Date: 10/7/99

Hi everyone. I know its been quite a while since I've written, which is because i have perfectionist standards about the stories I send out, which is silly because I'm pretty sure that most of you would be perfectly happy with hearing some of the not-quite-perfect things that have happened to me, but oh well, since i tend to be a mega-slacker most of the time, i think its good that i'm a perfectionist about something!

I am going to tell you about the wonderful day I had on tuesday (9/28). Then I will tell you a few of the better stories you haven't heard from my leave of absence, and talk a little about what i feel i accomplished and what i am doing now. I'll try to catch you folks up on my life and my plans and where things are going. If anything here looks familiar from an email i've sent any of you, well hell, programmers love to reuse their code. Its efficient!

So, tuesday. First, I don't go to class in the morning. This is not unusual, but certainly a good start to a day. I turn off the alarm, and snatch a couple more hours of tossing-and-turning (my insomnia has been miserable the past couple weeks), before I get bored and give up and get up. I go to school and watch some classes on video (the reason I don't need to go to class physically). Then we have the first ultimate frisbee practice of the season! Wow, it was fun. I guess I should have caught the game winning touchdown or something to make this story perfect, but an afternoon of playing not-horribly that gave my body the workout it so badly needs is plenty perfect enough, as far as I'm concerned. See, I am really out of shape, and it sucks, because I gained fifteen pounds after graduating from mudd, probably because of driving to school and no exercise and sitting my not-exactly-fat, but certainly not as tight as it should be ass at the poker table all the time. Plus i want to live a long time, and being in shape is the #1 way to ensure that. Well, and not smoking tobacco, but I gave up on that also. No more occasional yummy cigarettes, except occasionally when my brain chemistry is profoundly altered and i just can't help it. But that hasn't been often.

The point of this digression was that werkin' my body was lots of fun. Now, during ultimate, I was constantly checking my cellfone for a message from Jeremy Plunkett, who is integral to this story. See, he is sweet on a girl, Sonya, who works for the Tech Museum in San Jose. The tech museum, like most places with brains and taste, uses lots of Macintosh's in its exhibits. These exhibits are rotated on occasion, and given the zoom-zoom speed of technological obsolence, their computers need to be gotten rid of on occasion.

Now I am not only a hardcore tech-nerd and macintosh lover, but someone with an affection-almost-classifiable-as-lust for decaying technology. The tech museum was currently in the middle of a big round of throwing crap out, and it was available to be given away to anyone who wanted, or rather, anyone with an "in". Whatever friends & family didn't get would be given to people who scavenge bits of gold and other reclaimables form the material. Naturally Jeremy and I were eager to take advantage of this windfall.

We got in touch at about 5, and I hopped on my bike and headed home, then jumped in my car and moseyed south at the molasses speed of rush hour traffic. It took half an hour to get to the freeway, and quite a while to reach Jeremy's workplace in Santa Clara. The journey was not without incident, however. First, I was supposed to meet Dawn and John Larkin at 7pm to go rock climbing. Second, I was listening to the radio. This usual occurence led to a very unusual result, as my well-tuned ears, which are carefully programmed to not bring any spoken words on the radio to my conscious attention unless they are particularly interesting, heard something about Weird Al Yankovic. In concert. At the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. That very night.

<< Index << || >> Tech Museum >>