Scott was already up and we rushed out the door at 4:55 to drive top speed to LA's int'l airport. I normally hate driving to the airport, but it was great. Weaving past amazingly light traffic we talked about the stock market, how the Clinton scandal had hidden military initiatives in Bosnia and pre-9/11 Afghanistan, all sorts of political and financial stuff. He quickly dropped me off at 5:40.

Now I'm thinking, "fabulous, I'm barely early but on-time!" Wrong. The latin man behind the counter told me I was too late for my 6:05 flight. I look at the clock. 25 minutes. What the fuck? So I had to get a later flight. 10 minutes later I'm at the ticketing booth changing my time and airport because Oakland was completely booked. I drudge up to the gate, read Lord of the Rings, give my best early morning paranoid psychotic look to inquisitive folk, get on the plane, read more, wish my stomach could take caffeine in the morning.

After taking BART transit from Colma all the way to North Berkeley, I give Woods a call and he says he'll be over to pick me up pronto. I hadn't eaten anything yet and I was really regreting it. Up pulls a red infiniti and out steps a 40 something M.D. looking guy. We practically looked like family: same facial structure, build, white shirt quickly tucked in, even the same black pants that laughed at the 90 degree weather.

Woods gave me the scenic tour as we cruised around the Bay area to a hospital he needed to do some quick analysis work at. I found out he's the type of guy who loves to talk about obscure or big things in lots of detail, almost as if to sound impressive and make you feel like an idjit. And oh I was feeling that. He started asking me about research I'd done up in Boston last year, delving and getting into the nitty-gritty details and theory. I felt horrified as I tried to sound intelligent, tried to recall everything and keep up. I'm hypoglycemic and my blood sugar was dangerously low. It sucked.

Eventually we got around to Martinez, a section of San Francisco that looks suspiciously like Southern California. The VA hospital we ducked into was pleasant, with nice green lawns and lots of important looking buildings. Inside had all the character of an office waiting room combined with an accounting agency. I got introduced to the local folks, re-organized their whole journal collection while Woods took care of business, then proceeded to have the most god awful Chinese food I've ever had. He talked about the economy of China in intimate detail. Is this what middle aged people do to justify their existence to their colleagues?

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