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April 2001
How ironic that daylight saving change should occur on April Fools Day.
Anyway, I awoke much earlier than I should have, got up, had breakfast and checked out. I left my bags in the hotel office and hung out for a bit. The British contingent appeared, and we decided to go to Hoover Dam. We would have liked to hit the Grand Canyon, but it was just too far away for us to be able to get back in time for my flight to Atlanta.
Hoover Dam is big, but not as big as I expected. But then again, I guess it was pretty big for the time it was built. Lots of people died in building it. The valley is pretty cool, but the best thing is the turbulence at the bottom.
Back and work and all sorts of problems, not the least being an inability to get to email. Oh well. It was a latish day, too; I didn't get out until 7:30.
Tired. Not enough sleep. Ugh. That'll learn me.
The toilet in my bathroom is broken. The rubber seal thingy is disintegrating. Fortunately a plumber is coming sometime for other reasons, so I'll get them to fix that while they're at it.
Went to Nomenclature. Left early. Lauren didn't. Enough said.
Had a meeting today with a potential customer. It went really well.
In the afternoon I took off early and went to Fado watch Liverpool play Barcelona in the UEFA Cup semifinal. It was good to hang out with Myra for a while, even though the match was a disappointing draw.
Dinner was taken with Billy and Lauren at the Korean restaurant by the Plaza theatre (next to Harry's and the Righteous Room). The sushi wasn't terribly great, but I once again ordered too much. Ah well. I then met up with John and Sarah at the Local, Among the things we did was to introduce ourselves to the new waitress. We left around 1:30 and John and I had a night cap before going to bed. We actually stayed up for quite a while drinking the night cap (one of John's bourbons). Very pleasant.
Wow, I did a lot of stuff with a lot of different people today. That rocks.
The plumber came today and fixed my toilet. I am happy again.
Went to the pub. Drank hideous amounts of beer. John drove me home. Stacy and Dill came and hung out for a few drinks.
Sarah took me to brunch and then I set up DSL on her computer at Alice's.
I played CivII most of the afternoon, and then (at the request of Heather and Lauren) I picked up Patty and went to Lauren's. Patty and Heather headed off, and Lauren and I had a couple of pre-show drinks. This was very cool, and then we headed off to the show.
At The Riviera we caught the last few songs of And One's set and mingled with people and drank. Covenant rocked. I thoroughly enjoyed them. Girls were swooning over the lead singer. All very enjoyable.
After the show we dropped Jen's car back at Lauren's and the three of us went to the after-party at the Vault, and then back to Lauren's. A very fun (albeit expensive) night was had.
Day of total lethargy.
Went to work. Came home. Did chores. Made dinner for me and John. John went to the pub, I went to bed.
Went to work. Came home. Went to the pub. Peoples turned up: Lauren, Andie, Billy, John, Sarah, Clair, Chris. We taught Andie and Billy and Sarah how to play Mexicans. It was fun.
Today was rough after last night. I bought some 5-HTP from the health food shop in the mall by work. 5-HTP is a precursor to 5-HT, which is seratonin. This is useful to take to try to regulate sleep patterns and settle moods - since I've been sleeping poorly I thought I would give this a try.
Peter confirmed that he wanted me at the Avex exhbition in London at the start of next month. Cool.
After work, I had a work dinner with the sales team and a potential customer. We ate at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Downtown Atlanta. It was sooooooo good. My steak, (ribeye, blue) was perfect, and the wine Jason selected to accompany dinner was a perfect match. Once again, dinner was completed with a cognac and a creme brulee (which melted in the mouth just as the steak had - joy!).
After the dinner, I stopped by the Local to say hello to John. The only other of his teammates still around was Jenny. Also chatted with the usual barflies.
I was up at 4:30am this morning, checking that certain processes ran correctly on one of our production servers. It had failed, but I made things work, so the customer never saw a problem. I was back in bed a little after 5am, but sleep was not very forthcoming. I finally got up for work at 9:00.
The immigration attorney confirmed that I could not go to London for the exhibition, as my visa would run out while I was there, and I would have difficulty coming back into the US. So I'll have to go to the UK at another time. However, I did get good immigration news, as the Department of Labor has certified my application for residency. Now the paperwork goes to the Department of Immigration and Naturalisation. I'm nearly a permanent legal alien.
Ah, Michele just IMed me - she's going to Masquerade tonight after all. She said I should go, too, but if I do, I'll drink and I really can't afford to do that tonight (cash reasons and 'cos I'm on call).
I gave my sister a call to see how she and Kees are doing. Both are well.
Good Friday. Black Friday. Hey, it's Friday! And I don't have to go to work. Unfortunately I do still have to do work, being on call, and supporting some systems that are dependent on an ever-increaqsingly flakey customer. Yes, I was paged at odd hours of the morning; but I came through unscathed.
