Journal entries in 'Dear Diary' for April, 2005

Well, I think Liz's family received a warm welcome back to the island. Check-in time for their hotel was 3pm. Their flight got in at 6pm, so they headed to the hotel then, and the room wasn't ready. Finally around 8:45pm, as I was getting off work, they were finally let into their room. The hotel offered them a free meal at the restaurant in compensation, and they invited me to dinner. During the meal, the power went out several times, finally going out and staying out. I pulled out the three mini-flashlights I keep in my bookbag (take that, Jing-Ta, it is useful to keep everything with me after all), handed them out, and we went in search of stairs to climb the 14 floors to their room. We couldn't find them, so Liz and I headed off and her parents continued searching for a way up to their room. They called Liz later to let her know they had gotten up to the room, but the power was still off and there was no water either. I offered repeatedly to let them stay with us, but they refused. They did, however, accept two bottles of water to use for brushing teeth, and Liz took a shower here before I took her back. I hope the rest of their vacation can live up to the high standard set for it on the first day.

You know those roads that are marked with an unrealistically low speed limit, and everyone sort of ignores? Like the section of Hwy. 76 that passes through Clemson, which is marked 35mph but is basically a highway deserving of something like 55mph. Or Kennedy Expressway in PR, marked 45mph but is a long, straight road with no exits or on-ramps. I usually drive 65mph on Kennedy and it feels completely comfortable.

Tonight on the way home from dropping Liz off at her hotel in San Juan, I was making my way back on Kennedy at 2:30am. The only other car on the road was a cop car with lights blazing, as they always are here. Naturally, I matched his speed, but the lights were pretty much blinding me, so I nudged forward until I was just in front of him. He then got on the loudspeaker and said, "You're going faster than 40, you know."

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Liz arrives today, and will be visiting for a week. Andrés arrives tomorrow, and he will be here for two and a half weeks. I've accumulated four vacation days from working weekend shifts over the last month or two, so I'm taking Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off. That means today is effectively my Friday, which is awesome.

After Liz regrettably leaves, Andrés and I are going to see if we can make a weekend trip to St. Thomas to visit Rose. A few weeks after that, I'm going to Cedar Point with Bryan and Cat. Around then, Michelle and Andrea get down here for the summer, and they'll be here for 4 months. So for the next few months, at least, my solitude seems to be in a temporary reprieve.

Liz's plane gets in around 6pm, so the plan is to call her when I get off work at 8. Just have to make it until then and I'm home free.

Today I went out for my lunch break and planned to get the car washed. However, halfway to San Patricio it started raining heavily, which very effectively turned the excursion into wasted time. Very clever, to keep it bright and sunny here in San Juan, so I would be fooled into heading out and using up my lunch break for nothing.

While making my way around San Patricio, I drove through a huge puddle, which sent torrential sheets of water cascading away from my car, absolutely soaking a guy who was walking on the sidewalk with an umbrella. I felt bad, but couldn't help finding it hilarious too.

I made a half-hearted attempt to go fly the helicopter today. I woke up at 10am, so I had plenty of time, but Harold doesn't get out there until 1pm so I didn't want to leave just yet and wait around. So I did some other stuff, worked on binrock, etc, and then when noon came around I didn't feel like leaving. Finally around 3:30 I showered and loaded the helicopter in the car and set out. It was starting to look dark, but I figured if I didn't get to fly the helicopter, I could at least drive around and take pictures or something. But then as I passed Dorado it started raining, which basically rules out both options, so I turned around and headed back. The rain was dastardly enough to wait until just after I passed the last exit before the second tollbooth to start falling, so I had to drive helplessly towards my second wasted 70¢ like cattle to a slaughterhouse. ...A slaughterhouse that charges you 70¢ and lets you go free, I guess.

So anyway, I paid $1.40 to go for a scenic drive in traffic. All in all a good day.

Wow. Apparently for the past month or so my mom has been going through my photo gallery and downloading the photos she liked best, and compiling a coffee table book with them. She just got them in yesterday, and showed me when I got home from work. It was a really pleasant surprise. I feel a bit awkward having a book of my photos though, especially since she ordered a few extras so I could give them to friends. Hehe, offering someone a book of your photography feels so egotistical. Kind of like handing them a promo headshot of yourself as a christmas present or something. Fortunately, I have the excuse that my mom made it, so I don't have to take responsibility for it and can just enjoy having it. :)

Working during the day means there is no longer a 12 hour communication delay between my boss and I, and so I'm kept more busy. However, it's not really all bad, because Luis tends to be quite happy with the work that I do, and so being given more projects means I get to receive more frequent praise for doing them well. So it ends up being sort of nice being able to get things done so quickly and get straight to the acknowledgement of my efforts :) Like a carrot on a stick. I am a simple being.

