four:eleven my life at 4:11pm

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tue 31 december 2002 'Iamblichus [8] gives some reasons for him leaving. First he comments on the Samian response to his teaching methods:-' - from 'Pythagoras of Samos' by J J O'Connor and E F Robertson <http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Pythagoras.html>

mon 30 december 2002 Reading from a dictionary out loud to Leo on the phone; I say, "Belief: a mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in a person or thing. Faith."

sun 29 december 2002 Lying on the couch. I reach back and turn on the heat pump. David Cross is playing on a CD, talking about Ashcroft. He says, "Oh he loves that cold, stone titty."

sat 28 december 2002 Perusing a City Paper, I stop on a sub-title: 'The life of Jimmy Scott.' I glance to the right, at a picture of a smiling young black man. The caption underneath reads, 'Scott in the mid 70's.'

fri 27 december 2002 Asleep, with muddled, dark dreams.

thu 26 december 2002 Ducking under some brambles and pushing some small branches out of the way, I walk carefully through a narrow woods path, with Booda ahead of me and Chris behind.

wed 25 december 2002 Chris Welsh says, "Now we're going to have to continue..." Tara says, "Don't press the box!"

tue 24 december 2002 I have my hand on the cleanroom door handle. I sigh and say to myself, "I don't wanna go in there."

mon 23 december 2002 I say, "So I push the 'lamp off' button, and before I release it I look at the lights up there to make sure they aren't blinking."

sun 22 december 2002 I pull Gina's bag out of the car, and put one strap over my shoulder.

sat 21 december 2002 Walking in the woods, Gina's behind me, Booda's ahead. Gina says, "But if you're craving hen of the woods you can have some tonight at the Vegetable Garden. Except we're not going to the Vegetable Garden. We're going to the Cheesecake Factory!" While she's saying the last sentence, I say, "We have hen of the woods at home."

fri 20 december 2002 I say, "I don't know what you mean, you mean the usual kind of celebration?"

thu 19 december 2002 "I'm going to make a big pile of stuff," says Gina, as she places a yellow book on the table, "for your dad." "Oh," I say, wondering if Dad gave me that book.

wed 18 december 2002 Jim Butler says, "Say you know really it's, it's very difficult for me to get to Greensboro, it'd be much easier if you could do it in Balimore."

tue 17 december 2002 The PalmGear search engine replies, 'No records matched this search criteria.' I highlight 'nethack' in the text box. (Maybe they'll have something under 'rogue'.)

mon 16 december 2002 Walking down the hall, I hear Jim Butler yell from his office: "Hey John!" "Yes sir," I respond, turning into his office. "Question for you." He's looking at his computer screen.

sun 15 december 2002 "John, did you finish your food?" asks Gina, and I show her the closed tub of pasta in my hand.

sat 14 december 2002 "Running out of letters and there's nothing left in the bag," I say. Kory says, "It ends when one person is out."

fri 13 december 2002 I read the header of a form Jim Butler is holding in his hands: "Incumbent Hire Survey." While I'm saying this, Jim points at the form in a circular, general way and says, "Well, you could, just..."

thu 12 december 2002 John Marketon says, "We can futz around with the off the shelf stuff and go all week all month all year and not get anywhere."

wed 11 december 2002 I glance at my email inbox and say, "fourteen," reflecting the number of unread messages. The box marked 'Ice' has one new message. I open 'Ice' to see what the message is. It's from Eric Zuckerman, and the subject says, 'ICE: [SFBay] Fwd: EndGame Goes Lo...'

tue 10 december 2002 I click open a logical drive called 'Webserver on 'Cfserver' (F:)'. Outside my office, some scientists are discussing what place is best to move to in light of global warming. One of them has mentioned Oregon, which makes me think of northern rain forests.

mon 9 december 2002 I exit my office and walk down the hall, thinking that I should probably copy that Foreign National Information form before I start filling it out.

sun 8 december 2002 Diane Donaldson says, "Smack it on the nose." I put another preliminary fold in my paper.

sat 7 december 2002 '"He is now; and I have only to do with the present. I wish you would speak rationally." "Well, that settles it: if you have only to do with the present, marry Mr. Linton."' - from Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

fri 6 december 2002 Perusing a window, looking for an HTML file to open. I settle on an 'index.html' file. I'm half aware of some people in the hallway having a jovial conversation.

thu 5 december 2002 I look over to the dish rack to see if there is a better knife, decide there isn't, and use the one I have to dig into a tub of margarine. The end instrumental of the Beatles' And Your Bird Can Sing is playing in the background.

wed 4 december 2002 'Got PHP running on server!' - personal work log

tue 3 december 2002 'Surely you can appreciate the irony: The brilliance of the original 1984 Macintosh was that it eliminated the command line interface...' - from Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, by David Pogue

mon 2 december 2002 I read this: 'Supports Servlet/JSP, EJB, RMI-IIOP and JTA/JTS (J2EE technologies)' from an Apple webpage, sigh, and hit the 'page up' key.

sun 1 december 2002 "Most importantly, my napkin," I say, as Chris picks up my silverware and napkin.

sat 30 november 2002 "So what you need to do," says Chris Welsh, "is schmooze into them and say, 'hey it'd be neat to sit in with you,' and find some way to be subtle and fit into whatever's happening then."

fri 29 november 2002 Watching Mr. Show. "I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page," says the leader of the band Titanica. "I've got an idea."

thu 28 november 2002 "Uh that, over there," I say to Jonathan Kruger, as I gesture towards family members, "that's Gina."

wed 27 november 2002 Some man on the radio is saying, "My hope is that Kissinger rises above partisan politics..."

tue 26 november 2002 "Oh," I say, looking at the screen and double checking my entry on a form: 'gsfc.nasa.gov'.  "DNS suffix. Yeah."

mon 25 november 2002 "Oy," I say, and leave my boss's room, holding my head. (I should try calling Gina again, she might be home.)

sun 24 november 2002 I'm rolling the Happy Fun Die around in my hand while looking at Kory and wondering what card he played. (If I roll Good, I'll play a 3, and if I roll Evil, I'll play a 1.)

sat 23 november 2002 "So that's interesting," says Leo, to Lucy. "As a matter of fact you can see who owned it."

fri 22 november 2002 "Oh, because the new ones aren't vegan anymore?" I ask. Gina nods yes and turns to put some packages of noodles away. "Hey," I say, "when we were at the Thai restaurant the other night..."

thu 21 november 2002 I open a folder called 'Import-2'. (It's a duplicate, I can probably delete it.)

wed 20 november 2002 I'm halfway listening to a frantic German punk song (by K.N.S?) while reading 'Calcium v3.7 Demo - Fully functional, but limited to 1 Calendar' from a web page.

tue 19 november 2002 'Gerald Gardner was born on June 13th, 1884 at Great Crosby, near Blundell Sands in Lancashire, England.' - <http://www.redflame93.com/Gardner.html>

mon 18 november 2002 I type 'txt' as a file extension for a file named '20021030132700', and click the 'Save' button, while mouthing along with Adam and the Ants, whose song is playing on my other computer:"Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do? Subtle innuendos follow There must be something inside..."

