Staring at a note fragment on my PDA: 'tarot are Poet, I. Site operator at'

I fill a clear measuring pitcher with water at the kitchen sink, and hold the pitcher up to look at the volume: '2 Cups.' (Just right.)

I point over to the exposed white inside of the six foot diameter sphere, and say, loudly, over the noise of the blowers in the cleanroom, "I want to get that sealed off before we do something... bad."
"Aw, don't even worry about it," yells John Marketon.

'On average, their brightness compares to moderately bright aurorae, 10-50 kiloRayleighs.'
- <http://elf.gi.alaska.edu/>

I take a sip of coffee, rub my face and push back my hair, and review some email I'm writing to Kory: 'All I have to do is figure out how to teach Gnostica in two minutes, and then Zendo is toast, buddy.'

I right click on 'Rules for Milken' and pause, wondering why I right clicked on it.

"I think Martin and Liana have it on tape," says Margit.

I right click on the attachment 'Modbus html pages.zip', and click on 'Save as'.

Somebody in my dream says, "I think you're right."

"Oh, look at these!" says Gina, pointing up at some multi-colored snowball-type Christmas lights.
"Oh," I say, randomly pointing at a ceramic jolly snowman, "look at this."
Gina laughs and says, "Shut up, I like it."

A newsman on the radio in the office I'm sitting in says, "...may not extend to the U.S. deployment..."

I flip back a couple pages in the appendix to a thermoelectric cooler controller, quickly check the 'Read Multiple Registers Command', and glance at the positions of the CRC low and high bytes.

Half asleep face down in bed, pictures of Gina in my waking dreams (pictures that seem to be photographs of her, smiling), with Al Yankovic's "Albuquerque" as a dream soundtrack. I'm aware of Mango sleeping beside me, lying against my thigh.

Eating some 'Bar-B-Q' flavored potato chips and looking at the logo on the Megway website.

Dave Palace is driving and laughing as I (also laughing) read aloud from an article in the latest issue of Too Much Coffee Man Magazine: "But upon further examination I confirmed that the coffee was indeed headed 'up'."

I'm standing with the rest of the wedding party in the front of the Citadel's chapel, watching the bride (Shawn Whitaker) and her parents walking slowly toward us, up the aisle. The organist is playing Here Comes The Bride, loudly.

Watching TV about the Sidney Harbor Bridge climb for tourists. The climb leader guy says, "Refocus, climb on," in an Aussie accent.

Waiting in a van at a stoplight. Some Echo and the Bunnymen song is playing on the CD player.

At the kitchen sink, I look over to an iron skillet the stove, where I'm sautéing some very large oyster mushrooms.

I'm looking over Anon's shoulder at a spreadsheet. I say, "Yeah I think so, it's just going to move down the line there and each time it's going to calculate to the left."
Anon says, "Yup."

Looking at part of a handwritten mathematical equation, thinking about how to fit it to my monitoring data. My notes look something like this:

' ln ( ) = ln a -t/T '
     e        e

John Marketon and I walk away from building 8. He says, "Yeah, there's a bit of a bite in the air."

I'm washing a small yellow plastic bowl in the kitchen sink.

As I walk toward the Men's room at the Maryland House rest area, I absentmindedly whistle a Christmas tune (Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you).

I take a bite of a peppermint patty and look from a spreadsheet on one computer, over my shoulder to another computer's screen while I chew. Its clock says, '4:11 PM.'

Adjusting the lock-in for the monochromator's chopper phase angle to 310 degrees.

Eating an apple and looking at a 'Reported Events' page on GSFC's intranet: 'Two piles of a sand-like substance were found on the floor of two separate rooms. Bystander statements indicated that the substance "tasted gritty, like sand." [Note: Unknown substances should never be touched or tasted.]'

Browsing through the Segway HT site: 'Each motor is wound as two separate electrical circuits capable of independent operation, acting as one mechanical entity.'
<http://www.segway.com.edgesuite.net/consumer/segway/product_specifications.html>

While putting on a white cleanroom underglove, I humorously imagine Mushrooms Demystified's identification key for the some of the Amanita group (something like, 'pleasant taste followed by unpleasant death within two weeks ...... Amanita Virosa').

I glance up at the computer screen. The scan is almost finished, it's at 1070 nanometers. I look back at my PDA, where I'm losing a game of backgammon.

I'm putting dirty clothes in a basket and grinning as Gina, from the kitchen, yells, "You know, it's traditional for a four eleven sabotage to include the word Poopy!"

I say, "Oh, they actually had that!"
Jim Butler says, "Yeah, they actually had their maiden names! That was what was on one of them."

Glancing back and forth from the computer as it boots to the display on the lock-in radiometer. The computer says, 'Starting Windows 95.'

I'm holding my cleanroom suit up high and unrolling the legs.

Starting up my email application, I'm surprised by an old email that pops up. The subject line reads, 'DreamHost Newsletter v3.10 October 2001.'

I'm putting my cleanroom suit on a hanger, making sure I don't let it touch the floor.

A man's voice on the phone says, "Thanks for calling Verio dial up network. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties that may prevent users from sending email. For all other issues please hold and a technician will be with you shortly."

On-line chat with Kory:
'ginohn@wunderland.com says:
wanna meet at new deal?
kory@wunderland.com says:
that's how they all feel... at first'

I'm cutting through a large three by four foot section of our wedding tree with a chainsaw.

Aunt Judy, sitting to my right, says, "It's not good to have that too full feeling on Thanksgiving."

"I think that may have been the definition of a nightmare in the first place; where you're taken on a wild ride or something."
- me

Looking over John Marketon's shoulder at the 'host list' window on our server.

Jim Butler says, "I could get a completely new wiring harness for the thing; it'd be a couple hundred bucks."

"I've got some pieces recorded like that actually," says Jeff to Izolda; then he starts playing his drums.

