My Favorite Gas Station -- Part 2

There is SO much to tell about this station that I had to blog it twice. By the way, if you live in Los Angeles, GET GAS THERE --> corner of Robertson and Olympic.

More on the smart construction and the good people who work at this station:

--> Using construction waste - more recycling -- The small signs that identify the station’s earth-friendly features are made from scraps of steel left over from building the canopy. So is the restroom signage. And like the canopy itself, they can all be recycled years from now when the building is torn down.Little things add up. Recycling the metal in seven soup cans saves enough energy to run a 60-watt bulb around the clock. Our signs probably saved a few big dinners’ worth.

--> Lighting - efficient -- This station has “smart lighting” turned on and off in stages by timers and light-sensing automatic switches. This uses natural light as much as possible and only burns electric lights when needed, saving 1,400 kilowatt-hours each year. Also, This station uses LED (light emitting diode) bulbs in the sign, on top of the dispensers and in other places. They focus the light just where it’s needed so you can use a lower power bulb to get the same brightness.

The other day I stopped in there, as I try to do when I'm in the neighborhood and I met Simar. She's one of the staff that walk around talking to patrons every day at the station, educating them on the station, how to save gas and generally just making us happy. Simar gave me some of these little postcard things that are made from recycled paper. They contain tips on conserving fuel and when you're done reading, the paper is embedded with natural californai wild flower seeds. Last Saturday when our niece/nephew were over we planted these. They'll take about 3 weeks to germinate, but I'm stoked and the kids had fun while we discussed conservation. After all, isn't it today's up and coming generation that is going to make the biggest difference? Anyways, back to Simar and the other good folks at this BP station. Thanks to all of them, getting gas is a friendly, fun affair that makes you forget for a moment that you're in the big city of Los Angeles and feel like you're in small town USA.

My Favorite Gas Station --- Part I

First of all, my apologies for not blogging all week. Not only was it a busy week business wise but I just haven't felt like it. Personally, I have to be in the groove/mood to blog. So, I feel for all of you looking at my toes for a week.

On to my favorite gas station. BP -- British Petroleum has opened what I hope is a trend in gas stations. It's a green - eco friendly station. Certainly a dichotomy in terms - gas station - eco-friendly, but in BP's case I think it works and is very admirable. Let me tell you about the this station.

BP has created a working labratory in gas stations. They've taken an old, polluting station and used many, many different concepts to create something move environmentally friendly. E.G.

--> Solar panels on the roof, while this doesn't provide all the electricity the station needs it certainly helps. Gas stations need a lot of electricity due to pumps, valves and stuff under the covers we don't really see.

--> Recycles all the water it uses, and filters all drain water. Clean ocean. All the rainwater that falls on the big canopy above the pumps is collected and used to water the plants and flowers around the station. It keeps them nice and wet while it keeps you dry. It's about as low tech as tech can get, but it saves energy that would be used to pump water. And the plants seem to like it a lot. We’ve finally gotten smart enough to discover an idea that the Spanish settlers were using here 400 years ago.

--> Recycled glass in the concrete -- Certain kinds of glass can’t be recycled to make new glass containers. These include clear window glass and fluorescent light bulbs. But that doesn’t mean they have to end up in a landfill. The concrete in this station is made with crushed waste glass instead of sand. So the glass stays out of the landfill and the environment isn’t disturbed to get new sand. Also, the glass reflects the sun from the concrete instead of absorbing it. Concrete in cities stays hot/warm well into the night, contributing to global warming and micro climate changes in urban areas.

Check out the info on the station here.
A picture of the station will be up in the Part 2 of this segment.

My First Pedicure

Ruby and Jack are staying with us this weekend and Ruby and I went for a Manny/Pedy. It was my first pedicure ever. I had to be told what to do by a 10 year old because the people at the salon didn't really speak English --- I put Dodger Blue nail polish on and put a nice White "D" on my big toes for Dodgers, Dawn and Dena -- hehe

Sweeping up the Memories

We decided to do a purging of some of the items in the back house. A spring cleaning so to speak that has been going on for almost a year. It's been a process with that large almost unmanageable project, however, we're making progress. It's interesting as we proceed the memories that we have to wade through. First we started with the plethora of couches we had accumulated. Several of these couches were from both of Dena's grandmothers. It's only been recently that she's been able to part with them. We were able to donate several to a group that helps homeless women and the last one was purchased by a grandmother moving out of her daughter's apartment. The couches all seemed to go to good homes and causes and that made parting with them easier.

Recently we've purchased a new diamond cut shredder for the huge stack of boxes full of receipts and old bills, etc that I've collected. They went back all the way through 1985. Yes, I know you only have to keep 3 years. I was paranoid frankly that some group who remain nameless was going to audit me. I'm pretty much over that and over the course of several weekends we've shredded to our hearts content. We've oiled that poor shredder, it's over heated more times than I can count but we've got three 40 gallon trash bags full of shredded stuff. I feel cleansed.

Throughout all this shredding you come upon all the memories from the past 22 years. Dena and I's first major appliance purchase together (from Sears of course), the 3 accidents all in one year to my Black 4Runner. The Visa card theft, the purchase of our home, the refinancing of my condo, 3 times, our first joint checking account, my 6 months of working on my own in 1996 (where I worked like a dog and made a ton of $$ ), and on and on the memories rolled.

We still have a long way to go to turning that guest house into a usable space instead of a storage locker, but we're getting there. Along the way we're reminded of the past with every box top we crack. Some need to be remembered and treasured and some need to be just thrown away.

Hanging at the Cemetary

Saturday night found us at another interesting Los Angeles event. All summer long the Hollywood Forever Cemetary in Los Angeles shows film screenings against the crypt wall. You come at around 7:30 pm bring a picnic lunch, a bottle of wine and listen to a DJ spinning tunes. At 9:00 the sun has set and they roll the film. Saturday was The Haunting ( B/W 1963 scary movie). I've got the girls circled up in the pix in blue, with the flix being displayed on the crypt wall in front of them.

Famous people buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery include Johhny Ramone (his headstone is a large bronze statue of himself, playing guitar), Cecil Demille, Fay Wray (original King Kong girl), Mel Blanc (his epitaph says, "That's all folks!", and many, many more.

Information about these events can be found here

The official cemetery site is here

3 Little Birds getting older.....

There are obviously 3 birds, they are starting to get their feathers in quite a bit, I'm not sure how much longer they will be around. This picture from Friday June 22.

Summer is Here!!

Well spring has sprung and summer is getting rolling. We have a nest of babies to report, I believe they are a small jay, however, I need to look them up in the bird book. Definitely a jay, but not a blue one. Dena says there are 4 of them, hard to get a picture as the nest is buried deep in the azalea bush. Also, another one of our cacti is blooming. This one has also never bloomed in the 12 years we've been here.

