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tgif, baby

What a great story. And for those who don't run, 3:48 is a great first marathon time. It's inspirational.

Also inspirational, in a different way of course, was getting a paycheck. Somewhat less inspiring was the amount of tax they took out. Oh. My. God. I guess I knew it was going to happen, but it's a bit different when you see it in black and white.

And, I just bought a plane ticket! I'm going to Stanford from September 24 through the 26. Kamran is coming too. It'll be great. I'll get to see Kamran and my dear friends in CA. I can't wait.

6:16 p.m. - Sept. 10, 2004

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venting

The way I see it, there's a few things that are optional in life. Luxuries. I've been doing without them, because I was too busy or too poor or they came free with the Stanford package, one or the other. Cable. $40/month. Hi-speed internet. $43/month. Cell phone. $40/month. Heck, I don't even have a TV. Now I have to decide if I want to buy all these things. I really like having internet. I have also loved having cable for the past month. And it sure would be fun to have a cell phone. We'll see.

Anyway, it seems like all the politicians are talking about out-sourcing and American jobs moving overseas. As if this was a new thing. My Dad has been talking about this since I was six years old, and he's really been talking about it for the last 5 years. This did not happen overnight. It's the actions of policians for the last decade or two that have brought this on. All this "free trade" bologna. How about the trade imbalance? And NAFTA. And China.

Boeing v. Airbus is an interesting example of a US company trying to fight a foreign company on a tilted playing field. Now all of a sudden it's a big election issue in Seattle. My Dad told me about the government subsidies of Airbus at least 10 years ago. It makes me mad.

11:01 p.m. - Sept. 09, 2004

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weather

Last night I was casually watching the news when Roanoke, Virginia came up on the screen. Roanoke is not a big place, so to say I was surprised to see it would be an understatement. We do have a thing for hurricanes and ice storms. This time it was Frances. Of course, we don't get the devastation of places like Florida, but Roanoke is prone to flash floods. Highly prone. We get them fairly frequently, and get really bad ones every few years. It never affected my life growing up, other than perhaps a school closure, because we lived on a mountain. We did have lots of trees in our back yard, and I particulary remember the jungle our yard became after Hurricane Hugo. Half of them fell down. I can still remember driving to school, and stopping because of roads underwater, and driving past house after house half under water. This experience made me very conscious of the dangers of flood plains. When I buy a house, you can bet having a wee bit of altitude is going to be a priority. My experience with flooding in Houston and Ireland solidified that sentiment. Now, I'm moving onto an island. However, my apartment is on the second floor, so hopefully all should be well.

Meanwhile, this trio of hurricanes has really made me question why anyone would live in Florida. My great-aunt actually had to evacuate. But I used to wonder why people lived on fault lines in California, and I now I completely understand.

7:55 a.m. - Sept. 09, 2004

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.

It's goal time. I'm entering the Seattle Half Marathon. I'm using this training program. I've been trying to build up to it the last few weeks, so now I'm working on Week 1. So now I'm announcing it publically, so I can't back out! I'm excited.

11:17 p.m. - Sept. 08, 2004

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all the gadgets

When I was little, the TV had 13 channels. There was no remote control. No cell phones. No computers. A microwave was a big deal. Cars didn't have automatic locks or electrically adjustable seats. There were no CD players or VCRs. No answering machines. No cordless phones.

And I'm sure there's more.

6:28 p.m. - Sept. 07, 2004

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what day is it anyway?

K forgot to bring a razor or shaving cream, so he ended up shaving with my citrus-scented women's shaving gel and pink razor. He had another all-night flight back to DC. Amazingly, I think just about all his flights in the past few months have been on time, in stark contrast to my own. Maybe it's the airline.

If going back to work today is hard for me, it must be a thousand times harder for the Peru crew.

8:08 a.m. - Sept. 07, 2004