So I had an odd dream last night. I dreamt that Lindsay and I were helping Jenny move into the dorms at UT Austin (which was weird enough; I can only imagine that it was some amalgam of memories helping Jen move into the dorm at Butler). As we were carrying a load of stuff across the dorm lobby (this dorm was apparently a high-rise, with a hotel-type lobby on the ground floor), I saw my old AP English teacher and drama director, Mrs. Berry (though I am suddenly unsure if that was actually her name). She moved to Texas (in real life) just after the end of my senior year of high school, which made me feel sorry for the juniors as she was a great teacher.

So anyway, I saw Mrs. Berry across the lobby, but I had a heavy armful of stuff, so we ascended the high-rise looking for Jen's room. It took us a while to find, as the place didn't have any straight hallways longer than about 4 feet. (This particular image may have come from that bionic office I linked yesterday.) By the time we found the room and came back down, Mrs. Berry was gone. It was a very odd dream, especially since I haven't thought of Mrs. Berry in a while (probably not since the last time Jenny mocked me about Guys and DollsBye Bye Birdie), and I had almost forgotten she moved to Texas. I don't even know where in Texas or whether she's still there.

Also: T minus 81 hours and counting.

Sandy, Mark, Ryan and I watched the second-to-last summer episode of "The O.C." tonight. Watching shows like that—Sex and the City, Queer Eye, The O.C., that type of stuff—is one of the things that really makes me miss Jen. I enjoy watching the show with my friends here, but I miss the way we used to sit on the couch together, dogs at our feet, and laugh and groan at the characters and plots. I know it will happen again, hopefully in the near future, but right at the moment I really miss my wife. :-P

There are other things, of course; when I have a good day at work (like today), I want to come home and tell Jen about it while I make dinner. I want to hear how her classes went today, see my dogs go nuts when I come home. I miss hanging out with my best friend every day of my life.

It was a good day at work, though; that was cool, since lately I feel kind of like I'm just doing busy work. Not that I don't understand; when an employee is leaving on an unknown schedule, it's chancy to give them any significant projects. But I got to have some interesting, thought-provoking conversations on software engineering today, which was nice. It's a little unnerving seeing how my career goals have solidified the last two years; I do have Boeing to thank for that. Also, having read the design patterns books I did really is having an effect on my software designs. That's something I definitely wish we'd covered in the grad class I took on Software Engineering, since it would have helped a great deal when we were redesigning all of our software the last 18 months. (And a big shout-out to my Software Engineering prof…) Still, I feel like I'm gaining a certain amount of skill at finding situations where the design patterns I already know would be useful, so hopefully I can start detecting new patterns soon as well. That makes me a major geek, but I enjoy it, so what the hell. :)

Had some interesting thoughts on kids today too, but I'm still mulling those over. May post about them tomorrow night. Last thing: I love you, Jenny. :)