Father's Day Catch at Dodger Stadium

What an exciting day we had Sunday! Marred only by the Dodgers losing and a couple other items...... But it was Father's Day and is tradition at the Chavez Ravine the Dodgers let people out onto the field for a afteroon of catch. I had checked previously with the Dodgers Guest Relations office and they said there was no gender specification. Unfortunately, when we entered the center field gates they were refusing to give us a ball and entrance. I talked my way thru that and got a ball and out we went. We had a blast, I'm not sure who was more excited about being out on the field, Jack or myself. We ran around, rolled on the grass, took pix on the warning track and had to drag the kids off the field. On the way out they were giving away something else but they refused to give it to us because there was no father. Discrimination sucks. What if those were my kids and we were just two moms, no dad? I can assure you I'll be up in the Guest Relations desk our next Dodger game bitching them out since they lied to me.

Friday, the sugarless day from hell

AAARRRGGGHHHH! What a miserable day of pain. No sugar. What a drag. I had a major splitting headache all day today that the chiropractor, 2 alleve and a vicodan (not all at the same time) couldn't touch. It was hard to focus and even laying down didn't really help. I can't wait until Saturday.

Caffeine, Sugar and on we go

Cutting out Red Bull from my life seems to be going well, although when I walked by the Red Bull fridge in the grocery store last night it called to me. "Dawn, buy me, try me, taste me", that's what it said, I kid you not. Thursday I also decided to add most sugar to that self-imposed limitation. I think in today's society its extremely difficult to get rid of all sugar (refined) in your diet due to the fact that fructose, cane sugar, refined sugar, etc is basically in everything. However, it certainly is possible to eliminate all sodas and whatever else that makes sense. I also don't want to get into the trap of substituting aspartame or other chemical sweeteners to get that sweet taste. Those chemicals are killing us all slowly I'm sure of it. I also know these sweeteners or at least phenylalanine is just as addictive as caffeine. I was addicted to Diet Coke and that withdrawal was brutal.

So, how's it going? Well day 2 dawned (no pun intended) with a headache like you wouldn't believe. Since I'm off caffeine I cannot blame that so it must be the sugar. I now wonder if it really was sugar I've been addicted to all this time. Time will tell.....

Poaching Eggs

Who knew poaching eggs could be so hard. For some reason I'm on this poached egg kick at home. I thought it would be an easy breakfast to poach a couple eggs, put them on a slice of toast, and voila, breakfast. Days later, I still haven't come anywhere near actually having breakfast..... I bought this cute poacher from Sur La Table the other night. What a pain in the ass. It doesn't take XL eggs, those spill over, and it doesn't really poach the yolk very well. Then there was the whole putting the pan inside a saute pan full of water trick without jiggling or spilling the eggs. Too much trouble, I'm returning it today. Then my sister told me that they do it the old fashioned way. You just boil a pot of water on the stove, (a proper egg boil apparently) and then drop your eggs in with a ladle. Well this was an experiment gone awry for sure.

The first egg I just dropped in, unassisted. It went swirling around the pot and took over. I gave up on it immediately as its white was completely out of control. However, it ended up being the most together one. The second I used a small ladle, broke the egg into the ladle, which was of course too small, egg everywhere. ARRRGGGHH So I threw what was in the ladle into the pot and that swirled around. Now for the third egg. I got out the big stew ladle. Broke the egg into that and slowly submerged this ladle into the boiling water. That seemed to work but when I tried to remove the ladle most of the white had stuck to it and I was left with yolk in the pot.

So now I have egg drop soup. A very dirty pot, 2 sticky ladles and one poached egg. Seems it was an unsuccessful venture this morning. Thank goodness the cleaning lady is coming today to clean up this mess I've made.....

The Caffeine Crawl

So the last Red Bull consumed was Friday morning. Today, after the Gay Pride parade, I felt sluggish, had a hell of a headache and couldn't get moving. I wasn't too sure whether the headache was from sun or from caffeine withdrawals, so I erred on the side of caution and had a Red Bull. This is completely within my withdrawal schedule, so, I felt justified. I had gone ~ 31 hours without caffeine. I feel strongly that I can make it > 48 hours or more this time. So, from 3:00p Sunday. We'll see.

The Caffeine Committment

Well, I've decided to quit caffeine, again. Or rather, let me clarify, the consumption of caffeine (not to mention the sugar that goes with it) thru Red Bulls and other so called energy type drinks.

I started on Wednesday, June 6th. I lasted until about 11am before I had to have my Red Bull. This is about a 5 hour difference, not bad. I find the best way for me to quit is to wean myself off. It provides a little less pain and suffering for those around me and it's a little easier psychology for me as well. Thursday June 7th was an off day, i.e. no Red Bull allowed. That was a hard day. Those sharp piercing headaches will kill you. I only needed 4 advil to get me thru the evening. If I quit cold turkey I'd need a Vicodan every 4 - 6 hours and 5 days off of work..... Today on the other hand is a glorious day. I got a Red Bull this morning as I'm at 48 hours. Woohoo! It tasted sooooo goooooood. yummy. Now, I get one more. Monday morning and that's it. Won't this weekend be fun? Aren't you glad you don't live near me?

Century Plant Flowers

Here are 2 pictures from Today, which Dena has been bugging me to post for days now......As you can see the plant is quite tall, I'd say 12'? I have to tilt the camera and stand back quite aways to get it all in.

Gas goes over $4.00 per gallon

I might want to use that peddle car in front of the sign if gas goes too much higher.....
This was the price of gas in Cambria this weekend. True, they gouge, however, it's not too far from a California wide reality

Century Plant Begins to Spawn Flowers

I'd say it's about 12' tall. I'll have to measure it....

Getting Highlights.....

If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

Davy Jones Locker and the Flying Dutchman

We just saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The story is centered quite firmly around Davy Jones' locker and the Flying Dutchman. It takes a good deal of liberty off these legends to be sure. Davy Jones is actually a character in the movie and he is portrayed as a mutated cross between a man and an Octopus with a wriggling beard of tentacles, and limbs like those of a Crustacean (an image similar to Lovecraft's Cthulhu). The movie also expands upon the origins of Davy Jones. He appears along with his crew of half-human, half-sea creature sailors aboard The Flying Dutchman. In the movie, the story follows that Davy Jones was once an average sailor who fell in love with a beautiful woman (Calypso) as "changing and harsh and as untameable as the sea." When he could not have her, the pain was so much that he cut out his still-beating heart, and sealed it in a chest, so that he would never have to feel love, compassion or the pain that can come from feeling them again. Significant creative license was taken here as Davy Jones was never really a real person (or has never proven to be) but has always been a myth or indication for the depths of the sea.

In the scriptwriter's commentary on the movie's DVD, one of the writers state that Davy Jones' Locker is not death per se, but spending an eternity with the thing you hate or are afraid of most. For instance Jack Sparrow is forced to stay in a land comprised entirely of salt, as he loves the open sea.

Century Plant 2 Weeks Growth

Well it's been 2 weeks since we saw this incredible stalk growing out of our Black Tipped Agave. The growth has been rapid, growing somewhere around 6" to 12" every 24 hours. There was a time when I didn't notice any growth but that was just because there were no marks between the window and roof line, now, it's quite distinct the difference. Dena and I know for sure it's grown at least 12" since yesterday morning. My mom says to feed it Miracle Grow and see what happens. I don't think it needs any help......

