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At 3:15 this morning, Jeff and I both awoke to an odd sound–hail hitting the windows, hail tapping the skylights. Yes, for a few minutes this morning, we got hail in San Francisco.

The locusts are next.

Well, I awoke this morning in a warm sweat, but with my 101 degree fever from yesterday gone. Against my better half’s advice, I dragged myself into work for a while to handle a few calls and to generally mope around and get sympathy. I made it home in time to avoid the rain, which seems to have returned with a vengeance.

So, with the fireplace ablaze, and Jeff on his way home to care for me, I decided to search for happy memories of sunny days. I found two shots from my 2 day trip to Chicago this past fall. These are shots of the Crown Fountain in Millennium Park. These were designed by Jaume Plensa, and consist of two 50-foot glass block towers with LED images of Chicago residents.

This is GOOD wet.

The New York Times reported today that Cingular spent $500 million advertising its absorption of AT&T Wireless a little over a year ago. Then SBC acquired AT&T and is spending $1 billion to tell us about it. Now, as the new AT&T prepares to purchase Bell South (its partner in Cingular), the company has announced that it will change Cingular’s name to AT&T Wireless. (Although, I’m sure it will be with the cute lowercase at&t.) Quick, order your phones now so that you can still get the cute little orange guy from Cingular.

Honestly, all I know is that with a portion of that $1.5B, they could have put a freakin’ cell tower in that &*@#@!& dead spot on I-280 through San Francisco!!!

[OK, Blogger’s spell checker thinks that “freakin'” should be “foreskin”. That made me chuckle.]

Well, let me say right off that I’m going to leave the “nice” pictures from our weekend in Las Vegas to Jeff’s blog. Instead, I’m going to focus on a few oddities.

First off, the facts. We truly had a fun time. The highlight was catching up with Jeff’s friends Matt and Lisa who were visiting from Detroit. Jeff and I stayed at the Venetian, which is certainly a spectacular hotel. We ate well (too well), walked all over the strip, and blew through my $35 jury pay in no time. We visited the new Wynn hotel, watched the fountains at the Bellagio, and traveled to the top of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Casino.

So, what did we learn in Las Vegas? Well, I found a truly comical foreign language channel on TV. It was like a train wreck. They appeared to play non-stop action movies with really bad special effects.

We found a favorite penny slot machine named “Lucky Larry’s Lobstermania”, which played to a B-52s Rock Lobster soundtrack. We found ourselves seeking out Larry in each of the casinos we walked through. “Its a biggun!”

In the midst of all the glamorous new casinos, you still don’t have to wander far to find classic Vegas. It is everywhere, and its what makes this town so unique. This sign is from the New Frontier Casino…which oddly enough is also the site of the new Trump Hotel. Strange bedfellows indeed.

And finally, my continuing obsession with San Jose. Just how is it that this glitzy watch store at Caesar’s Palace has listed San Jose alongside of Paris, Milan, and London? Jeff announced an immediate boycott of the store 🙂

Oh, while I’m at it, let me update everyone on my dear Russian friend Elena. Yes, she continues to write, even though I have never written back. Today’s short installment focused on shopping and work. Nothing quotable…just persistent.

Well, I wrapped up three days in a jury selection pool today. I will admit that the process was quite interesting to sit through for the first time. Fortunately, I did not get selected for the final jury. I don’t mind serving, but it was a five week trial, and I just know it would have been a pain to work around.

The best part was observing the people. Particularly the people who CLEARLY were trying to get out of it. My favorite was the young woman who when asked said that she would find it hard not to read about the case and the subject matter on her own. When the judge asked her if she would resist the temptation if he directly asked her not to, the woman answered, “I would try, but I probably would anyway. In fact, I already did some research on it even though you told us not to earlier.”

THIS is the state of society 🙁

For my three days, I made a quick $35, which I plan to carelessly gamble away in Las Vegas this weekend. Look for pictures on Monday.

For now…we are off!