March 2000

heynowhere’snews: I finally joined the webloggers webring @ jish.nu. Now all I have to do is sit back, take it easy, and watch as the world continues to glide through space. Is this planet great or what? igottatellya: It’s like one of my top two favorite planets in the solar system.

I hate driving home from work in the dark. It means I spent way too much time at work.

This is really sick. It’s almost 8 on a Friday night and I’m sitting in my office redesigning my web site. How pathetic is that?

I wonder if I work for the only company on the planet that is using a thumb tack to hold an HP Jet Direct port onto the wall behind the IT printer.

I am so tired! Sometimes I am totally amazed at how quickly the day zips by me … It seems like I just woke up late for work and now I’m already late for bed (again). I meant to update a bunch of stuff here - most notably the news from India - but I gotta get some sleep. G’night.

I spent the afternoon in Tampa yesterday. [html fun: the Tampa link opens in a new window; it's a "bay_window"! get it? heh heh] I saw some cool houses but most had little curb appeal, as the realtors like to say. One was pretty shweet, but it had the funkiest hallway in the middle … My two favorites so far? A two-story, 2000 sq.ft. townhouse that’s still being built and a one-story, 1500 sq.ft. single-family that’s owned by a former San Diego Padres’ pitcher. I’ve gotten a hunka buncha updates from Sylvia that I will post later tonight. (eMail her!)

Update from Sylvia (02):

It’s 4:30PM here. We are relaxing after a couple of hours spent sightseeing. Today we went to Lodhi gardens which houses the tombs of some unknown people from the 1400s. Afterwards we had lunch with Bhrett’s dad at a local Indian restaurant under … [message interrupted] … Anyway we had the local cuisine at a restaurant that shakes every time trucks pass overhead. The food was really good and spicy. Afterwards we went to the Gandhi museum which was pretty neat especially since I just saw the movie. There were footprints which traced his last steps before he was shot. There was a display of his wordly possessions- a walking stick, fork, knife, rock, spectacles and case. As we were sitting on the grounds watching all of the people pass by a man asked if he could take a picture of me with his wife. I felt like celebrity! Anyway- Delhi is just as you might have imagined- lots of people lots of traffic, motorized rickshaws, trucks, bikes all in the street sharing the road with cows. Everybody honking the horn - totally disregarding all traffic laws.

I’ve felt a little out of sorts for the last several months. Nothing big, mind you; just a little off. I didn’t even notice it until last night, really. Linus used to freak out Charlie Brown every now and then by reminding him about his tongue. Old Chuck would get all squirmy thinking about his tongue and where it was in his mouth and how he could feel it in there. They called it, “being aware of your tongue” and I always liked that phrase as a way of describing when things just seem a little out of alignment.

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Wow! My first experience with priceline.com looks like it was a good one. I’ll be flying from JAX at 1140 EST on 2000.04.13 and landing at LAX at 1545 PST. The other way is leaving LAX at 1152 PST on 2000.04.17 and landing in JAX at 1605 EST, with a one-hour layover in Dallas.

Update from Sylvia (01):

I’m doing alright here in Delhi. Long flight but I had two seats to myself. Tomorrow Never Dies on the screen. I haven’t slept much and yet I feel wide awake. We left the Delhi airport and two kids ran up to us and grabbed our bags to help us load up the car. They came out of nowhere and they wouldn’t take no for an answer. One of the kids tried to jump in the car but Bhrett pushed him away.

I told priceline.com to find me a ticket to LAX for 2000.04.15 weekend. And I don’t wanna pay more than $300! We’ll see if it finds anything … I’ll keep you el postado …

Well this was my first morning without Sylvia to wake me. I’m happy to announce that I was awake before 6:45 am and made it to work on time. The reports of my narcolepsy were greatly exaggerated.
Status Report: Sylvia called from Paris around midnight. She and Bhrett are doing well. Their plane left for Delhi at 3 am (Paris time) and it is a ten-hour flight.
Ron and I talked for a long time last night about the future of Oceans and what can and should happen in the next few months.
Sylvia bought me a red metallic snowboard key chain last weekend. It’s pretty nifty. I just put it on my keys this morning.

Well … now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall … Sylvia and Bhrett are in route to India. Their plane left Orlando around noon today. Sylv called from Newark (Queen of Our Cities), NJ sometime around 4 pm EST. They should be landing in Paris soon and then on to Delhi. I went to the gym and Publix supermarket. On the other hand I did return with a six-pack of Sam Adams …

I can’t believe Sylvia’s leaving me! In less than a dozen hours she’ll be on a plane to India with Bhrett. A month! What am I going to (legally) do for a month?! This doesn’t look good …

We spent the day today swirling around the mall (woo-hoo) and Target and Old Navy and I couldn’t help but wonder if they have all the same stores in India. And how long will it be before there’s no point in going to visit someplace because everyplace has become just like here? Don’t get me wrong: I love America and where I am and go Red Sox and Coke is it and you deserve a break today but I can’t imagine what the world would be like if that was my only choice (well yes I can imagine it that’s why I’m writing this silly) except I would be a little sad because that was the whole point of travel and that’s why there was fun in the 20s and how can you be an expatriate if there’s no place to expatriate yourself from? (duh) .. and then again maybe it’s just late on a Sunday night and it’s time for bed … (pfft!)