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Tomorrow is my brother’s birthday. He’s 25. Welcome to your mid-twenties. Whoohoo. Now have a few beers and drown your sorrows ya geezer.

Here’s a picture of the two of us at Danny’s graduation/birthday party last May. As you can see from my hair accessories, it was a multicultural event.

I was going to title this “Reasons Why I Like My Job” but I realized that it was quickly becoming “Reasons Why My New Job is Better Than My Old Job.”

1. No one is watching me, looking over my shoulder, stomping by my desk every five minutes, or freaking out and distracting me.

2. Free stuff that is GOOD - free fruit everyday, free starbucks coffee, free plastic utensils in the break rooms, and free pastries and bagels on Wednesday mornings.

3. Sunlight - There are windows by my desk and I can see sunshine.

4. No grey box of boredom - my desk is some sort of bastardized IKEA-type structure, but is is made out of light-colored wood and is open on one side - the side facing the window.

5. People here seem to get along well with each other. In other words, there are few if any epic battle’s of one’s ego.

6. I’m right in the middle of the city’s financial district. This means that I can walk just about anywhere and get food. There are at least 30 eating establishments within three blocks in any direction that cater to the nine-to-fivers.

7. I don’t have a set schedule. This means that if I need to come in a little late one morning, it’s fine. Nobody is watching the clock as far as I can tell. I usually arrive before 8:30 am, but it’s nice to know that no one is cracking the whip.

8. The people here are not afraid of the human resources department. My former coworkers understand this statement all too well.

9. My manager leaves me alone and lets me do my work. He is not constantly changing the way we write documents. He is not a writer and lets the writers make the ultimate decisions regarding the document design.

10. I have a brand-spanking-new hp workstation, complete with large, flatscreen monitor.

Who knows? I may hate my job in six months, but for now, it rocks.

I’m trying to set up a new way of posting to my site. If you come across some really weird post in the next 24 hours, it was me testing my site.

I saw someone get kicked off the train this morning. Usually, the conductors will warn you to get a ticket next time, then let you stay on. Apparently, this guy had done that a few times and the conductor got pissed. He made him get off the train and told him to buy a ticket before getting back on. As soon as the guy got off, the doors closed and the train pulled out. There is another train that runs 10 minutes behind mine. I’m sure the guy was fine, but why wouldn’t he buy a ticket? I mean, they have warnings everywhere - on the train, at the station, and glued to the railing. I don’t like buying the ticket, but I do it so I don’t get kicked off. I mean, we don’t like buying gas for our cars, but we need it to get from point A to point B.

In other news, Mom and Daniel have bought their plane tickets and are coming to visit Danny and I for Thanksgiving. I’m really looking forward to this. Not only are they both taking time off work, they’re shelling out big bucks to travel during the busiest time of the year. I really appreciate this because I don’t plan to go back to Texas until Christmas. Speaking of which, I should probably buy my ticket pretty soon.

On Saturday, I saw Tom Waits hanging out at the jewelry counter at Macy’s on Union Square. Have I heard of Tom Waits? Yes. Do I really care about him? No, not really, but it is still cool to see a celebrity unexpectedly. The only reason I knew it was him was because a girl at the makeup counter pointed him out to me as we were walking over to check out their new line of bath products.
This sighting was pretty uneventful. The only other times I’ve had close encounters with celebrities were when I unknowingly cut in front of Brian DePalma at the “The Truth About Charlie” premier party at Antone’s in Austin and when Diana and I happened to duck into a hotel in Cannes to use the bathroom while Sofia Coppola was giving an interview on the front steps.

This is Lisa and I at Pigeon Point Lighthouse yesterday afternoon. We stopped here after driving down highway 1 from Pacifica. After leaving here, we took a windy road through the redwoods back to Menlo Park.

It is HOT here. We have no air-conditioning. This is not fun. Granted it is not nearly as hot and humid as it is in Austin, but it is not pleasant either. We have fans and the windows open, but it has not cooled down much in our apartment. We may just sit out on the patio and sip ice water and talk about the good old days of window-units and central air. I know that I’m being dramatic, but come on! The cooler climate is why we moved out here.

On second thought, at least we don’t live in Florida…

My friend Lisa arrived here on Thursday morning. I picked her up at 8:20 am. This means that I got to sleep in. We grabbed a quick but hearty breakfast at Hobee’s and then I dropped her off at my house to nap and recuperate from her early morning adventures. I still had to go to work, but it was a really easy workday.

On Friday, I only had to go to work for a couple of hours because I was going to one of my company’s branch offices for an unofficial meet-and-greet. This only lasted for about two hours and then I was free. Lisa and I drove around Stanford and then went and got manicures and pedicures. This took a couple of hours, but it gave us plenty of time to gossip, lie around in the manicure chairs and read quality literature like Elle and Glamour.

Today, we slept in, went out for brunch, and then drove to San Francisco to go shopping. Unfortunately, we are having a heat wave. This totally sucks because I told Lisa to pack sweaters and other cold weather clothes because it is usually in the 60s and 70s in San Francisco. Today, the high there was 92 - Yuck. She brought one light shirt so we may have to get her some warm-weather clothes so she doesn’t melt. Anyway, we still had fun today. We parked near Chinatown and wandered down Grant street with all of the other tourists. We shopped in Macy’s for a while before descending upon LUSH. LUSH is our bath and body mecca. Don’t buy stuff there. You will soon become addicted to it.

To skip the awful heat and the hordes of tourists, we grabbed a cab back to our car, dropped off our goodies, and walked over to the Mona Lisa Restaurant for dinner. The food was good, but the power went off right before we finished eating. We were fine, but the air-conditioning was down and we didn’t want to stick around too much longer. We paid with cash which, amazingly, we had enough on hand, and headed home. I really wish it had been cold today, but maybe the heat will subside before Lisa returns home on Tuesday.

Oh yeah, and Danny was REALLY REALLY cool during all of our girl-stuff today. He kindly accompanied us while shopping, hailed us taxis, let us pick the restaurant, and then drove us home in traffic. Although I offered to buy him a pedicure, he said he’d be happy with a kiss. Awww…

I’ve been bringing CDs to listen to at work this week. I got the urge to listen to the Pixies and that led to Weezer and the band And You Will Know Them by the Trail of Dead. Cheerful sounding name, eh? Anyway, listening to them reminded me of driving around Austin and hanging out with my friend Cody after work back in 2001-2002. We used to do our laundry together at the Coin Laundry on 29th street and then go over to Conan’s Pizza to get some beer and pizza before it was time to put our clothes in the dryer. If we didn’t do that, we’d drink tall-boys out on the curb and talk about relationships. Since then, we’ve both moved away from Austin, but he was one of the best girlfriends I’ve ever had. He also had more t-shirts than anyone else I’ve ever known. I watched him fold them all so I should know.

Here’s a picture of Cody and Amy at Amy’s going-away party last summer. I actually came across this photo on Amy’s site. I was looking for a picture of her to post too. See, Amy wouldn’t like it if I posted pictures of friends and did not include her. Just to make her happy, here’s an extra picture of her looking uber-cool.