Lottery tickets maybe?

Lunch seemed like a good idea. Get out of the house. Get some air. Get up off our rear ends.

Anyway, I had to go out and do errands, then or later. Might as well combine the two.

There's a family restaurant in San Mateo we go to from time to time. Comfort food. Heidis Pies (can't get a whole lot more "comfort" than pie now, can you?)

As we took our seats - "seat yourselves, wherever you want" - Dick spotted an advertising gimmick-ey thing on the table. Text "Pie" to some number or other, and win! (Maybe). A whole pie.

Well, I've got this nice shiny new phone - and I text, quite a bit. What was I supposed to do? Off went my text (don't you just *hate* people texting in restaurants?). An almost instantaneous reply - I won! As above - a whole pie! For free. Right then and there. Dang.

Our waitress was ecstatic. We were the third customer of hers to win. Seems they've been running the promotion since August. How observant of us. I know we'd been there at least once before since August. I don't recall seeing the promotion.

It's too early for the Holiday season pies - mince would have been my choice. Raisin works as a great second choice. I seriously need to buy some vanilla ice cream for tomorrow (yes, there's still some pie left).

And maybe some lottery tickets.

Apropos my shiny new phone...

On Thursday I indulged my geek side (again) and took the day off work to go to Nokia's Sunnyvale offices. Microsoft and Nokia were running a full day (8 to 5 - but they provided breakfast) Developer Phone Camp. I was there with my Windows Phone. But that's not my shiny new phone.

My shiny new phone is the Nokia N9, which you can't get here in the US, which I had drop-shipped from Denmark, which is just gorgeous, which is the first and last of its kind that Nokia's producing because they're going with Microsoft Windows Phone software, which is... Stop, Kevin. Remember, breathe. In...out...in...out... OK. All better now?

Sorry. It's just...

Well, anyway, I brought my N9 with me, just to have the coolest phone in the room. Childish. I know. I showed it off to a Nokia employee. He snapped it right out of my hand! In error. "Where did you get this," he demanded.

This is Silicon Valley. NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements) abound. Instances of prototype devices turning up in the oddest of places make headline news. It seems my phone, at first glance, might bear some resemblance to as-yet-unannounced products. He returned my phone once I showed him the error of his ways.

I'm probably lucky I didn't get tossed out on my above-mentioned rear end.

Life in the Valley. Dad would have loved the story.