2004 was a better year than 2003, in most respects. That doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see it go, though.

I hope that ‘05 sees all of you happier, healthier, and successful in achieving your personal goals.

So the boss took his department out to lunch today. Well, three quarters of his department. Lunch was good. Tried a place I hadn’t been before. Had lots of ribs on the company dime.

Cut to five hours later, and I’m getting ready to leave work. Backpack, check. Jacket, check. Wait, where the hell’s my liner?

Oh, crap. I must’ve left it at the restaurant.

Called the place. Got transferred a couple of times, only to (eventually) find out that nobody’s seen my fleece liner. Great. But they took my name and number and if the day shift happens to know where it went, they’ll call me. Hopefully.

Otherwise, someone made off with a well-worn, well-loved two-year-old Columbia Sportswear fleece liner. And my trip home from work was quite a bit colder for the loss of it.

Argh. I’d say “I can’t believe I did that,” but the problem is that I can. I’d literally forget my head if it wasn’t attached. Again I say, argh.

It took three buses to get me to work this morning.

What happened to the first bus, the #9, you ask? I noticed as I boarded that it looked a bit off-kilter, but didn’t actually worry about it. A few blocks down, we hit a couple of mild bumps. Normally when a bus hits a bumpy stretch there’s some gentle bouncing and mild creaking of suspension, and that’s all she wrote.

Not today.

Bump! Bang! Bump! Bounce! Bang! Bounce! Bang!

Whoah. It didn’t take long to realize that the suspension for the back half of the bus was completely shot. We bounced and banged along until we reached the Rose Quarter transit center, at which point the driver asked us all to exit the vehicle. Nobody really had a problem with that.

I, however, was the only one other than the driver to really take a good look at the outside of the bus afterward. The body was dramatically slouched, practically sitting directly on the right rear wheels… if I knew more about such things I’d say that the suspension there had completely given way. I didn’t have time to snap a picture, though, as a #8 arrived just then and I wanted to get downtown quickly for a spot of breakfast.

Turns out I was too late for that, but oh well…

I went to bed early last night, and slept in late this morning. I accomplished almost nothing of consequence throughout the day, even going so far as to deliberately avoid online activity other than checking my email a few times.

So what did I do all day? I finished reading George R. R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones,” which turned out to be quite the solid piece of work. I watched “The Bourne Identity” for the first time. I watched several episodes of “Bleach” and one of “Hikaru no Go.” In fact, I spent a lot of time downstairs, some of it tinkering with the Meedio computer and some of it actually watching shows with it. In the evening, the usual gaming buddies came over so we played “Evo” and “Settlers of Catan.” As usual, I lost both games. No biggie, though, since I had fun playing. That’s what it’s about, yes?

What didn’t I do? Oddly enough, I managed not to stress (overmuch) about the moderately hellish workdays I have before me, or about my relationship stuff, or finances, or any of that. My biggest stressors today were a quirk with the downstairs computer (turned out to be a broken Meedio theme, argh) and a very sore shoulder (which was a large part of why I spent most of the day offline… typing and gaming when your shoulder’s screaming isn’t my idea of fun).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to some music and seek the comfort of my bed. I have a long day ahead of me. At least now I feel rested enough to take it on…