Feeling fat and sluggish. Been unable to motivate myself into the gym since returning, and the healthy salad-bar lunch has been the exception this week, not the rule. By Sunday, I must run again.

Environmental update, on-the-job: Trying not to get upset, spirits generally high; but there's major injustice around the space allocation in our new building. Before, everybody had about the same sized offices; now the elite (those with government badges, as opposed to us lowly contractors) have these rooms which are enormous in comparison to our windowless cubical-warrens. Overall it's an interesting structure, however - half of it is like a hanger (unoccupied now, except for some pieces of full-sized aircraft models used in wind tunnels), and that part of the building is really ancient, by California standards - the mens room there has that circular type of multi-user sinks I've only encountered at Boy Scout camps.

The post-journey blahs hit me hard yesterday - feeling much better today. Plans for the next one, much shorter, are shaping up - an extension to the long Thanksgiving weekend, a road trip to Los Angeles. This will be a test of my car's "funny noise" - when it's cold out, and the speed rises above 25 miles per hour, the speedometer goes nuts - it makes a loud grinding noise and the needle bounces to much higher values. But if I drive long enough the noise gradually fades and the needle drops back to the real value. Trouble is the short hops I've been making 'round town haven't been long enough to make the noise go away - that is, if it still does go away. What I'm hoping for's an end to this misery - it sounds like it's dying, eventually it'll break & stop bothering me.

Came home yesterday to find the door ajar and the resident manager within, playing plumber in my bathroom. Incredibly, he was just wrapping up what he said was three hours' work, replacing the stems of my bathtub's faucets. Water still dribbles from between the lowest tiles and the tub's edge - I tried to tell him, but it's the big problem - he hears very selectively, and is way too quick in his assessment of the source of whatever problem is brought to his attention. This is what makes him so infuriating: he acts very friendly, but in his two-building world, his petty authority is never successfully challenged. He pretends to be accommodating, but if your request doesn't fit in with his agenda it's ignored. There's also a heavy Christian force lurking just under his surface; that pious, unshakeable, non-debatable kind of faith which is absolutely convinced of its righteousness. I guess that's actually a definition of faith; whatever, he manages to be irritating about it (I've heard his candid proselytization at close quarters, but fortunately indirectly).

Reliving my trip gradually by spreading out the photo development: I took five rolls of pictures; and I'm getting one processed each day instead of the Big Bang, all at once. A surprise was an image I made of a mirror inside the Hotel Topas' elevator: I forgot the flash but it came out well - it shows me wearing my big, black-rimmed "Buddy Holly" glasses, along with trenchcoat and flat cap (both also black) - it's the costume I called the "Full Frankfurt".