fontosaurus

So I'm having one of those starts-at-room-temp Healthy Choice things for lunch today. They're kinda nice, all things considered. And they're not like the frozen ones, which always end up being experiences that can best be summarized as: "This bite tastes like Minnesota winters! This bite tastes LIKE A BILLION DEGREES OF OHFUCK."

Had a nice healthy breakfast today, too -- a bowl of oatmeal, a small glass of kiwi-strawberry juice, and a banana. My mind is very clear today.

Oh, this is all counterbalanced by the fact that I have fallen off the wagon re: my attempts to quit caffeine. Had one bottle (20oz.) of Dr. Pepper. Nothing beyond that, though. I suspect we're going to have to taper off this stuff.

Still. I'm pretty confident about the dietary changes that Kate and I are enacting.

First, lemme thank all of you who have been so supportive of me in my quest for the new job. It's meant a lot to me. I owe all of you for the good karma, encouragement, good thoughts, etc. I'm not sure how I'll repay the kindnesses, but I'm sure I will...

Anyway, for those that don't have all the details yet... I have a position that's an 8 to 12 week contract, fulltime, with the potential to go full-time after the contract is up. It's with the Carlson Leisure Group -- one of the Carlson companies. Schwanky facilities over by where 494 and 394 join up. $26 per hour. I am going to go in there, kick ass, and take names. I'll be doing some intranet development and design, and doing some stuff with their travel bonus site. Should be pretty fun. I'll be doing a lot of front-end user-interface stuff, and some light ASP and ColdFusion dev... I'm totally looking forward to it.

Friday evening I hauled ass down to Mankato to hang out with Carolyn...we were going to go out and get hammered, but by the time I got there, I was pretty tired. We played a bit of Chez Geek, then went down to the bars. I didn't feel like crowds, so we went over to Mexican Village, and had a tequila shot and a beer. Then to bed.

Saturday, we came up here and helped Dave shop for a new Macintosh system. He, as usual, was very methodical about what he should buy. In the end, he got a new G4 desktop. 933 MHz, 768MB RAM, 60GB internal drive, and then an additional 120GB external drive, a new digital camera, a router (which I have to help him configure once his cable service is back online), and some other miscellany. Oh yeah, and a 17" flatscreen. Beautiful system -- I'm mucho jealouso.

Anyway, after setup fun and getting him hooked up with a bunch of the important software, and then Carolyn, myself, Dave, and Kristin went over to Calhoun and went rollerblading. Quite fun. Kristin and Carolyn called it time for a rest after the first lap, and Dave and I did a faster second lap while they sucked down Powerade and kibbitzed.

Carolyn and I went and cleaned up and then had dinner at the Something Original Roadhouse Grill Something Something, which was good. They seem to be an Americanized knock-off of the Outback Steakhouse...their Bloomin' Onion equivelent wasn't very good. The steak and garlic mashed potatoes were awesome, however. Once I got us to 169, she drove the rest of the way -- I was so tired, I fell asleep almost immediate, woke up briefly in LeSueur, and then woke up again in Mankato. Crashed out.

This morning, we went and had a healthy (yeah, right) McDonald's breakfast, then went and saw Lilo and Stitch. Normally, I have a love-hate relationship with Disney. You can never fault the art, music, etc., it's just sometimes a little to saccharine for my tastes. This one isn't the typical Disney fare -- it's got a lot of juvenile humor and a lot of non-whitebread/suburban characters. It managed to make me laugh like hell, and even had me a little choked up at a couple of points. Does that make me a wuss? So be it.

Anyway, I also hit Old Navy -- mom was nice enough to float me $100 for some biz casual clothes, and lo and behold, they had polo shirts on sale, so I grabbed a trio of them. I'm going to hit a few other places tomorrow for more. Variety good. Variety very good.

I guess working in biz clothes is the last step in growing up eh? I can't say I won't miss the jeans-and-t-shirt jobs, but I miss money more than I'll ever miss that.

Hello rain. Hello thunder. Hello intense lightning. There's something odd about being awakened by a storm...especially when the wind and thunder conspire to sound vaguely like a tornado headed toward your neighborhood at 4AM.

Or maybe it was the Thai food that woke me up -- I was having severely fucking weird dreams. mso and I had dinner at Sawatdee up on Hennipen in Uptown last night. My first encounter with Thai food, and oh. my. god. so. fucking. good. I had the Chicken Curry Fried Rice, and couldn't stop stuffing my face. Top it off with a bottle of Saporo beer, and mmmm....what a dinner. Same dish next time, but I am going to have them amp up the spices a bit. I went mild for fear that my face would melt and my stomach would spontaneously combust... I have no sense of adventure sometimes.

And of spicy ethnic foods, let me say that Minneapolis needs to get a true, honest-to-god Tex-Mex place. (And no, you fuckers, Taco Bell and that place in the Mall of America do not count, so let's not get all clever.)

Ethnic foods in general -- I'd love to be able to get a REAL Philly cheesesteak here. Nothing I've found comes even close.

Anyhow, I think I am going back to sleep.

Yum.

Bruegger's Roadhouse Chicken Sandwich on a toasted garlic bagel. (Roast chicken breast, cheddar cheese, pepper bacon, lettuce.)

Big-assed rice krispie bar.

2 cans of Mt. Dew.

I am in heaven.

Or I would be if I weren't so down about the job situation.