Adam's Journal

10:45am: dreams
I had an interesting dream last night. Lucy called me on the phone. Actually, Peanut dialed the phone, I answered my cell, and she said "Please hold for Lucy." sounding kinda pissed off. Then Lucy picked up the phone and started talking. She wanted me to pick up some poop-treat at the petstore. For those reading along, Lucy is my ferret, as is Peanut. Her voice sounded kinda like Sarah's impression of her, only a little higher pitched and gravely. She said something like "Hi daddy! I just wanted to remind you to pick up more poop treat. Pizza's on the way. I love you! *click*". It was very sweet. In the dream, I thought it was Sarah playing a joke on me, but then I realized that Sarah was in Denver and the call came from the home number.

Apparenly Peanut's the one who's been ordering all the pizzas... hmm...

In other news, I had a fun time in Farmington for the Pro Solo. I didn't drive that great, and I hit alot of cones, but it was fun. I found out that I'm very very good at running a drag-style christmas tree. Very good reaction times and the shortest 60 foot times out of anyone in my class. I lined up next to the current CSP national champion and pulled him from the light 4 times in a row. Then I lined up next to a BSP Corvette and also beat him... until I had to shift. Then he had another 15 mph worth of 1st gear and that was it. But it was still very exciting. Maybe some bored summer night, I'll hit the drag strip with some Miata guys.

The ferrets had a good time staying with Alex. Peanut was an angel. Lucy was slightly less of an angel, but still good. Buttercup was very bad. Alex discovered that she never sleeps and was worried. I told him that was normal. She then sacrificed all the goats and houseplants. By the end of the weekend, Alex was searching for a small Buttercup-sized straight jacket. Hehe. That's my Buttercuppe.

I'm still thinking about that dream. "Please hold for Lucy." lol! That's too much.

2:32pm: lalala.... update... lala.... the update song. lalala! It's an update. lalalalala! I have nothing to report... bla la blablabla... lalala! It's hard to type a song. lalala. bla bla. lalala! It's the update song!

2:36pm: huh. I have, I guess, alot that I could post, but not much to say. How odd. Not much at all to say.

Last weekend was a double points race (two events) in Farmington. I drove the rental Taurus of Doom up there packed with tires (tyres) and I got to co-drive Tom's "CSP ringer" Miata. His car is just crazy. Crazy in a good way. I donno how it develops that much grip. We've got similar cars with VERY similar suspensions. But he's got crazy grip. Anyways, I won CSP on Saturday and came within 2 hundredths of a second of winning on Sunday. The guy with the "CSP ringer" RX3 showed up for sunday. Tom (who thankfully was racing "our" car in a different class) beat the RX3 by like 2 seconds. HUGE since we've both had our asses handed to us by the RX3 on every occasion. I on the other hand, felt less lucky. But it turned out that my 58.67 was nearly a match for the RX's 58.65. I thought he was getting 56's and cones, but apparently he was running clean. Tom's car was just that fast. Fast enough to destroy the RX3. I can't friggin believe it.

I didn't mention throwing away my last run on Sunday. I freaked out in a particular corner and lost my nerve, and broke an obscene amount too early. Like 100m before a corner. So I got to putt the last 100m, then putt through the corner, then get back up to speed. I wasted nearly a second. But that run was a 58.7. If I hadn't lost my nerve, I would have bested the RX3 by at least a second.

And here I thought I had nothing to say.

In other news, Sarah has anxiety over her birthday. Hmmm. Love, adoration, presents, cake, Miata-folk gathering... what could be better? But she has anxiety. I'm sure when it's all over, she'll have enjoyed herself.

Now for the "stuff" to arrive. I hope her prezzies get here on time.

1:45pm: USGP!!!
We're going to the race baby! We're driving, we're spending exhorbitant fees on Super 8 (friggin 160 a night) and we're gonna watch the race from a cushy press-penthouse box right above the paddock!!! DOOOOD!!!!!!!! i'm tooo excited.

2:45pm: tee hee
Out of boredom or something I went through the past couple weeks of the get fuzzy livejournal thingy and read all of Nok's comments. Hi-friggin-larious. I never thought of trolling anywhere like that. The stuff of legends. Legendary, I say. Yup. Legend. And I've met him. Therefore I'm also legendary through association.