I'm looking on the shelf where I keep my Icehouse stuff. "You have the Icehouse game right?" I ask.
"Yeah," says Kory.
"Oh, 'cause I can't find anything here. I guess..." 

'Although NLP itself is, I think, a great meta-model of how the brain works, Mr. Bandler's every sentence drips with genius.'
- Lawrence Kesteloot at <http://tofu.alt.net/~lk/recommended_books.html>

Pulling off my shoe, wondering when Gina is coming home.

John Marketon says, "The CD ROMs may not function in the vertical position, because they don't have the tabs to hold them."

I pull a bar that holds cards in their slots out of a computer.

Walking with Gina away from the car, toward the town square. I'm pulling my jacket on, over my head.

"Well maybe some oatmeal," I say loudly to Gina who's somewhere in the house. "Isn't that supposed to be good for your... colon, or whatever?"

Reading a list of links at <http://www.alife.co.uk/links/go/>. I've focused on one interesting item: 'Tsumego (Life and Death Problems of Go) - by Minoru Harada'.

''Twas Brillig, and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe; all mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe.'
- random quote generated on my computer

011108 thu 
"Yeah I think that's what we'll do," says Anonymous on phone.
Meanwhile my eyes are attracted to a Cryptic Crossword clue: 'Row about double parking of truck (6)'.

Listening to the news on the car radio. Some guy is saying, "...this is the least political election environment they've ever seen."

I'm holding my PDA up to a radio and not listening to the news, just keeping the record button depressed.

Talking to Leo on the phone: "Yeah, it has to do with my feelings of Fall, and bonfires too."

Playing Go with Mark Gitlis in the cafe. The resident mentally disturbed guy named Joel is ranting loudly and somewhat incomprehensibly about the FBI and G. Gordon Liddy.

"All in all it's still pretty weak," says Kory.
I say, "Yup."

I copy a highlighted URL: <http://www.octanecreative.com/ducttape/fashion.html> and open an email window.

I'm idling the cursor over a button labeled, 'SSF System Running (Press to STOP),' wondering why the last scan was so noisy.

Jim Butler says, "Remember that little trick where you used to constrain it at low gains?"

Some guy on the radio is saying, "and it really never found a substitute."

I finish reading an email - 'We provide a rationale for this previously undetected finding and discuss implications for theories of color perception and gender differences in color behavior.'
I say, "huh," out loud to myself while I close the email window.

"What, hurricanes? They're coastal really," says Gina. "On this coast."

[Missed 4:11 -- I forgot to wear my watch. By my best estimates I was in Kory's car having some conversation with him, and most likely thinking about coffee.]

Reading a manual for a thermoelectric cooler controller: 'If you already have an application that uses Modbus, you can simply skip to the Temperature/process Controller Prompt Table or the Modbus RTU Address Table in this chapter for the address information your program will need.'

Staring at papers on my desk, thinking about simplified rebellion rule ideas for Homeworlds. (Remove as many of the overpopulated color as you wish, and optionally change the system marker to that color.)

"Man, it was awful! So many things wrong with it." says Gil. 
"From the day that you bought it?" I ask.
"Yes!"

I'm writing an email, finishing it up quickly because I have to go to the lavatory: 'I don't think the radiance data shows these spikes, because the rad calculation program looks for points that deviate, and throws out the spurious data.'

Laughing quietly as I paste the following into an email: "ACHTUNG!!! Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!!!"

We're sitting in the kitchen eating. Gina says, "He went outside without 'em."
"Without the bones?" I ask.
She nods.
"That's weird."

I'm checking the rigging for a climbing anchor, looking at a double bowline on a tree. "That's a good knot, that's nice." 

On the phone with Chris Welsh. He says, "And all that weird Philadelphia stuff we do in Philadelphia."

I'm on the phone with Kory. He says, "And, why will you fail?"
I say, "'Cause, Gina wouldn't make it home in time."

John Casti is lecturing: "It's like putting rabbits into Australia. You can't undo the experiment."

"I sent an email to the family," I tell Leo over the phone.

I look at a wiring diagram in my program, and say, "Right, so..."

"I don't know that I would have done that," says Dad on the phone. "I think I would have turned aside at the last minute."

I'm watching a game of Zagami. "I don't know," says one of the players (Pat Mitchell), "I think when the meteor gets to earth there isn't going to be much left."

'I like to think I'm on top of current events, but don't think I'm fooled by the evening news on TV! Oh no, the full story of the "truth behind the news" is available at this great site, updated weekly.'
- Linky & Dinky Newsletter

'The STA query returns the 8-bit status register. The status register indicates when the instrument is unlocked (first bit) and when the data is available (second bit).'
- Model 3501 Optical Chopper User's Manual

Watching a tape of Mr. Show. A lady in a wheelchair is singing, "but with a mike and a beat I could get out of this seat..."

Talking to Meg on the phone: "Yeah, I don't even want the beginnings of any sort of violence in my house."

I'm pushing buttons on my new PDA. The to-do list has one item: 'Send in your registration card.'

"They also had canoes that were all locked up," says Gina.

'Skip, It was funnier the first way. It was like John was trying to make palindromes and screwing them all up.' 
- email from Bruce Beard on Boogie Charade list

'Spore mass containing many numerous minute peridioles (spore-bearing chambers) which look like particles of sand; fruiting body small to medium sized' 
- from Mushrooms Demystified, Key to Lycoperdales and Allies

I'm on the phone with Kory, reading him an e-mail I just sent to the Icehouse list: "Option two involves no memory but imposes a weird morality or 'intent' on attacks."

John Marketon rushes out of my office. I yell after him, "Have a good time."
He quickly replies "Thanks!" from the hallway.

I'm scrolling down a page at www.gethightech.com which is displaying replacement digitizer screens.

I look carefully at a pair of clear UV protective glasses, thinking about wearing them tomorrow while bicycling. Then I put them back in the cabinet above my desk.

