Candie called me at about forty-five minutes before the meeting to let me know Alan was calling a meeting at the same time of all of his managers. Since at least one of them has to be at my meeting to authorize action item closings, we basically canceled the meeting. I did dial in just to see if anyone else did, and had any issues they wanted to bring up. Only Cassandra dialed in. We chatted for about five minutes and hung up.
I ran over to the IBM Club and picked up our Tim McGraw tickets. I’m looking forward to that concert on Saturday night. We’re in the covered pavilion area, row Q.
I ran over to Canopy to give the dongle to Robert. The Internet site I checked on gave me 1516 as the address, but when I got there that building had three tenants, none of which were Canopy. I went into one of the establishments in that building, a medical practice, and asked them for a phone book. The phone book said, 1520.
Robert seemed truly delighted to find me knocking on the front door. When he opened it, I said, “Uh, I’d like to buy an awning. Oh, it’s not that kind of a canopy store?”
He introduced me to several of his co-workers as they walked by. I love his work area, and love now having a mental picture of him when I chat with him. I met Linda, which was a real hoot. It’s also nice to have a mental picture of her to go along with the stories now.
One person, Barbra, just said the lovliest thing when Robert introduced me to her. Robert said, “This is John. He’s my ‘special person’ in my life.” To which she replied, “Well if he’s special to you, then he’s special to us.” How very gracious and eloquent.
I had a piece of red velvet cake, which was average, and a piece of Carrot Cake, which was delicious. I also had a cup of coffee. It is all about the food, isn’t it?
Robert said some real nice things about reading my journal, and that warmed my heart. We do have some wonderful memories, and he likes, as do I, that the good as well as the not so good is there. I love how loving he is.
I left work at about 4:40, stopped by the post office to check the TCW mail, which was good since our phone bill was there, and I can take it to our meeting tomorrow night.
I got to Carmichael, and paid my $20 for a summer membership, since I’m not enrolled in any classes. I thought of going right then to work out, but didn’t have my clothes, but thought, “I could work out in the clothes I have,” then thought, “Why don’t I just walk at the lake in these clothes instead,” and then, “Oh but it could start raining, and if I’m half way around the lake, I’ll get soaked walking back,” and then, “Hey, why don’t I just walk the indoor track here, since I got my card renewed.”
I walked back to my car, and dumped my phone, my change, and my wallet, and went into the gym to walk. I intended to do a 3-mile walk, which is what I would have done at the lake, but once I made it to 3, I decided to go for 5. 32.5 laps. It took me 1 hour, 15 minutes, almost 15 minutes per mile to the minute.
I stopped by the Food Lion on Avent Ferry on the way home. Once home, I cooked the ground beef I’d just bought, and diced, in the food processor, a huge pile of the cheese cubes I’d bought for Adam’s cookout. I sprinkled some of both of those on some Tostito Scoops, and microwaved them. Once out, I added salsa, sour cream, and onion. Yum. Good thing I went the extra two miles. 🙂
My project for the night was to start transcribing the audio recordings I made on the Tour de Friends ride, coming up on one year ago now. I checked the tape recorder, and it still worked. I was afraid the batteries on these recorders might have gone out.
I picked up the digital recorder, and my heart sank a little bit. The LCD screen was blank. It’s supposed to have indicators on it. I looked at all the buttons, trying to remember if I had to turn it on or something. Nothing. I lifted the battery cover, hoping to not find acid leaking from the battery. It looked fine. I was resigned to it being dead and having lost the 20 recordings on it.
I removed the battery, and replaced it with a new one. The time and date started flashing, and I thought, “Yep, it’s cleared.” I hit the menu button, and all of a sudden, I saw the “1/20” indicator, meaning it was pointing to the first of 20 recordings. My heart jumped. I pressed the play button, and sure enough the recordings were there. The gods are with me.
I took this as a sign to get right to transcribing. I had to play each recording about six times as I typed up the words. Unfortunately, the only back button took the recoding all the way back to the beginning of each section each time. So it was a little tedious, but I eventually finished all 20 sections.
On about number 16, I was laughing so much at one of the recordings, that I had to call Joe and play it for him.
It was this one, at our lunch break on day two, the 115-mile day: This is lunch break, 55 miles; we’re half way. We had chicken “salat” sandwiches in a wrap. And [Laughter.] some delicious red potato potato salad, and a cookie and an apple, and some barbecue chips. And then we used the bathroom, and then we watched all the people SAGging. Again, I do think it’s a good thing, if you’re tired, that you go ahead and SAG (quitter!).
We decided to get together on June 19, since it’s a Saturday, and one year from the day we started the ride, have a cookout at his house, and share our diaries with each other. “I’ve never let anyone read my diaries before,” he said. What an honor.
I plan to have everything transcribed by then, and placed in my journal entries for those days last year.