By the way, this picture is taken further back than the previous posts. That was necessary as it has grown so tall.

Century Plant Continues to Grow

May 17, 18 and 19th

Charles Mingus - Epitaph

Dena and I attended a Jazz concert last night at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles which was spectacular. It was a playing of 19 + movements written by Charles Mingus , composer, Jazz musician, pianist and bass. The 31 piece augmented "Jazz" band was conducted by Gunther Schuller. I've never seen a jazz band so large. They say it was "doubled", meaning there were > 1 of the first chair of some instruments. There were actually 3 first chair trumpets, 3 first chair trombones and 3 first chair Saxophones, making a total of 6 trumpets, 6 trombones and 6 Saxes. There was an amazing array of instruments, a Vibraphone, 2 Grand Pianists, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet (you don't see that everyday), bassoon, tuba, guitar, alto sax, bass sax, those huge drums, what's the name of those? The list goes on and on.....

The concert was long, I wish it was on a Sunday afternoon rather than a Wednesday night. Half the crowd left at intermission, as it was already 9:40pm. The movements themselves were an amazing array of jazz, classical, tributes and frankly, just out there compositions. The music seemed alive, expanding and contracting in some places like a pulsating heart and in others, chaotic at first, then calm, almost as if each movement was a therapy session. I cannot imagine the practice and dedication that must have went in to preparing for this concert by each musician. Playing this type of complicated score with its variety and need for classical precision yet improvisational talent is a feat that should make them all proud.

Well done.

More on the Growing "Century" Agave

Here's my research -- The leaves are 10 to 18 inches long with long, sharp, terminal spines and shorter spines along the edges.(I can attest to the sharpness as they pierced my ankle and caused quite a bit of bleeding when i was thinning out this area of the garden) The stalk can be up to 4 inches in diameter. (It certainly is 4") Members of the Amaryllis Family (wow, that's interesting....) , century plants take many years to flower, although not a century. (Ours has never flowered in the 13 years we've been in this house) Yellow flowers composed of 6 petals, bloom June through August. Flowers grow in clusters and face upward at the end of horizontal branches, appearing only near the top of the stalk This unique native plant has a tall, thin stalk from 10 to 14 feet high that grows from a thick basal rosette of gray-green leaves.

The Century Plant provided Native Americans with a source of soap, food, fiber, medicine and weapons. Agavi americana, can grow up to 40 feet high (holy crap! That's high.....I guess there will be more pictures) with much longer leaves and larger stalk. This American Century Plant is sometimes grown in southern California as an ornamental. It is used commercially in Mexico as a source to produce the liquors tequila, pulque and mescal. (yum.....tequila)

You'll notice how the plant is now above the wall of the patio.....The difference between this photo and the previous is 48 hours.

Black Tipped Agave - Agave parryi

This is a plant in our cactus garden the front yard. We've never seen it flower before. Here is the start of it. Flowers: on large stalk held as high as 10-15ft above foliage, branched; pink bud opens to bright yellow flower; bloom in late spring or early summer; stalk persists if not cut down. We'll see what happens. So here is it's progress on Sunday.

Galactic DisneyLand Warriors

Notice that I am Space Ranger # 1 with the top score!

Green and Various Updates

Our local grocery store Whole Foods (organic, fresh and yummy) has gone more Green than they already were. I go over there as frequently as I can for lunch as they have the most amazing salad, food bar. Lots of delicious items, albeit expensive.....I dump a bunch of stuff in a plastic container, put some Miso Shallot dressing on it (my favorite) and voila, a healthy lunch. Well now they have these brown cardboardy like containers. Turns out they are made of bullrushes and they degrade in a dump or your backyard composter in 90 days. That's pretty awesome. They have always used paper napkins made out of recycled paper. Non-bleached paper or course, The bleaching of paper is the worst part of the entire polluting paper goods making process. Where do you think all that used bleach goes? A lot of it in my gramma's lake!
You can read about how Green Whole Foods is here.

Speaking of Green another neat product that has gone green is Annie Chun's noodle meals. They make all their bowls out of some sort of biodegradable material. So the meal is self contained, you microwave it at work or whatever in its biodegradable bowl, then throw the whole thing away. Annie Chun's is sold at Whole Foods and Trader Joes. Look for it. It's good too!

Further updates on life -- the Dodge Magnum appears to be leak free! Keep tuning in for the driveway cleanup sage.

The family/Gramma's 90th DVD got burned but the voices are out of sync with the lips. What is that all about??? More searching and troubleshooting and burning awaits me.....

I Love and Hate New Software

I bought some new DVD burning software today from Roxio. I downloaded it from the internet because I couldn't find anything at Best Buy. That, in and of itself is another blog. The fact that brick and mortar stores are failing to meet consumer's needs and the internet is. But I digress.... I installed it and it wouldn't run. It complained that my video driver was out of date. I have a Nvidia GForce very expensive graphics card. I had to upgrade the driver. I had to update my Windows Media player to 10.0 and patch it. Not sure what that has to do with it, but I had to do it. Another 30 minutes of my life gone. Then of course, I had to register the product. After all of this I could finally use the product.

After fumbling my way thru I was thrilled to get to the point of burning a DVD. I put a nice, expensive blank DVD-R into my DVD burner (which I've never used) and the burn button is greyed out and it keeps saying "drive empty". Well, it's not empty, I put the DVD-R in it! I checked the Roxio support website, it says I should update the DVD burner driver. Imagine that......so I did that. Another 30 minutes gone.....Reboot, relaunch, try again. Still greyed out. Can you hear the screaming? I then tried searching on Roxio discussion boards. Oh, I need to be a member? I had to confirm my registration which was in my email inbox. Sign up for an account, etc, etc. It turns out I had the DVD-R in the wrong drive. Sometimes, by the time you reach this point, you just have to smile. Otherwise, there would be more crazy people in the world.

However, after I figured all that out, waited 20 minutes for the DVD to burn, I'm getting an error message right at the end of the burn. I'm not looking it up, I'm just going to bed. This DVD is a combination of several DVD movies taken at my Grandma's 90th birthday party. I'm trying to combine them into one DVD and burn movies for the families. Like they say, no good deed goes unpunished.....

Family Picture

This last weekend Dena and I flew up to Morson, Ontario for my gramma's 90th birthday. Here is a family picture. Gramma has 11 children (10 still living), ~ 35 grandchildren and ~ 48 great-grand children. There's a lot to count so I may be missing some..... This picture only represents a small portion of those.

Various Notes

The Dodge Magnum has been in the shop 2 days now. They are making darn sure they've fixed the problem because, being the insane bitch that I am, I spoke with the service director and put the fear of God into him. They didn't call me today, so, I guess they are keeping the car over the weekend......

Here's me getting my hair highlighted....