He still needs to get a friggin car though. :-)

1:17pm:

11:40am: two observations
In the main lobby at work, I saw yet another ghost. This one was plain as day and I thought he was real. I was walking into the lobby and he was about 5-10 paces ahead of me. A youngish guy in jeans and a white polo shirt. I think he was carrying something like some papers or a folder. I thought it was wierd that the younger woman getting off the elevator didn't look at him and the security guard didn't say hello. The guards are bored all day and say hi to everyone. Anyways, he got in the elevator before me and was far enough ahead that the doors could have closed right before I got there. But they stayed open. So I was gonna say thanks, and what do I find? No one in the elevator. Empty car. No one at all. That guy was clear. He looked like he belonged there, not like he was gonna disappear into nothing. I've never seen a ghost in the main building. Usually they're in the back entrance and usually, it's an older woman in a pants suit. I've seen her clearly once and she seemed very.... out. Very ghost. This guy was perfect. I almost wonder if he didn't get in the car, but kept on going through the hall, but I'm just about 99% sure that he got in first.

what a day.

3:17pm: down.

down down.

down doobie doo.

down down.

comma.

down.

down down.

comma. comma. down. doobie do.

down down.

down.

10:34am: My back feels better. Alieve is the stuff. But apparently I took 3x the recommended dose (3 x 1 = 3). Oh well. My back feels better. I even changed my oil. I was feeling no pain last night! It was great.

I bought myself a cool water bottle at Target. See, driving around in the hot summer sun in a kevlar seat is not fun. Kevlar reflects heat. But if I have something to drink, it's not bad. So I bought a small insulated sippy bottle that should fit in my car no problem. I'm using it right now and can testify that it is indeed sippy.

My Yu-gi-oh cards better get here tonight. Otherwise it'll be monday before I can play with them.

I'm driving to Farmington tomorrow morning. I've no idea how far that is. Last time I was there was in like 1992 for a volleyball game. It took the bus hours to get there. They say that a freshly completed road cuts the trip to 2.5 hours. Sounds good to me! Still have to be careful of drunken... natives. Anyways, I'll be driving to Farmington for a 2 day double-points race. Very exciting. I have to fit all four tires, a cooler or two, some clothes, and spare parts in my tiny car.

I downloaded the kitten song from VH-1. Apparently it's by a band called Fischerspooner. Emerge is the song. Listening to it is not as cute as watching the kittens dance, but it's still pretty good.

I've worked at PNM as a full employee for 5 years. I was a contractor fo 2 years before that. Anyways, I got to pick out a present. A 5 year present. There were crappy pen sets (one pen, not even a pen-and-pencil), clocks, a Sony dreammachine alarm clock, a peuter picture frame, and a buschnell compact binoculars. I got the binoculars. They're similar to a pair I've already got (in the loft so I can spy on the neighbors), and I can surely use them somewhere. At races (not while racing), to better spy on neighbors, to watch shooting stars, etc.

15 year employees have an option of a portable CD player ($20 at radio shack!!!), a genuine swiss army watch, and a few other things.

45 year employees could get a Makita 12 volt drill. That's nearly $75 not during a sale! Or a wizard organizer. I'm not making this up. Remember the organizers before Palm got big? One of those.

Now I must get back to work.

2:00pm: Buttercup


2 weeks ago, a new baby came to live with us. Her name is Buttercup. Words can't describe her cuteness. Also, her badness level is unusually high for someone her size. She bites feet, annoys Lucy, tortures the cat, zooms around, and steals remote controls. She blames the remote control stealing on an invisible giant panda. It would make sense if you could see her face as I ask why she's stealing the remote. "It wasn't me. It was a panda!"

I didn't get a chance to post about Buttercup until now. Sarah's been tormenting me about it. I have no excuse! I've just been busy.

Here's some more shots. here, here, and here. In the first one, Buttercup is asleep. She fell asleep while wrestling with Peanut. From the look on her face, I think Peanut thinks she killed the new baby. This was on her first night home.

Buttercup is the first ferret I've gotten to name. Sarah named Lucy, Marcie, and Peanut. I finally got to name a ferret! Yay!

2:22pm: Sarah got me the live John Mayer cd for Valentines Day. It's sooooo good! I love John Mayer. Yeah, I'm a hetero guy in his mid 20s that likes John Mayer. So what if he's sensitive and soulful. He writes good songs. Plus, I got his first (or 2nd, can't remember if one came before it) CD a month or so before Marcie died. I got my race seat at about the same time. So if I wasn't listening to the CD in the garage, trying to fabricate the mounting pieces for the seat, I was listening to it while sitting in my chair, snuggling Marcie-muffin. I snuggled her alot while she slept on my lap during those last weeks. So even though I get a little sad and miss her when I hear John Mayer, I can't help but think of her, which makes me happy.

It was a great Valentines Day gift. Thank you Pookie, since I know you'll read this.

