I’m leaving for Atlanta tomorrow afternoon. Of course, that doesn’t spell any kind of interruption in the Fozzolog. I’ll still be able to keep my hordes (heh) of readers up to date as I’ll have high-speed Internet access from my hotel.

Let’s get this over with.

Jennie got a job yesterday as emergency room registrar at Alta View Hospital. She was really excited because that was the job of the several she’d applied for that she wanted the most. She starts in a couple of weeks.

Christine and I took Jennie out to dinner last night to celebrate. That was fun.

Jennie also went to speak with an attorney yesterday.

Running into old friends

Today, we went to the Sears store out at Jordon Landing in West Jordan. Jennie got some new shoes for her job and I bought some new jeans... for my job... as a person... who... needs to... wear pants.

Anyway, we took two cars there and after Jennie and I had gotten into the Subaru to go over to Wendy’s to get some lunch, Christine called me on my cell phone. She told me to come back because she ran into our old friends, Ken and Wendy. Well, not literally. One might think she hit them with her car the way I said it, but that’s not what happened. They saw us in the parking lot and went over and talked to Christine.

To be honest, I wasn’t particularly excited to see them. Mostly because I was really, really hungry and also because I have mixed feelings about them.

Christine and I used to be best friends with Ken and Wendy. We would spend our holidays with them and spend weekends at their house when we were still in school at Utah State University. Then, Ken was offered a job at Microsoft... and then, he accepted the job.

They moved to Washington.

When they came back to visit for the first time, I felt Ken had been completely brainwashed. Since he and I spent most of our time talking about technology and computer science topics, it was difficult for me to deal with him espousing Microsoft at every turn.

So, I decided it just wasn’t feasible to maintain the relationship I had with Ken. I was angry and hurt that he would go work for, well, the devil. I felt the friend I had had died or something and this zombie lemming beast was put in his place.

So, anyway- I drove back to the Sears parking lot and talked briefly with Ken and Wendy. I’m afraid I wasn’t terribly social, again because of the hunger and the less than jubilant feelings I was having about seeing them again.

It was a brief conversation and then we were off to eat our lunch.

Later tonight, however, Ken called me and we talked on the phone. We didn’t talk about computers. We didn’t talk about work, really, at all. We didn’t talk about the chasm in our friendship or anything like that. We just talked about fatherhood, movies, and other stuff.

He asked me how Thom was doing with Sons Of Nothing (Ken, Thom, and I know each other from high school). He asked if I was still making videos like I used to. I feel bad I didn’t really ask him what he’d been up to. I guess I was just scared to hear about dinners at Bill Gates’ house involving ritual sacrifices of baby goats to try to improve Windows security.

Overall, however, the conversation was more than pleasant. It was nice to talk to him again. It was nice to know we could get along despite the differences in our operating system alliances. I wish we could go back to the way it was five or six years ago, before he sold his soul (heh), but this will do.

Preparation status

I’m packed. I have no idea what I’m in for. I’ve never been to Atlanta in my life. The closest I think I’ve been would be St. Louis or Washington D.C.

My flight back next Friday will take me from Atlanta to Los Angeles and then to Salt Lake City. I hope I can find a good book.