Dodge Magnum drives woman insane

Wednesday I'm off for the 5th time to the Jack Ellis Dodge dealer in Glendale to have my 2006 Dodge Magnum serviced. The last 2 times they basically told me it wasn't leaking and sent me on my way. See previous posts, I won't rant about it again.

So, since some of you know me pretty well, you know that I don't like to be told I don't know what I'm talking about, which is basically what the Dodge dealer is telling me. Don't ever tell me that. So, in order to prove to my service woman, Astrid, that the friggin' vehicle is leaking I've been placing cardboard under the car. Now, the rest of this I'm going to tell you is bordering on insane, according to Dena. But hey, that's me. On the driveway, I've placed chock marks where the tires to the car go and the outside lines of the cardboard, so if it drips, I'll know exactly where. The reason that's important is because I've placed tupperware all underneath the car on the cardboard using duct tape of course. That way if I get some fluid in the tupperware, I know where to place the cardboard again. See, it's very logical.

I've had marginal success with this. You see the vehicle doesn't leak that much in a 24 hour period. My driveway is full of stupid little stains about the size of a dollar pancake. Some of them quite fresh from the recent leaking. Tomorrow morning I'm also taking a digital picture of the driveway and taking it to Astrid. And I'm taking the evidence, in tupperware, to her as well. Dena says that it's crazy. Frankly, that never occurred to me. It really seems a logical thing to do. Is that what crazy is like? Doing things that to you are extremely normal, but to other people are totally whacked? So, by the way, I have about 1 milliliter of liquid in my huge tupperware container. You can darn well bet that the top is going on and off to Astrid it's going!

3 Sisters at Venice Beach

Princess Ariel and Gramma at DisneyLand

The Coffee Experiment

Well, my mom and Aunts are here visiting and for preparation I thought I'd be clever and buy one of those single serving coffee machines. That way each one could have whatever flavor coffee they wanted in the morning. Being that they are all quite independant women, I thought this would be an excellent idea. I went out and bought the Braun Tassimo single serve machine. I was a little disappointed in that at Target they only had 1 kind of coffee and one tea, but thought I could pick up more somewhere else. We tried the machine and it has wonderful coffee with excellent brew control, i.e. each person can really tailor the strength of their brew to their tastes.

However, it only had one kind of coffee and I couldn't really find any others. So I decided to go back and return it and get the Phillips Senseo single serve which seemed to have coffee everywhere and all different flavors. Well last night we tried that machine. Everyone agreed that the coffee tasted funny, burnt even. We tried to make cup after cup trying to change things up, and each time they said the coffee just tasted bad. Not too strong, not too weak, just bad tasting coffee. So, guess where I'm going today......back to Target to return the damn thing.

It was fun while it lasted, I'm borrowing a regular old filter coffee pot from my friend and buying regular old coffee at the store.........perhaps I'll pick up a flavored creamer......
The moral of the story? If you're going to buy a single serve coffee machine, buy the Braun Tassimo, it's a great idea. And the real moral, if it works, just don't try to make it better, just use it!

Gramma's Adventures #1 -- California Speedway

Here's Gramma and Auntie Dawn at the California Speedway watching the Indy cars race. This is where normal people can rent a few laps in their dream car (Indy or Nascar) and race around the track. It was very exciting at this HUGE venue.

4th Time's a Charm?

Wednesday found me back at the Dodge Dealership in Glendale - Jack Ellis Dodge. My red magnum had been in for service on March 21st, again, for the leaking transmission. (see January 11th, 2007 post for history). I really like this Dodge dealer, I had first taken it to Carmax by LAX, but the place is very large, very impersonal and I had to wait a week for an appointment. Glendale Dodge is very small and after my 3rd time there I recognize a lot of people. It's sort of sad when you are recognizing people at the car dealership.....

Back to the 21st -- normally I take the car to Astrid the service advisor, a short little Hispanic dyke, but this time she was busy and Nick came out to the car. Nick is the antithesis of Astrid. Large, European, male chauvinistic, loud -- by the end of the day he had blamed my leak on Jiffy Lube putting in my oil filter cockeyed. A bullshit story I'm sure. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I'm stupid. He also claimed they cleaned the bottom of the vehicle so that if it leaked again (well of course it'll leak again stupid, you didn't fix it!) then they would be able to identify the location.

Off I go to the dealer again on April 4th as it leaked from the moment I drove it back into the driveway in March. Now when I say leak, it's not as bad as the December leak, it's more like over a 12 hour period I get a silver dollar size spot on the driveway. This time I made sure I got Astrid. She is very attentive and assured me she'd take care of it. I got a call later that day and they could not find a leak. She wanted to keep the car overnight, put a large pan underneath it as well as clean all the residue off the engine and the splash pan. (isn't that what that idiot Nick said he did?)

The next day I went to pick up my baby, which I truly missed as I was driving a Ford Focus as a rental. There's the biggest waste of sheet metal you've ever seen. My sister says that it's the only car that people laugh at you when you tell them what you drive. How true. On the freeway I felt that my feet could feel every single pebble on the road and the wind noise, wow. Back to the Magnum, Astrid said they didn't find any leaks but there was a lot of old oil and other residue in the splash pan. They cleaned everything and sent me on my way. And when the porter drove the vehicle around to me, guess what, Astrid had it washed. I was very pleased. I stopped and thanked her and she said, "I'm always thinking". Yes, that's what separates the Nicks and the Astrids of the world. Forward thinking thoughts.....

That car better not be leak anymore! My driveway looks like the Clampett's live here.

Spring has Sprung

More on the Shoulder Problem

I had to go back to the Ortho guy today because my Physical Therapy prescription expired. Fortunately, I was in the middle of a self imposed "body" experiment (I do these occasionally) and my shoulder was much worse. If there is something going on with me, I'll often do an experiment, like with the shoulder I abstained from all exercise involving the shoulder for 10 days. The shoulder actually got worse. That led to valuable info for the doctor, he feels its more muscular than joint related. Well, to tell you the truth, I could have told him that. But I was glad to hear it none the less.

So after much discussion we elected to treat the issue from 2 different avenues, as a chronic inflammation in the shoulder joint and as a muscular problem in the pectoral/shoulder region. So, I have 4 more weeks of Physical Therapy and today I had my first cortisone shot. I was fairly freaked out about that whole cortisone shot thing. I thought they were going to come after me with a 14" needle, but it was just a little needle, was actually less painful than when the vultures try to get blood out of my arm, and the shoulder hurts less already. Also, when we discussed that physical inactivity worsens the problem, he said to get out there and play more golf and go to the gym more! WooHoo!!!

Another update will follow in a few weeks, as I'm sure you're dying to know about my health....

Things that happened a long time ago....

It's interesting and disturbing how things that happen a long time ago affect us for the rest of our lives. I was just in Boulder, CO and something that happened to me ~ 10 years ago came up again. I've not told anyone except maybe Dena this story, but I'll share it with you now.

