On Tuesday I am walking back from the TRW cafeteria towards my office with a tub of caffeine the size of the Hoover Dam. I bump into the ChiChi who I anonymously asked at random a few weeks ago about the rotation of line-of-sight equations. This time the ChiChi stops and talks with me for about 6 minutes. We talk about optics and textbooks and online resources and systems engineering and stuff. Finally the ChiChi says, "I'm surprised that you remembered me". To which I simply turn and head for my office.
After hectic days at work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I take a long walk at night after lifting weights (and after taking Nopey for the first 12 minutes). I pass a bus stop and there is a ChiChi waiting for the bus. We both smile at each other and make the obligatory chitchat about "How are you?" We have the 10 second chitchat as I continue on my walk but after about 40 seconds down the street I turn back and see that the ChiChi is still watching me. I turn and smile and continue on. About another minute later I turn back and the ChiChi is still watching me. I turn, throw out my arms in a "What's up?" gesture, and continue walking. I have violated the first rule (Don't look directly into the eyes of a ChiChi.) and lived to talk about it.
The last three nights have been characterized by extremely lucid, vivid, colorful, and hallucinogenic dreams as a result of a new amino acid therapy that I am trying. The dreams include one of me being shot with a bullet, one with two young golden retrievers joining Nopey, one with a person in the house that I am chasing (and that I actually wake up yelling at), and one with Person A that I run into at a cycling event. But the quality of sleep has been enhanced with the amino acid therapy as I can feel the growth hormone being pumped throughout my body.
During the day on Thursday there is an omen. I take two walks during the day at TRW - one to the cafeteria for caffeine and the other to visit the Dynamic Test people. On each walk there is a squirrel that crosses my path. Now this is the first time that this has happened in a long time and just after I have given Person G a nickname with the word squirrel in it. It must be an omen.
Late on Thursday night sees me heading for K-Town to pickup Person J_VKPI as we head for the most popular, most hip club in town. As expected I am approximately the oldest person in the club. By 11:30pm the place is getting crowded and by midnight it is wall-to-wall people and it is difficult to move around. Unfortunately the club plays too much hip hop for my tastes (as opposed to the techno/trance/electronica that other clubs play). Th evening is uneventfull except for when a girl, who is sitting next to me with her boyfriend, casually stands up, walks over to a trash receptacle, and starts puking her guts out in front of everyone. I'm glad that she managed to get away from me. I am turning off the lights to sleep at 2:35am on Friday morning.
Friday is the first rain of the year but it is fairly dry by the time that I am jumping on the motorcycle to go home. Whereas I usually take my favorite curve at greater than 100 mph in the dry (and have determined that I need a steering damper to cure a slight front end wobble at speeds in corners greater than 100 mph) today, because it is still damp, I only take the curve at 80 mph. The bike tracks well.
Saturday is a very productive day with a 5 mile run (still too damp for a bicycle ride), a haircut, mowing the lawn, many errands around the house, lifting weights, and a long walk. As I'm starting to mow the lawn, having just finished two strips of cutting, I suddenly see the 9 year old kid next door run out of her house followed by her parents and a number of other kids (in Halloween costumes) and their parents and go blazing past me before I know what is going on. My first instinct is that Nopey has gotten loose, but why would they be running towards where he is? It turns out that the little kid's bird has flown out the open cage and open front door and is flying away. The little kid, whos birthday party is today, is in tears as she thinks she saw the bird fly into a tree about three houses down. After the commotion has died down and I'm not sure whether they found the bird or not, I return to mowing the lawn.
Now seeing that it is the neighbor kid's birthday, the parents have rented one of those inflatable playpens and put it in the rear part of the driveway near my bedroom window. When I'm in my bedroom I can, of course, hear the kids screaming as they play. I consider calling one of my friends, like Person M_USC, and have him come over, open my windows, and go ahead and play with lots of our own yelling and screaming. (These were the same neighbors who heard us once before.) But, because I am emotionally committed to someone, I cannot call anyone to come over and join in my devious plan.
Saturday is a remarkable day. It is the first Saturday in memory where none of the telephones ring. Bu then, just as I am getting ready to go to sleep, the telephone rings twice - once from Person G and once from an unknown caller (twice). The remarkable day has now been made unremarkable.
After lifting weights on Sunday morning I am at TRW to scale acoustic test data and to get in some accomplishments before the two doctors appointments this week. The 3pm ice hockey game is reasonable as we win, 4-3. Thus ends another weekend.