Tuesday, the actual day of reckoning, I took off from Audible Magic. I started by cleaning up a couple of drawers that had my life's detritus strewn in them. Then I took the Miata over to Capitola. Lunch was at Zelda's on the beach - a place I used to frequent. Then back over the hill to take a huge load of old clothes, pictures, and blankets to Goodwill. A car wash and two hours reading a book at the local coffee shop made it a fantastic day. Warm shower and then dinner at Andale in Los Gatos. Ahh, if only every day could be like that.

I thought it was all over at that point, but at 10am the next day Erling and Thom walk into our regular team meeting. "Thom had to come down to debug a problem, so I came with him," said Erling. "Oh, ok," I thought. Then at 11:30 everyone was talking about going over the to park for lunch. I was up for it, then had second thoughts and was just deciding to work through lunch when Tris walked by. "Want to share a ride?" "No, I'm way behind so I'll stay here." "I'm afraid I'll have to insist," says Tris. "?" It turned out to be a surprise party for me!

Lou had made the plans. The team had a bag full of little old-man gifts. The spectacle was my mug adorning the cake. Lou used the photo of me from Halloween doing my "I just shot someone, so what?" Dick Cheney grimace. We cut the cake and everyone ate the host. Felt a bit like Stranger In A Strange Land to me.