Thank Xena almighty, I'm free at last!
Yesterday was my last day at my old job. I came in late and left early. In between, I was taken out to lunch by about 15 of my coworkers. We ate at Yan Can. Celebchef Martin Yan (he with the fake Chinese accent) owns that restaurant chain, whose name is based on his TV show "Yan Can Cook". I had a good meal. Chicken breast marinated in lemongrass then grilled, and served over rice with a slightly sweet sauce and diced savory vegetables. I also rushed through the knowledge transfer to my poor, hapless (now ex-) coworker Chris, who will henceforth be saddled with daily calls from one of the company's biggest customers. I was kind of sad when I said my goodbyes, because I genuinely like almost everybody I worked with. I just really hated the on-call part of the job and how the company was run in general.
My former roommate Allan arrived in San Francisco yesterday evening. He's in town for a 2-day conference, after which he'll stay for another three and a half days to play tourist and to catch up with his old friends here (including me). I was supposed to meet him for dinner yesterday, but after I left the office I had a headache, so I begged off.
Allan drove down here today after his conference wrapped up for the day. The boy got fat. LOL. I told him that his face was so round he looked like a steamed pork bun. He agreed. He met Snorty McDoggelsson here at home. We hung out here for a bit and I showed off "The Adventures of DuckMan and Monkeyboy" (the picture book I had made for Bill and me). Then we went to Santana Row to have dinner. We tried to get Peter and Larry to have dinner with us, but both of them had prior commitments. Wei is in Malaysia right now, so obviously he couldn't join us, either.
We couldn't decide what we wanted to eat, so we just went inside the restaurant we were standing in front of to ask for a table. We ate at Yankee Pier, part of Bradley Ogden's restaurant empire (other Ogden restaurants include the amazing Lark Creek Inn and the excellent expense account restaurant One Market). We sat at an outdoor table and had shrimp cocktail (amazingly fresh and incredibly delicious), grilled wild king salmon (mine) and grilled red snapper (Allan's). With the salmon, they served this super yummy lemon caper butter that was so good I could have eaten it by itself. LOL.
Towards the end of dinner, we were approached by Darren, who was at Santana Row having dinner with his coworkers. He was walking back to his car when he just happened to see us. Funny thing - Allan couldn't remember Darren and Darren couldn't remember Allan. I guess I was the popular one this evening. hahaha
Tomorrow the PG&E guy will come to do an energy audit of my apartment. I received a $400 electric bill last billing period, and I flipped out. I live in a 2-bedroom, 2-bath, 1075-square-foot home. There is no way in hell a $400 bill could be correct unless I was growing marijuana indoors. No. Effing. Way. So I called PG&E to request an investigation. They verified that they have been reading the meter correctly, and theorized that it might be my water heater that's the culprit. So tomorrow they're sending a tech out to investigate further.
Ok, it's past midnight and I haven't even started on my schoolwork yet. This means just one thing:
Time to go to bed!