"I'm looking at this, and first of all I don't see any large grows or large babies," says Jake. "Maybe that's the difference."

Kory and I are sitting on my sofa. I say, "And my mom came out and I just started crying on her shoulder, you know..."

Leaning over, I turn the standard lamp power supply on, and it begins to ramp up. I then sit up, push myself backwards and roll across the cleanroom floor on my chair.

Playing Backgammon on PDA while waiting for the monochromator's scan to finish. I just rolled double threes.

"Yeah, OK, but I'm happy to take you, at four thirty."
- Anon.

I'm staring at a wire shelf unit in the cleanroom, thinking of using it as a
makeshift instrument rack, while I sing to myself some lines from an old Jon &
Vangelis song:
"Chances could call and accept that, be no other
Science as it might disappear, correspond with color
Chance is the fruit will outlive..."

On the phone with Leo. He says, "Yeah. So I could tell he was a good guy."

Sitting outside the New Deal Cafe with Kory, Gina, and Drake. Kory's discussing Zagami.
[Note: I lost the notes for this entry, so I don't have Kory's quote.]

Gina says, "I talked to him last night and it didn't seem like he was jousting--"
Graymayle asks, "Oh, he's workin the crowd?"
"Yeah, he's workin the crowd," says Gina.

Taping a printout to my office wall. It's a one-meter resolution offset view satellite image of Lower Manhatten from Sept 11, 2001

Looking at a section of program. The heading reads, 'set sync to ext clock'.

I'm looking at the CAR (Cloud Absorption Radiometer) instrument's spinning outer mirror, and imagining the complex light path through its interior. I say, "It's something inside." 
"Yeah, it's inside the optics," says Charles Gatebe. "It's not something outside because it would affect everything else."

Playing Backgammon on PDA while waiting for a phone call from the cleanroom. I just rolled two fours.

'STATUS
n. A meeting was held between members of the MBLA/VCL team,' 
- from an office email I'm writing.

Stacy, Gina, and I walk past the Wack-a-Mole booth. I'm thinking that the girl who just won had a distinct advantage over her much younger competitors. 

A character named Charles Latimer, from some movie playing on TV, says, "To teach, Chris. I've always wanted to teach."

"It's one of the co-ops," I tell Rob Levy, "but it's bigger. It has upstairs, downstairs..."

From an e-mail I'm writing: 'To answer your last question, I have no idea if Jesus would be for or against this country's decisions. I simply don't have enough information about the guy.'

Gina's handing me veggies and I'm sticking them in the fridge.

Walking out of our woods with Kory, Gina, and Booda. "But in that case it's much nicer to have it off than still have it there," I say.
"Yup," says Kory.

I approach Charles Gatebe and Scott Janz in the hallway. I wave hello to Charles and ask, "You get your stuff back?"
"Yeah, I got it back."
"Oh, good. You know when you're coming in?"

Gina and I stand embraced, kissing in the kitchen.

Playing backgammon on my PDA while sitting on the toilet. My nose is running and my head feels stuffy.

Dozing, with a little dream about running out of gas and not having enough
money to get more.

I'm having a phone conversation with Kory. He says, "Yeah and that's a system
wide -- I mean, global thing, whereas what you're talking about is a system
thing and that's easier to see."

I'm drawing a 'G' for a subcomic title, while listening to a techno-song called Fluffy Clouds. A young woman's voice says, "Uh, the sunsets were purple and red and yellow and on fire and the clouds would catch the colors everywhere."
[note: the young woman is said to be Ricky Lee Jones.]

'Amanita caesarea. This mushroom is edible and highly prized. John Tankard found this beauty in 1977, I think, on a BMC walk in New Hampshire, at the Strattons'.'
- from <http://www.multicians.org/thvv/mushrooms.html>

Gina shifts her rug with a foot so it's closer. I'm belaying, she's tied in preparing to climb.

"Or they go just in case," I say to Jenny. "Pascal's Wager y'know, you've heard of that?"

I'm cleaning cauliflower mushrooms while listening to CSPAN radio's tapes of President Lyndon Johnson's phone calls. Johnson sounds agitated: "Now you tell me who you what me to call, what you want me to do, and I'll do it!"

It's very hot, I'm in the large sphere room, fully suited and wearing UV glasses. I'm playing Backgammon against my PDA while waiting for the spectrometer's phase angle to settle.  The PDA says, 'White win by simple victory.' I'm thinking, (Yeah but it was worth 4 games.)

Putting on my left cleanroom boot, making sure to keep my foot from touching the floor.

I'm reviewing my short reply to a family email:
'At 9:12 AM -0400 8/27/01, Christopher D. 'Kit' Cooper, P.E. wrote:
>HAPPY BIRTRHDAY ERIC.
and happy birtrhdays to Amy Wallis and Mary Strother too! (pass it on)'

Sort of watching the passenger safety video; not really paying attention. I think the announcer is talking about wearing seat belts while we're seated.

I let out a high pitched yawn that descends in tone: "Ah ha ha ha." Gina and I are sitting in a car behind a van in a traffic jam. One of the windows on the van has letter stickers that read 'DADA', and a bumper sticker says 'SPANK ME!'

I'm in the front passenger seat of the Bullocks' car. "He was working the deli line at the Brick," says Gina, from the back. "And he was so sick. He was standing there like this." I can't see her, but I imagine her making a nauseated face.

Leaning over a concrete wall above a fish ladder, watching a large catamaran fishing boat move toward a lock.

On Bus 56 headed into downtown Seattle, looking through front window as a forklift crosses in front of us.

Jon Kruger says, "Yeah, the body can do some amazing stuff. People just really oversimplify it, the way they think about things."

"Finally when it was light out we went outside," says Gina, "and we were like, 'Wow! It's really beautiful out here.'"

Gina's tying her shoe. The airplane's engines raise in pitch as it taxis into a turn. I'm thinking that we should wait till most of the people leave since we're in the back and not in a hurry.

