We got up at 10. I tried the pancake mix, which went pretty smoothly, and they were pretty good. I had a hard-boiled egg with it, and a banana. Robert had cereal.
We got to the art museum just before two, and the parking lot was teeming with cars streaming in — probably the “after church crowd” — and there was a big sign at the entrance: “SOLD OUT.” I dropped Robert off at the entrance to the parking lot to go get in line in case there was one. I parked in the overflow , and walked over. On the way, cars were just pouring in, one of which being this Mercedes Benz whose horn was beeping in short bursts as if an alarm going off. Everybody was looking at it as it drove by. The occupants seemed unfazed.
There were no lines involved. We registered for a drawing as we entered, and then headed downstairs to the exhibit. Once in there was a long line around the exhibit, with people seemingly spending interminable amounts of time looking at each work. As we walked in, one of the docents said, “You don’t have to start right here. You can start anywhere. It’s less crowded further in.” We took her advice, and went around the corner and started there, which turned out to be right where the Picassos started. We got in this line that didn’t move, literally, for about 5 minutes. During that time this woman’s cell phone started ringing. She got it out from wherever it was after about 3 rings, and then just kept looking at it while it rang at least 6 more times. A security guard started walking toward her from one side as her, presumably, daughter moved toward her from the other side, and helped her turn it off. Get a clue, lady. We decided, “Forget this, we’re going to stand behind these people, and move along quickly,” which is what we did. We were in and out of there in about 30 minutes. Maybe we just not big art appreciationists (if there is such a word), but we saw what we wanted to see.
We ran into Robert M. on the way out, and we took the opportunity to thank him for the complimentary tickets we’d used to get in, which he had given us.
In the car, I said to Robert, “Let’s stop and get you something to eat on the way home, so you’ll have something decent to eat while I eat my Nutrifood.” He’d been joking about trying that Monster Burger at Hardee’s. I said, “Why don’t you go ahead and get that monster burger we talked about, and get it out of your system?”
“Let’s do it,” he said.
From a CNN article: Hardee’s rolls out its new “Monster Thickburger,” which contains two 1/3-pound slabs of Angus beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame seed bun. The “Monster Thickburger” will cost about $5.49, Hardee’s said. But chowing down on the 1,420-calorie burger, which contains 107 grams of fat, will cost around $7 with fries and a soda.
He got the combo, and didn’t stoop to ordering a diet coke. I ended up taking one bite of the thing just to see if it could possibly be worth the calorie and fat fest in it. It wasn’t. For that kind of health investment, it would have to have been a whole lot better than that. I ate a salad and a ham sandwich.
I started reading the Farkas and Farkas article for Tuesday night’s class, but had trouble staying focused on Farkas. Not because it wasn’t that interesting, but more so because I was lying on the bed reading, and Mr. Nappy kept calling out to me. Robert was reading a book, and after a while the book went down to his chest. I turned on the sound machine, and that was it.
Robert left at about 5:30 or so, I think. Not 10 minutes after he left, Joe called me. He was out and about, and wanted to know if I’d be interested in meeting him for a cup of coffee. “I’m not going to try and convince you to go out (to Flex),” he said. Smile.
As I was taking my computer down to go meet him, I knocked over the glass of water I had on my desk, which had about 8 ounces of water still in it, and before I could turn it back up, most of it had spilled out on the desk, and all down in my keyboard. Shit. I ran into the bathroom, and brought a bath towel out, and put it on the floor. Thank goodness I have one of those big hard plastic rug protectors so my desk chair can roll easily, so most of the water was there. I tipped my keyboard sideways, and let the water drip out. Not good. I left it hanging off the side of the desk while I was gone so the water could completely drip out. In the back of my mind I was thinking, I hope it doesn’t spark some kind of fire while I’m gone. I’m sure the neighbors in the adjoining townhouses would appreciate that I at least thought about the possibility of a fire.
Once down the road a bit, I realized I had forgotten to grab a bottle of water, which I desperately needed. I’d had only had 24 ounces so far today, and needed 40 more. I stopped at the Crown Station Convenience Store, and bought a liter bottle, three-fourths of which I drank on the way. We met at the Starbucks on Harrison Avenue in Cary, and we chatted for probably an hour, if not a little more. Steve called near the end, and he was on his way to Bakus 9 in Durham for the CMT fundraising social. He was meeting Loren there.
I was going to stop at Wal-mart on the way back, but decided not to. I was going to skip dinner tonight, but actually felt hunger pangs on the way home, and you’re not supposed to skip meals on this program. So, I had the Parmesan Chicken Pasta entree, and it was delicious. It goes on the “re-order menu,” too.
I turned my PC out of “standby” by mode, and when I put my cursor in the userid field of my LiveJournal client program, the field filled up. It looked like one of the keys was “stuck” or something. Then, I got a pop-up window about inserting a CD to configure the “rapid access” portion of my keyboard. Not good. I shook the keyboard, which showed no signs of any water left in it, and ran my fingers across all the keys in case one was “stuck.” I opened Microsoft Word to a blank document just to see if that’s what was happening. Sure enough, once the new document opened, the document filled with continual plus signs. Shit. I rebooted my system, turning it complete off, and then back on after about 15 seconds, hoping that might clear things up if it was a software problem, all the while thinking, It’s probably a hardware problem, namely the freaking keyboard. Once rebooted, it did the same thing.
Of course, back in October, they sponsored an “Environment Day” or something like that, out at RTP, where you can bring any old computer equipment you wanted to get rid of, and I had taken a bunch of stuff including a spare keyboard. I thought, I hope I kept at least one keyboard. I checked my closet, and thank goodness, found one. It worked. I don’t know if the other one is ruined for good or what. I’ll try it again in a couple of days. That one is black, which matches my system. This replacement one is white. Oh well. At least it works, and I don’t have to suffer the DTs from not being able to get online.
Before going to bed, I had a “dessert” from my food stash — the “cheddar cheese crunchy curls.” They were decent, but no where near as good as the crunchy Cheetos.
I checked the conversion value of 1 liter to ounces. 33.81. Yipppee!