10:41am: I sent Dr. Reinhart a self addressed stamped Priority Mail envelope. So if turn around is the same day, I should have something coming back to me soon.

Unless I guessed wrong and nothing comes back...

I was finally able to print out the FedEx signature page and the code page. I've been looking at that code for a while. There's some patterns, but I donno what they mean.

There's a few Miata guys that are still playing. Yay!

12:35pm: What is the package?
All of the phone numbers from the film say "To shadow the package go to the IP addres...". So the package is pretty much the whole mystery. But what is it?

Is it the gold box? And if it is, it can't be the box, but what's inside the box. What could be in there? It's not big. About the size of a bandaid. It is a good tie-in to the film.

I'm pretty sure that the package is the folder that Kann has "in my hands". The folder seems to be a police report of an incident on August 6, 1990. And the photo of the beach is in there. I'm betting that the photo of the little kids is in there too. And I think the diamond poem has something to do with the kids in the photo.

So I think the package is the folder. But if it's so important, why mail it? Why not hand carry it to whatever's the destination? I guess that would be harder to track. But still... seems too important to mail.

The missing film has to be in the folder. Because it was never mentioned again after the Aug 6 entry.

That's my theory anyway. I've filled up about 15 pages of notes so far. And I went to the Journal archives again. I found the full article on Vincente Fox. Very interesting, but, like the patent, I have no idea what it means. And I saw a picture of the train wreck on July 30th. It was actually a real train wreck. That's pretty damn amazing to me.

uncaptheride.com is registered by tucows of all people. TU friggin Cows. The shareware people. How very odd. I thought it would be BMW.

What if this isn't a game?

4:17pm: I forgot about Harvey Jacobs.

He was the client in the Powder Keg film, the last BMW film. He was some sort of photographer who got in trouble with the Mexican government. The Driver was sent to retrieve him. Jacobs died during the escape and gave his last roll of film to the driver (which the guards REALLY wanted) and his dog tag to give to his blind mother.

That tied three of the subplots together pretty much. The Chosen subplot had an "investigator" breaking into someone's house to steal a roll of film. There was also a book titled "Real Heroes, photos of Harvey Jacobs". The film was taken from the investigator by a man in a tan coat. I think the house was the house of The Driver, but I don't know. No BMWs parked out front...

In the 4th subplot, there were some photos marked "overexposed" on the wrapper that I assume were from the stolen film. These photos were then taken by the maid. She shot the man in the tan jacket to get them. Dead. She really wanted them.

She then showed up in the last subplot, retrieving the little gold box from the mailman. Who knows what was in the gold box. She replaced it with a package of poison which in turn killed the car thief kid, who was to receive the little gold box.

Anyways, I just remembered Harvey Jacobs. He ties Mexico and the film thing into this.

Minneapolis MN is a very popular place.

3:54pm: more deciphernaut
So I'm once again with a puzzle in front of me that I have absolutely no clue how to solve. I have a page of crap and a page that seems to be a chessboard. The page of crap seems to indicate that it's my move. And I'm assuming that in all of that crap is the moves for the game, but I donno. If only we had a working printer, things would be alot easier.

I went out to Barnes and Nobles and was very geeked to find the target item. And I also found the new Miata magazine, the new Grassroots Motorsports magazine, and the Road and Track with THE url in the back. Score! So when I'm tired of hunting terrorists tonight, I can read car stuff.

Gonna go to the Journal tonight and bring Sarah dinner and dig through the archive again. I wanna find that Vincente Fox article without paying NYT $3 for a copy of it. If for nothing else, it'll be a good piece to of the puzzle. My page with the bullet-riddled Bimmer is just the coolest thing. Like a little trophey or something. I'm such a nerd.

Now, back to the puzzle. There's definitely enough to play with while I wait to get mail from Dr. Reinhart. Or possibly Rheinheart. Who knows how you spell it. I might zoom over to work real quick to watch the films again and print some stuff.......

7:46pm: I have the third key!!! And I solved both puzzles that take you there. Very fun. It was frustrating at first, but then I caught on. Someone unfamiliar with asp scripts might take a wee bit longer...

So I now have no idea what tracking this package is all about. Very interesting through. I'm sure it means something. But right now, I donno. It seems like there are too many clues for the remaining 2.5 keys. I also got one more digit of key 6. So that's 3/5 of the key that I have. That's kinda disappointing to me. I WANNA SUFFER DAMMIT! hehe.

The Senator finally came into play. That's very exciting. Well, to me it is. And incidentally, there was a real senator. But it's a she rather than a he and she was a New York senator. Oh well. Still cool.