Listening to a medley from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. Nicole Kidman sings, "There's no way, 'cause you can't pay."

Playing Terrace with Grant. It's my turn and I'm trying to work out an endgame strategy. I think I have a chance to win by protecting my special small piece so it can reach its goal space.

I'm talking to Kory on the phone. I say, "Ok I'll give it to you now, the number, and then I'll send everything."

I move the sensor plug up to check power supply number 4. The DVM reads 65.098 millivolts (that's ok for now).

John Marketon says, "But the problem with that is that your parity is all on one drive."

Perusing a Google list. The entry I'm reading says,'... ink caps; parasols; chanterelles; blewits; fairy ring champignons;oyster mushrooms; cauliflower- and beefsteak fungus. Porcini & Chanterelles Daniel ...'

I'm in a company's website surfing for RAID hardware. I click a tab marked 'Accelerators'.

Playing Traffic on PDA while waiting for my monochromator to finish its scan.

"I'd like to go there someday," I say, looking over to Gina. I add, "We will."
She nods.

Playing Battle Line with Kory, looking at an area that promises three in a row (maybe).

Holding a can of white gas and looking at some boards in the shed.

Jim Butler says, "What a strange man he is."

John Marketon says, "You could try Dzus fasteners."
"Zues?" I ask.
"Dzus. Spelled D - Z - U - S."

Jim Butler says, "Taylor: T - A - Y - L - O - R, and Kuyatt: K - U - Y - A - T - T."

Fidgeting (I really have to pee) while reading a message from Bob Galloway posted to the Icehouse listserver: 'My girlfriend and I play often, using the end condition as you describe it,'

"Probably a board that's the same width as this, just as an extension," I say, pointing to the left side of our front doorway, "and then over here we'll put one of those thin boards."
Gina uses her hands as vicarious boards, putting them up against the door frame. She says, "What, is it going to have a..." She stops, as if listening to something.

I drive the car while Gina eats raw almonds. I turn onto Rudyard, thinking that one of the last streets was Fleming, which makes me think of the authors Rudyard Kipling and Ian Fleming. I think it's strange that one of the streets uses an author's first name and another uses an author's last name, which means the streets probably aren't named after authors.

I'm pulling pages out of the GHI members' handbook. In the other room a Judy Tenuta CD is playing; she's crank calling someone, who says, "He admitted it?"

Watching the screen animation as files copy across from my floppy to hard drive, and thinking about running the radiance calculations without the calibration log files (which I forgot to transfer from the computer in the cleanroom).

I'm playing a game of go on my PDA while waiting in a barber shop. A 70's song by Three Degrees plays in the background: "Are we in love or just friends? When will I see you again?"

"This is a good solution, because it should appear on your desktop as a hard drive," says John Marketon.

I tap my PDA on the entry for my sister, 'Cecily Palace', while wondering if she took Eric back to her house by now.

My brother Bill says, "He got up and was holding his arm -- and he had a compound fracture of both of the bones in his wrist."

As I reach up high for my chaps, a bicycle helmet brim falls off the shelf into stuff on the next shelf down. I say, "Wha!" and try to stop it from falling.

Gina's kneading a small lump of clay. I say, "OK, I'll just go home and say hi to Booda."

Dogs bark outside. Booda gets up, growling, and heads out of the house.

"That would be point five," I mutter to myself, as I type '.5' into a constant box in a LabVIEW window.

I wonder how many children Kent McCullough has, as his light blue station wagon pulls slowly away from my car. On the radio some senator says, "The idea that it depends leads to the problem that we confront now."

I look away from my computer screen to Georgi Georgiev as he enters my office, carrying a small glass pot of water. He speaks with a heavy Bulgarian accent: "How did you spend your weekend?"

I'm sitting beside Brick in a crowded stadium, immersed in our conversation while a baseball game goes on in the background. He laughs and says, "So Dave said, 'This is something we used to do,' and the other players said, 'Oh yeah! That's a really good idea!'"

"She said her favorite movie is The Razors Edge," says Kory, "and I was like what the hell, I was just talking about that!"

Leo says, "No Escort is going to make it to two-oh-nine, I can tell you that right now."

"Hey, I think I lost the keys," I say, as we're coming out of the last barrel roll on the Anaconda. "That's the scary part of the ride."

I'm in Jim Butler's office. He sits at his desk, motioning with his hands and saying, "It was big time smoke, down there by the break room..."

"It's got the best birth control method so far known," says Anonymous.
Jim Butler says, "Does it really?"

I open the door to the large cleanroom area as Scott Janz says, "Yeah, we'll have it on one of those big dollies."

I'm didjing with some drummers outside of the New Deal Cafe.

"I'm still not liking it as much as this other color stuff, but I'm not sure why yet," says Kory, as we walk down an old gravel road with Booda.

I pause, reading a line from an email I'm about to send: 'They become squandered defenders.'

I'm walking down the hallway. Someone behind me says, "Four oh nine."

"On top of a flaming rocket," says John Marketon.
Gil chuckles and says, "Yeah, that's headed for someplace in space."

'I believe that this is referring to the "Secret Masters of Icehouse" which I just found mentioned in last years Origins report under the IceHouse tournament write up.'  - Dan Isaac, via the Icehouse list server

I'm looking at some old notes I wrote --
'Turn options:
1. Place a piece flat or standing.
2. Stand up an iced flat enemy piece.
3. Pass'

Renee's driving and chatting: "And we were talking about the whole rainbow triangle thlng that he was wearing and that toK was wearing..."

(Note on pronunciation: The word "toK" rhymes with "OK".)

Michelle says, "It's kinda long and it might suck and I don't want to play something if it's long and sucks, so..." 
We laugh and I say, "Yeah, well, that's the risk you take."

Michelle Lepovic says, "you had mentioned there's a market nearby, where is it." It's a question that sounds like a sentence.

Playing a game in a large demo hall. One of the players, Nick Sauer, says, "make it worth my while to go somewhere, dudes."