sun 17 november 2002 The pianist starts playing and a spotlight closes in on the character Tevye, with closed curtain behind him. He's about to sing.

sat 16 november 2002 'She stared anew at the structure. "Hard to believe anybody actually could live inside there." "It's not as bad as you think," he replied.' - from And the Devil will Drag You Under, by Jack L. Chalker

fri 15 november 2002 "So what all of these tests above this point have done is test the equivalence principle." - Eric G. Adelberger

thu 14 november 2002 I type, "2 lamps Hardy" and hit the return key.

wed 13 november 2002 Dad points at a small plate holding crackers and a glob of cream cheese, on the bar in front of us. "That's there," He says. I say, "Oh. That looks good."

tue 12 november 2002 'An immediate consequence is that the array elements bb[1], bb[2], bb[3], and bb[4] all exist. In other words the range of bb is bb[1..4].' - from Numerical Recipes in C, by William H. Press, et al.

mon 11 november 2002 "It looks like a cheese grater," says Gina, making an O shape with her fingers, "but just the blade part." Kory cracks another pecan and softly sings, "Cheese grater!"

sun 10 november 2002 Watching Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore says something like, "This is the bus that Tamara Williams rode 80 miles to work each day."

sat 9 november 2002 "Sometimes mine don't have pupils," I say. "No, I just realized that," says Cecily.

fri 8 november 2002 Jim Butler drums on the printer briefly and answers my question. "Six or eight." "Oh my gosh," I say, "that's a lot of whiskey."

thu 7 november 2002 Very tired. Playing a solitaire PDA game called Lines.

wed 6 november 2002 'Mswati is also beset by marital problems, which in his case is not unlike a centipede being beset by foot problems. (His father, King Sobhuza II, accumulated 100 wives before his death in 1982.)' - Michael Grunwald, Changing what it Means to be Swazi, Washington Post

tue 5 november 2002 'Quashawn's attorney stated that, "We want the human rights division to require the Girl Scouts to educate all troop leaders, volunteers and staff that HIV cannot be transmitted through casual contact."' - <http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/GSUSA/gsusa.html>

mon 4 november 2002 'I've heard spirited debates among PETA people, but never heard any of them say, "well, if that's what you believe you can't be a member."' - me in an email

sun 3 november 2002 Trying to tighten a rusty old bolt on the negative lead of Dippy's battery. (It's not working; maybe I should find another bolt.)

sat 2 november 2002 Sitting in the Luna Cafe with my little nephew Billy sitting quietly beside me. Meg, Joe, and their baby Leo are here too. Our waitress is walking to another table. I'm watching her and thinking all the waitresses are pretty here.

fri 1 november 2002 Glancing at the Green Cross website, and thinking about making Thor Heyerdahl a Hero of the Month someday.

thu 31 october 2002 I'm entering data for a grating, 'Grating 2:   blaze: 1.60um   600 grooves/mm' and thinking about Greykell and her MS symptoms -- giving me low, angry, sad feelings.

wed 30 october 2002 Watching scan data scrolling on the computer screen, while remembering a dream I had long ago: I was with a small group, looking down into the circular basement of an old, dark, stone tower, while demons appeared in the bottom and attempted to escape, some by battering against the walls, others by climbing toward us.

tue 29 october 2002 Walking in the rain, across the parking lot toward my house, thinking about how even now it's pretty dark.

mon 28 october 2002 Marketon opens the Network Interface box on the phone company's side.

sun 27 october 2002 Sitting in a tow truck, I pull a credit card out of my wallet, then put it back, remembering that I have enough cash.

sat 26 october 2002 Walking up a DC street, away from the White House and a giant crowd at a peace rally. Kristin Matherly says, "Um, what's the other one? Saddam is a piece of poo, but Dubya so are you."

fri 25 october 2002 'This month's fungus is Lycoperdon pyriforme, the wolf-fart puffball' - Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for November 2001

thu 24 october 2002 Scanning my pay stub, looking for health insurance withholdings.

wed 23 october 2002 "Which sort of means miserly," says Marketon. Then he raises his hands and says, "But oh my God, the educated masses!"

tue 22 october 2002 My ball bounces to a stop. I shield my eyes from the sunlight to watch as Izolda throws her ball. "And two," she says.

mon 21 october 2002 "Gotta get the angle just so," says John Marketon, as he fiddles around with the duplex rollers on a laser printer.

sun 20 october 2002 I'm watching a movie called Igby goes down. Igby's brother Olly is talking to Igby's friend, Sookie as they travel in the back seat of a car. "To break him of this habit," he says, "[garble] psychology and all that, we just started calling him Igby."

sat 19 october 2002 There is gauze in my mouth, where my top wisdom teeth used to be. I'm lying in bed, sleepy, talking to Jake on the phone. I say something like, "The orthodontist offered to take out the one with the cavity but I said might as well take them both."

fri 18 october 2002 I yawn and look casually sideways at a page of handwritten mathematical expressions.

thu 17 october 2002 Riding my bicycle very fast down Lastner Road; Rich is behind, clocking our speed. we blast through a stop sign.

wed 16 october 2002 I open the car door while quickly glancing around the perimeter of the lot, whisper-singing to myself "...where women glow and men plunder..." from a song by Men At Work. I toss a bag containing two windshield wipers into the passenger seat, get into the driver's seat and close the door.

tue 15 october 2002 "Zero," I say while throwing my bocce ball. "It's too far." The ball heads past the pallino, and Izolda says, "Oh, no no no!"

mon 14 october 2002 I'm pointing at areas in our bedroom while talking to Gina. "So I was going to stick the other little one there, move that somewhere, and then the big one is going to go behind the door in the game room."

sun 13 october 2002 Chris Osborn is catching up to me on his bicycle. He says, "When I was young, I grew up in, uh..."

sat 12 october 2002 Watching a movie, Tadpole. A french song is playing in a romantic dream scene where the lead boy and his step mother are riding horses on a carousel.

fri 11 october 2002 Staring sleepily at an email header ('from: Ken Rutledge, Re: Oriel lamps') deciding on a phrase for quickly describing an interpolation routine I'm using. (8 degree polynomial-Planck fit?)

thu 10 october 2002 "The critical thing is to try to get all these groups together without getting their backs up, and getting them all upset, so they can conform to the same experiment." - Anon.

wed 9 october 2002 Gil says, "How hot would the hottest blackbody go? White hot?"

tue 8 october 2002 I click on the new folder icon, and a small window appears with the default folder name, 'New Folder.'

mon 7 october 2002 I'm whistling Crackerbox Palace and reading test notes from Luis Ramos: 'SLICK sphere exit port spectral radiance = 920W/m2 sr um @ 1064nm.'

sun 6 october 2002 "I can smell her brainwaves," I say. I hear Kory behind me, saying, "You've gotta try my coconut drink sometime," to Jenny.

sat 5 october 2002 Gina says, "The prices in here, these lamps..." I look over my shoulder. She's showing pictures of some hanging lamps in a catalog. "Uh huh?" I say, and turn back to the computer. "Two hundred sixty eight dollars."

