If I see myself, I'll be sure to tell me.

There were many things about today I could have posted about. But they were all blown away by one of the most surreal encounters of my life.

I got out of work in a decent time, and was crossing the street to the light rail station when I hear a woman yelling "Michael! Michael!" At the top of her lungs. Glance over and see a woman running along the platform waving her arms and yelling. I assume she's yelling at a driver or someone on the sidewalk.

Y'all know what's coming, right?

Yep. She was yelling at me. Evidently I am the spitting image of her Uncle Michael, who she has been searching for in San Jose for three and a half months. Down to the walk. After profuse apologies on her side and my usual attempts to make light of the situation, I chatted for a while with her and her companion. Both homeless, and she appeared to have one or two mental issues.

We joked around, and I called Kirsten...

"I've been living a lie."

"Oh?"

"Seems I'm actually this woman's Uncle Michael. You're in on this. Admit it, you're with the CIA!"

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

I gave them my unused Gatorades and a buck to help make bus fare.

Funny thing. I called baka49er to tell her about this, and she told me that she and Kylie thought they saw me in the mall last weekend in the food court. The resemblance was so strong that they went over to see "me."

I think we've found Uncle Michael!

So, if any of you see me, could you tell me to call me so I can get myself together?

How to piss PeTA off.

Some days, being a scary truck driver with few remaining teeth has its advantages.

As you can imagine, eating, which was already a chore, has become an ordeal since the most recent round of extractions. I'm doing my best to keep food in my system, but it's difficult. Today at work hunger made it clear that I was going to need food now. So I stopped at a little center in Livermore that has (clockwise from top left) a Waffle House, KFC/A&W, McDonalds, and an Arco station with a pretty good snack shop.

I wanted chicken, but past bad experiences made me steer away from the KFC to McFood. But what's this? Protesters? In Livermore? WTF, over? These guys were only a few scant miles from Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Labs! Go there!

Closer approach showed that these were militant vegans (no, fellow Traveller geeks, Ronald McDonald was not under K'kree assault) who evidently decided to waste a beautiful sunny day by protesting at what amounts to a mini-truck stop.

One of them tried to give me their spiel. "Oh, I'm a vegetarian." I assured him. "I just prefer to process my veggies through cows, pigs, and chickens first." I then gave him the scary 12-teeth-left smile.

Do not get between me and my chicken nuggets.