The rest of the day was spent doing a few minor chores and playing CivII.
All by my lonesome, I wandered down to the Local around eight o'clock and spent the next three hours or so chewing the fat with the regulars. What is even more shocking is that in that time I consumed only two Newcastles and one vodka. That's what being on call will do to me.
Around midnight I contacted Lauren and we went (albeit separately) up to the Vault. This turned into a fun excursion (as if they never are...). We met Brena Keenan (real name Julie) from one of the goth lists, and a friend of Paula's named Deann. Apparently Paula works with Deann's mother and determined that their interests were similar. Apparently they had be going to Nomenclature for a while; obviously before my recent revisits. Anyway, we all got on splendidly and at the end of the night I traded phone numbers with Deann.
After the club, Lauren, Heather, Clay and I went up to Waffle House for a good-old 4:30am feed. Lauren definitely needed it as she was in no state to drive home. Our waitress was really cool, and our food came in good time. Lauren's scrambled eggs and hash browns was overflowing her plate. I think it was about 6am that I finally got in the door, checked up on the system and climbed into bed.
I didn't get quite as much sleep as I had hoped for last night, as Deann called at 10am. Ugh. Oh well. We talked about miscellaneous stuff for about and hour and a half, at which point I decided I needed to get up, have a shower, and do stuff.
I jumped in; reversed round; stopped the car. Something didn't feel quite right. Hrm. Roll forward a little. Definite non-coolness in the movement of the car. Jumped out and wandered round the car. Ah yes. That'll do it: front pasenger tire was flatter than a flat thing squished by a heavy thing. Bother. And, you know, I really didn't feel like changing the tire just then.
So I put the car back in it's parking spot, wandered up stairs, and bitched about the flat on IM for a while. Scott offered to give me a lift somewhere to get the tire fixed, but I told him it would be okay, as I have a spare - I just didn't feel like changing it just then. I was still hungry, and fortunately, at that point in time, Alice turned up. She offered to drive me to McD's to get some food, and all was temporarily well again.
My game of CivII was going exceedingly well, but I allowed myself to get distracted enough for Michele to come over so I could show her how to change a tire. That was fun (it does the ego good to have a cute girl watching you change a tire AND she was wearing a very cute dress that looked fantastic on her). After that, she went off to meet up with friends and I retired upstairs to have a shower and get ready for tonight's entertainment - The Orb at Masquerade. Hell Yeah!
So I got myself sorted out, showered, etc, and headed up to the Local for some dinner. There I caught up with my old neighbour, Mike, and Leslie. Mike offered his place as a base of operations for the upcoming Music Midtown weekend (first weekend in May). I also ran into Kevin, who I hadn't seen in a month or so. He was off to Cancun in the morning. Bastard. Heheh.
It was about eleven o'clock that I decided to head on down to the Masquerade. The show was $19 to get in and I got there just before the support act (DJ Witchman) did his stuff. It was mainly drum and bass, but not quite what I was in the mood for. Not to take anything away from him, it was okay, just not what I wanted. After he finished, I wandered back to the bar to get a drink and ran into Durran. He was meeting up with Andreas (who also appeared very soon after). It was good to catch up with Durran as I hadn't seen him in quite a long while, and it was he who introduced me to Alex Patterson at the Juno Reactor show.
Finally The Orb came on. We wandered out the floor. After about three or four songs, Durran had to take off, and I wandered into the masses to dance. And dance I did. It was great. Definitely a great experience. There were plenty of people around on various substances, but it really wasn't necessary. Highlights: Little Fluffy Clouds, Plateau, some of their new stuff.
After the show I whizzed on up to the Vault to catch the last half hour of Cyberia. Worth the trip, as I was able to catch up with Clair, Rosalie, Lauren, Heather, and also to meet a newbie to the scene, Carl. I went straight home when the club closed; I need sleep.
I got a reasonable amount of sleep today, then set about cleaning up and doing dishes in preparation for the evening's dinner: Sarah was picking up a big ole ham and various guests were bringing contributions to a Sunday meal. John got home from his trip to Baltimore and DC looking a little pale; apparently much drinking (whisky, tequila, grain alcohol, beer) had taken place at Saturday's steeplechase. Heheh.
Today's mission: go to Athens to meet with a slightly eccentric fellow who wants to use our technology in a concept he has developed. This was very interesting but we shall see whether it comes off. I was bad in that I couldn't make time to see Bria while I was in Athens. Sorry Bria. But I will return to see her soon.
I dropped my car in to get the tire fixed on returning from Athens (I went up in Brad's car), and when I went to pick it up after work I discovered that some moron had broken the key off in the ignition. Well, at least the car starts, it's just a pain. I can't wait to get my new car.