fri 4 october 2002 Driving and listening to a reporter on the radio: "Nevertheless their efforts to join the Taliban could get them life in prison."

thu 3 october 2002 Walking down the hall putting my keys in my pockets, and thinking about giant puffballs. I can hear John Marketon in his office talking to my dad on the phone, but I'm not paying attention to what he's saying.

wed 2 october 2002 "No, he was going for hitting her ball," says Izolda. "That's what he was doing."

tue 1 october 2002 Writing an email: 'Gerhard, I used F474 from 15:35 to 15:50 on 9/12, and on 8/15 from 13:56 to 14:11.'

mon 30 september 2002 I look at the computer screen's clock; it reads '4:09'. I glance over at the phone but can't see its clock display in the dark, so I look back at the computer, waiting for its clock to change to 4:10.

sun 29 september 2002 Perusing shelves of toys in a store. A Doors song, Backdoor Man, is playing. Jim Morrison sings, "I eat more chicken than any man ever seen, yeah, yeah!"

sat 28 september 2002 "Alright Joe," I say, "we're going to head over to the stage again to watch the Mediaeval Baebes."

fri 27 september 2002 Looking at details of Mona Caron's San Francisco Critical Mass poster for 2002.

thu 26 september 2002 I'm talking to Ken Rutledge as I point at the lock-in amplifier's readout. "The phase for the peak signal is drifting in one direction," I say, "so I have to constantly adjust it."

wed 25 september 2002 "Bye bye," I say, as my ball rolls way beyond the target ball. "Zero," says Jeff, and throws his ball.

tue 24 september 2002 I'm sitting in the darkened cleanroom, adjusting my facemask. I have an itch on my nose.

mon 23 september 2002 'During the attack President Lincoln visited Fort Stevens, where he barely missed being hit by Confederate sharpshooter fire.' - <www.cctrail.org/CCT_Parking.htm>

sun 22 september 2002 Sitting on a hill kissing Gina. A folk band called The Mammals is playing on stage below us. I raise my left wrist up to my ear and hear my alarm go off.

sat 21 september 2002 Flipping backwards through my 'Mushrooms Demystified' book as I say my target page number out loud: "Five fifty three."

fri 20 september 2002 Standing up and pedaling my bicycle through an intersection, I glance ahead and to the right -- there is a person sitting on the grass in a yard. He or she has long wavy blond hair, and is wearing sunglasses.

thu 19 september 2002 Walking toward my car, I'm thinking about how Warren Zevon's dance instructor taught John Travolta, and I'm remembering how awfully Travolta danced in Saturday Night Fever.

wed 18 september 2002 "Alright, see ya," I say to Gil as the door closes, then I look back at my screen, at a web page. My eyes randomly scan to this phrase: '...and positive resists for focused ion beam lithography.'

tue 17 september 2002 I'm writing a phone number on a pad of paper.

mon 16 september 2002 I'm watching a lecture by Stephen Wolfram. He's displaying pictures of magnified snowflakes on the screen, and he says, "One can sort of capture that with some simple examples of cellular automata."

sun 15 september 2002 "I heard they passed around a blanket and people threw money into it, and they collected about three thousand dollars for his family," I say. "His cousin got up there and was talking..."

sat 14 september 2002 "That's what keeps you thin, too," I say to Kory. "It's, like, keeping you active and keeping you up at night. Testosterone." I laugh.

fri 13 september 2002 'Peremptory rejections of nuclear arms agreements, the biological weapons convention, environmental protection, anti-torture proposals, and punishment of war criminals have sometimes been combined with economic threats against those who might disagree with us. These unilateral acts and assertions increasingly isolate the United States from the very nations needed to join in combating terrorism.' - Jimmy Carter

thu 12 september 2002 "Catty," I say to myself, then I stare blankly at my computer screen.

wed 11 september 2002 'Here we find the solution to the question of how a hijack recovery system could be implemented using a central control facility, so that knowledge of the capability would not need to be widely dispersed among ground control personnel.' - <www.911-strike.com/remote_bb.htm>

tue 10 september 2002 Terri says, "It wouldn't be small if it was just me, but it's me, three kitties..."

mon 9 september 2002 'This Modern World The president's economic pablum. By Tom Tomorrow [2002-08-16]' - <dir.salon.com/topics/tom_tomorrow/index.html>

sun 8 september 2002 Standing and waiting with a crowd inside the lobby of a restaurant. Rich is reading Chort's T-shirt, something about the dangers of dancing.

sat 7 september 2002 I'm flipping through some pictures of Dragoncon on the web at <www.cobracares.com>.

fri 6 september 2002 I say, "Booda. No. Off." Booda lets go of the hose, and I say, "Good boy." Then I put my knife down on the picnic table and lean down to turn off the hose water.

thu 5 september 2002 The telephone rings. I pick it up. A guy on the other end says, "Cooper!" "Yeah," I answer. "It's Brian," he says.

wed 4 september 2002 I'm reading an online parts catalog and talking to Gil, who's on the other side of my desk. I say, "One of them is called, 'Caster; Heavy Duty Low Profile and Medium, with Brakes.'"

tue 3 september 2002 Izolda says, "We saw, somebody had made out of stones, a big mushroom."

mon 2 september 2002 Amethyst looks over at me while she's sitting down at the drum circle, and says, "What time is it John?" My watch beeps as she's finishing her question. I say, "What time is it? It's four eleven!"

sun 1 september 2002 I say, "I really like coffee."

sat 31 august 2002 Kory says, "Five," and moves a backgammon piece. Then he says, "Four," and stares at the board.

fri 30 august 2002 Gazing at the 750 monochromator's instrument readouts, wondering how many I should turn off (probably all of them).

thu 29 august 2002 I'm walking down the hallway, crumpling an empty bag of corn chips in my left hand, quite aware that my watch alarm is about to sound off.

wed 28 august 2002 I glance at the screen, which says, 'Press spacebar when grating is in place.' I look up at the grating position LEDs (it's running), and wonder if I can get out of the cleanroom, go to the restroom, and come back again before the scan completes.

tue 27 august 2002 Terri says, "Lots of deer poop!" Izolda says, "So, I think it's John."

mon 26 august 2002 I highlight the 'Betty' part of a file named '20020000000000Betty'.

sun 25 august 2002 I'm belaying Gary on a climb, and I hear Leah say, "Hello!" I look over my shoulder to see her reaching into her backpack.

sat 24 august 2002 Driving along Route 4, thinking about a vanity plate we just passed. It said 'N8V' and I'm wondering if it's supposed to be a word or phrase.

fri 23 august 2002 I'm getting into my cleanroom suit.

thu 22 august 2002 "And they say they still face racial discrimination with the aid field offices across the south." - a reporter on NPR

wed 21 august 2002 Leo is talking to me on the phone. He says, "No last Sunday, before they went to the furniture store. I was talking to you on the phone."

tue 20 august 2002 Terry Aquino laughs and then says, "Didn't like it."

mon 19 august 2002 'It should be that place where all inequities are corrected, all sins forgiven, and where one can exist fulfilled and triumphant.  This will be very possible in the following way.  Imagine a very large computer charged with the task of computing what might be called "General Heaven."' - from On the Soul by Ed Fredkin

sun 18 august 2002 Half asleep on the sofa right after a particularly violent "out of body" sleep paralysis episode, wondering how I'm going to explain the dents in the ceiling to Gina, or if the damage will even be there when I wake up.

