Got stuck in a bit of a late afternoon crunch around the office, and left late. Caught a local train, so by the time I got off, the parking lot was half empty. It should have been no trouble to find where the valet parked my car. Wrong.

I walked all the way up one side of the parking lot, and back down the other, looking side to side to see all four rows of cars on both "aisles," if you will. Didn't find it, but I do remember seeing an occasional car with an NR (non-resident) permit parked in the resident lot. So I went back to take a look there, and sure enough, I found my car . . . parked in a "handicapped-only, others will be towed away" space. Great.

Fortunately, I didn't get a ticket. The valet service works closely with the police in town to temporarily allow it to use spaces allocated for residents only. But a handicapped space!?!? That's a new one.

Aside from the bizarre handicapped parking space today, I have a few random odds and ends:

• Blogger was out for the count earlier this evening. It seems to have become an increasingly common occurrance. It's been two or three times in as many weeks right about when I had time to make an entry, but no dice. At least it came back on within a few hours this evening.
  

• Welcome to Stranded in Suburbia! Thanks for stopping by to comment in return to mine on your blog. You're welcome for the link--it's my pleasure.

• Got my laptop updated with a combo subscription to Norton Internet Security 2006, which includes the firewall and the anti-virus, and added System Recovery for a nominal extra bundled fee. My tower model is up to date with the same stuff for the 2005 version, but I never really got it installed properly on the laptop with 2005, and just decided to go for 2006, and start fresh. But I really hate the myriad reboots that are necessary along the way to get everything up to speed.

• Found an old pair of black patent leather high heels that I brought into the office. I'm not really used to wearing 2.5" heels, but these have a well balanced heel that aren't difficult to wear. After pounding concrete and asphalt in them for many blocks, my feet will start to hurt, but they're fine for just walking around the office on carpet for client meetings, and look a bit nicer than deck shoes. I probably should bring the slingbacks with a similar heel into the office. I'll never wear them at home, but will at work. I'm mostly a desk jockey, so I'm not really on my feet all that much during a typical work day. But I normally wear comfy flats, unless I want to intimidate short guys.