This will likely by my last rambling for a while. I'll be departing for Chicago tomorrow. Exactly how long I'll be there isn't certain. If I were to guess, I'd estimate a return sometime aound next weekend.

I might write some content the old fashioned way while I'm out, to be copied here later. Then again, I might not.

I might also see some combination of Yanthor, Anya, Humblik, or Linknoid tomorrow night on my way. I emailed Yanthor today, but I don't know if he's seen my message yet. (It ended up getting delayed because it's a bit trickier to send mail to a host that has no MX record. Doh.)

Today's upgrade of the live x13 code didn't happen as planned, but that may be just as well. Scott decided at the last minute that he wanted some structural changes, and it's better to delay a release than to do a bad rollout and then backtrack later. Besides, it will be better if I can be around for the first few days after things go live to make sure it all goes smoothly.

This evening, I walked across the street under dark rain clouds (but no rain fell while I was out), and bought a piece of cut watermelon and 2 bananas. I sat on a bunch outside a nearby store in the same shopping complex and ate my fruit. It was quite pleasant out.

After I had eaten the watermelon and 1 banana, I decided I wanted to go into the Big Lots store and wander around. But I still had 1 banana left that I wasn't ready to eat, and I didn't want to carry it into the store. I thought about hiding it under a bush somewhere to retrieve later, but then I decided to try something far more interesting.

Just leave it outside in plain sight, and see if it's still there when I return. My own little social experiment. If I find that it's gone, then I'm out about 25 cents, and I can assume that some random unknown person found a nice banana to eat. If it's still there, I retrieve it, and carry on my merry way. I left the lone banana on the bench where I had sat.

Inside the Big Lots store, they were playing the Natelie Merchant song "Carnival". I wandered around the store for a few minutes, and as I neared the end of my circut, a candy bar caught my attention. The Hershey's Whatchamacallit bars that I used to like to eat as a teenager were 33 cents; the same price I used to pay back then in a regular grocery store. I bought one, thus bringing my total supper spending to just over $2.

(Since I had been snacking on my dad's beans earlier, I hadn't been that hungry to begin with.)

Outside, I went to check on the status of my banana. Before I got to the bench, I noticed a man walking by, pushing a stroller, and looking at it. I was honestly sort of hoping he would take it, as that could have made a great moment of entertainment. But he did not. The banana returned to my hands untouched by anybody else, as far as I could tell.

Now, I really ought to go and think about preparations for tomorrow's trip.

I hereby order the entire world I normally occupy to halt in its tracks from now until the moment I return. Nobody shall conduct any business deals, make any funny comments, have any parties, or do anything at all while I am gone. This world will simply freeze, and I shall find everything exactly as it was when I left it. Thus issueth my decree. So let it be.

[POOF]