After work, John and I just hung out at home, watching TV and basically doing not a lot.
This afternoon, a guy from BellSouth stopped by and started to install our T1 line. Yay! Network connectivity will be restored!
Ate more of the left-over ham for dinner and then John and I went to the pub. Andie and Sarah joined us and we all had fun. Andie went up to the Clermont for Brooke's birthday. The rest of us bailed a little after midnight.
This morning I was able to sleep in somewhat, as I was not going in to work. No; instead I was going to the airport to get a flight to San Diego. In San Diego (or, more correcty, just north of it) Jason and I are going to meet with another Full Line Vending operator, much as we did a couple of weeks ago. I'm looking forward to it.
However, at the airport, everything sucked. Our plane was delayed by over three hours due to a fault in the hydraulics. I hate waiting at airports. Fortunately, I do have Delta Crown Room Club membership, so I was able to sit somewhere comfortable with complimentary drinks (Makers Mark on the rocks) and internet connectivity. This was after boarding the plane and then getting back off it (I really have issues with the word "deplane").
Finally we were on our way. I made my way back to my seat at the very back of the A319 Airbus, strapped myself in and settled down to listening to VNV Nation. I also read my latest issue of The Economist, which had an interesting special report section on the software industry.
After we checked into the hotel (Hotel La Jolla) we drove up to Del Mar for dinner at Jake's Del Mar, a seafood restaurant. The special of the day was baked sea bass, with green, red and yellow peppers, and portabello and shiitake mushrooms, all on mashed potatoes, with asparagus on the side. It was yummy.
The great thing about coming to San Diego is that getting up early is no big deal, since my body thinks the time is three hours later than it actually is. Take this morning, for example. We had a meeting at 9am, but I was up at 6:30 to make sure we got there in time (it was further up the coast in Vista). Six thirty Pacific Time is 9:30 in the Eastern Time zone, so I actually had a bit of a sleep-in. Or would have if I had not been called by someone else beforehand. Ah well, such is the nature of the beast.
The meeting went very well, and included a lot of new key learnings. We had lunch at a tasty Mexican restaurant in downtown Vista and then headed back to San Diego to catch up with our existing customer there. It's always good to stop in there. After all that was squared away, we went for a drink and dinner in La Jolla. This was also good, although the horseradish sauce on my steak sandwich was a bit much. Then it was back to the hotel for bed before an early morning.
Up early to check on the system (a couple of glitches over the last day or so has upset a few people, so I took it upon myself to ensure all went well), and then off to catch an early flight back to Atlanta, once again via Phoenix. What a hassle, just to save $1000 and I don't get frequent flyer miles. Oh well, sometimes that's the way it works out.
And now the weekend begins. For dinner I went to Lauren's place. I brought over a bottle of wine, a bottle of Absolut Citron, and four Red Bulls. Lauren made yummy pasta with olives, tomatoes, garlic, broccoli, mushrooms, and also potatoes in olive oil with garlic and herbs. Super-duper yummilicious. We had the wine with dinner, and then we had the vodka and red bulls. Then we zapped over to Little Five Points to pick up Andie and Heather and then it was woosh up to the Vault.
Where I got drunk. Silly Damon. It was a fun night. But at the end of it all I had to be poured home. Sorry Lauren.
Slept hard, but rough. Alcohol will do that to a person. Got up in the afternoon and moved to the couch to watch my new DVDs: Charlie's Angels (which rocked; Drew Barrymore kicks ass!) and Power Puff Girls. Eventually I decided that I would go out to the Vault with Lauren (at the very least because my car was still at her place...).
The club was fun. Drew was in town (yay) and I spent a fair biut of time nattering with him. Grace showed up and mentioned that she was now single. I was introduced by Thompson to a girl I had met (kinda) on another night. Said farewells to Anne and Christian, who are returning to Quebec. Chatted with Paula about Deann and Six Flags and going to Paula's next party. A fun evening.
Until we got back to Lauren's place and discovered that Jesse had an ambulance ride. We spent the next hour or so trying unsuccessfully to hunt him down, but fortunately he turned up the next day in one piece, if a little battered and bruised.
Slept and lazed. Then Tim and Steve came over to drink whisky. I supplied Cragganmoor 12 year old. Steve brought 12 year old Glenmorangie. Tim's contribution was a 15 year old Aberlour. All very yummy and tasty. I think my preference was the smooth Aberlour. Later on we also broke open a bottle of Black Bush.
