiness.
He did eventually arrive. He brought Scott with him. Lunch with Neil is already an entertaining venture, adding Scott and Tom into the mix only amplify the entertainment value. We touched upon many fond memories, some of them included how Neil claims he feared for his life whenever he rides in my car. Now, I do drive a bit assertively, but nothing to the extent that they describe, still I listen to it and laugh along. Tom has ridden in my car a number of times and is just as perplexed as I am. We also talk about my nipple piercing, which seems to keep the lot of them entertained. They're so easily amused.
Tom drives me to pick up my car after getting new tires. And they ride very nicely. Incredible traction. I would have to take it on a more appropriate test drive, but I no longer have to drive while worrying about my tires.
Rick tells me in the afternoon that another mutual friend of ours, David, is quitting the company. Oh, man… we're dropping like flies! I remember meeting David on our first group party, I was sitting across the table from him and had an incredibly tough time understanding his last name over the music. David is an incredibly nice guy and someone I respect immensely as an engineer. It will be sad to see him go.
His going away party was going on later in the afternoon and I wandered over there to see him. Naturally, I saw many old friends who I haven't seen for some time. It was fun talking to them. I even ran into Alok, whose name plate I still have on my door. I have this thing about collecting name plates. I have about a dozen on my door; I figured that if you really need to get in touch with me, you'd know precisely where my office happens to sit.
I'll miss him; he's a good guy.
I went kickboxing since it is Thursday. I was told earlier during the week that our normal instructor was not going to be there, which surprised me a little when she actually was there. The kickboxing class was pretty typical… do this… to that… feel like ground beef afterwards.
Pam and I had talked about getting dinner together tonight, since she would be getting a hotel room nearby. You see, she was interviewing with my company tomorrow, entirely other group, which I knew nothing about, but it is still my company nevertheless. You may ask why she is not staying with me. Obviously, you haven't seen my place.
I picked her up from her place, chatted with her and watched her as she finished packing. We got a late dinner at Dead Robin, which also happen to open pretty late. We got into a bit of a strange conversation, to which I got a little preachy. I really didn't mean to, it just came out that way. She said something about seeing my evil twin. And all along I thought I was the evil twin. [Insert evil laughter here…]
I helped her check in to the hotel room. Right as we drove up, the song Kiss Me (by Sixpence None The Richer) was playing in the car stereo. So I leaned over and kissed her. I carried her bag up to her room and spent time with her.
She asked me if I might get her something to drink from the vending machine. I wandered down to the vending machine and got her a Pepsi since this is what she orders most often… not thinking that it had caffeine. [Duh…]
Since I was just about out of chance we both wondered back to the room with the vending machines. She wanted some juice. No biggie, except that the machine didn't seem to like our money. I'm not kidding! It seemed possessed, but it didn't seem to want to accept any more than 55 cents or so when the drink itself was $1.00. Very strange. We wound up getting a 7up.
I only stayed for a few more minutes… until she was ready for bed. I didn't spend the night with her since I keep such crazy hours and I'd be keeping her awake and she needed her sleep. It's not that I didn't want to spend the night with her, it's just that I didn't have sleep in mind.
I stayed up for a few more hours after that. I would also be picking her up from the hotel and dropping her off at her interviews.
April 6, 2000