I really hope there's a good payout in the end!

-edit-
I just remembered a website. http://www.cbmlt.com . Not to spoil anything, but it seems to take any old password. Some interesting jpgs. There's the Senator I mentioned...

And I had another thought. What if the 6 keys are just the beginning? Doubtful, but exciting.

3:35pm: J runs the deciphernaut blog thingy. He seems to be the only one posting to it. So far. Since I've been following it, he's posted twice. Kinda cool.

I assume The Driver is the one he's talking to. There's a picture of him in Kann's album. And I assume that I'm me and not "pretending" to be the driver or anything. There's talk offline between J and D. Not between J and me.

Kann or :K: is the baddie/helpful person. Who knows. He seemed naughty at first, but apparently is helping with something. He's the one who owns the door with the 6 keys and is giving all the clues.

The Maid works for K. She yoinked the gold box from the mail. The gold box was a gift from the small Tibetan kid in Chosen. For some reason, that gold box was being mailed to a young car thief by the name of Michel Giles or Collis. Couldn't make out the last name. Instead, the box was replaced with a death-gas-loaded silk box. The kid opened it and died. The last thing he saw was a guy wearing Tibetan robes walking into his apartment.

Bildsten is dead. He's mentioned in the blog. He appeared in the first film, The Ambush, and had swallowed diamonds. The uncut diamond poem is surely a reference to him. The car thief kid found his plane ticket stub with a number on the back. That number now has a somewhat cheezy message saying to go to the blog IP. I wonder what it said during 2001?

www.cbmtl.com has a little bit of stuff. It's got a big version of the marked up fax K seems to now have. Very wierd.

And then there's the patent. A patent filed by Micro Imaging Technology for particle detection across a beam. Strange. And it's a real patent and real company. I assume that'll come into play later. For now it's just a random puzzle piece.

There seems to be a girl who died in a train wreck. And then agent 88 or 89 or someone got in a train wreck a few weeks ago "but is ok". Two women tied to this in two seperate train wrecks? Recycled story or actually meaningful? Hmmm...

Definitely better than final fantasy.

(I'm updating now)
I just figured something out. 88 and 89 are jobs. Or clients if you will. The photo of the guy was passeng088.jpg. And he sent his thanks for the discression after the job was done. 89 was the next job, but didn't show up due to a train wreck. And the cause of the train wreck was explosives. And then J asked for status of 90 early this month. Oh boy, it feels good to figure things out!

2:00pm: I have the 2nd key and part of the 6th key. And I have another phone number to call....

I was to go to a hotel website and find the street address of a Queens hotel. Then put .com and browse to it. The site I went to had nothing, but when I viewed the source, there was the 2nd key.

I'm so geeked.

9:27am: deciphernaut
I'm soooo addicted right now, it's not even funny. I might be enjoying this more than Final Fantasy, but I'm not sure. It's pretty enjoyable.

A guy on the Miataforum found a wierd IP address listed in the Road and Track classifieds and decided to check it out. Car and Driver has the same numbers, but as a phone number rather than an IP. Just a black box full of white text. So he posted it and 3 or 4 of us got sucked in.

Go to 209.46.98.251 and see for yourself. I started following the clues and found a photo album with some wierd stuff. More clues led to a phone number which I called to get the first key. Then an apple.com site pointed to a classified listing in the New York Times starting August 14th. Only problem was that yesterday was September 12th. Fortunately, my wife works for the local paper who keeps an archive of several national papers including the Times. So she let me in the archive and I found the classified ad. Now I need to call the number and follow it from there.

Not to spoil anything, but this is a BMW promotion, as near as anyone can tell. There's a picture of a gold box that appeared in the Ang Lee directed BMWfilm "Chosen". Remember the BMW films online from last year? Yup, a promotion linked to them. And BMW has gone to alot of trouble including a patent, the link on apple.com, so far about 6 phone messages all across the nation, and the main deciphernaut site of course.

I'm gonna call the phone number...

1:43pm: I went to the 9/11 memorial downtown (a couple blocks away from my building). It was good. Long, but good. They had the beams from one of the towers there and I touched them. They're going in a church bell tower.

The crazy protesters were there. "PEACE IN IRAC" (seriously) their flags said. I figure after lunch, they'll be back at the end of our street protesting the lengthening of it. Fucking hippies. Their freedoms are protected too. Grrr....

10:00am: The first morning...
It was hard this morning. I woke up so sad that I wouldn't get to snuggle Marcie today. Selfishly sad. But that's ok. I'm allowed...

