My achin back! I struggle through the last day of work before my Boston trip. Mike had the bright idea of attending a morning \lquote Boot Camp\rquote at the gym, which involved jogging around a huge arrow, doing push-ups, all sorts of bizarre stretches, crunches, and other stuff. All along the water\rquote s edge. Needless to say, now I\rquote m sore. And tired.

But, that leaves tonight free as Mike and I have done almost nothing to prepare for our 10am departure tomorrow. We still have to pack, clean the apartment for poor Q \endash who has foolishly agreed to water Mike\rquote s (and, technically mine) plants. This is at least a 4 hour job.

Oh- Mike got contacts. So, if you see me with an Asian guy without glasses, that\rquote s him. (You people all think Asians all look alike and come from islands. I know). I actually like Mike with Glasses, but he wants to be able to wear hats, and he feels the glasses interferes. Who am I to argue?

We\rquote re taking a bus then the Muni to the airport. Luckily for us, the SF Muni (IE the MBTA) just opened, like a week ago, a line that goes all the way to SFO. I\rquote m brining my DVD player \endash but I have to go about the important selection of what DVDs to bring/watch. I only have 3 hours of battery time \endash though I might be able to charge it when we arrive at Chicago. That\rquote s basically 2 movies. Or, I could bring either my Start Trek / Monty Python / Mr Bean DVD collections.

I won\rquote t bring 6 feet under. Bad karma. (Though a great series).

My bike was stolen this weekend. I went to see the Hulk, parked it in what I felt was a pretty safe spot (lots of foot traffic, there are cameras and periodic security patrols). I came out from watching the Hulk and it was gone. The funny thing is, that I flipped back and forth between going to the gym first, then the movie, or movie first, then the gym. If I hadn\rquote t tried to save 2$ by going to the matinee, would I have lost my $250 bike?

So, I went through the motions of what you do when something is stolen. I had to go to the \ldblquote hall of justice\rdblquote to file a report. I did this out of some sense of needing to, not out of any actual hope my bike would be recovered. (when I enter the hall \endash I passed through a set of metal detectors and, since I had my bike helmet, keys, bike tools, ect in my backpack \endash I set it off. No one seemed to care. As I waited my turn, lots of people would set it off, and then disappear into the building).

As I walked to the police station, my thoughts flipped between hoping something really bad happened to the person who took my bike, hoping I came across the person who took my bike, and wondering why the universe seemed to have it out for me lately.

It\rquote s nothing major, I know, but I have just been having a major string of bad luck with things. Part of me wonders if I offended someone who controls things in the universe, and they\rquote re getting their petty revenge. The smarter part of me realizes that all of this is just random happenstance with no real intelligent behind it.

Which scares me just as much as someone having it out for me.

1 week and 1 day and I\rquote ll board a plane. 6 hours later, or so, I\rquote ll be back in Boston. I\rquote ll skip the \lquote weirdness\rquote of going home from home sort of thing.

Instead, I\rquote ll talk about wine.

Mike and I thought that we\rquote d bring back some good old Napa Valley wine for everyone. See, we were supposed to go on a day trip to Napa with a bunch \lquote O\rquote people. But the trip was canceled/postponed. Twice. So, we never made it. Mike is working all next weekend. And we had no wine.

So, we went to BevMo which is a California answer to Kappy\rquote s. I thought of Bevmo, because I listen to a radio station in which one of the talk hosts is a wine guy, and talks about being able to get wines there that maybe you can\rquote t get at Safeway (IE Stop and Shop).

So, there we stood. The two of us. Looking at wines from rafter to ceiling. Wines as far as the eyes could see. Acres of wine. We boldly strode in, then realized\'85

Neither of us have the first clue about wines. I buy the 5 dollar, 2 gallon wine purely to cook with. Mike is a Schnapps drinker. So, as with many thing, Mike and I came up with different plans on how to deal with the situation.

My solution? Punt! I knew enough from listening to the radio, that the new \lquote hotness\rquote in wine is this thing called the Petite Sirah. So I went looking for Napa Labels and the Sirah.

Mike\rquote s Solution? Ask the old guy who worked there. This, of course, was the absolute worse thing to do, because it involved Mike having to admit, right there in a wine store, that he didn\rquote t know anything about wine. So, of course, it turned into a comedy sketch. The old guy asked him what types of wine he was interested in. Mike explained he didn\rquote t really know, that\rquote s why he was asking. The Guy said \lquote Well, what do the people who you\rquote re buying for like to drink\rquote ? Mike explained we really didn\rquote t know. The man went into a 20 minute discussion about how personal wine drinking is, and how you just can\rquote t randomly pick wines for people \endash you need to tailor it to them. And yes, if we had any clue what our friends and family drank, he\rquote d be able to help, but as we were obviously uniformed cretins, well, we\rquote re luck he didn\rquote t toss us out of the wine store right then.

