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April 6, 2000
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car service, wine service Had to pick SuRu up at 8:15 at the Honda place so they could do an oil change. When I want mine done, I'll get a ride similarly. Forrest had to return the rent car and get his own back, with the fender fixed. I had a meeting from 9-12:30. All those laptops strewn around the table exchanging PowerPoint presentations in the meeting reminded me that all our toys have not brought truth and wisdom. Still, it's pretty cool. One guy was exchanging documents on a PCMCIA Click Drive. I had lunch at Peony with SuRu. I had a lunch special of lamb. I thought the black pepper overpowered it. But generally the place seemed pretty good. Go figure. I took SuRu to get her car so she could wait, futilely, for her contractor to do something and some guys to deliver a new washer and dryer. (It surprises her every time when these guys don't do what they've promised. I don't know why.) Then I gave Forrest a lift from the rental car place to the repair place, completing the cycle of getting the repair made after the guy backed into him. Lots of trouble. You aren't remunerated for your trouble. Nor does your insurance, apparently, transfer to the rental car nor the other guy pay for it. You are always out some money. But, also, it's lots of trouble. But that episode is over...on to the next one. Went to the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival Foundation Dinner tonight. Chefs from the Hotel de Crillon in Paris cooked and Taittinger champagnes (incl. a 1993 Blanc de Blancs) were served in addition to a Domaine Carnernos (1997) Pinot Noir. The Salmon with Caper and Lemon Sauce was the best thing I've ever eaten, I think. I just wish they could have started the dinner sooner. Having champagne and hearing speeches for almost an hour and a half before eating is just too much. Good thing I'm taking vacation tomorrow. SuRu and I were talking about beggars today. Except when they are obnoxious and threatening they are sort of interesting. I don't give them money because I believe if everyone gave money to organizations that gave people help as opposed to beer dollars on the street that everyone would be better off and safer. But what is it with those exotic dark, heavyset women in startched uniforms that could be nurses descending on street corners? And how do the beggars get assigned their corners? The corner of 2222 and Northland has had a series of 'regulars.' Even had the 'nurses' for a while and none of the 'work for food' guys seemed to be battling for the spot. Just the other day the spot was occupied by a youngish woman (but hard-used). A tall, husky man drank a 16 ounce beer across the street by the convenience store. He watched her. From the dynamic, it was pretty clear that he was her handler. Why is it that the more cool computer gear you have, the more strange little problems you have? I have one machine (Windows 98) which inexplictably loses an hour now and then. Exactly an hour or two or three. The time is just suddenly 9 when it should be 10 or somehing. My old ThinkPads can't seem to behave properly with their adaptor bars in place anymore. The machine I use to prepare this journal will just get sluggish after a while. Some runaway process. But it's Windows 95 and you can't see what is really running or anything. (At work we have standardized on NT and you can see with the task manager that something is thrashing.) Then there is this weird directory problem that shows up here occasionally. Then there is a strange behavior that sticks some odd block characters on the Windows 98 machine now and again and you have to boot to get out of that. It too gets all sluggish or locked up occasionally and refuses nine out of ten times to gracefully shut down. For all that, stuff pretty much runs most of the time, booting solves many problems. But it's so annoying. I know it's my fault for installing so much random software, forgetting what and how I've configured things, etc. But it's still annoying. Getting new stuff is annoying too, however, because you have to set up the new machine, get the stuff off the old one, etc. I'm always lusting after a faster machine with some different new features. But, honestly, I just get tired of the old, puzzling behavior and am hoping for new puzzling behavior. On the other hand, it's nice to have everything set up, connected, printers defined, every machine's shared disks set up. And then just waltz in here and actually do something. |
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"Wine is wont to show the mind of man." Theognis |
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let the wine begin
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