I'm sitting in the back seat of Renee's car. I say, "yeah, take a good look in there and hit those
people."

"That's our big guy," I say, pointing to Hardy, our lab's six-foot diameter sphere. Then Sandy and I turn to exit the cleanroom.

Walking away from my building on a short path of wood chips under some trees. Behind me, I hear the sound of an idling bus.

'Earlier, scuffles began when troops attempted to move into a garden, the UK Press Association said.' - news on my PDA

"They're willing to ruin their lives, so uh, so that one part of their life doesn't change," I tell Gina, then I turn on the faucet to the bathroom sink.

I enter 'alt f s', then alt-tab out of the notepad back to my control program. It's prompting, 'Enter lab temperature ( 24 c)'.

John Marketon and I are looking at the Laurel hemisphere's power rack.
"You think that'll get enough air?" I ask.
"Oh, yeah," says John. "We're gonna need two or three extension cords though."

I'm in a full cleanroom bunny suit, sitting in a chair and leaning over, using a screwdriver to pry white tape from the dark gray floor.

"Because if it was set exactly for water," I say, "if you put a steak in, the very outside would be seared but the inside would remain uncooked."

"So what's wrong with this?" says Anonymous, as we're looking at a large HDTV screen. An animated viewpoint spins us around a cloud. There are bright columns above it, of various heights and colors (blue, yellow, red). 
I say, "it's because this is computer generated I guess."
At the same time, Jim Butler says, "look," and mimes hitting the side of the HDTV. "You can hit it here!" He smiles.

Watching Gina, she's about 15 feet above me on a cliff at Carderock. I'm standing on the ground belaying her (holding the rope in case she falls) and wondering how she might use the large crack in the overhang that is above her, just out of reach.

At the 'Account Summary' web page for my visa card, I press a button at the bottom of the page labeled 'Display Recent Transactions'.

Lying in my bed. I squirt some water into my mouth, put the plastic bottle back on my night stand, and swallow.

Staring at my monitor at a picture of a button I'm making for a program. It is labeled, 'Set Center Position' and says, 'OFF' on the button.

I'm looking at a form on the FirstFriday administration web page, at a box labeled, "List Administrative Password:" and a nearby button that says, "let me in..."

Gerhard opens the door and we exit the anteroom into the hallway. I say, "all right, wanna get your stuff?"

"Is it exactly one meter?" asks Gerhard Meister, as he gestures toward the Hardy sphere aperture. 
"Yeah. That's what I measured," I nod.

Playing my didjeridu outside the New Deal Cafe.

Watching Kory turning a Carcasonne tile in his hand, while he searches for a good spot for it. I'm wondering how much my sister in law Lori pays each month for her new car.

I motion toward a large dirty white plastic shipping crate and say, "Now I gotta move this." Jim Butler continues with his gruff-voiced Louis Armstrong impression: "Where dat goin'?"

I'm driving on Beaver Dam Road, listening to some guy from MIT on the radio: "...reducing greenhouse emissions by 2008 and 2012; seven percent for the US, eight percent for Europe, and six percent for Japan."

'As well, hashish (called Khaneh) was being widely produced and used by Sufis and other Islamic holy men and women for religious experiences and communion with God. Hashish production is still high in many Islamic countries.' 
- from Strange Drugs, at beastbay.com

Entering the hallway from the stairwell, I see a tight group of three people pass by. I recognize two of them, wave hello to Jim Butler, but he doesn't see me. He's pointing down the hallway and talking excitedly to Merritt Pharo as they're walking: "...right back there by the lab doors." 
"You're not supposed to do that," says Merritt. 
"Why, was there something hissing?" asks Jim.

I'm staring at a graph, focusing on an overlap of two curves. I hear Gil Smith on the other side of the office, talking on his phone: "You may arrive at the time they're leaving or something."

I'm talking to Grant on the phone and looking at a picture at a website of a round wooden table with wood chairs. The chairs have cloth quilted cushions. 
"It looks like a good set..." 
"Yeah?" Grant says. 
"...from the picture of the tables and chairs."

Eating in a Chinese restaurant. Leah says, "Could it stop and start again?" 
"It could," says Dale, "but it probably doesn't."

I watch a projected picture of a spiral galaxy disappear as Michael Perryman continues to speak rapidly, "...are actually used to measure the distance of globular clusters..."

'(5 June 2000, Texas) A 26-year-old man in Parker County drowned when he was swept away by high water as he walked across a spillway, trying to convince his wife it was safe to drive across.' 
- 2000 Darwin Awards nominee, at DarwinAwards.com

Writing an email, I start to insert a sentence (beginning with '4') after the semicolon in, 'Don't worry about a "low" turnout; I think that the fewer people the better.' I delete the '4', thinking maybe I'll just leave it the way it is.

I look down from my spreadsheet to the computer clock, which reads, '4:13'. I have a momentary little panic, and glance at my watch, just as its alarm goes off.

Playing PDA Spades. I lead the trick with an ace of hearts, and win.

As I walk around to the driver side of the car, Gina opens the passenger door and says, "We're going to 32F," while she's getting in.

I'm sitting at a big cluttered office conference table with Nick Waring and Andrew Albemonte. Nick says, "So you, you're married now..."
I say, "Yeah."

I open the door of my office and exit into the hallway.

I'm scrolling through my travel expense voucher, wondering if I should break my car rental into a daily charge.

Filling out a travel expense voucher on my computer. In the 'Purpose of Trip/Explanation:' section I'm adding the phrase 'at Ames Research Center' to the end of 'Calibration of radiometric field source'

Driving, with Gina and Kory in the car. I say, "I won't play it." 
Kory says, "I can't, I can't, I can't play that game."

I'm in an airplane, playing Spades on my PDA. I play out a 10 of Hearts. I hear the steward talking to someone behind me: "Want some coffee, juice, or water?"