sat 17 august 2002 Driving on Kenilworth Avenue. A van ahead of us has its turn signal on, for a long time now, and is just turning. I smile to myself. It reminds me of many years ago, when I and a few friends tried "following" other cars by going in front of them and waiting for their turn signals to come on.

fri 16 august 2002 From the hallway, I lock my office door with my keys.

thu 15 august 2002 I hit the 'F3' key several times, finding several more hidden tabs in my text file, right up to the 'StartOfData' heading. "Hmm," I say, then I look into the bag of corn chips I'm holding in my left hand. There are a few chips left.

wed 14 august 2002 "Now these things were made in China," Skip tells me on the phone, "and they retail for about seventy dollars."

tue 13 august 2002 Izolda says, "Yeah, so it's that one," pointing at my blue Bocci ball. I say, "I have four..."

mon 12 august 2002 My monitor switches back to a lower resolution after I wait for a window to time out, that says, 'The setting for your monitor has been changed. Click OK to confirm that the monitor is displaying correctly or click cancel to revert to the previous setting.'

sun 11 august 2002 Scrolling up through some pictures from our last trip, thinking about how we have pictures of the sauna at Polliwog Holler, but we never used it.

sat 10 august 2002 Sleeping on the downstairs bed with Gina and Booda. My arm is around Booda.

fri 9 august 2002 I paste <http://www.howstuffworks.com/caffeine2.htm> into an otherwise blank email window.

thu 8 august 2002 I'm standing, peeing into a toilet, with a David Kilgore song going through my head: (In the bathroom down the hall, I stepped into a stall, and there wasn't any toilet paper there.)

wed 7 august 2002 'Technically, Black always moves first. In a game of handicap N, White's first N-1 moves are pass plays.' - Ing's SST Rules of Go

tue 6 august 2002 "Where's the line?" I ask. "Oh, it's wherever the person who throws stands," says Izolda.

mon 5 august 2002 Singing along to a Lincoln CD with Gina as we drive down the freeway: "I hit the pedal like a trucker flip the finger so long, sucker."

sun 4 august 2002 Lynn says, "We wonder what 'toto' means."

sat 3 august august 2002 I close the door to the bathroom and reach toward the toilet paper.

fri 2 august 2002 "She has long blond hair," says Gina. "Yes she does," says her father, Grant. "Now she has short blond hair," says Aunt Marge.

thu 1 august 2002 Walking toward Buttermilk Falls with Gina. I notice a group of young people above us in the woods, discussing something. (Could be learning orienteering or something.)

wed 31 july 2002 In a theater, watching the beginning of Men In Black II, about 11 minutes into  the movie. [Sorry, missed the line. -jc]

tue 30 july 2002 "It'd be funner to walk by kinfolk," says Gina.

mon 29 july 2002 I'm in a library at Alfred U., looking over Gina's shoulder at a yearbook. One of the pictures, a girl looking sideways, captioned 'Teresa M. McMahon.'

sun 28 july 2002 "I did not know and I could not see who was waiting there, who was hunting me." - Leonard Cohen on a CD in the car

sat 27 july 2002 Playing whale songs on my didj with 25 other didjers at the didj dome at Starwood.

fri 26 july 2002 "I'm selling dead parrots and chocolate with frogs and spam served with spam and spam." "I don't want any spam!" - a song from the latest Dr. Demento album, Basement tapes #10

thu 25 july 2002 "I'll probably be in part of the day tomorrow, to wrap up, and then I'll be gone for a week." - me on phone

wed 24 july 2002 Whistling "Ana Ng" while getting out of my cleanroom bunny suit. Imagery of Go stones on a nine by nine board going through my mind.

tue 23 july 2002 Playing backgammon on my PDA. I roll a 6 and 1, and then glance up at my computer screen; the monochromator is still scanning.

mon 22 july 2002 Whistling "Ana Ng" by They Might Be Giants, while studying a lamp and figuring out how to remove it from its holder (it's probably cool enough).

sun 21 july 2002 "Get your tape measure out and measure this," says Gina, laughing as she points at a picture of a cabinet.

sat 20 july 2002 "Oh, but the first round we didn't count," says Jenny. "Yeah," I say, "you got a lot in the first round."

fri 19 july 2002 Rich says, "That cat was the best fuck I ever had." I say, "Yeah."

thu 18 july 2002 Unscrewing a set screw for the silicon detector, while tipping my head back and sniffling repeatedly to keep my stuffed up nose from dripping into my cleanroom face mask.

wed 17 july 2002 Parking Dippy, while listening to a news woman on the radio. She says, "Falling stock prices have caused lots of problems with lots of people."

tue 16 july 2002 I scroll down the back button's menu to www.memepool.com and select it, retreating from my company's timesheet site. My eyes randomly settle on the entry for July 8: 'Ted Williams, the cranky but revered Red Sox outfielder died Friday, July 5th.'

mon 15 july 2002 "So, they're supposed to come tomorrow morning," I say, sort of singing the word "morning" as I lean back in the chair and stretch.

sun 14 july 2002 "Are you too far, I mean, too close?" I ask as I'm aiming a digital camera at Brick. "No," he says, leaning away from the camera, "I think that's OK." I push the button and a red light flashes in the viewfinder.

sat 13 july 2002 Contemplating my next move in a Lord of the Rings board game. The text on one of my front playing pieces, the one representing Gandalf, reads, 'The dark player must play his card first.'

fri 12 july 2002 "He looked really mean, and he said, 'Do they let lesbians in the Girl Scouts?'" -me

thu 11 july 2002 Holding the bicycle tire pump in one hand, I close the shed doors together. (This is no good. The shed's getting too cluttered.)

wed 10 july 2002 "So I'm downstairs in the office and we're talking, and, and, about passports, and I say, 'yeah, oddly enough I have two passports.'" - anon on the phone

tue 9 july 2002 "She was sleeping on my shoulder and she started sneezing in rapid succession, you know, 'Achoo achoo achoo achoo achoo!'" - me

mon 8 july 2002 Talking with Kory on the phone. I say, "I've just got a million things to do and--" "-- and you don't feel like doing any of them right now." "Yeah."

sun 7 july 2002 Well the thing is ToK's willing to give you five or ten dollars so I think we're OK with thirty dollars in the fund." - Nathan

sat 6 july 2002 "You know you have to support each other because if you don't work together you die. So, the game forces you into that -- the game creates the same story." - Reiner Knizia

fri 5 july 2002 "And I immediately said, 'Yeah! I mauled him!'" - me

thu 4 july 2002 Kevin Jackson-Mead asks, "Andy, you wanna play Gnostica?" "No, my brain hasn't started working yet. Maybe tomorrow," says Zarf.