I, the uniformed, but un-lectured cretin, went about my random wine buying.

I hope you all like Petite Sirah.

So, Mike and I, and several of our kookiest friends, went to see that fishy epic \ldblquote Finding Nemo\rdblquote . I have to say it\rquote s one of the better movies I\rquote ve seen in a while. Very Funny.

Let\rquote s start with the previews. I won\rquote t ruin anything \endash but see the Brother Bear trailer. Mostly for the last joke \endash and to find out it contains the McKenzie Brothers.

The best trailer news, however, is Pixar\rquote s next movie. The Incredibles. A Pixar treatment of the world of Super Heroes. Watch the trailer. It\rquote s\'85well\'85..super (Though it\rquote s more than a year away.)

Anyway \endash on to Nemo. Let me just say 2 words. Ellen DeGeneres. She makes this movie. She plays a fish with no short term memory \endash as only Ellen can \endash with the sweet, dopy, sort of rambling manner. Anywho \endash the movie is solid \endash not quite to \lquote Toy Story\rquote level, but I think better than Bug\rquote s Life and Monster\rquote s Inc. Great ensemble cast, good story, lots of goofy jokes.

There is one scary part (for kids, I mean. I wasn\rquote t scared. Honest) at the beginning.

No bloopers at the end, but the credits are worth watching.

Go. Find Nemo. You\rquote ll be glad you did. (Oh - and watch out for the Seagulls. MINE?)

It\rquote s my brother\rquote s Birthday. He\rquote s the one who uses the email bigguns2200. I was never fully sure if that stood for \lquote Big Guns\rquote , because he wants to be a cop and sees himself as a \lquote But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off\'85\rdblquote sort of guy.

Or maybe it\rquote s a homage to Al \ldblquote If you need me I'll be at the nudie bar.\rdblquote Bundy who, as I recall, used to read a magazine called \lquote Bigguns\rquote .

Anyway, Happy birthday to my gun and boobie loving brother. I\rquote d make fun of his age but, as you can tell by his love of guns and boobies, he\rquote s only 13. Well, 14 now.

Happy Birthday Shaun.

Greg Rushton, the man who got me into Blogging, is buying a new house. A bigger house, which he apparently needs because he's expecting another kid in 6 months or so.

Congratulations to Greg and Steph!

(Of course, I'm still waiting to see Peter - not to mention my Niece Samantha).

Well, I got the results back for my blood work RE my doctor\rquote s appointment a while back. My doctor said the only thing I\rquote m suffering from is an acute case of attractiveness. Alas, she also pointed out that this would probably disappear with age. J

Oh and Mike got a new flower. I went with him to pick it up (a \lquote white\rquote African violet). When Mike walked into the florist , who not only called to tell Mike that he had found the white violet, but also called a couple of times to say he hadn\rquote t found one but was still looking. Anyway, when Mike walked in it was like Norm walking into Cheers. I was amazed. They were asking Mike about school, he was filling me in on who was who \endash with a fairly decent amount of details into their lives.

Flower people.

Oh, and I bought my first Ron Popeil item. The ShowCase Rotisserie grill. I can now rotisserie a 10 pound turkey.

It was a busy weekend \endash catching up on all the stuff we let go of last weekend to go to LA, and Thuy\rquote s Birthday was Saturday \endash so we went to dinner and a movie with the group.

The rest of the time was cleaning and studying and what not. Some interesting things\'85.

On Sunday I was walking to a little vegetable market we go to buy our vegetables. As I walked, I passed this woman with the 2 cutest puppies ever. The type people hang from trees to photograph for those \lquote hang in there\rquote calendars. So, never one to pass up the chance to pet a pretty pooch, I bend down and scritch them with the requisite \lquote Aren\rquote t you cute\rquote and the obligatory \lquote How old?\rquote question to the owner (which, lets face it is a trick to make them think we care as much about them as we do about the puppies. Which is a lie). Well, she was the grumpiest woman on the planet. She seemed very put of that I was enjoying the puppies \endash maybe because I didn\rquote t put in any work towards them and was just mooching the fun from her. I\rquote m not sure \endash but I think there ought to be a law that says grumpy people can\rquote t own cute dogs. It takes all the fun away from petting them.

Sunday night, after laundry, Mike was studying \endash I was bored. So I went out and saw A mighty Wind. (Okay, one link).

For those not in the know, it\rquote s Folk Music\rquote s answer to \lquote Spinal Tap\rquote . I never saw Spinal Tap \endash but I think I\rquote m going to have to add it to my list. A Mighty Wind was very funny. You can tell much of it was ad libbed, and it was just amusing. I won\rquote t ruin it (if you don\rquote t see it in theater\rquote s, rent it when it comes out) but one of the folk singers, when talking about his history points out...There was some abuse in my family, but it was mostly musical in nature.

Finally A thought for the day via a book Kelly Kelleigh gave me.