Sitting at a table outside with Eric Zuckerman. I say, "So I just add that into my ratings system, whether it's just good entertainment, or it's a really well made film."

I'm in a hotel room, looking for my dirty socks. Eric Zuckerman is on his cell phone. He says, "Bob's here."

I wonder whether the workers in this restaurant speak Korean or Chinese. I crack my fortune cookie in two pieces and as I pull the shells apart the fortune displays itself: 'You'll accomplish more if you start now.'

I'm driving back from lunch. John Bush says, "He was trying to get the hair off his tongue." He chuckles. "That's what it was." I have a vivid memory of a rattlesnake swallowing a chipmunk - the tail was hanging out of the snake's mouth.

Turning onto Moffett Boulevard, listening to the lead singer of Garbage singing #1 Crush: "I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart..."

I walk quickly back into the darkroom lab and place a copy of a shipping document on my folder, which is lying on a black sphere port table. I'm thinking about a phone conversation I had a few seconds ago, where the guy on the other end was telling me that Pilot Shipping is usually very reliable.

I finish the very last chews of an eggplant sandwich. I'm contemplating eating the decorative lettuce leaf and orange slice as I watch a nearby young woman (long baggy shorts, dark blue T-shirt, cute horn rimmed glasses, straight reddish brown hair tied back). She's bending over and rummaging through a large wicker basket of newspapers.

The shuttle comes to a stop. I'm sitting in the very back. A recorded woman's voice says, "The next stop will be for Terminal A, Terminal B, Northwest Airlines, American Airlines, and Southwest Airlines."

Leo says, "So I read the news, it turns out they killed 26 people this week." I nod as he continues, "That's a lot!"

Brian Kimmelman is talking to me on the phone: "Yeah, it's going to be a lot of trouble, but in the long run we're hoping it'll be worth it."

The cursor is prompting me to fill in a box called, 'Std lamp scan file letters.' I look over to my calibration notes, thinking that it's probably just an 'A'.

"Whatever's happening, it's definitely confused," says Gil as I kneel on the floor looking at his monitor, wondering how to get the Zip disk unstuck. "It's not there."

John Marketon's office - he says, "So I'm sitting here trying to figure out... how big it is, how much space I need, yada yada yada."

I'm fiddling with my PDA's calendar application, changing the start and end times for an entry ('film - Set Me Free') to 21:00 - 23:00.

Sitting in the grand hall of the Renwick Art Museum, surrounded by old American paintings of landscapes and Indian portraits, and statues of white stone. Andrea Gill is at the podium, answering a question. "I'm not interested in installation, but I teach it -- with a vengeance."

The gas pump display says, 'Select Debit or Credit.' I push the credit button.

Looking at slides of aerial images of the Troy excavation. The lecturer is saying, "... Around 430 BC, Alexander the Great visits the site..."

'At that point, the student has two choices: "unask the question", or "clarify" the guess, perhaps radically. On the other hand, am I required (as master) to point out an invalid guess?'
- Buddha Buck, from the Icehouse listserver

'You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?
(For some reason, the convoluted reasoning people use in Werewolf always reminds me of Vezzini from _The Princess Bride_.)'
- Chris Byler from the Icehouse listserver

'2010 completely abandoned many of the themes put forth in 2001, and it suffered from glaring technical inconsistencies that Stanley Kubrick had taken pains to avoid in the first film.' 
- Modemac's Essay of 2010

Reading a table posted by Jacob Davenport in the Icehouse listserver:
' 2      2    good        Now all the players are evil.
  2      2    evil        You and the other good get to
                            hunt down the last evil.
  1      3    evil    You've got a lot of work to do.'

I'm in Jennifer Sager's back yard. Theresa Auth is sitting on a picnic table leafing through a huge book.
David Nitchman says, "Are you done yet?"
"I'm thinking!" says Theresa.
Atticus inquires, "Fatal attractions?"

Lounging on the bed with Gina; I say, "Well I have a feeling that other tickets will be available..."

Sitting in the aisle at a crowded scientific colloquium, dozing off. The lecturer is saying, "...because those pictures begin to look pretty boring."

Browsing a list of items in the realgoods.com catalog:
'Desktop Ionizer
 Organic Cotton Terry Body Wrap
 Pure Soap'

I slowly say, "It's a false front."

I quickly switch out of the notepad section titled 'Secret Data', remembering that time months ago when I crashed my PDA by using the scroll bar after I put it in 'hide' mode.

Anonymous says, "OK, the file you sent me, is that what Jim wants?"
"I think so," I respond. "Yeah, yeah, that's one of them."

A large fat black dog, tail wagging, is barking at us from behind his fence. Jennifer Sager approaches him saying, "Well, hello." He barks again.

Route 270 heading North, with Gina and Booda in the car; I glance into my rear view mirror to see a Jeep Cherokee come swerving into my lane and two cars in my lane switch to the left lane to get out of its way. I say, "Whoa."

I mutter, "OK, brain full," pound the table lightly, and get up to leave the office, continuing with, "go empty it."

My left hand holds a small open styrofoam box, empty now save for two chopsticks and some grains of rice. With my right hand I maneuver my mouse to close a folder named Hardy.

I hold a cup of tea in one hand (and a strong taste of tea in my mouth), and close the door to Izolda and Terry's office with the other as I back out, saying, "Yeah, I had just come over, ah, to find out, uh, if I had heard that right."

Reading an email from Kevin Maroney to the Icehouse listserver: 'In the illustration at <http://www.crossover.com/kevin/icing.gif>, under the current rules of _Icehouse_ the green piece is squandered and Red can't take the blue piece prisoner.'

I'm at an engineering colloquium. Mitty Plummer is answering a question: "And that's one of my concerns is that if you have this thing in a garage, that you don't want anyone to get asphyxiated."

Driving away from my house; the window's down and there's a nice breeze coming through. Chris Welsh has the radio on seek mode, surfing one station after another, but I'm not really listening.

