This morning, I got up a little earlier than on the previous days and decided to actually accomplish something today. So, after breakfast, I ran errands for an hour, picking up a stepladder, some stuff from Loctite which, if I’m very lucky, will let me fix my outside light, gasoline, bagels, and cream cheese (I already had the lox). Then I used the Loctite stuff (we’ll see if it worked tomorrow) and did some other miscellaneous work; we had lox and bagels for lunch.

Then we went to see Chicken Run. It was great fun; highly recommended.

After the movie, we walked down to the other end of the shopping complex (can I call it a mall if it’s not enclosed?) and bought a scanner — a Umax Astra 3400. It seems to work, and now I can scan in the Japanese Pokemon which Jeffrey wants to sell on eBay, such as this one: Time to watch another movie, this time on the DVD player:
Bride of Frankenstein. I didn’t like it as much as the original — the music put me off (there were times during the scene where the bride is being brought to life that I could swear I heard “Bali Hai” from South Pacific). But it did have its moments, and Diane and Jeffrey both liked it better than the original.

I’m back from the Knowledge Management conference, with great hopes of staying in California for nearly three weeks.

On my flight home from Chicago to San Jose, I had the great pleasure of sitting next to Dana Bowman, who is a professional skydiver with a difference — he is also a double-amputee, having lost his legs in a skydiving accident. Dana was on his way to San Jose to parachute into the opening ceremony of the National Junior Wheelchair Games at San Jose City College, to demonstrate the difference between someone who’s disabled and someone who’s unable. Talking with Dana was amazingly refreshing and inspirational — not that he was preachy — far from it, but I was impressed that he had taken such a hit and didn’t let it slow him up.

So yesterday (Saturday), we found ourselves at San Jose City College, waiting for Dana to drop in. The drop was supposed to happen at 7pm, and we just barely made it on time — but, unsurprisingly, things were running late, so we were quite comfortably settled when the plane began flying overhead. It made a few laps of the area, waiting for the parade of athletes, but eventually, we caught site of a distant parachute. A few minutes later, he was close enough for us to be able to read the ad on his parachute; then he was only three feet off the ground. And then he’d landed and was (briefly) addressing the crowd. Then everyone started to disperse, and we went home.

Other than that, things have been quiet. More later, perhaps.