wed 3 july 2002 "Like I sometimes see people getting larges and mediums mixed up." - Kory

tue 2 july 2002 "...US forces ambushed a group of elders going to a tribal meeting in Kandahar." - car radio (NPR)

mon 1 july 2002 I drop down the 'Back' menu on my browser and view the list: 'Scientific American: Vox Populi  Scientific American  Smithsonian Magazine: Search'

sun 30 june 2002 I'm asleep in bed, Booda's curled up real close with his head on my arm and his paw on my chest, under my hand.

sat 29 june 2002 I'm talking to my Uncle Bill: "Yeah I remember this one time I went to this concert that had Psychedelic Furs..."

fri 28 june 2002 "We have your money here," says the attorney, David Cross, "but, we can't give it to you because her wire hasn't come in yet from the lender."

thu 27 june 2002 Half asleep on an airplane: in my dream I see a picture of a bald man at a table. He's either yawning or yelling, I can't tell.

wed 26 june 2002 Standing in line at a coffee shop. The woman in front of me drops a small piece of paper and quickly stoops down to retrieve it.

tue 25 june 2002 I place a black go stone towards a corner of the board, hopefully strengthening my territory there.

mon 24 june 2002 "At this point, you can try," says Pavel, "but you're just going to be putting stones in my territory."

sun 23 june 2002 "Every year or so, me and Gina and sometimes Jenny," I say. Then I'm interrupted by my alarm.

sat 22 june 2002 "I don't know about these motorcycle things," I yell to Khaled, as we pull out of the gas station on his motorcycle.

fri 21 june 2002 "So they decided to switch all the computers over to Linux," says Pat Grant.

thu 20 june 2002 Standing on a ladder, I pull the BNC cable off of the silicon detector.

wed 19 june 2002 The cashier says, "Your change," and hands me a dime. I say, "Thank you."

tue 18 june 2002 (Arrgh) I'm remembering that the computer I brought probably doesn't have the working standard lamp's irradiance data on the hard disk.

mon 17 june 2002 Pavel says, "Especially with companies that are not profitable, and just neutral."

sun 16 june 2002 I wipe my hands on a napkin and say, "Yummy!"

sat 15 june 2002 We're looking out the window as our airplane taxis toward the terminal. John Marketon says, "Oh yeah, get the fuel tank out of the way, that's a good idea."

fri 14 june 2002 Kissing Gina.

thu 13 june 2002 'One day he met a curate with whom he had formed an acquaintance and who had proved to be not only a good man and modest, but well-learned and the father of eight children, whom he suported on an income of 40 pounds a year.' - from Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745) by Charles A. Read

wed 12 june 2002 I say, "He said Brian wouldn't be laid off, and, that this was hard to do, that someone else would be laid off, and people were gonna get bumped."

tue 11 june 2002 Half asleep on my couch, dreaming about a pebbly beach. My dream guide says something like, "This is where the first purple cage was built."

mon 10 june 2002 I pause the cursor over a 'SUBMIT CHANGES' button.

sun 9 june 2002 "Still learning it or have you got the breathing?" asks Chris Strebb.  "I've got the breathing down, pretty well," I answer.

sat 8 june 2002 I'm playing a chord on Kevin Hollenbeck's keyboard and looking at the LCD display for the sound type (it says, 'OVRDRIVE').

fri 7 june 2002 I'm looking at an old instrument, a bulky little monochromator in a drawer, and saying "RSI quarter meter fast Ebert."

thu 6 june 2002 Looking at a block of code that is crapping out on me:  'Property Get Spectrum(index) As Single    If ErrCode <> 0 Then Spectrum = 0#    Spectrum = Avg(index)  End Property'

wed 5 june 2002 Gil closes his briefcase and says, "So, I gotta leave."

tue 4 june 2002 Talking on the phone with Leo. He says, "Have you heard from that boy lately?"  I say, "No..."  He makes a mocking laugh: "Eh heh."

mon 3 june 2002 "Because," says Jim Butler, leaning way back in his chair, with his hands behind his head, "I should do that today to give him a heads up."

sun 2 june 2002 Everyone (Leo, myself, Kory, and Lucy) is laughing. I hear Leo behind me idly drumming on the futon with drumsticks.

sat 1 june 2002 The sales woman at a furniture store is speaking with a moderate Russian accent: "We don't have air conditioning here, so that's the most awful part of the Summer."

fri 31 may 2002 Turning the monochromator's phase angle setting knob quickly clockwise toward 311 degrees.

thu 30 may 2002 "They were actually regrouping in the cities and joining up with other groups there." - NPR radio telephone interview

wed 29 may 2002 Scrutinizing a series of numbers on a spreadsheet,'15 10 28 8 24 17 16 31 27 12 16 24 20 25 19 27 27 20 26 23 31 7 14 27' and looking for a cypher solution.

tue 28 may 2002 Listening to some guy being interviewed on the radio: "The dioceses responded by trying to keep everybody quiet."

mon 27 may 2002 "And I probably played my CDs all the way from Kansas to here," says Joe.  I say, "Yup, ran 'em all out."

sun 26 may 2002 "I'm not sure that pitcher is full," I say, following Ken into the house, "Le' me -- 'cause I used it last night."

sat 25 may 2002 Gina says, "Hey, John says that I can let this dry at the top and I can just poke a hole through it."  Atticus says, "Uh Huh."

fri 24 may 2002 I'm using an electric drill to screw in a hinge on a chest I'm building.

thu 23 may 2002 I'm leaning over the server's monitor, holding the mouse at ready. A little window pops up, saying, 'Starting Appleshare Web and File Server. Please wait. This may take a few minutes.'

wed 22 may 2002 I lean over and tip my head sideways, eyeballing the vertical alignment of the Cloud Absorption Radiometer.

tue 21 may 2002 I walk past an old stump of a tree, remembering how last week I saw a lizard poking its head out of the hole in the stump's center.

mon 20 may 2002 I just started a game of Space War on my PDA, while waiting for the last monochromator scan to finish. I'm thinking that the Dominion ship is outnumbered by me and my fellow Klingons, three to one.

sun 19 may 2002 Playing my bamboo dijeridu in the woods with a lot of drummers.

sat 18 may 2002 Walking from the kitchen into the living room of my old house, I nudge an air cleaner aside with my foot.

fri 17 may 2002 Sitting in Dippy, listening to Jimmy Carter, in an interview on the radio: "But I will say in all my visits, no one ever brought up this question, at all."

thu 16 may 2002 'mtg w/ Charles Getebe regarding CAR data. May be ~.4% coldspot in Hardy (lower left quadrant)' - from my task log at work

wed 15 may 2002 Washing my hands in the sink and thinking of telling Booda that this is a nice little faucet we found here.

tue 14 may 2002 Parking Dippy at Greenbelt Homes, Inc.

mon 13 may 2002 Riding in John Marketon's car. I say, "Maybe it's because women who aren't as pretty 'make up for it' with a more outgoing personality."

sun 12 may 2002 Maug opens the door on his van as I unbuckle and say, "It is a really nice scooter."

sat 11 may 2002 Rhonda says, "I'll probably just do it one way because they have a barbecue over at their house."

fri 10 may 2002 Joe Naab says, "Hey, Billy, let's put your padders on if you're gonna be running around outside."