Lucy and Peanut wrestled a whole lot. Lucy was pretty rough with Nutnut, but she didn't mind. Afterwards, Lucy kinda went flat and looked sad, so I picked her up and snuggled her for the rest of the morning. As sad as I am, I can't imagine her loss. Must spoil Lucy even more than usual...

A couple more things. My hat disappeared last night. It's Marcie's favorite hat that she always dragged under the bed or into her closet. See, it has a velcro adjuster and she loved chewing on vecro. Very tasty and good texture. Anyways, I set it on the kitchen counter so Peanut (who steals ALL hats) wouldn't hide it and I could wear it this morning. To get back on track, I looked in the kitchen for the hat before bed last night and it was gone. So I looked under the bed, and there it was, right where Marcie always put it. I felt so loved.

Thank you Muffin.

9:27pm: August 28, 2002
We took Marcie Muffin to the vet today and had her suffering put to an end. It was very hard and very sad. I didn't sleep hardly at all last night and we brought the ferret cage in the bedroom with us. Marcie started coughing at 7:00 and I got up. But then I gave her a final dose of her medicine and alot of chicken baby food. Two bottles. We had a good morning. Then Sarah and I took her to the vet.

I miss her and I'm sad, but it's just my sadness. I don't have to worry about Marcie's health anymore. She's in no pain.

I'd say she's in a better place, but she's actually in the same place. Her little angel spirit is right here at home with us still. I was vaccuming (something I've neglected because the loud noise scared little Muffin soooo much) and Sarah was picking up the living room. I thought I heard her say something and I asked her what? She hadn't said anything. I'd heard a tiny little girl's voice say "Daddy, the baby Marcie ball goes "dingle"." It was like nothing I've ever heard. It was Marcie's little voice. I turned off the vaccum and went to look in her closet in the 2nd bathroom (where she usually slept in the evening, it's full of teeshirts and hats and snuggly things that she's dragged in there). Right on the top of all the snuggly stuff was Marcie's favorite dingle ball, something I hadn't seen for months. It's sitting in front of me right now. We also found a couple more dingleballs right in the middle of the floor in the following few minutes. And what's more, I was fixing dinner in the kitchen and saw her watching me out of the corner of my eye.

I'm very sad, but I'm not imagining things. Marcie spoke to me and I saw her. Then a bit ago, Peanut scampered across the room like something was chasing her, she spun around and started poinging for no reason. I'm certain Marcie was chasing her.

Marcie's right here with us still, in no pain, and having a good time. I miss her, but I'm so happy to still have her. It was a hard day, but I'd do it again for her.

I've got some amazing pictures of her, and I plan to post one or two tomorrow and write a little something about Marcie's life.

Goodnight little Muffin. I can't wait to be with you again.

12:45pm: I was able to call and set the appointment. Tomorrow, wednesday 28, at 10am mountain time. We need all the prayers and kind thoughts anyone can send us. For Marcie to be pain free till the time comes and for me to continue breathing every so often.

Life is soooo hard. I'm both broken and happy at the same time. Broken for obvious reasons, but happy to have known Marcie Muffin. I'm looking at an 8x10 glossy of her right now at work. She's such a little miracle....

9:38am: Thank you for the kind words everyone. Tomorrow is the day. It's gonna be the hardest day, but tomorrow is the day. I'm just trying to gather my strength to call the vet...

I'm so afraid...

2:57pm: Marcie...
Marcie isn't doing well. In a few days I'll be taking her on her last car ride to put an end to her pain. I've been very broken down by this, so I haven't posted anything anywhere. I've just been spending time with her.

Making the call to the vet is gonna be the hardest thing I've ever done. I hope I can do it. And I hope it'll be the right time. I don't want her to suffer, but I don't want to miss out on any time with her. She's low on energy and very itchy in the swollen parts, but she's still enjoying life. God, it's hard...

In other news, my boss gave me a digital camera on friday for my personal use. It's a Sony CD1000. 10x optical zoom and the ability to record movies on 3" CDs. He'll never know how much that meant to me. I took alot of pictures of Marcie over the weekend and recorded a whole lot of video. Much of it turned out good too. I'll never forget Marcie, but having the perfect memory of the camera sure is nice. It's given me alot of comfort.

My wife has also given me alot of comfort. She's so caring. I'm very lucky to have her.

And finally, inspirational words. This was on a slide in the printer. I yoinked it and whatever presentation it was for will be a slide short. They can deal with that.

"The Essence of a New Day"
"This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place will be something that you have left behind... let it be something good."

How many days have I wasted? How many hours have I sat and wasted the time on the couch, not even watching the TV? Sometimes I disappoint myself....