I can handle flaky, some people thrive on being flaky while others exhibit it to such a degree that everyone else around them consciously or subconsciously works to pick up the slack. Mistakes are ignored, fatal slips are instantly forgiven and it just becomes a known that said person is flaky. And like I said, I can handle flaky, to an extent, I just need to do my research first to know how flaky the crust is before I try to turn it into a pie.

Last Sunday I was to have brunch with this guy, we’d met through friends and met up for one-on-one outings twice before. I admit that I am still a little shaky as to whether these were dates or not, but it seemed to be progressing nicely enough that it wasn’t yet a huge concern. That morning, I lost track of time (thank you TiVo and twitter) and ended up running a wee bit late, then as we were down to one elevator that day, I thought I was running even later. I sent a text advising that I might be late and finally got down to the street and started walking. The place was just down in Adams Morgan so I didn’t expect to be too late, really. I didn’t get a text message back, so I assumed that he was either on his way or already there.

I got to the restaurant, on time actually, and he wasn’t there. I figured if I was running late, perhaps he was as well and I waited a bit, walked within a 1/2 block to look around and came back and still nothing. No text message, no call, nada. I normally like to wait for my dining companions before heading into a restaurant, especially in DC where many places make you wait anyway. The place looked pretty empty, so playing against type, I got a table for two–actually the maitre’d didn’t understand me and gave me a table for four–and sat down. It was about :05 after by now, and in the past this person had a habit of being a little late, so once again against my better judgement, I ordered a mimosa and continued to wait, telling the server that I was going to wait until the other person showed to order.

Another 10 minutes or so passed and I called and left a message asking to call me back and let me know what was up. One of my occasional failings is that I can be too nice, so I was ready to be understanding if there was an overslept or inability to get a bus/cab or whatever. However, as there had been no text message and no call and no show, my patience was wearing thin. Not even two minutes after I called and left voicemail, I get a text message, not a call, a text message. The gist of the message was that he’d been sick most of the night, thought he might be able to make it but was mistaken. “I will call later to try and reschedule.” I sent back a very terse, “Ok” and motioned for the server, explained that my friend would not be joining me and apologized.

Now, I don’t mind dining alone, but in this instance I couldn’t help feeling a little bit of the burn of clearly being seated at a table meant for more than just one and after not even 15-20 minutes and only one drink ordered, leaving on my own. I didn’t leave in a huff, but often my facial expressions betray exactly what’s on my mind. Due to the ambiguity of his message, I did delay my meal at home for a little while, but eventually gave up on hearing from him, had something to eat and got on with my day. Since I was looking forward to a week off from work, it didn’t bother me nearly as much as it should have, but still what the hell, man?

It has been a week since, and I haven’t heard word one from this guy and at this point I don’t expect to. It’s a bit disappointing, but more because it’s nice to think that someone’s interested in you and then to see that they haven’t got themselves together enough to seem concerned. At the least about respecting you, but more importantly not offending you! But… c’est la vie and lesson learned, right?

In contrast, this morning’s brunch at Busboys and Poets was… at least relatively on time. I met a friend that was running late (and let me know) and when he got there told me that he’d overslept. We had a delightful time, though the food there has never impressed me very much and today was no exception. The service was friendly, but a little on the slow side. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much descriptive of every visit I’ve had to this location. It ain’t great, but it ain’t crap either. They could certainly do well to improve the quality of their menu, but I wonder if the rise in prices would turn away their core customer demographic.

I’m glad we have another day to the weekend, but it will be hard to head back to the office after so much time off. Now if we can just blow through the rest of this “regular August” weather and get back our nice Fall temps, I’ll be a very happy man.

It’s been a good week off, though I guess I’m still off since we have the holiday on Monday, but everyone’s off that day so doing the tourist thing will be kinda packed. I didn’t have to think about the office while I was off, and even though it rained a few days, my brain was doing everything it could to avoid being bored. I was bored for maybe an hour or so, but it passed. I avoided major chores, did a wee bit of cleaning, got some good walking and shopping in and got some “vacation photos”.

There were some disadvantages to not leaving “home” though. The biggest one was the inability to sleep in. Not that getting an early start is a bad thing, but I couldn’t shake the standard work routine of early to bed, early to rise. Also sometimes there’s just a lot of shit that you want to leave behind for a little while. Having a new perspective on stuff without the distraction of work is sort of interesting, however. I found some new places to eat and explore and realized the benefit of going to stores & businesses in the just-before-work-ends hours.

This morning I realized that getting up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday is great for hitting the Safeway, but forgetting to bring along the granny cart will mean multiple trips! But since I finally broke that invulnerable 200 lbs. on the scale, every little bit of exercise will be a good thing.

This tidbit from friendfeed just made my day — “Wow, cool, so Tina Fey is running for VP!! Awesome!”

I have only been tracking the political news via twitter, friendfeed and various IMs from friends so at first I wondered what Michael Palin had to do with any of this nonsense. After being forced to check the news I got it.

We’ll see where it all goes over the weekend and through the following week. But hey, Delaware… Alaska… they just missed out on a great First State / Last State joke. Silly Hawaii!

I don’t normally point people towards online news video because I’m not a fan of most web video and when I’m at work, I’d rather read a story than worry about where my headphones are. But this video linked to by Thomas Hawk is just nuts: ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors

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A cigar-smoking cop says “You’re under arrest buster.”, you can’t get more stereotypical than that. I thought those kind of cops were only in the movies.

– Kenton

I’ll admit that we have no context to this incident–another problem I have with the news–so I’m hoping that ABC will be just as forthcoming as the Denver Police regarding what happened. Looking at the latter half of the video, where the officer has his hands around the reporter’s neck to restrain him… what the hell? The report indicates that the resulting charges are trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. I am not saying that the reporter hadn’t done anything wrong, in fact I think he may have played it up a little knowing that his cameras were rolling. However, it does appear that the officers involved were being extremely heavy-handed and pushing the boundaries of abusing their authority.

This report is being added to ABC’s investigation called The Money Trail which I actually do find interesting, but I’ll leave all that DNC nonsense to other bloggers to worry about this week… I’m on vacation.

I’m a pretty late adopter for Robot Chicken, but the above scene cracked me up just for the infographic messages from the Right and the Left.

I’m not paying too much attention to the whole DNC stuff taking place right now, it’s just too much for me to process. Besides, making fun of Bush works so much better for me.