thu 9 may 2002 'Then suddenly there was Bishop Lee, smiling and white-haired and kindly, asking me to please come in now. I think he thought Jerry was my husband; he shook his hand firmly and said hello.' - from God and I by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

wed 8 may 2002 Sitting on the toilet, playing backgammon on my PDA. The computer player just rolled double threes.

tue 7 may 2002 Talking on the phone with Leo. He says, "John's so innocent, he's very quiet, he must be innocent." I say, "I'm very innocent."

mon 6 may 2002 John Marketon says, "Yeah, otherwise you have to pay twice, for two different numbers."

sun 5 may 2002 Izolda says, "Can't you like, figure something out?"

sat 4 may 2002 As I tend to some oyster mushrooms frying in a pan, I sing a line from an eighties tune: "That's why you'll always find him in the kitchen at parties." Then I add an enthusiastic "Yeah!"

fri 3 may 2002 Descending the attic ladder of our new house.

thu 2 may 2002 I'm in the cleanroom, calling into my office for voicemail. A woman's voice says, "You have one, new message."

wed 1 may 2002 I take off my left cleanroom glove liner and survey an old cut on my thumb that's aching.

wed 30 apr 2002 I'm sitting by myself at a table in a Chinese food restaurant. I'm looking at an older woman standing near the exit, talking to two employees. She says, "Do they loiter? Teenagers? Just hang around?"

wed 29 apr 2002 Walking in the parking lot past the co-op grocery store, with my hands in my pockets, wondering if I should try for a nap.

wed 28 apr 2002 Gina says, "You want an anti-fart pill?" Jenny says, "No thanks. I'm just gonna fart."

wed 27 apr 2002 Sitting in Bruce Beard's car, he's driving. He says, "May is the last full month of school, so, I'm doing all right."

wed 26 apr 2002 Thirsty and tired, in the darkened cleanroom. Leaning back in my chair with my arms crossed, staring at the computer screen as signals scroll down. I yawn.

wed 25 apr 2002 John Marketon highlights a list of files and says, "I don't know if this is even going to work. I just..." He opens them with the application.

wed 24 apr 2002 I hang up the phone and look at the screen, at an email from David Strother. The subject line reads, '"The Next Industrial Revolution" on TV tonight.'

tue 23 apr 2002 "Cool."  "So, that's that." - Dad and I, via phone

mon 22 apr 2002 "It was very good. So this one has names like Circular Firing Squad..."  - Skip, via telephone.

sun 21 apr 2002 Scanning a Google list for information on hieroglyphs, I read, 'Hieroglyphs! (A guide and web directory to Egyptian Hieroglyphs).'

sat 20 apr 2002 I'm sitting on a bench at town center with Gina leaning against me, listening to Nonchalant Peak, a large industrial punkish band, playing a cacophony of sounds. One of the members shouts various quick scat sounds into a microphone.

fri 19 apr 2002 I close the car window, remembering that I have to call Jennifer Sager and tell her I can't pick her up.

thu 18 apr 2002 "Now come about the year two thousand and six they're gonna say, 'where was this?'" says Jim Butler. I say, "Right!" and then sneeze, and laugh as his voice rises in a mock panic -- "And I'm gonna say, 'aaaeeyiiaaoooaaah, I don't have any funding!"

wed 17 apr 2002 While carefully placing the detached monochromator's input sphere safely behind the Monochromator, my wrist starts hurting. "Ow!" I say, surprised at the joint pain.

tue 16 apr 2002 I click the cursor in a form box labeled 'Search Through Cohen's Poems:'

mon 15 apr 2002 Gil Smith says, "Find a window. Make a picture so that there are no angles."

sun 14 apr 2002 My right hand places a Quorn nugget back on my plate, while I take a bite from a small piece of toast in my left hand.

sat 13 apr 2002 Dozing face down on my bed, with my feet hanging off the edge, still in their shoes. Half dreams of manipulating objects that are weird combinations of lamps, playing cards, and entoloma mushrooms.

fri 12 apr 2002 "Where the cyclic model, for better or for worse, is a total, total, copied [unheard]. The future is predicted. The future is the past." - Lecture by Paul Steinhardt at Building 8

thu 11 apr 2002 Chin in one hand and mouse in the other, I'm looking through a Googled list, and settle on '... Quartzline® Halogen Lamps Select the product code for more detailed information. ...' (Maybe they have it.)

wed 10 apr 2002 I turn the phase angle knob quickly counterclockwise, and watch the signal decrease on the lock-in radiometer.

tue 9 apr 2002 '"Political scientist" L David Raub reports a poll of 72 of the "leading cosmologists and other quantum field theorists" about the "Many-Worlds Interpretation"...' - from The Everett FAQ

mon 8 apr 2002 I'm in the cleanroom, talking on the phone. "I think that's the one, because it's the only power supply in the rack that has no ECN sticker."

sun 7 apr 2002 Dealing out my homemade cards in piles, thinking, (four three two one, four three two one.)

sat 6 apr 2002 I'm waiting at a subway platform, joking with Grant. I say, in a characteristic deeper, educated voice, "I was sad that I had no hat, until I saw a man with no head." Grant giggles.

fri 5 apr 2002 I lay my template on another card, and hear Gina in the other room saying, "No, we're going to have cookies!"

thu 4 apr 2002 I'm in the dark cleanroom, hunched over a laptop, typing, 'S020404g 16 lamps'.

wed 3 apr 2002 As I look from the PC's monitor over my shoulder to the Mac, I scratch my head and wonder if there's time to update some links.

tue 2 apr 2002 'Billions of neutrinos stream through your body every second, yet only one or two of the higher energy neutrinos will scatter from you in your lifetime.' - The Neutrino and the SNP

mon 1 apr 2002 I'm walking behind Gina and Dale. I point at some cherry blossom trees and say, "See how much healthier the white ones look?"

sun 31 mar 2002 Sitting on the toilet in a community center, poking the 'company' field of 'Clair Cassidy', thinking of entering 'edible book festival'.

sat 30 mar 2002 Leaving work, running down the stairs two at a time, singing the Gorillaz "Clint Eastwood" song to myself -- "I'm useless, but not for long, the future is comin' on..."

fri 29 mar 2002 As I lick my lips from thirst, I open the cleanroom anteroom door and exit into the hallway.

thu 28 mar 2002 "...and junk has happened, so, so much has happened in the past ten years," says Leo, on the phone.

wed 27 mar 2002 "That's better," I say to myself while walking into the living room. I note the leftover pain in my lower back, and say, "Mebbee." I pick up an empty box marked 'BOOKS', and add, "Mebbee not."

tue 26 mar 2002 Driving Dippy home. As I take a left onto Ridge Road, thoughts of a card game design, based on voting, flood my brain.

mon 25 mar 2002 I'm talking to Gina. I say, "She just put a tab on it to remind her to have us sign it later, I mean, when we meet with her."

sun 24 mar 2002 I hear Jennifer Sager outside, on the front porch talking to Gina: "So next Saturday and Sunday I'll be with my family."

sat 23 mar 2002 The bed feels cozy. I pull the covers over my face, mumbling to myself, "I'll just hole up under here for a while."

