Concepts in the Paradox

I got the first bunch of gifts for the holidays today. I have one more shipment from ThinkGeek, then I’m going to make a trip to BigLots and perhaps a few “stuff” stores in the Sunset to round out my shopping.

I finally tracked down a copy of The Logic of Failure, which the local library doesn’t carry. It’ s supposed to be an excellent book on why even experts fail at complex projects. I also have How to Solve It, a good on Mathematical Methods, and Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, on loan from Keith.

Tonight I spent most of the night cleaning up the mess that started to gather in my apartment. I feel a little bit better now that books aren’t laying in a stack on my floor and papers strewn across my sofa.

Tomorrow is a full workout day. ZG/L13 plans are looking pretty thin, unless someone can seriously motivate me to go out after 2 hours of self-inflicted hell.

If there is any point in the day I look forward to the most, it is sitting in Snow Park beside Lake Merritt. After being cooped up in my noisy and stuffy cube-city of an office, picking up a book and sitting out there for an hour gives me a chance to find a different head space.

My latest set of books are both by Dan Brown, which my older sister graciously sent me. The first is the famed Da Vinci Code, which I felt was at best luke warm. The character development is so so, and the plot is somewhat predictable. It is junk literature, but easy to pick up where I left off.

The next is Deception Point, which is much more to my liking. It has action, intrigue, mystery, and politics! It is still junk in my mind, but some times I run over my lunch break doing the whole “one more chapter!” scheme.

On the San Francisco side of the pond, I’ve found this great up and coming grocery delivery service called Planet Organics. The way it works if you go to their website and pick a weekly packet for delivery. I’m doing half veggies and half fruit, but I can have all fruit, all veggies, or some other sort of combo. In addition, I can have regular items added to my cart. They carry the same or similar product as Trader Joes, and have outstanding customer service.

Every Tuesday, I come home from work and shortly there after I get a phone call from my front door buzzer. I let the delivery person in, they come up to the 9th floor and drop off a reusable plastic and/or polystyrene bin, and my shopping for the week is done. As far as pricing, they require a minimum $32 order. They have sales, but everything is pretty much full retail. No delivery charge, but that is really just built into the price.

The quality of the fresh food is outstanding. I used to eat out most weeks, and with the exception of going over to the cable car turnaround for some of Blondie’s pizza now and then, I can make food at home and eat like a king. The veggies and fruit must be picked only a day before being dropped off, because they are more fresh than anything I’ve gotten at any store, including TJ’s. It all also goes bad come Tuesday, but then I just get restocked!

The door opened, and everyone in the elevator was laughing. I stepped in, and listened in to find out what was so amusing.

“14 you say?!” one woman said.

“Yes, just 14, can you believe it?” another man responded.

“Wow, 14!”, another man said, and then another round of laughing.

“I just can’t imagine, you know, 14.” the woman reiterated.

The door opened to my floor, and as I exited I tried to make one more attempt to figure out what this mysterious “14″ related to.

Alas, as the door closed all I heard was “Man… 14. Geez”.

I had a sleeping buddy on the bus ride home. Shortly after getting on at Market, an early-30’s professional woman took a seat next to me. Short hair, too much makeup, Kaki pants, a business coat, white blouse, and a leather purse, she looked like she did some sort of middle management, or some other mind-numbing career in the financial district. I was too engrossed in my book, Rats, hoping to finish the last chapter during my 14 minute ride home to notice this woman had completely fallen asleep.

I didn’t take notice until her head was resting gently on my shoulder, the slightest dab of sleepy drool oozing from her lip. The bus would hit a bump, take a turn, or make a classic Muni “Gas+brake” maneuver, and she’d nod awake for a second, try to rest her face in her palm in a manner that looked like she was deep in thought, then fall right back over onto my shoulder. I thought about waking her, but the ring on her finger looked like more than a year of my pay, so I just elected to enjoy a sleepy traveler using me as a pillow.