Victim of Obsession

Greetings from the Left Coast

My travel companion has hit the sack at 8:40 so I am left to entertain myself, so I am stopping by the blogosphere to say hi. The Pacific Northwest has lived up to my expectations and then some. Ecola State Park and Haystack Rock can only be described by one word: magical. It’s something about the mist that gives it this magical feeling and makes you feel like you’re someplace special. I have to come back when I don’t have a three-day meeting to get to. I’m in Portland now at a surprisingly nice HoJo. And if you’re wondering, I did make it to the Goonies house. All my pictures look fabulous on my little camera screen so I can’t wait to upload them. The laptop doesn’t want to play with my camera so it’ll have to wait until Thursday, at the earliest. Some random parting thoughts on Washington and Oregon:

-They do love their drive-through espresso stands.
-You know you’re in the Pacific Northwest when you see Birkenstock stores and logging mills.
-Hood-to-Coast racers are an, uh, interesting bunch.
-Mt. St. Helens looms seriously large here. It would’ve been nice if the pilot had told me that’s what I was looking at (that and Mt. Rainier). Luckily I’m crazy with the camera and snapped a few shots of what I thought just had to be something important.
-Blue and green. Lots and lots of blue and green.

Gone but Not Forgotten

On Sunday my friend Ronnie passed away. He was one of my deli buddies—really the glue that kept the gang together—and a surrogate grandpa who loved the Yankees. I will really miss him and our talks about baseball and men, and the silly arguments he would get into with us over things like affordable housing in Saratoga, whether or not you need a masters to be a teacher, and the rules of the road. I only wish I’d known him a lot longer than I did because he had a big heart and had clearly been a good friend to so many people. He fought a long battle against cancer and I never ever saw his spirits down. Partly because of that I once again allowed myself to believe that people can get through anything if you just believe and hope and pray.

I hope he is at peace and hangin’ with all the Yankee greats. Spring Street won’t be the same without you, Ronnie.

Do I Hear $1,000?

It’s bachelor auction day at the B&B down the street! Wooo!

Diamond Dreams

A major focus of my vacation a couple of weeks ago was baseball. I chose that week to take off months ago with the intention of doing something related to the MLB All Star Game since it was, after all, going to be at Yankee Stadium. I have finally uploaded all the fun...player stalking, statues on parade, lots of photos with inanimate objects, and more. Enjoy!

My Poor Brain

It’s certainly no breaking news story that I frequently have trouble sleeping. Whether it’s the cat or my overactive brain, I’m often woken up a couple of times a night. Last night was the worse. After going to bed early because I could barely keep my eyes open, for some reason I couldn’t actually fall asleep. At all. Ever.

I knew I had a rough day ahead of me; a 9:30am conference call, two afternoon meetings, and dinner out with coworkers (not that that’s rough, but when you’re already sleep-deprived, you just want to go home). I walk in the office and I immediately know things are eschew because my one coworker is there before me. This does not happen. Sure enough, she was there early because of guilt. Guilt that she’d had a conference call time wrong and, as a result, I was now the only one free to do a virtual presentation, one I was slated to do the following week and was thus totally unprepared for today. Oh the joy. That is happening in 1/2 hour. I don’t like the way the presentation is structured but it’s far too late to do anything about that now. All I can hope for is that I make some semblance of sense and don’t say anything terribly erroneous or divulge anything immensely confidential. With my poor tired brain, I’m not sure how I’ll manage.

UPDATE: It’s 4:47pm. I’m still alive. We canceled one meeting due to my sleep deprivation so that helped. Now I just need to make it through dinner…

Oh Can't You See, You Belong to Me

I just discovered a new, easily accessible jockey just around the corner from work. Watch out.

Tree Huggers in Training

I’m starting ‘em early.

Saving Face

I had tried joining Facebook many moons ago and was horrified to learn that there was an online community that I, not being a student, was excluded from. In the intervening years I came to (more than) embrace Myspace. Now, of course, Facebook opened its doors to us older folk and I very reluctantly joined (oh yes, my grudges extend to websites). It was fun, for about a week, but then it just got annoying when people I didn’t know started telling me to feed my pet Dolphin because he was on the Most Hungry List. Now I’m noticing a new phenomenon. Amnesia.

Somehow most people I went to school have managed to completely stay out of the Myspace loop, yet when Facebook removed the age limits, the floodgates opened and they came flying in. I was able to find people I hadn’t thought of in years on there. But find is all I had any interest in doing. Sure, there are a few people that I did and would love to reconnect with, but for the most part I stayed in touch with anyone I really wanted to remain friends with. Somehow this concept has escaped my peers. I’m getting friend requests from arch-nemeses, friends are getting friend requests from evil ex-boyfriends, my brother is befriending his former bullies...is everyone mad or have they simply forgotten the past? Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? Should I engage in this collective amnesia? I think not. I’d rather delete my account than pretend that I have any interest in being ‘friends’—virtually or otherwise—with these people.

Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon? Have you succumbed? Are you guilty of such behavior?!

In Lieu of a Post, I Bring You Plagiarism

I’m back at work after a week of vacation and 4 1/2 hours of sleep, so why try to recount the past week when someone else has already done it for me? This gets you Sunday—Tuesday, just from the perspective of a fan of that other New York team.

Sex, Drugs, Rock n Roll and Cameras

I love my new camera.

How I could’ve ever settled for less zoom I’ll never understand.

Also? STP? Awesome. I obviously knew I liked them enough to want to go, but I really had no idea I knew all the songs I did...and loved them all. Except the new ones...those concern me.

When Scott Weiland first came out things did not bode well. They were late, he looked skeletal, and he sounded, uh, out of it. But he and the rest of STP put on a great show despite the less than sell-out crowd. The Secret Machines, however? Defintely rank up there among the worst performances I’ve ever seen. Downright torturous. And who needs that on a school night?! You know what else I don’t need? Smoking. And I don’t mean the good kind, though there was certainly plenty of that too. I’ve never seen so much blatant smoking at an indoor venue. You can actually see plumes in my videos.

Full set of pics is here.