The tally for the recycling bin on April 10th is two one gallon nonfat milk containers, two bottled water containers, 10 diet Coke cans, and sixteen wine cooler bottles. (It was a tough week.)
I'm finishing up a 6am morning walk and taking the trash out. My neighbor stops me and asks to borrow a screwdriver because she is locked out of her house. (We run/walk into each other occasionally as we run/walk at this early hour.) So we remove her screen and she intends to break a pane of glass in order to get herself back into the house. She takes a shovel head and drills it into the pane of glass but it doesn't break. She's facing the door when I say, "Glass is a polycrystalline, strain-rate-sensitive material". There's about a five second lag and then she slowly starts turning her head to face me. It takes her about five or ten more seconds to rotate her head through the 90 degree angle - she has questions on her mind - probably something like 'Did I just hear that?', 'What planet are you from?', and 'Are you f$*%*@$ kidding me?' So I head off both her embarassment and mine with, "It will break easily if you give it a sharp, impulsive blow with a semi-pointy object."
With the ease of having the right tool (the shovel handle) and the right know-how (sharp impulsive blow), she strikes the pane of glass and breaks through. She turns and looks at me with another 'Are you f$*%*@$ kidding me?' look and I head off more embarassment with, "It didn't make much of a mess either". She's happy to be back into her house and I'm happy to go back to TRW where other people understand my geek-speak.
I wake up in the middle of the night on Wednesday night or Thursday night and cannot sleep. There is something bugging me: How did I know on November 7th, 2001 that things were going to turn out the way that they did before there were signs? I cannot stop thinking about that. The next night, while I'm in one of my e-forums, whatshisname contacts me. (And now I realize that the inability to sleep the previous night was another premonition, just like the Christmas day telephone call.) Whatshisname is in pain and I try to comfort the pain from a distance (i.e., I try to provide a listening ear and offer suggestions while still maintaining a distance). There is no emotional fallout.
Brandon calls on Saturday night and tells me to meet him and Joe at a club in West Hollywood. We negotiate back and forth and decide to meet at a different club (but still in West Hollywood).
I arrive before Brandon and Joe and grab a 7Up. Person N is present and makes idle chit chat with me. There's also someobdy else with a bit of history to the story, but I ignore that whole situation and it goes away.
After Brandon and Joe have arrived and have gone off dancing for a while, Brandon comes over and asks me to introduce him to somebody - a guy who is standing alone and I have never seen before. So I go up to the guy, introduce myself, make some idle chit chat, and tell him that I have a friend who wants to meet him. We then go into a discussion about shyness, but he finally relents and comes with me to meet Brandon. They have a brief conversation and go off to dance. Joe goes with them to chaperone as I continue to watch some of the fractal-produced video images and bide my time.
This club plays a cool mix of Sandstorm with the staccato synthesizer sound sprinkled throughout the mix (compared to other mixes that have it just at the end). I like the staccato synth sound because it reminds me of the sound of a purebred racing engine bouncing hard off the rev-limiter.
Later Joe asks me about draft beer - because Brandon doesn't know what a draft beer is but he wants to order one and doesn't know how to. I try to describe to Joe about draft and bottled beers. I think that he gets the picture and he relays this to Brandon. But I tell Joe, "I'm not a beer drinker, so I might be wrong. Don't ask me about beer. Ask me about heroin, but don't ask me about beer." Joe smiles - Joe knows.
I'm in bed by 2:30 am Sunday and awake for a bicycle ride shortly thereafter. The 18 year old neighbor stands me up but I get out for a decent 25 mile ride. The rest of the day is taken up with offers of free tickets to the Long Beach Grand Prix (including hospitality suites), free tickets to the Los Angeles Kings ice hockey game, lunch offers, and other activity offers. I wade through the list and pick and choose the activities that are compatible with the degree of exhaustion present. Though I know that there will be disappointed people in the wake.