Rebalanced.

My pH has recovered itself since the weekend roller coaster. This was actually 95% thanks to Dan. Here's a random picture of Dan from the ol' internet, which is a very representative pic since he's rolling his eyes:



It wasn't any particular insight from Dan, but rather the simple joy of swapping funny (mostly Google) stories for 4 hours, something that Peter and I had difficulty doing. We gossiped about how Eric, Larry, and Sergey handle disagreements between themselves (gracefully), recent product launches, our friends J & J who just quit their startups.

Dan mentioned his high school girlfriend Jenny, which reminded me of my All-Time Favorite Dan Story. ...

The story goes that Jenny really liked a mom-and-pop donut shop in the mall. One day, she was out of cash but nonetheless went in and asked if she could have a donut, for free.

The answer was of course no.

"It's almost closing time," she said. "What are you going to do with these leftover donuts?"

"Throw them away."

"Well, why not just give them to me instead?"

"We can't do that. Then everyone would ask us for them."

"What if I take them out of the dumpster after you throw them away?"

"Well, we can't control what happens after we throw them in the dumpster."

"So what if I stand in the dumpster and catch the donuts as you throw them in?"

At this point, the cashier rolls his eyes and says, "Well, I guess that would be fine."

An hour later, the cashier goes out back with a plastic bag of donuts and Jenny is indeed standing in the dumpster along with her friends.

"Oh my God!" he says. "Fine, look, you don't have to stand in the dumpster. I'll just give you the donuts in the future, if you meet me here at midnight. Don't tell anyone else."

So she would go every night and get free donuts. After a while, they got used to her, and it got to the point where she could walk into the store at any time of day and get a free donut.