I'm holding a hand of cards, waiting for my turn, and absently looking out of the New Deal Cafe's picture window at a short red haired woman with strong white legs. She straightens a very short, navy blue skirt, then adjusts her bright green shirt, and walks out of view.

In bed, reading a poem by Jean Larkin:
'sore and crying Stop, she laughing,
shouting I couldn't love her--
it wasn't true. I loved the rising'

I'm playing Lost Cities with Chris in the New Deal Cafe. While figuring out my next move I attempt to continue a previous conversation, saying "Still..." and pause, thinking two separate sentences from the word "still" - about how the game design is so simple that I'm surprised something very much like it hadn't existed long before; about how Knitzia is very thorough with his designs, so there must have been a reason he allows the inside cards to be face up.

I'm in the New Deal Cafe, feeling self conscious about my laryngitis. "I Don't always talk like this."
Terri nods and smiles brightly. "That's what I was guessing."

Chris Welsh is sitting on a curb going through a box containing his mail, papers, and an electric razor, while I walk to the back of his car and unlock his trunk.

Reading email from Jacob: 'All in all, sword-cup seems my favorite of these for the Hierophant.  Or, simply expand the power of the Hierophant to allow you to convert a piece to *any* other color...'

I'm at the top of Carder Rock, demonstrating to Paul Shapiro one way to carry a large coil of climbing rope: "You can put the ends over your shoulders, around here, tie it around your waist, and now it's just like a backpack."

We're on the stage at the community center. Jenny's watching Kory as he crawls across a very large multi-color quilt, checking knots. She says, "That was in the disputed land." "Yep, that's what happens,  that's what happens," he says, while Jenny continues: "The border zone."

Sleeping in bed.

I'm on the phone with Leo. I say, "Sorry, if he had said something bad about Alice I might have told you he said something bad about Alice, but he didn't."

010411 wed

I point at two of my pieces on a backgammon bar, and say, "Look, he's got me on the bar," to Gina.
John Marketon moves his pieces, saying, "Ah... five, four."

010410 tue

Reading The Daily Grist: 'Now, researchers have shown that the eggs are experiencing more exposure because they are being deposited in shallower water that lets more light through...'

010409 mon

Frantically pulling the latex glove up from my bunnysuit's sleeve, wondering if I missed 4:11 while I was in the air shower.

010408 sun

I'm sitting in the Looneys' front game room asking Andy for a box. He says, "To put what in?"
"These," I say, nodding toward some loaded Icehouse boxes.
"Finished sets?"
"Yeah."

010407 sat

I look back at Gina as we're walking away from the Superman ride. I say, "You wanna go to Roar?"
"OK, let's go to Roar," she says.

010406 fri

I wander around the cleanroom anteroom, holding my rolled up bunnysuit as I say to nobody in particular, "I can't find my bag. Where *is* my bag?"
"What color is it?" asks Ed Zeleski.
I wonder why he asked that, since as far as I know all the bags are clear.

010405 thu

Holding a metal straightedge across a sphere aperture, trying to see where a bright red laser spot is hitting it, and muttering "ten point one and a half" to myself to keep the centerpoint in mind.

010404 wed

I take a sip of tea, and contemplate a cryptic crossword clue: 'precise person has to make a list.' It begins with an 'F'. I wonder if it starts with 'fine'.

010403 tue

I ask Jim Butler, "When was he supposed to get here?"
He responds, "Well he's actually supposed to be here for a good part of the day because Julietta is going to teach him how to do the calibrations."

010402 mon

An anonymous scientist says, "Normally the results that John gets are pretty smooth, so I doubt it's because of the spline interpolation."

010401 sun

Playing Dragon's Gold. Kory shows a card and says, "I have a card that lets me pick five treasures."

010331 sat

Playing Martian Chrononauts -- Kory says, "It's the end of my turn right?" At the same time, Zarf says, "Plus one for me."

010330 fri

John Marketon is showing Jim Butler some graphs on his computer. Jim says, "Oh, can you blow it up?" Pavel Hajek enters the room, carrying his coat and a laptop computer.

010329 thu

John Marketon has the cleanroom door to the hallway propped open. He's inside suited up, I'm outside listening to him explain, "That's another thing about the FRMS, the sample time is slow enough that it takes a long time."

010328 wed

Pushing chewed peanut butter cookie bits off of my teeth with my tongue, and reading The Daily Grist (via email):
'India's Supreme Court this week stuck by its 1998 decision to force buses in Delhi to convert from diesel to natural gas, but extended the deadline for the switchover by six months, until the end of September.'

010327 tue

I'm changing the directory in a setup page for an analysis program to 'C:\CALLAB\746DATA\0103'. I hear someone passing by in the hallway say, "Oh, goody!"

010326 mon

John Marketon says, "too much around, not good."

010325 sun

Playing my dij in a cafe, with about 10 other drummers. I'm on the stage, pulling a tune and watching Gina, who's in front of me, sitting on the edge of the stage and idly shaking two red maracas. 

010324 sat

I'm in Graymayle's kitchen, listening to Carol Reske: "And then the other cats came and - 'Oh god it's Quentin,' and they left him alone."

010323 fri

I'm in the lobby of Building 33, pulling a thick blue rubber band around my twenty dollar bills (which are folded over credit and ID cards). There is a general flurry of people coming and going through the lobby. In the background I catch a little of Jim Butler's conversation with Locke Stuart: "...so, Tuesday I'll talk to King..."

010322 thu

I'm replying to Kory via email:
'Um, OK, if you'll drive; I have to help Margit with her scanning project before we go.'

010321 wed

Jim Butler is standing in my office, holding his glasses in one hand and reading a copy of a fake tax form (1040.com, for laid off dotcom employees). He smiles and lets out a short "heh" kind of laugh. He looks tired.

