Father Chuck Rogers and conc jumping

At a large, open, mall-like building called Metro Center (not that I saw any evidence of a subway), which, from the outside, had a very interesting shape. I would say it was curvy, made mostly from off-white concrete, and its profile somewhat resembled the shape of Iowa. More interestingly, an edge along the sides and roof (the outline of the building, from my perspective) had a moving track around it, like an escalator railing, and attached to the track were curvy futuristic chairs which held a single person and had them traveling (facing backwards) up the side and over the roof, tilting somewhat awkwardly up and down as the curve changed.

Inside the building, I passed by a guy who was sort of a mix of Mister Rogers, Chuck Norris, and a church pastor. He had a perfect memory for everyone he had met, and as he walked through the crowded concourse, he greeted most everyone he passed, including me.

Later, as I was headed back the other direction, trying to get somewhere, I saw him again, and I figured he might have spotted me too, but I felt like I didn't have time to say hello again, so I hurried off (perhaps not running, but certainly walking fast) towards my destination, and put quite some distance between us. But apparently, Father Chuck Rogers cannot be denied interaction, and he made like a doberman, charged after me and caught up so he could say hi.

Later, outside the "Metro Center" in daylight, I walked over to a flat, grassy, sidewalky park area. A few random men and women were there on one stretch of grass, practicing conc jumping (like in Team Fortress Classic). I decided to join in, and we were practicing choreographing our jumps with lines sung from the song I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire by the Ink Spots (featured in the game Fallout 3). Specifically, I watched as one of the women tried to time a jump to the word "fire". Her concussion grenade went off at about the right time, but she slightly mistimed her jump, so she was only lifted three or four feet in the air.

English bus driver in Japan; restoring the school's sign

Mom, Dad, and I were riding a bus towards my new workplace, in semi-urban Japan. I asked the bus driver where our stop should be, and she turned back and told me to hang on a second. The bus driver was a gray-haired Englishwoman, probably in her 60's, and she was in the middle of a conversation with someone to her right, near the front exit (come to think of it, the driver was on the left side of the bus, American style, which doesn't make sense for Japan). I was wondering if she would respond to me in Japanese if I talked to her in Japanese, so I thought about how to start the conversation. "Sumimasen" just didn't seem like the right way to get her attention, but I couldn't think of anything else.

We got off the bus at a covered, semi-outdoor pedestrian mall. The first thing that we noticed was that all the people standing and walking around were not Japanese. Some looked more central Asian, some Indian, some European. Didn't ever quite figure out why that was.

Somehow I had gotten a large rusty-red rectangular sign off the bus and took it to the local school it belonged to. The school had a two-story brick façade maybe 10 yards from the road. The outside of the school wasn't in very good shape (but then, neither was the sign). There was a brick sign-holding structure right next to the road, perpendicular to it so that each side of the sign could be seen when driving past in opposite directions. I don't recall exactly, but I guess the sign had white neon lettering that said something about the school (in fact, I recall the sign saying two different things, one possibly being a memory of what it used to say). The opposite side had white neon lettering in cursive that said "Go! Go! Go!" and then a little subtitle below that.

Passing Dave on the way to the mini-mall

On my way into DC to visit some entertainment attraction, I am waiting at a traffic light (same light as in the previous dream) when I see one of the cars coming the other way has Dave K driving it. I give him a little "call me" hand gesture and he stares at me and does the same thing. I wonder if he is sentient. I'll see if I hear from him.

I continue towards this studio-sponsored mini-mall or some such. I'm driving there on a motorcycle, but somehow still being extremely quiet and, in spots, inching through crowds of people and sliding past them whisperingly. (The engine does make noise, but not very loud, and it's completely quiet when I'm not accelerating.)

When I get to the venue, I wander around, first downstairs, then upstairs, looking for something to do. A bunch of stuff is Jurassic Park themed, despite how old the franchise is. It turns out that today is Sunday and none of the attractions are even open. How lame.

Pizza runs at the schooly-mally place

Another dream involved several people trying to do pizza runs inside some huge school/mall-like building. The first time through, as everyone was getting towards the end of their runs, several things had gone wrong, and some people didn't have their goods to be delivered. I somehow went back to the beginning (i.e. back in time) and assisted various deliverers in getting their stuff. Two blonde girls in yellow fast-foodish uniforms were waiting outside a closed classroom door, but were afraid to knock and ask whether the teacher had the pizzas ready to be collected. So I barged in and asked the teacher, who was in the middle of a lesson. She said the pizzas weren't ready yet. Oops. Closed the door, gave the girls a shrug, went on to another classroom.

This classroom's teacher (reminded me of Nora England) was waiting on somebody to deliver the pizza to her classroom. Just after I inquired about it, a grungy-looking delivery guy came in with a box of sicilian-cut pizza. For some reason, he was writing down the teacher's name on a check while simultaneously slicing and dishing up pieces. Because his hands were busy, he could only write two little scratchy lines on the check where the name should be. The teacher remarked how the pizza was cut so neatly, it was the best she had ever seen. The delivery guy was using a knife and putting a huge amount of force down to make very straight, very deep cuts between the slices.

Williamsburg neighborhood mall house hunting

Walking around an upscale suburban neighborhood in Williamsburg, looking for a house to move into. A few of the facades are kind of impressive, whitish painted brick, three or so levels with irregular outcroppings, lots of windows. Most of the other places are less impressive, and indeed it seems like many of the places are no bigger than small shops in an indoor mall. In fact, I feel like parts of this street are indoors. I noticed that one house was for sale for a little over $600,000. I thought I could probably afford that, over time.

The house at the cul-de-sac also had the white painted brick thing going, but had a flatter, more traditional look. In the second (third?) floor window, a woman was sitting in a chair and happened to be looking out the window as I was looking up.

As I came to the bottom floor of this house, it turned out that this was a separate establishment, not directly connected to the house. It was under the house -- a small, cramped clothing shop, with many racks of clothes on hangers, and a door in the back leading somewhere further, which I did not investigate.

Later, I also ended up at the top of an escalator, basically at the roof level of the house. This was a much bigger, open space, but still indoors, again with many individual racks (a lot of them circular-style) of clothes hanging up. Many people were browsing the racks. Alongside the top of the escalator was a long railing, such as at a mall, overlooking the ground (cul-de-sac) below.

I figured I would write down the address of the house to look it up later. I think it was 180808 or something like that. Didn't recall getting a street name.

Hanging out at the Petronas Towers; pushy ice skating business

Meeting Stephanie B across the street from the Petronas, also 4 or 5 other girls (some familiar). We hang out in a random couple of smaller rooms/enclosed areas inside.

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Indoor ice skating - ice in and outside of rink. I (and perhaps some others) are skating in the outer area (lined at parts with restaurants like DQ and others). A woman stands near one of the gates to the rink - her job seems to be to make sure people do business at some of the restaurants. A little pushy, and might not enjoy her job. It almost seems implied that if we don't do business we could get kicked out. I get a little grenade punch bottle from a smaller counter. I head over to the DQ but they are just closing up as I get there. Hrmph.