About 10 years ago I was in Calgary, Alberta working on a VoiceMail project for some oil company. I was staying in the Sheraton by the airport. One night I was sleeping and was awakened by noises. I laid there confused as I was just in a dead sleep. I heard loud banging like something was being thrown against a wall. I was still kind of confused. Then I heard a door slam and I heard what I thought was sobbing in the hall. It began to dawn on me that someone was beating this woman. At first I was momentarily stunned and a little at a loss as to what to do. I quickly regained my senses and got up and peeked out the peep hole. I could see nothing but as I had made my way to the door I heard someone open a door and probably pull her back in as the door slammed again.

Shaking, I reached for the phone and called 911. Well, as you can imagine there was a swift response. The hotel front desk was miffed that I didn't tell them first. Yeah right. The cops came and since I could not pin point which room they could do nothing. Sounds come from all over in a hotel and they are hard to tie a direction to. The floor was deathly quiet for the rest of the sleepness night I had. It makes me tear up now just writing this blog. I feel so sorry that my response wasn't quicker for this woman and often wonder what ever became of her and the asshole that was beating her.

Now, sometimes I lie in a hotel room, sounds freak me out. The other night in the Courtyard Marriot in Boulder I heard what I thought was either crying or laughing in the hall. I can assure you I was out of bed in a flash! They were right in front of my door and she was kind of laughing and the man was cooing to her. So, no 911 calls that night.......

Movie Review -- Departed

Don't read this if you haven't watched it.

*************** SPOILER WARNING ***************

This movie was not oscar material. It was entertaining for sure. It was typical Martin Scorsese, definitely. It was disappointing in that it was apparently a complete remake of a Chinese film called Infernal Affairs, actually, so much a remake that it was scene for scene. Infernal Affairs (called Mou gaan dou in China) it is said was actually better than Marty's take on it. And it wasn't like Marty was making a remake of a 50 year old movie either, the movie was made in China in 2002. Jeesh, what is it saying about us that not only are we getting product from China and lessons in globalization but now we have to get our film ideas from them too? Sad.......

So why did Martin Scorsese win? Let's face it, he was given the Oscar as recognition for all his work. Do you really think people will remember Departed as a ground breaking, memorable film for years and years to come? No. But people will remember the type of film that Martin Scorsese makes and for that, he deserves an Oscar. Should it have been this year? Should he have been "encouraged" to stretch and make something even more innovative? Who knows.....

Physical Therapy Update

OK, so awhile ago I posted how I put off going to the physical therapist because I was concerned about the $1,000 a year coverage limit. I finally couldn't take the pain anymore in my shoulder and went to the PT place. I asked them to check coverage for me, just to be sure. I didn't want to run over the limit. She called and checked, it's unlimited. WHAT! Woohoo!! So, now I'm like, well why did my insurance company screw me last year when I went for my neck and only cover me for $1,000 leaving me with a nice $400 bill before I was notified I was cut off? I called them to find out the scoop. After many menus, much button pressing and speech activated menu navigating, I finally got a real person. Although, I'm not too sure you can call them real since they read almost every single word in our 10 minute conversation from a script. I could tell because she wasn't a good reader. A little slow. That's the new thing you know, almost every call center of any size has "scripted" employees. They read all questions, answers, etc from a set of scripts. It can be very aggravating, but don't try to bypass it because they cannot function if you veer from their script. Automatons.....

So I discovered that my "health" plan has 2 special exclusions for physical therapy. If you go for your back or your feet (your feet, really??), you have a $1,000 limit per calendar year. Your neck is part of your back because it's part of your spine. How stupid. I'm sure these exclusions are because most people who need physical therapy need it on their back, or apparently, their feet. The US system allows insurance companies to basically deny or limit coverage based on any whim they may have. Let me just tell you how ridiculous the American health care system is. How rigged. How against the normal everyday person and frankly, to some degree against the doctors, too.

Life Update

Well, I thought I would just throw out some info about all that's going on in my life right now cause I'm sure you've been wondering why I haven't been blogging. I've been too busy! It feels overwhelming, invigorating and exciting to have so much going on. As I mentioned to you all before I've been going to physical therapy for my shoulder & neck. Wow is it hard and very painful. I had to go 3 times a week but now I have to go back to the Ortho guy for a re-evaluation. My therapist, Darlene (who I'm pretty sure is gay but she is very, very professional and cleverly doesn't let on about anything in her personal life) is recommending me for more visits.

I am currently planning for a 4 day scrapbooking getaway at the end of March. That'll be a blast but there is a lot of planning that goes into these sorts of things. How much alcohol to bring, which pictures to scrap, who the masseuse is going to be, etc.

My mom and 2 of her sisters are coming in April 6th. I'm very excited about this. We're going to have a lot of fun. They all come in 3 hours apart at LAX. So, all day Friday I'll be driving back and forth to the airport. We'll be going to Disneyland, the Griffith Observatory, the Huntington Gardens for high tea (that reminds me, I have to make reservations for that....) and all sorts of fun, touristy stuff. I hope to be blogging that whole trip so stay tuned for that.

Just Stuff

My personal trainer (yes, I have one. I live in Los Angeles don't I) suggested that I let my hair grow longer and have it cut to look like Ellen Degeneres. He says she has baby fine hair, too. What do you think? Think I'd look good with an "ellen" haircut?

On the way home from the gym I pass thru Beverly Hills. Today I saw 5 cop cars and 9 cops arresting a guy. There's a joke in there somewhere right? How many Beverly Hills cops does it take to make an arrest?

By the way, if you live in Los Angeles you MUST know what IMDB is. People use it as a verb or noun in conversations. It's THE movie website with all the scoop.

I love singing in the shower with my parrot. He cracks me up. He sings and dances with me. He's bobbing and weaving and squawking....I wonder if he thinks I'm bobbing and weaving and squawking?

Hey all those Canadians reading my blog. Big shout out to all of you! How many of you are out there??? You can post comments even if you don't have a blogger account by doing anonymous. Jeesh that's a hard word to spell.

Lesbians take the Academy by Storm

What an amazing night in Hollywood Sunday night. Unfortunately it's only now that I've had a chance to blog about it. When I saw Ellen Degeneres up on that stage I thought to myself, Wow, she's come a long way. Do you remember when she was practically run out of Hollywood for coming out on the Ellen show back in 1998.

The "Ellen Show" was successful enough in its early seasons to warrant annual renewal, due largely to DeGeneres' perceived appeal and comic ability, but it was never a huge critical or ratings success. Only with Ellen's coming out did the show make its way into the wide public conciousness and hit a critical plateau. However after the initial coming out frenzy the show's ratings declined somewhat and ABC began feeling the pain of an organized backlash from religious conservative groups regarding the "gay content" being exhibited. While the final episodes of "Ellen" continued breaking new ground and winning awards, they were also widely criticized for focusing primarily on gay issues -- a criticism begun in anti-gay circles but which spread very quickly to the mainstream media. The brass at ABC found the justification they needed to finally pull the show from the air in May of 1998 after five seasons.

