Lauren's moving to her home in Pittsburgh. Today I helped her move out of Saint Paul where she lived for about 6 months. She lived in the Twin Cities area for about a year and a half. She belongs is in the Eastern Time Zone, though, and now it's time for her to go home.

...for Lauren's Birthday.

A staple of Saint Paul culture. Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year. They dish out what's dished to them. "Here's your bacon, asshole," for instance was heard on this visit. A old bum sat down next to us and had a cigarette and was trying to touch the waitress and rile her up. She was strong and continually put him in his place. She told him to "shut the fuck up" a couple of times. He later started sketching on a napkin. He shows Jeff and I a crude drawing: an eyeball, a heart, the words "ex wife," a tree and then a treble clef and some notes. He asks us, "what does that say?" We were stumped. He said, "I love country music."

The food was fantastic and prepared right in front of us. A bizarre experience, but you ever visit Saint Paul, it is essential to have a visit to Mickey's Diner.

This time they didn't include a return label. I get to wait for a few days until I get another one so I can return it. I forget how many hiptops I have had, but I am pretty sure it's over ten now since October 2002.

A few days ago, my rear speaker went out on my hiptop2. None of the system sounds worked, nor did the speakerphone, but using it as a phone was fine. Funny thing, is that you never hear it ring, though. I called T-Mobile's WDG and got set up for a replacement.

So after a couple days of getting used to vibrate mode, the screen goes wack. Bad. It looks as if I smashed it with a blunt object. I have no idea how it happened. My friend Bill posted photos of it as it's difficult to take photos of your hiptop screen with the hiptop you're trying to take photos of. :-) At least I have a replacement on the way already.

Now I'm using a Nokia 6610, which I actually like a lot. It's simple, small, has excellent reception, vibrate and is tri-band. I got it after Bananachunks tipped me to a deal he found on Howard Forums for existing T-Mobile customers: Nabbed it for $35. Well spent.

So as my hiptop2 sits off on the charger, I have spared everyone from photos of geocaching yesterday and of me listening to Katamari Fortissimo Damacy, the soundtrack to the game I posted about a little more than a week ago. It's fantastic. Highly recommended.

So until my new hiptop2 comes...

My friend Garrett just got a new home in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis - decides to invite some friends out to a local bar near his new place, POV's. They charged me a $8 cover to see a cover band, but we got to play the new Golden Tee Live.

Finally getting some real snow in Minnesota. My stepfather took me out down the road and to a lake to buzz around a bit. Feels good to fly across a scene that feels like the opening scene of the film Fargo at 90mph.

A long and boring training meeting with one of our large clients. 6 of us and 5 of them going through a data management system. The short of it is: They have given us access to one of their internal systems and they are training us on how to use it. *yawn*