fri 22 mar 2002 Digging for change in my pocket while eyeing a bag of peanut M&Ms in the machine, and thinking about graphics for Demons.

thu 21 mar 2002 Marketon stands at his car's fender on the driver's side, and begins rocking the car by pulling up on the wheel well, while I watch the back end to make sure it's not wandering off the lift. On the garage's radio in the background, some news about the Vatican, priests, and pedophilia.

wed 20 mar 2002 "I might have to do that 'training' thing," says Jim Butler. "You really want to go to Utah, don't you?" asks Anonymous.

tue 19 mar 2002 In the cleanroom, waiting for the monochromator's last scan to run, and playing Backgammon on my PDA. I just rolled a 4 and 2.

mon 18 mar 2002 Walking slowly down the hallway toward Marketon's office, idly dreaming up lyrics to some parody of 'A Day in the Life' by the Beatles, something like: (I read Yahoo today oh boy, four thousand seats in MCI Center, and though the stage looks rather small, Ticketron just sold them all...)

sun 17 mar 2002 Talking to my brother, Frank, on the telephone. He says, "Heh heh, that's funny." I say, "Yeah I always see him riding by on his bicycle."

sat 16 mar 2002 Marcia Litt says, "She goes up to this machine with, I don't know God knows what, and she takes out her phone."

fri 15 mar 2002 I'm riding home on my bicycle. I speed up down the curving entrance ramp, aware of a car approaching from behind.

thu 14 mar 2002 Writing a short test email to Kory: 'this one's going to both, so you should get two.'

wed 13 mar 2002 At a lecture, Manuela Veloso gestures toward a view graph and says, "Go to the full, and dashed -- the new branch of the tree; with probability R, go to, expand a point toward, eh, cached point from a previous plan, and with probability one minus T minus R, go randomly."

tue 12 mar 2002 I'm reading my 401k website: 'But, because you are paying the interest to yourself, it isn't an additional cost. Just think of it as forced savings.'

mon 11 mar 2002 At a phase angle of 234 degrees the signal reading is negative 0.563 e-9 amps, and I'm mumbling, "what the hell?"

sun 10 mar 2002 Gina looks at me and says, "It's a pretty cheap place. It's really nicer than most housing, for the price."

sat 9 mar 2002 We're on I-95, Bruce is driving, I'm in the front passenger seat. Kory, from the back seat, says, "Those were the days." I say, "Yep." He says, "Party every night."

fri 8 mar 2002 I'm in Hardy's cleanroom with John Marketon. I say, "You wanna fire it up just to see it stabilize?" He says, "Exactly."

thu 7 mar 2002 I'm talking to somebody on the phone. He says, "Rob and Dan got a divorce." I say, "Oh really!"  He says, "Well, they were on the outs when they moved."

wed 6 mar 2002 John Marketon says, "They cooked these chicken wings just right." I say, "That's good to hear, I can vicariously enjoy it through you."

tue 5 mar 2002 I look at Dippy's odometer and it says, '70200.9.' (Maybe another 2000 miles or so before the next oil change.)

mon 4 mar 2002 'It is convex but flattens with age and develops a slight depression in the centre. Deep purplish-lilac in colour, it dries to an almost buff colour. - The Ultimate Mushroom Book by Jordan and Wheeler, entry for Amethyst Deceiver

sun 3 mar 2002 I'm lying on the couch talking to Gina on the phone. She says, "OK." I say, "Do you wanna go soon, or, I mean, are you gonna come home?

sat 2 mar 2002 I'm wearing a bandana on my face, and looking for the backscratcher in our bedroom. I pick up a short dowel. (If I tape a little hook to it, maybe it'll do the job.)

fri 1 mar 2002 Driving and listening to some guy on NPR saying, "He has to say why we have to go after Iraq, why we have to go after Iran. This is what he has to do; and he hasn't done that."

thu 28 feb 2002 I watch as a jittery animated white triangle moves about a dark screen, randomly twisting, growing, and shrinking.

wed 27 feb 2002 I'm reading a LabVIEW help file: 'Returns a portion of array starting at index and containing length elements. Array can be an n-dimensional array of any type. Function is resizable.'

tue 26 feb 2002 'The intensity graph is the same as the intensity chart, essentially, except it does not retain previous data. Each time it is passed new data, the new data replaces old data as it arrives.' - G Programming Reference Manual

mon 25 feb 2002 Staring at the diagram of my SAM1 program, just thinking general thoughts about consolidating some functions.

sun 24 feb 2002 Lying on my back in bed with a slight fever, wiggling my toes and daydreaming. -- Random scenes from The Wizard of Oz movie accompanied by garbled background thoughts of my Haiku Movie Review for Oz, while the daydream soundtrack plays some hardcore rock  lyrics repeating over and over, "Off to never never land, off to never never land."

sat 23 feb 2002 Mindlessly surfing through Google's site while sucking on a throat drop. 'This service can be up and running in five minutes. (Google reserves the right to sell ads on the results pages.)'

fri 22 feb 2002 Lying in bed under thick covers with all my clothes on, but it's still cold. I hear a police siren outside, maybe a block away.

thu 21 feb 2002 'ANTEATER:  Speaking of number theory, I am reminded of J. S. F. again, for number theory is one of the domains in which he excelled.'  - Prelude... Ant Fugue, by Douglas R. Hofstadter

wed 20 feb 2002 I take a sip of tea. I'm very dizzy. The upstairs neighbor's dog barks.

tue 19 feb 2002 As I walk toward my car, I stare at the keys in my hand. Far away in the woods behind the parking lot, I hear a bird singing, and I wonder how long Gina will be working.

mon 18 feb 2002 Watching a movie with my brother Thom and Gina. Two state troopers walk down a street and turn into an alley.

sun 17 feb 2002 Sharing a microphone with Rass; he's playing an udu and I'm playing a dijeridu on stage at the New Deal Cafe. Other people are playing drums.

sat 16 feb 2002 Walking with Gina and Booda on a sidewalk. I look into a back yard (it looks like a tree took out part of the fence).

fri 15 feb 2002 I'm attending a scientific colloquium. Mark Norell points at a projected slide, a close-up of fossilized feather imprints, and says, "...which appear to have a central radiance, or a central shin -- shaft -- and then vanes coming off the sides."

thu 14 feb 2002 I exit the cleanroom lab's anteroom with John Marketon and two unknown male technicians, and they all head down the hall while I start in the other direction toward my office. "Get those roses out," says one guy. I say, "Hey, good luck on the rest of that."

wed 13 feb 2002 I say, "Oh, dammit, I've got the wrong..." Then I open another toolbox drawer and pull out a centimeter ruler.

tue 12 feb 2002 I say, "Maybe it doesn't want to." John Marketon says, "Maybe it's too much for it."

mon 11 feb 2002 Leo is talking to me on the phone. He says, "It's like your basic war game; you have your armies and move them around on the board and stuff."

sun 10 feb 2002 Sitting on the sofa with Gina, and Booda between us. I flip open my PDA, stare at it briefly without turning it on, and say, "Take a picture of the goblets," to myself.