Where are we now? Not only has Ellen just hosted a very successful and more importantly, funny Oscar show but she has a successful talk show. Not to mention she's probably wealthy beyond belief. You go girl! Way to keep plugging and overcome adversity. The power of positive thinking? Or a sign of the times? Right place......etc

And what about Melissa Etheridge taking home the Oscar for Best Song? Kissing her girlfriend on National TV in front of 100's of millions worldwide and then telling Oprah's buddy backstage that "Oscar will be the only man to see my bedroom". Hehe. We certainly have come a long way!

Acupuncture Treatment #1

I'm having a lot of pain in my right shoulder and while I am starting physical therapy, I thought I would also supplement it with Acupuncture. Since my health insurance only covers $1000 of physical therapy, which is only about 8 visits, PT isn't going to solve the problem. So, I'm trying to find an alternative. Here's some pix with all my needles.

Lions for Lambs - another post....

Me and one of my techs (Drew) sitting behind Senator Tom Cruise's desk. Those pictures behind us are of the U.S. Senator (Cruise) and famous people, like Bush, the Dali Lama, etc. All professionally photoshopped of course. 3 of our Mitel IP Phones are sitting on and behind his desk.

LPGA at Turtle Bay, Hawaii

This past weekends LPGA SBS Turtle Bay tournament was fun to watch even if Paula Creamer won. Paula, rookie of the year in 2005, and completely winless in 2006, finally pulled off a win after an 18 month drought. Some feel she's talented, some think she's a bitch, and some a spoiled teenager; she's probably all of those things. I think players to watch this year instead of Paula Creamer would more likely be Julieta Granada , a young little fireball out of Paraguay that won the $1,000,000 ADT tournament to close out the 2007 season (and finished 2nd on the money list). Her mother caddies for her which I find rather endearing. She's also a phenomenal player with excellent putting. I think her putting is far more successful than Annika Sorenstam's or Ochoa's and would be on pair with the men. The PGA tour seems to demand and have a much lower putt ratio.

Speaking of Annika Sorenstam, where was she in the opening tournament of the LPGA? Especially considering the recent USA Today article about her disappointment in 2006 (even though she made $2,000.000) and her re-committment to winning Player of the Year in 2007.

In case you were wondering, Michelle Wie missed the SBS Open at Turtle Bay due to her falling and hurting her wrist. She was scheduled to appear in the event. All the news that is Wie can be found here. I haven't seen her compete in a LPGA event in a while. She's too busy trying to make a PGA cut than to actually get a win on the LPGA. I realize that it's great TV spotlighting for her, great for the sponsors, but if you never make the cut, what does it matter? Who is her agent/publicist/handler? She bugs me.

The Big Day

Today is an auspicious day in the life of Dawn. It's Dena and I's 16th anniversary. Since we're not really "married" it's not really our wedding anniversary, but it's a date we decided on many years ago. It's actually kind of wierd typing that, "many years ago". I feel grown up. I don't remember now why we picked the 16th, but it's been our date for so long that it doesn't really matter now. I wonder what would happen if we had a wedding? Would we move the date? Sorry, I digress....

When I think back on the 16 years with Dena, I remember only good times, many adventures, much laughter and fun. Sure there have been hard times, but nothing that could cloud the incredible journey that we've been on.

I can't tell you how fortunate I feel knowing that I will have her by my side for the rest of my life. She never walks in front of me, never behind me, always beside me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Ah it's that time of year.....

The time of year when the rains think about subsiding in Southern California, the time of year when there is a little more sunshine, a little more daylight and new buds start on my trees. Yes, folks, that's right -- It's LPGA time!!!

I just watched Karrie Webb finish off her 6th win at the ANZ open in Australia ( a European Women's Golf Event). I love sitting, having my lunch and watching women's golf during the week. I'll DVR tournaments all weekend long so that I can watch them piecemeal over lunch throughout the week. It sort of calms me......God knows I need that in my life. Interesting item to note is that the ANZ tournament in Australia, first prize was only $120,000. No wonder these players want to play on the LPGA. More $$$

I'm also looking forward to this weekends SBS Turtle Bay LPGA kick off tournament on Oahu, Hawaii. Briana Vega winner of Donald Trump's Big Break VI has an exemption to play in this one and I'm interested to see how she does. I also love all the courses in Hawaii as the Pacific Ocean makes a breathtaking backdrop.

Ramblings.....

I supposedly live in the richest country in the world and I have to be manage my health care options. How ridiculous. I only get $ 1,000 of Physical Therapy coverage a calendar year, so I have to worry and plan and think, that if I use it now, in February, will I be screwing myself later in the year if I need it? What if the $1000 doesn't cover it? What if I'm not better after ~ 10 PT visits? After all, with the rates they charge a grand will only get me about 10 visits. What will I do then?

We've been missing one of our cordless phones for about a week now. We just couldn't find it. Dena said it had to be my fault because I move them around so much. Well, they are cordless! Isn't that a given. I found it yesterday. It was outside on the patio wall. I guess I left it there while I was washing the windows a couple weekends ago. It's since rained. The phone is, well, you might say, dead......

When I looked in the mirror today I received a startling reflection - me, with small wrinkle lines on my neck. When the hell did those pop up? I just kept thinking to myself -- "is this because I don't drink enough water?" God knows it can't be because I'm getting old. hmmm, perhaps I am getting old, after all I did leave the phone outside for a week.

More on set visit

Susie from Propstar had a camera and I have pictures of my tech (Drew) and I in the senator's office, in front of the United States seal and other such memorable pix. During our positioning of the phones, lights and cords there was some guy sitting in the senator's chair. I thought to myself, he looks a lot like Tom Cruise. Well, he's Cruise's stand in. While they are setting up camera shots, lighting, rehearsing moving camera shots, etc. they use stand ins to do the scene. The stand in for Meryl Streep and Cruise were very similar in body type, basically they are supposed to be doubles, so same hair/eye color, same skin tone, same height, same body type, wear the same clothes, etc. This is for lighting, camera angle, prop placement, etc. Because we sure wouldn't want Meryl Streep standing around while they got the lights right, eh. She was lounging about in her Star trailer while all this was going on.

By the way, I forgot to tell you that I saw all 3 of the stars, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Tom Cruise. I only saw Cruise for a couple seconds. He's quite a short little fellow. Meryl Streep is beautful and she laughed a ton on the set during rehearsals. Robert Redford sat about 3 feet from me while he was discussing scene changes with the script guy. Him and Cruise apparently co-direct and co-star in the movie. While we were on set Cruise was acting, so we didn't really see him behind the camera. BTW, directors aren't really behind the camera, the camera guy is. The director just reviews the clip, makes corrections as he sees fit, etc. The one long (if you could call 30 seconds long) scene that I was there for too 3 hours of rehersals and about 14 takes. Some of the takes were ad libs by Meryl Streep (it was her scene), some were exactly on script and some were just flubs. Not flubs on Meryl's part of course, she was always perfect, except of course when she dropped her lipstick across the floor. hehe

Hobnobbing with soon to be screen legends....