Hehe. I'm playing Rachel's — Systems/Layers at work. My coworker Fernando tried to be diplomatic: "It sounds like the soundtrack for a movie or something, how the mood changes gradually."

My boss was less so: "Bullshit! It sounds like the music my grandmother played when my grandfather died. I'll be right back, I'm going to go puke."

We just replaced the shower curtain in the hall bathroom with a shower door, and I like it much better. But I've encounted a fundamental flaw in its design.

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Bah, I managed to stay up until 11pm last night, but I'm still up at 5am and can't get back to sleep. I hate the feeling of impending doom, knowing that if I can't get back to sleep I'm going to be falling asleep towards the end of work, yet there's nothing I can do about it. The more you want to go to sleep, the harder it is. Oh well, I guess I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

In the past few years, LEDs have become more efficient and thus gradually transformed from indicators to illuminators. It’s nice that flashlights and stoplights and taillights can be made with low-power-consumption LEDs, but it seems like the change is universal and there is now no such thing as low power LEDs anymore. Last night was the first time in a long time that I went to sleep in the dark, which allowed me to discover that the amber LED on the front of my computer is bright enough to illuminate the room.

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(Sung to the tune of Perfect Circle's 'A Stranger')

Nice things about working during the day:

• Sleeping in the dark (so nice! I should do this more often)
• Finally get to use my $75 Oakleys (what a stupid purchase, especially for someone who worked at night)
• Seeing other humans/Not feeling like I'm on the set of 28 Days
• Free mallorcas each morning (Ugh that would be bad long term)

Downsides:

• No longer have daytime hours free to do things like renew driver's license
• Daytime environment at work a little less laid back
• Can't just leave headlights on all the time, since I actually experience daytime driving now
• Other people in my bathroom stall!
• Traffic, I have not missed you.

Every morning as I drive down the long gradual hill behind my house on the way home from work, there is a huge flock of pigeons congregated at the bottom of the hill pecking at food.

(There's usually more than that). As I approach, they inevitably wait until the last possible minute before scattering in a flurry of feathers that envelopes the car.

For weeks, I've pondered the phenomenon.

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Today Natalia woke me up to come give me a hug goodbye as she left for school, and it was the best thing ever.

Today after work I stopped by the panadería for breakfast. I wasn't sure if I should order a sandwich or just get oatmeal, because sandwiches take a while to make. But I figured I wasn't in any hurry, so why not. Seconds after I ordered the sandwich, a cameraman and a reporter for Telemundo walked in the door and told everyone to get pretty because she was going to interview everyone about some current events thing. Crap. I would have felt ridiculous cancelling the order just because of that, so I just hunched into the corner with my back to her and hoped she'd get the hint. After that it was just a matter of a race between the sandwich guy and the other interviewees.

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Luis told me today that he's moving me back to the daytime shift starting next Monday. I'll be working 10am-8pm. It's weird, it's like this fundamental shift in my life. Everything I know will change again. And I'm not sure I like it. Sadly enough, I think I actually prefer the shift I have now. Right now, if I need to go to a store or get some work done on my car or whatever during the day, I can. When you're working during the day, you can't get anything done.

There's pros and cons, of course. Now it won't be a challenge to wake up early enough to go flying on Saturdays, so I can start doing that again. And hopefully I'll no longer be quite so familiar with the feeling of desperately trying to stave off sleep, which was what initially started my long descent into regular Starbucks patronage. It will be nice to have evenings free; now I can go to movies more often. It'll also be nice when friends come to visit, because friends statistically hang out much more often during the evenings than early mornings. I guess we'll see how it goes.

So today I ordered pizza (Domino's 3 pizzas for $5.55 each, mmm, way too much pizza). Since you have to have an electronic key to get to my office, standard practice is for the pizza guy to call when he arrives so we can go out and get the pizza. This guy apparently didnt know to do that, though. When I got a call on my cell phone, I assumed it'd be the pizza guy. But instead it was some woman who said (in Spanish), "Daniel? Are you expecting a pizza? The guy is out here and he's about to leave." Until this point, I figured it was the guard at the front desk calling. However, she continued in a surprised tone, "Are you here at atrium? What floor are you on? I ran all around the building looking for you but didn't find you. Anyway, you'd better get out here, the guy's about to leave. You owe me a slice of pizza."

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