Someone should have told me everything is big in Texas EXCEPT the roadsigns. Despite this handicap, I made it to our Austin office by 8.30. They must be special in this office as they have not only their own building, but it's set in its own extensive grounds, surrounded by acres of Texas brush.

I'm finally feeling good about the project I'm working on. We met for a couple of hours this morning and I left thinking we were in fine shape. I feel that I'm doing more than my fair share - the tech lead seems to have abdicated his decision making power, but as long as we're getting the work done.

The office I'm using here is plastered with Dilbert cartoons. It's an odd thing that I scarcely know a single corporate office that isn't - everyone seems to miss the point that Dilbert is poking fun at corporate uniformity!

After work, I managed to locate the large gym I was hoping to work out in. It's so goddamned hard to find things in these kinds of city. It's address was 10095 Research Boulevard or something, but the roads that run either side of the freeway are one-way only so if you miss it, you have to double back, and go back a couple of intersections and wait through those endless suburban traffic lights. No wonder people take up the hobby in suburbs of shootouts at the mall. Once I found the gym, a fancy, expensive castle of a gym, I found out that they're way too sheeshy to take day visitors. How's that for Southern hospitality?

So I ended up in the stingy, delapitated fitness room at my hotel, where I managed to grind through the three exercises that were possible with that equipment, while watching three Y2K experts gab on "The Newshour" on PBS. Most of them had opinions that were so out of left field that they couldn't even argue with each other, despite the best intentions of the news presenter. One, for example, said that the entire Y2K crisis could have been averted by the clever use of insurance, while another said that the whole thing was just an excuse to bitch against computers. Their opinions were too weird to conflict!

The nicest thing about my workout was getting a call from Bryan of Chaos in Austin. He'd emailed me earlier in the day, so I'd called him, and, now we made plans to have dinner. I'll always be grateful to Brian. It must be over a year ago that I came across his excellent online journal. Without that inspiration, I'd have never done my own online journal.

Bryan picked me up around eight. He was shorter than he looked on cam :) But he seemed like a gentleman. And, of course, both of us having an online photo journal, we had plenty to talk about. We're meeting up on Friday when Bryan's going to smuggle me into the massive gym that comes as part of his apartment complex.