Hello friends of the world.  Thank you for your comments on my previous blog.  To take up Lesley's point on the last blog I hope not to make this a *yawn* situation with updates on what colour socks I'm wearing.

They're navy.

Rest of day 1
So day 1 finished off with me hitting San Fran about 10pm on Saturday night.  We were a half-hour sitting on the tarmac at O'Hare with no clue as to what the delay was.  The pilot comes on and says "Uh, we're not really sure what's going on here folks.  No one is telling me anything."  And this is why we should have full and unwavering faith in the aviation industry.

The biggest thrill of the day (outside of imaginging us losing a landing gear wheel as we set down on the runway and then skidding to a safe stop after crashing through parked cars and a chicken-wire fence) was being introduced to Sani Seat. Sani seat is a public toilet seat cover that is fitted to a controlled mechanism presenting you with a clean toilet seat every time.  I didn't even need to go but sat down a few times on it.  Fantastic.

I was picked up at the airport by a small man in a big car with tinted windows.  I've never had someone stand there with my name written on a card before - I felt like a rock star; the guy from Status Quo or someone like that.  

So I got to my mate Noel's place and met his two lovely pugs and hit the sack for about 10 hours.

Day 2
Not much happening here.  Went for a jog and then Walked the dogs for a while and spent a few hours with our colleague, Emanuel.  He's got the world's biggest keyboard.  Seriously this thing could double up as a simultaneous surfboard for a football team.  

Went out for dinner that night with a whole bunch of people and by 10.30pm I was dead to the world, perhaps expedited by my three glasses of pinot noir.  Looking forward to a long and comfy night's sleep.

Day 3
3am.  Wide awake in America.

By 6.30am I'd had enough.  There's only so much tossing and turning can be done.  So I hit the streets for a run and then got to the office for my first American work day!

3pm.  As my eyes rolled to the back of my head, I could have drilled holes through my cranium and looked behind myself.  

But I found my energy again on Monday evening as my mySpace friend Orin took a 20 mile trip over from Fremont to unleash her professional massage technique on my disheveled body.  I get sports injury massage treatment every week back home so even though this was a different technique my body reacted quite well to it (right, Orin?).  My ability to not shut up for an hour reared its head again  - something my weekly therapist normally counters with the well-chosen but good-humoured phrase 'shut up you dickhead' - but I think the inherent originality in the scenario led Orin to embrace it.  And besides my silence could be purchased by one good pinch at any time.  

Finally, my exam results arrived on Tuesday morning.  I don't know how they corrected them so quickly but they did.  Talk about speed-read.  Anyway, it was all good.  I picked up one A and three B+'s in my exams and my final higher diploma grade is a H1 with a 3.45 GPA.  Can't really spit out the dummy there *punches fists in the air triumphantly*

I'm heading off to play tennis now I believe.  After that I think we're going out for dinner.  Perhaps following that I'll yawn for a while.  The life of a vagabond.