Lots of things happening at once. The patio furniture just arrived; though I'm far from prepared for it at the moment. Need to get a lot more concrete work done first so I'll at least have a bit of space on the patio. Tomorrow is the countertop measurement. Getting ready for a short trip to Oregon tomorrow night. I'll be putting drawer knobs in tonight if I have any spare cycles but that isn't likely as I need to pack and find a couple of small 'prises for Bella, whose daddy obviously spoils her. And work has been totally hectic with lots of exciting stuff going on. Unfortunately, I can't comment publicly on many of those activities. Late night last night with dinner in Half Moon Bay and a guided tour of the town. I had no idea - having mostly passed through on the way to the beach or elsewhere.

Upgraded to Netscape 6.1 (beta) on the laptop and might need to reconfigure it to be useful. Since that's my road warrior machine it's not very likely this page will be updated over the weekend. For those who have been waiting for my go ahead - 6.1 is finally useable; compared to 6.0 which was mostly a disaster. But wait a wee bit longer for the final release unless you like to live on the bleeding edge or just want to try it out. The 'password wallet' is the compelling feature to finally upgrade, assuming you're like the rest of us and have about 75 online passwords.

I predict that Safeway's be friendly policy has very little life left in it. If you haven't been to Safeway lately, they started about a year ago greeting customers in the aisle with a cheerful "hello..."; and made sure that if there was any identifying info on your credit card or the accursed Safeway card; they would thank you by name for shopping with them. I don't like to be patronized. The first one was toast because the female employees were getting hit on relentlessly. In our society if a female stranger says hi without any prior interaction, it's assumed that she wants to have sex with you; because it just doesn't happen in normal life. Most every male (even the married ones) are secretly hoping that some gal they never met before will walk up and look them in the eye and say hello in the vegetable aisle - and then go out and have wild sex with them in their car in the parking lot. If the first part actually happens, it's playing right into their fantasies that the second will also. That's a pathetic state of affairs but that's how it is. Anyway the checkstand 'by name' greeting is getting me royally peeved. The last six checkers couldn't get it right. They stare at the receipt for several seconds then slowly (as they're reading) stammer "Thank you, Mr....... Mik......Griv...en????". If you can't get it right, don't even try. And here in the valley where we've got Nguyen's coexisting with Krishnamarthapan's and Schöeleredininger's, well... it's a lost cause. They outnumber the pronounceable names 5 to 1.

I try and avoid the Safeway card unless I'm getting a really good deal. You know (don't you) that they're keeping a massive database of your buying habits? Do you really want somebody knowing that you buy Mrs. Fields cookies and ice cream precisely twice a month? Or in my case that I almost always leave with a six-pack of Bock Beer. They know how much you spend on groceries, how many condoms you buy in a year, what magazines you read (which in turn can hint at your political affiliation, age, and hobbies); how often you clean your oven, whether or not you're a vegetarian and can probably predict with some degree of accuracy your cholestorol level. They can figure out whether or not you've got kids and approximately how many and can probably guess the approximate ages. Given enough time, they'll know how often you have headaches and how often you wash your clothes. It's one thing for amazon.com to keep tabs on the luxury or non-essential items what I buy, but this could be much more intrusive when (not if) they start crunching the data.

Fear and trepidation as I open the first box containing the outdoor chairs. Pre-weathered teak, and then (gasp) Made in Indonesia. Shit. These weren't cheap. And I don't have many good stories about southeast Asian manufacturing tolerances (China is absolutely the worst). Imagine then my delight as I put the first one together and find that it exceeds the quality of just about every piece of furniture I own. These were made to sit on for fifty years or more. Outdoors, in a rain forest. They're put together with tight mortises and teak pins (no screws, no glue, no veneer, 100% teak with no possibility of loose joints); and everything fits perfectly. Dimensionally, they're even better than my custom kitchen cabinets - which are nothing to scoff at. I love it when somebody builds something to last. That's so rare in this day and age.