Today was spent babysitting the set of Lions for Lambs. As you read in a previous post Mitel's phones are used as props in the movie. They are to be fully functioning props so there was concern that Tom Cruise would pick the phone up and either it wouldn't work, or more likely, he wouldn't know how to use it.

This morning started at 6:30 on the set. We set up some "receptionist" style phones which was a big deal with flashing and solid lights to make it look busy. I'm sure these lights will never be seen as the shot was filmed from the other direction this afternoon. Oh well. Then we hung around and waited, and waited and waited. I wondered why people had magazines, papers and laptops at their little stations. It was to entertain themselves throughoutthe day. We were told of the rules:

1. Do not look Tom Cruise in the eye. (hehe get real)
2. When they say quiet on the set, it's a dead stop, no coughing, no whispering, no moving, stand still.
3. Never enter the sound stage (or exit) when the red light is flashing.
4. No personal cameras. That was ok because I forgot the memory card for mine. DUH!

Around 10:30 we heard a call "The senator's coming!" That meant that Tom Cruise (Senator Irving from Illinois) was coming into the sound stage. People scurried around and got real quiet. They spent about an hour filming about 1 second of footage of Tom Cruise holding some critical piece of paper at the Senator's desk. How time consuming.

More tomorrow....

A Quote for your day -

Be motivated - it's Tuesday, there are still 3 more days left in your week to get something big accomplished!

"Complacency is the single biggest roadblock to continuous improvement."

Busy Week

It's been a busy week - I was in an ITIL certification course - I won't bore you with the details but suffice it to say it's a management level course and has no technical knowledge in it. Very different and quite interesting, however, quite dry as well. So, that's my excuse why I haven't been blogging.....

But, this blog isn't about that course, it's about some of the things that happened in the course. Personal space - I've always needed a little more of a personal space buffer than your average person. I'm not sure how those people in Japan exist. I would be freaking all the time. I'm not even sure I could travel there. So there was this jewish fellow in the class. I'm not sure why his religion matters, perhaps as a stereotype to his behavior, you be the judge..... So in the class there are 6' tables with 2 people per table. A little cramped, one must respect the other's space. The guys name was Kudmar or something, anyway, he was always inching over into my space. I hate that shit. I hate it in scrapbooking, I hate it in the movie theater and I sure as hell hate it when I'm in a training class that costs $1,500. So we come back from lunch the first day, and surprise, surprise, I have to go to the bathroom, I come in a little late and his laptop power cord is hanging over my side, his empty tea bag is like 8" on my side, yes, I mentally measured. His knee keeps whacking my leg, too. So I'm not crazy. I know what you're thinking...

So, his blatant infringement into my personal space is almost consuming my thought processes and I'm having trouble concentrating on the lecturer. Later in the afternoon we're having a lively discussion in the class and I've forgotten about his transgressions for the moment, then all of a sudden I feel my chair pull back a little and feel a presence. In a split second I glance back and see his hand and arm on my chair. I have an instant reaction, and say to him, "Please do not do that." He looks at his hand and then at me in disbelief. I repeat, "please remove your hand from my chair." He apologizes and we had no more infringement's for the next 3 days. Problem solved :-)

Lions for Lambs

My company's publicity department is providing the phones for this 2007 Robert Redford directed film. We have a department that specifically provides phones for "product placements" in movies, series, etc.

Lions for Lambs stars Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise. He's a senator in the film and according to the prop people a real monster if things aren't perfect on the set. Based on that whole Oprah incident I suspect he's a monster all the time.....so dramatic...... So we have to install the phones 3 days before to make sure they are correct.

The Washington, DC scenes will be filmed on the lot at Universal in the next 2 weeks. Apparently this movie has 3 different story lines that parallel one another, similar to Babel. How we are all connected whether we know each other or not. Unfortunately, due to a move in the shooting schedule I will be unable to put the phones in as I have a prior committment so I have to delegate it.

Daylight Savings time Change

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub.L. 109-58) is a statute that was passed by the United States Congress on July 29, 2005 and signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005 at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Act, described by proponents as an attempt to combat growing energy problems, provides tax incentives and loan guarantees for energy production of various types. The reason for writing this today has to do with Daylight savings time and preparing your computers for the change.

The bill amends the Uniform Time Act of 1966 by changing the start and end dates of daylight saving time starting in 2007. Clocks will be set ahead one hour on the second Sunday of March instead of the current first Sunday of April. Clocks will be set back one hour on the first Sunday in November, rather than the last Sunday of October. This will make electronic clocks that had pre-programmed dates for adjusting to daylight saving time obsolete and will require updates to computer operating systems. The date for the end of daylight saving time has the effect of increasing evening light on Halloween (October 31).

See the Microsoft web site for an explanation of what to do to your Windows machine according to which operating system you are running. For those of you with Mac's, you're on your own.

My bad

Some people use this slang term as a round about way of saying they are sorry, or "my mistake". I find it a very aggravating term in that if you screwed up, just say you are sorry. I have also found that over the last year or two, the teens, twenty somthings, etc are no longer really using this term but the 40 & 50 somethings are. Another source of aggravation for me. An apology goes a long way, "my bad" gets no where with me! Below please find some interesting history on the term.

This slang term originated in about 1970. At that time, i.e. pre widespread Internet use, slang terms often circulated at street level for many years before being adopted by anyone who felt inclined to write them down. That's clearly not the case any longer and any word or phrase that is widely known is dateable quite precisely via website blogs.

The first citation in print is C. Wielgus and A. Wolff's, 'Back-in-your-face Guide to Pick-up Basketball', 1986: "My bad, an expression of contrition uttered after making a bad pass or missing an opponent."

Shakespeare used the term with something like the current meaning, in his Sonnet 112:
Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
That's clearly just coincidence. It's also a world away from pick-up basketball. 'My bad' came into widespread popular use in the mid to late-1990s in the USA via the 1995 movie “Clueless”. This starred Alicia Silverstone and contains what seems to have been the first use of the phrase in the mainstream media. The 1994 'Green revision pages' for the movie script has a scene with the Alicia Sliverstone character learning to drive:
"Cher swerves - to avoid killing a person on a bicycle. Cher: Whoops, my bad."

Although a street term, it is virtually synonymous with the earlier Latin phrase, 'mea culpa'. It doubtless has as little of a direct descent from this as it does from Shakespeare's Sonnet 112. Regardless of its beginnings, it still bugs me......

An icy day of golfing

I knew we were in trouble when we walked up to the starter desk at the Encino Golf Course and they had started late due to frost on the course. I thought, ok, not good, they may be a little behind but it'll be ok. It seems to be warming up... Well the practice putting greens were closed due to frozen puddles on them. Ice, yes folks, I'm not kidding, patches of ice on the practice greens. As we drove from hole to hole yesterday our carts cruised over patches of ice all over the course. Some of the greens were closed and temporary greens were used. This was disappointing and a pain in the ass. Speaking of asses, Arlene has a chapped ass from the entire affair due to the cold and dryness.

We finally quite on the 15th hole at 4:30p as the temperature was plummeting. We just couldn't take the cold anymore. Morning temperature at Encino golf course: 29 degrees. BBBRRRRRR!