sat 9 feb 2002 Front passenger side of Bruce's car, going North on Rt. 95: I look to my right; there's a dark green sedan pacing us. The driver is talking on his cell phone. (He looks a little like my dad.)

fri 8 feb 2002 I rub my eyes, thinking about how I want to nest my while loops, then look up again at the screen. A line of documentation reads: 'Wait for user to press Map Source button.'

thu 7 feb 2002 Perusing the aperture mapping program, thinking I should insist that all motor control commands run with a end line mode = 1 (with added documentation for the mode definition), then I get sidetracked  looking at a command line: 'V^\n.' (What's a caret again?) I wonder.

wed 6 feb 2002 "At 4:30 every day the sphere monitor would say there was a five percent change, so the VXR should show the same change," says Jim Butler, indicating the graph on the overhead screen with his pointer. "But it didn't."

tue 5 feb 2002 I drag '20020116notesUncle.txt' to my floppy drive icon. While the file copies I push back my chair from the computer, remembering a piece of scrap paper with some notes that I have to pick up before I leave the cleanroom.

mon 4 feb 2002 "Now, since you've taken it," I say, temporarily putting the red 2-point Icehouse piece in John Marketon's stash, "you can play it any way you want. So you can play it out like this." I place the piece upright on the bar.

sun 3 feb 2002 I make sure my URL is correct, <http://www.greenbelt.com/ginohn/ >, and hit the return key. Ginohn's default page appears on the screen.

sat 2 feb 2002 A woman's voice on the radio announces, "Zee, one oh four!" as I pull up to the four way stop.

fri 1 feb 2002 At a lecture in Building 3, Gregory Chaitin says, "Because they use them for ideas, you know magicians seem to think in very black and white terms..." I'm thinking he meant mathematicians, not magicians.

thu 31 jan 2002 John Marketon "Quite frankly, the right thing to do..." I interrupt. "What do you have--" The alarm on my watch interrupts us both.

wed 30 jan 2002 I turn away from the "coat shelf" in our living room, and let out a big sigh.

tue 29 jan 2002 Jim Butler sits behind me; he's talking to John Marketon as I search for a file on my computer: "He has his data, I mean, the data that Ames sent."

mon 28 jan 2002 I'm fully suited, crouching inside "Hardy", the six-foot sphere, holding tightly to a lamp post bolt. I can hear John Marketon twisting a nut onto the bolt from the other side. My hand aches.

sun 27 jan 2002 Eating a salad and watching TV, a show on PBS titled 'Heritage: Civilization and the Jews'. An old black and white clip shows a ship full of people drifting slowly by a dock, while a man's voice says, "For those of us who were still aboard, and watched from wire cages, these were moments of dread and foreboding."

sat 26 jan 2002 Eating dinner at the New Deal Cafe with Kory. He says, "That's true, but it may not be more than what you normally need."

fri 25 jan 2002 I pour steaming hot water from a pitcher into a plastic lab bin, carefully keeping the stream from splashing into the beaker in the bin that's full of deionized water.

thu 24 jan 2002 Sifting through a pile of papers and manuals, trying to find some numbers for converting stepper motor pulses to vertical and horizontal distances. (I *know* I wrote this down on some scrap of  paper.)

wed 23 jan 2002 I open BBedit, a text editor, from the 'Recent Applications' part of my Mac's system menu. The phrase (Jeezy Peezy) is echoing in my mind, accompanied by imagery from the "Jeepers Creepers" episode of Mr. Show.

tue 22 jan 2002 I say, "OK, I'm up for a beer," while John Marketon points upward and exclaims, "Beer Eleven!"

mon 21 jan 2002 I place the shoes back in their box, thinking they look really cool without the shoelaces, but they slip on my feet too much.

sun 20 jan 2002 With drummers drumming all around, I turn my didjeridu out towards the belly dancer, Deborah, and give three loud toots.

sat 19 jan 2002 Walking through the snow on a trail in the woods; Booda's ahead of me. Some of the patches of snow on tree trunks remind me of lion's mane mushrooms.

fri 18 jan 2002 I change my email settings to check for mail every 10 minutes.

thu 17 jan 2002 Listening to NPR on the car radio while driving home. A woman says, "What they can do now is send these tapes to Germany, because some of these people may have been in Germany..."

wed 16 jan 2002 In the cleanroom, sitting in a chair and leaning against a 'Flammable Liquids' cabinet, talking to Molly Schmitz. "I had that cold that just dragged, now it's spiking on me again." While I'm saying that, Molly voices a sympathetic "Aw..."

tue 15 jan 2002 Waiting in the lobby of the dentist's office, reading a Newsweek magazine: '"She was perfect," Jeunet says. "When I met her I thought, 'Where did you come from? Are you an E.T.?'"'

mon 14 jan 2002 I enter '746' into the 'Instrument' field on an on-line form.

sun 13 jan 2002 I'm watching a French movie titled Amelie. The creep in the cafe is speaking to Amelie. The subtitles say, 'Back he comes and, hey, presto! Out they go!'

sat 12 jan 2002 Eating dinner with Kory. He says, "The only thing that needs to exist is a single bit, like one off and one on, and you could u--" He pauses, appearing to think deeply while he surveys his plate.

fri 11 jan 2002 I'm in the break room, cleaning chewed up peanut butter cookies from my molars with my tongue, while I read an article from the Washington Post titled 'Stephen Ambrose and the Rights of Passage': 'Well, there's this: As any writer knows, when you crank out books as fast as assembly lines crank out cars, there's a danger that the books, like the cars, will all start looking alike.'

thu 10 jan 2002 Pat Cade is talking to me on the phone: "So I thought it would be a good idea to bring her around to meet everybody, you know."

wed 9 jan 2002 I'm perusing a Google list. Under the heading, 'OUP USA: The End of Time': '... a role in the foundations of physics. ... presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion.'

tue 8 jan 2002 "It's probably not related at all to the RAID system," I say to John Marketon.

mon 7 jan 2002 'It is now conceded, even by the luniest of cerealogists, that 'grapeshot' circles, or 'signatures' - small circles, usually about 1 metre across, and separate from the main formation - could be regarded as of human manufacture. This type of official alert often precedes dismissal as a genuine component.' - circlemakers' beginners guide

sun 6 jan 2002 I'm turning from the kitchen sink toward the table, drying my hands on my pants and thinking about cleaning up some leftover potato chips by just crumpling them up in the napkin they're lying on and throwing them away.

sat 5 jan 2002 David Strother says, "Resources?" as I push the 'Driver File Details' button.

fri 4 jan 2002 'For example, u(28) = 0, as 28 is divisible by 4 = 22 ' - www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~mwatkins/zeta/ss-k.htm

thu 3 jan 2002 I finish buttoning my cleanroom hood, aware that I'm still sweating from working in the cleanroom earlier.

wed 2 jan 2002 I'm watching a film - The Lord of the Rings. A surge of water storms down the river and crashes into the ringwraiths, washing them and their horses away.

tue 1 jan 2002 I'm standing with Booda in the middle of Beaver Dam Road, woods all around us. I attach Booda's leash and say, "Good boy!" He starts trotting off, and I let the leash slip through one hand as I catch the handle with the other. "Hold on..."

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