I've been here in Colorado for three days now. Something about a witch's tit comes to mind. The weather has been pretty cold, but ultimately (heh) bearable. I thought I came prepared, but San Francisco cold really doesn't compare to Colorado cold (not that you could tell with my complaining about San Francisco weather). Kinda like double black diamond skiers from California thinking they can ski Colorado double black diamonds - not gonna happen with those different scales.

Normally, the only thing I really notice about being here is the dry air. I'm not able to run as far as fast as I do at home, when I actually head out for a run instead of working 11 hour days, but that effect usually fades in three or four days.

This time, I'm not having such luck.

This time, my stomach is killing me. I'm drinking a lot of water, and avoiding the altitude induced headaches I might normally get. I'm sure everyone is amazed at my numerous trips to the bathroom, as I'm journeying to the other side of the building every fifteen minutes or so. Of course, I'm not heading there for just the water (see the stomach mention above), so I'm sure everyone isn't really so entertained by the trips.

There's a good chance I'll be able to head home tomorrow. Once again, I was unable to finish up all the work I want to do. I'm really not sure why I can't finish all the projects I want to do. Why does software always take longer than I want it to (yes, yes, I know, it always takes as long as I think it will, but I still want it to be shorter!)?

"You can't deny people the right to go to the airport."

Huh?

That's a quote from some LAX/LA official arguing that two gates cannot be closed at LAX. The argument is about fixing LAX, which hasn't been updated in the last ten years (boy, did I get out just in time!). Some people think it should be fixed, and many of its problems should be addressed: the noise, the horrendous environmental impact, the delays and congestion. Other people, like said official, think fixing the problems can't be done: heaven forbid people should be inconvenienced when a problem is being fixed.

What is it with people and their inability to "look forward to the long term" as another person commented on the other side of this argument? Closing two gates. Two. Gates. WTF?

Of course, the only reason I even noticed this story was because I can't find KQED in the radio cast on iTunes. So, instead of listening to San Francisco's public radio, I'm listening to Los Angeles' public radio.

It's terribly strange to hear about the old freeways I used to drive. "The worst place to be this hour is heading north on the 605. Congestion near the 10 has traffic backed up to the 405."

The walk from my house to the Bergeron-Gull house involves dodging bullets, dancing around dangerous brush, skipping over potholes the size of the Grand Canyon and jumping over dead rodents. On my over this morning, the bullets were in rare form: the form of stinky, smelly, icky ginko bilbo seeds.

Kris and I used to have a female ginko tree in our front yard. We had quite the surprise the first fall when we unknowningly walked over a few of the seeds and they crunched under our feet. When they broke, peeeeeeeeee-yewwwwwwwwww! Didn't take long before we nicknamed the seeds little shit-balls.

Ginko might be great for the memory, but it's awful for the nose. We accidently tracked the stench into the house, and, oh my lord, did our house smell like crap for a long, long time.

My bullet dodging on the way to Kate and Mike's house involved dragging a rollerbag through the ginko seeds littering the sidewalk in front of one of their neighbor's houses. We suspect they don't realize the city will replace the trees if they end up being female ginkos instead of male ginkos. I thought my dodging in the early morning to be successful, but, well, my sense of smell is a bit off, so I'm never quite sure.

Fast forward six hours, when I'm in Kyle's office, talking to him about his web application and work I've been doing for him. He didn't have a seat in his office, having just moved into the office space less than two weeks before, so I plunked my butt down on the stepstool in his office and started talking to him.

After about 10 minutes, I noticed Kyle looking up at me sideways. I kept talking until I noticed an unpleasant smell. Now, for me to notice the smell, lord, it has to be an overwhelming smell.

And it was.

Turns out, I wasn't as good with the shit-ball dodging, and caught one in the grooves of my shoes. When I sat on the stepstool, I squished the seed on the step, and crushed it. By the time I noticed it, I had smeared the seed in the grooves of the stepstool and into the office rug.

In Kyle's office.

No amounts of apologizing and cleaning up was going to get that smell out any time soon. Poor Kyle. His office smells like crap now.

I'm heading to Chicago at the end of January for the 37 Signals Workshop entitled Getting Real. I think I'm more excited about this one than I am about heading to my first SXSW conference.

I wonder if it'll be as good as Cal's was...

Eh, the best non-technical part will be seeing Dad and Jess and Jenny again. Whoo!

Well, assuming I don't convince Jess to move out to SF before then.

While on a walk with the dogs tonight, Kris and I walked past a huge house in the neighborhood where a family of six live.

"I hereby dub their extra two children, our contribution to society. There. We're done."

"How many kids do they have?"

"Four."

"They're probably Catholic."

"Indeed."

"We need to have more to dilute them!"

"Yeah, right."

"We do, we can have twenty!"

"Heh. That wouldn't wreck my body at all!"

"We could have five sets of quadruplets!"

"Uh huh."

"Think of the tax benefits!"

"That's me! A tax credit factory!"