My finger hurts, I'm going away, and other uninmportant trivia.

The side of my finger is killing me - the saluting finger on my right hand. I can't think of any reason why this is so. It feels like a sliver, which would explain why I don't remember hurting it.

I went to a challenger send-off tonight (Challenge is a spin-off movement of Cursillo for young people.) I'm surprised I could swing the time, as I am flying to San Francisco next week, for most of the week. I have a lot to do in order to make this trip, especially at work. In fact, I am having a hard time imagining how I can spare myself for a week.

I'm looking forward to that trip. The only place I've been on the west coast is British Columbia, the land of Rocky mountains, grizzlies, and salmon; we're going there again this summer for my cousin's wedding. Last time we were there we saw all that - mountains everywhere, a grizzly bear on the island my sister in law was moored next to, and a couple of salmon pens (farmed salmon.) We also saw three male orcas swimming alongside Billy Procter's boat.

This will be a different sort of trip - San Diego is a different kind of West Coast I imagine, and I'll be seeing nerds, Bill Gates, and other geeks. No grizzlies I expect.

I do feel a little guilty I can't bring my wife with me. But she finds computers boring, and that's pretty much all I'll be doing. :-) But it is somewhere new, a place I have not been, with people I do not know. That makes it an adventure. I am far from an adventurous soul, but cities and places fascinate me.

I have the skyline of dozens of cities I've never been to etched in my mind, San Diego included. My wife and her friend laugh at me, because of once when this friend showed me pictures she had taken on a pleasure cruise. As I rifled through the pictures, I pointed one of them out and said, "This is Juneau right?"

"Yes it is. I didn't know you'd been to Juneau!"

"I haven't."

She kind of gaped at me, and said, "Then... how did you know?" My wife smirked.

"Oh... when I'm at the bookstore, or sometimes on the Internet, I look up pictures of cities, and places. I sort of remember them... like photographic memory."

They both smirked this time. And from time to time, now, they test me. I can usually identify the skyline of a North American city of any size and repute. :-)