The day was beautiful and we spent much of it on the deck, enjoying the rays. Steve regaled us with tales from his recent trip to Greece and Turkey. For dinner we had ham bone and beans, with corn bread. Yum yum yum. Steve wandered off to the Local a little worse for wear as we watched Sunday Night TV: Futurama, King of the Hill, The Simpsons, Malcom in the Middle, The X Files, The Man Show. After the Man Show we put in another of my new Power Puff Girls DVDs and found a new episode to join the rainy day episode and Meet the Beat-Alls as classics: Boogie Frights. Gotta see 'em.
Didn't sleep so good...
Still tired. Not as tired. But still tired. Hate tired.
Got rid of car. Got a rental. Silver car.
Traffic home sucked. Big traffic. Even though I left work at 6:30. Bad traffic.
I did dishes. John made dinner. Alice did shopping.
Watched That 70s Show and Titus. Updated web page. Happy now?
ANZAC Day. See previous years' entries for details...
And check this out.
Lauren picked me up around 10idh and we zapped over to Nomenclature museum. After wishing Kalina happy birthday, we proceeded to the bar and began a long night. There was a really good turn out, but I must admit that I spent most of my time talking with Deann.
Slow day at work. I did some essentials and then rebuilt my laptop with Windows 2000 Professional.
Today I moved offices. I am now sharing an office and have a smaller desk. I have left all of the operations related stuff in the old office, so I now officially cannot do the operations side of things - I am dedicated to giving technical supoprt to the sales team.
After work I made plans to have dinner with Lauren at Andaluz, but she didn't feel up to it so we just had pizza at her place (yummy pizza, mind you). Accompanying the pizza was our favourite red bull and vodka. I watched the TV program Popular for the first time; quite surreal, very odd. Then we watched an hour of the Power Puff Girls (no stand-out episodes) and headed over to pick up Heather on our way to the Vault.
The Vault was totally action packed. We drank, we danced, we talked, we flirted, we didn't go home alone. Heheh.
After I got home I spent the afternoon completing the game of CivII that I have been playing for the past couple of weeks. I was supreme! Woohoo!!
Today I tidied my room; something I'd be trying to do for the last week or two. But today it got done. Sarah arrives on Wednesday, and I don't want her thinking I'm a total slob :-)
After the tidy up was complete, I got ready to head over to Six Flags, to spend the afternoon with Deann, Paula, Sean, and Scott (Paula's new toy). This should be interesting.
My Day At Six Flags By Damon Auger
Today I went to Six Flags Over Georgia. Six Flags Over Georgia is an amusement park with lots of roller-coasters and rides. And even more food and drink stalls. But that's another story.
I wento Six Flags with Deann, Paula, Scott, and Shaun. They got me in for free, which was really cool, especially since I had waited for them for about 45 minutes. But that's no biggie.
We went first to a ride that I don't know the name of, but for which there was a reasonable line. Deann and I sat in a metal box and were strapped down. The box scooted backwards into a tower type thing, and our car was clanked up three or four stories. We were then shunted forward slightly, and then, BANG! We dropped three stories, our stomach remaining at the top of this tower type thing. The descent changed so that we ended up lying on our backs, looking up at the sky. An interesting ride to start the day.
Then we went to get tickets to ride the ride that I can't remember the name of but was where you rode as the weight of a pendulum. We paid our money and went off to kill three hours. This turned out to be a rollercoaster named "Ninja." A longish line, and short ride (worse was yet to come). I foolishly decided to retain hat and glasses, and nearly lost them, which caused me to miss much of the ride. Oh well.
We wandered around again and found our way to Gotham City and the Batman ride. The line for this took a good hour to get through, and then ride was over in 20 seconds. AH well. It was similar to the Duelling Dragons at Islands of Adventure, but with only one coaster. On our way out, we encountered a girl who had passed out, so Paula (being a nurse) stopped to help out.
When all was well and good we returned to the pendulum thing. I gave my glasses, hat, camera, etc, to Shaun, then Deann, Paula, and I went on down. We put on some special suits, and were latched together and had a cable tied to our back. Then we were raised up and back by another cable until we were a good hundred and fifty or so feet in the air. And then we were let go...
Whooooooooosh.................... We zoomed down back over the starting point and up over towards where all the people were. And then we swung back again, spinning in the air, and back over again. Woohoo!!! I said hello to the people I couldn't recognise. This was very much fun. Much less stressful on the body than the pure drop type ride we started with.
Then Paula and Deann went and rode some wheel type thingy while Scott and Shaun rode the Ninja again. I was happy. And then we all went home. Quite a pleasant afternoon.
On my way home I picked up some Popeye's chicken for John and myself, and I made it home to catch most of the X-Files. After the Man Show we watched the episode of the Simpsons I had missed (and it was good), and then we channel surfed and Simpsonised and generally did our usual Sunday TV thing.
Work, and then dinner at Ruth's Chris' Steakhouse for Jesse's birthday. Yum yum yum.