010320 tue

I awkwardly open my office door and enter, holding a pecan shortbread cookie in my right hand, a small bag containing another cookie in my left hand, and in my mouth a third cookie, which I am chewing. 

010319 mon

I'm sitting in John Marketon's office. He says, "I think the biggest thing I realized, with my dad going through all this stuff..."

010318 sun

I play out the 7 of clubs on my PDA, and glance up at the readout on the computer screen: it's at 1400 nanometers; I have a little more time before I need to change the optical grating.

010317 sat

I say, "Oh, yeah..." as I lift a hunk of good looking cooked cabbage from a large, steaming pot.

010316 fri

I watch a red LED on the monochromator's controller rapidly count down. I'm keeping in mind that I must quickly switch the gain setting back to auto after the 350nm scan.

010315 thu

I'm clicking from one graph into another, entering gobbledegook (like 'kjlhkj') into the X-axis title space, then highlighting the junk and pasting 'Time hh:mm:ss' in its place.

010314 wed

I mutter "Sixteen" as I copy the number 16 to another cell in a spreadsheet. Still musing about leaving both the old and new answering machines on at home, and how two of my voices (and one of Gina's) answered the phone when I called, and then two machines recorded my voice - two copies of the same message.

010313 tue

Editing a webpage, wondering what link to place in the following script:
'<td>2001 02 26</td><td>16</td><td>412 nm</td>
<td><a href="Hardy/20010110142100Hardy.gif">'

010312 mon

In the kitchen with Gina and John Marketon -- Gina says, "I think we have to wait until we have the upstairs."
I enthusiastically agree: "I think that's what we should do - wait until we have the upstairs."

010311 sun

I reload a web page I'm working on (Gina's Pottery page); the image at the bottom is stretched vertically, so I hit the right mouse button and select 'Image Properties' from the drop-down menu.

010310 sat

Gina and I are in bed eating hard pretzels and listening to Stacy. She's sitting nearby with a coke in her hand, nodding her head slowly, saying, "He sat at one end of the long table, and I sat at the other and I glared at him hatefully. I was pissed."

010309 fri

I'm reading an e-mail by Mark Fitzsimmons:
'Although TV certainly gives this impression, and there are plenty of flakes, it doesn't mean there aren't some of us here trying to make things better. I personally have planted some 10,000+ trees in the LA area and don't miss a chance to encourage or praise similar thoughtful action.' 

010308 thu

John Marketon says, "You have to supply it the SSF data type, and the data -"
"Including the dimension lengths," I interject.
"- and, you also have to know which output to use."

010307 wed

I'm deep inside a Labview diagram, glancing at an old comment - 'Found Token: extract data' - wondering if I've missed anything while updating the program.

010306 tue

Jim Butler props the door open as he's leaving the room, and turns around to answer John Marketon: "I'm coming back in! You wanna come in tonight? Nine o'clock, we're gonna have fun here!"

010305 mon

Pacing in the cleanroom, waiting for John Marketon to come through the air shower.

010304 sun

I load the last box of Gina's pottery in the back seat of the car and say, "It's so peculiar because a lot of what They Might Be Giants does is jazz."

010303 sat

Playing Gnostica. It's Kristin's turn. Jake says, "Uh, John has six, you have five." 

010302 fri

I'm staring at my monitor, at a surface graph of the six-foot sphere aperture. The title of the graph says, 'Hardy 16 lamps 412nm'. The large disk of fuchsia in the center of the graph contains two irregular patches of bright yellow, making me think of false color images of planets. Someone behind me says, "Strange pattern."

010301 thu

I'm hanging up my bunny suit.

010228 wed

I'm reading a 'beer fact' on my '365 Bottles of Beer for the Year' calendar:
'Burton-on-Trent, where Marston's is brewed, has been a center of brewing prowess ever since the 13th century, when medieval monks discovered the taste-enhancing qualities of the gypsum-rich water drawn from the region's natural springs and wells.'

010227 tue

The radiometric mapper's arm finishes its slow downward motion and starts moving left. I glance to the Status box on the computer screen; it reads 'MOVING X'.

010226 mon

I'm in a dark cleanroom, fiddling with a program on a laptop. I enter 'GSFC' in a text box marked 'Source'.

010225 sun

I'm in a dark theater, watching a preview. Jack Nicholson enters a room, looking distraught and disheveled.

010224 sat

Lying on my bed listening to Kory on the phone. He says, "What I'm saying is that we can't conclude anything from Andy asking those questions, because we had played so many variations and it's confusing."

010223 fri

I'm standing next to my desk, preparing to put on my jacket. I feel like I'm about to burp.

010222 thu

I surf into a blog called Zoo Station. There's a side view of some anime character at the top right. I'm thinking that anime sure is popular in blogs.

010221 wed

I'm picking '0011: Straight Time' from a drop-down menu for my online timecard. I mutter, "Straight time," (lengthening the "I" sound in "time") as I click the selection.

010220 tue

Reading some email from Kory:
'Sure, you are always guaranteed to get *all* of a players cards, so you don't have to burn down to a specified number, but I am almost always holding stuff I'm not particularly excited to give up, so I almost always need to burn down to like 2 cards.'

010219 mon

I'm updating the heap side of our GinohnNews page: 
'[cryptic crossword]'.

010218 sun

Carrying a five gallon jug of water into the kitchen. Booda, who is turned sideways and blocking my way, sniffs some groceries. He jumps out of the way as Gina says "Move! Good boy!"

010217 sat

I'm highlighting the word 'Symbiosis' in an HTML document:
'Symbiosis
Started by Gina, continued by Kory and John.'

010216 fri

I walk out the main doors from my building into cold rain, keys and a bottle of flowers in my hands. I'm making tick tock music noises with my tongue.

010215 thu

I'm in John Marketon's office. He's leaning back in his chair, looking tired. He says, "So, what're you doing this weekend?"
I shrug. "Coming in here on Saturday, or Sunday, whichever is worse for weather."

010214 wed

In my peripheral he