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When making a reservation at a restaurant, I’ve always given my real name to the person taking my name down. In my head, of course, I’m always thinking to myself, “Hmm… what name should I use this time? MacGyver?” Up until today, I’ve never really had the gumption or chutzpah to bring myself to use a pseudonym. This morning, I was making a reservation for 7:45 pm tonight at Max’s in Redwood City, where I’ll be meeting up with Jeremy Henrickson for dinner. When the person on the line asked me for a name to hold the reservation, I paused for a second and rather shyly said, “Uh, MacGyver?” The person obviously had never heard that name before, so I spelled it out to him, “That’s M-A-C-G-Y-V-E-R.” I laughed a little bit when I said it, since it’s something that I’ve been meaning to do for sooo long!

Another barrier broken, another item on my checklist of life that’s been marked, “Done.” Haven’t you ever wondered why you stick to the same things, the same routine over and over? You become comfortable with who you are and the things that you like. Routine becomes dangerous, as Aimee Mann sings about in her wonderful song, Momentum, on Bachelor #2.

It’s a little thing that I’ve wanted to do for soo long, and now that it’s over, I won’t feel so bad about doing it a second time, or a third time. The same could be said for lots of things, both good and bad.

Sumayya, a co-worker of mine at Palm, listened in on my reservation call and was smiling after I hung up the phone. I asked her, “Did you hear that?” to which she smiled again and said, “Yeah, that’s sooo you, Adam!” In a way, that is me in that I have always thought about doing it. On the other hand, it’s soooo not me, since I’ve never done it before. There’s a fine line between reality and perception sometimes. The blurring becomes such that you don’t know where perception ends and reality fan fact begins.

Change of Plans

I found out later in the day that Jeremy’s parents were in town on a surprise visit and wouldn’t be able to meet with me tonight. So, I quickly changed my plans to drive up to the City to hang out with Eric. I called up the restaurant and said, “Uh, I had reservations for 7:45 pm under the name, MacGyver. I unfortunately won’t be able to make it, so I’d like to cancel the reservation.” The guy on the other line didn’t flinch at all, and he thanked me for calling in. I guess, I’ll have to stretch myself one more time the next time that I make a dinner reservation. Got to complete what I had started, after all!

Soon after I got to Eric’s place, we drove over to the Sony Metreon, where we bought tickets to see The Planet of the Apes I’ve never been to the Metreon, but now I know why it’s such a happening place! We went into the Sony store to play around with their video cameras, such as the Sony DCR-VX2000 DV Camera. Very nice indeed and powerful when in the hands of aspiring filmmakers. In addition, we saw the Wideray kiosks. Recall that I met the founders of Wideray, fellow Stanford graduates, during a Saturday at Stanford back in the end of April.

The movie itself was pretty good, I felt. It’s been getting mixed reviews on the Net and in print, but I felt it was an enjoyable couple of hours. The much debated ending was actually fine by me. I recommend people to see it. It’ll be doubly good if you watch the original movies first, since you’ll probably pick up on some inside jokes and references that slipped my mind; it has been quite some time since I saw those movies, after all.

After we returned back to the human society, Eric and I went to a late-night burrito place and spent the next hour or so having great conversation. There’s something about late night talks with energize me… especially when they’re in pseudo sketchy places like a late-night burrito joint. I could see visions of a great movie scene unfolding before my eyes as our conversation drifted between subjects. If only I had a video camera with me at the time. Funny, we didn’t even bring our cameras with us tonight, not even the Canon S100’s we both have! This evening was strictly one meant to be remembered in our heads as opposed to on digital film. Sometimes, the best conversations are those that leave indelible marks within our mental consciousness.