Memories

It's hard to believe I'm old enough to have memories from 20 years ago. I never really think of myself as that old. I guess I walk around all day in my mind thinking I'm 19.

So the other day, I was remembering about when my friend Marcy and I used to work at this law firm, Irell & Manella in Century City, CA. This was probably about 1987. This was a large law firm that occupied 5 or 6 floors in one of the large highrises in Century City. They were big babies. We did everything for them from a voicemail perspective. We recorded every greeting and name for every attorney in the joint and when the summer associates came, we did all their names and greetings, then deleted them in the fall. This was great $$ of course for the company we worked for.

They had many demands as far as message waiting lights and this is what occupied much of our time there. I remember Marcy and I strutting around with our tool belts hanging from our hips. I think we must have been quite the site. Marcy even got in trouble one day for wearing jeans that had rips in the knees and ass. This was before it was the "style". She was styling before it was stylish. I remember marvelling at the rich looking (and heavy!) desks with the piles and piles of paper surrounding them. Sometimes there was only a little path to the desk in the office, the rest was stacks of papers. It was so unlike the law shows on TV. We'd sometimes work late and steal candy and beer from the personal "executive" fridges on the floors. Those were the days....

Country loyalty

Dena and I were at a Los Angeles Kings game the other night. It was the Los Angeles Kings vs. the Edmonton Oilers. A US - Canadian matchup of 2 rival teams since the Gretzky days. As we nestled into our seats trying to stay warm in the cold arena the people around us started making comments. They made comments that Canada should be the 51st state and other disparaging remarks about my country. They whined about having to listen to the Canadian Anthem but as I proudly sang it I could hear the other Canadians in the arena singing just as loud. The female singer then sang the US anthem, no one sang, the players fidgeted and people chatted and snickered. Perhaps the players were fidgeting because 50% of them were Canadian on the Kings team. You see, when I went into the game that night I couldn't decide who to root for. It didn't take long to recognize where my loyalty lay.

We had incredible seats and I had phoned my family in Canada to see if they could see us on TV. All Canadian team away games are televised in Canada. Its not extra, its part of the package. Perhaps the cable companies in Canada are loyal too? My brother-in-law remarked that it sounded like the place was quiet as a library. I realized that it was. It was very quiet. Way too quiet for a hockey game. People in Canada scream, shout and cheer. The guy behind me yelled at some guy for standing up.

Are Americans as patriotic and loyal as the republicans make them out to be? Is patriotism only a badge worn when convenient? I never really understood why Americans don't sing their National Anthem at sporting events. It's a beautiful piece of music with a great story to tell. I've seen more than one Canadian moved to tears upon hearing it sung at a game. Perhaps Americans are just tired of it all.

Your comments on this blog are welcome. Just post as an anonymous user and wait 24 hours and they'll appear. Feel free to sign your name but you do not require a blogger account.

More Dodge Transmission issues

What a hunk of junk Dodge makes. In the beginning of November I took my 2006 Dodge Magnum into the shop for warranty repair on a significant transmission fluid leak. It took 2 days to repair and it was a known problem. For the last month my transmission has been leaking again, although not so bad, so I was sort of stalling. You know, with the whole Christmas/New years thing going on, I just didn't have time. Now I'd like to get it repaired before our trip to Palm Springs.

I called CarMax by LAX, you cannot schedule ANY car repair appointments until January 23rd. The first available appointment is the 23rd. That's insane. So I thought I'd be smart and call another dealership, Glendale Dodge. I got an appointment on January 17th, the earliest you can see the transmission guy. You see, there are so many transmission problems with new Dodge vehicles that they are terribly backed up. Her words, not mine. Do American car manufacturer's actually wonder why people buy Japanese brands?

Christmas Jammies

Rolling with the Denver Blizzard

Of course we had a flight on United Airlines today, through the Denver airport on our way to Edmonton. As you all know the Denver Airport closed on Wednesday the 20th due to severe blizzard conditions and snow. They've since gotten about 2' of snow and if any of you are familiar with the airport you know its in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles and miles of rolling prairies. They plow the runway and 30 minutes later there are huge drifts on it again. Read the latest on Denver here. My company apparently has several people stuck in the Denver airport. What a sad place to spend 2 nights sleeping on the ground.

After trying for over 3 hours on Thursday to get thru to United (and being disconnected repeatedly by their systems) I gave up and called my trusty Mitel travel agent. Evelynne was wonderful as always, found us a flight on WestJet for $550 round trip and its direct! No where near Denver. We fly into Calgary and my family will come pick us up. You have to roll with the punches.

How am I going to get back the 80,000 miles that I spent getting our award tickets to Canada in the first place on United? Since I couldn't get thru for love nor money yesterday, I waited until midnight last night and called the 800#. Got right through. Talked to a lovely black woman who sounded like she was either drunk or stoned and she told me all the horror stories from the day. I asked her if she'd been drinking and she said just water. But she said that water and vodka are the same color. She was very colorful herself and we had a fun go of it. I'm just hoping my miles are back in my account.....

Cappuccino for Cops?

Or has the United States left every child behind?
This sign was in the mini mall near my house.

My Calculator

It's weird how we hang on to the strangest things. I have this Sharp scientific calculator that I know I had in Winnipeg, MB when I was in University or before. I must have bought it for the abstract calculus classes in the Computer Science program. I hated that class..... The calculator was state of the art at the time. Now they make calculators that graph for you right on the screen, but I digress. So if I bought this calculator around 1981-1983 its about 25 years old. I'm just ripping the batteries out of it now because it's dead. I have to buy new ones and I'm going to. Why throw it away? It's still very useful. I still use it, although not as much. I use the calculator on the computer more even though I hate that one.

This quote comes to mind: Usefulness is not impaired by imperfection. You can still drink from a chipped cup. Or in this case, an old calculator.....

Sienna Rose - Born December 1st

What is Phishing

Phishing is a form of Internet fraud that aims to steal valuable information such as credit cards, social security numbers, user IDs and passwords. A fake website is created that is similar to that of a legitimatorganizationon, typically a financial institution such as a bank or insurance company. An email is sent requesting that the recipient access the fake website (which will usually be a replica of a trusted site) and enter their personal details, including security access codes. ...

The latest phishing scam has to do with paypal. This phish is almost comically clumsy to the naked eye, and we're not here to analyze it seriously. The e-mail is extremely simple, composed only of text and no real attempt to make it look like it came from PayPal other than using a "service@paypal.com" address. The subject line of the email is: You have added a new e-mail address to your account. (normally this would freak you out if you had paypal as it would mean someone hacked you).

How to combat phishing schemes? The answer is ALWAYS the same! Never click on an embedded link in an email, especially one you didn't know was coming. So you ask, "how do I know then if my paypal (or bank or whatever) account was hacked. Launch a separate browser window, log in to your account and see what if anything has changed. I myself received this phish for the paypal account. It was about 2 weeks after we changed email addresses for the TimeWarner/Comcast buyout so I was confused. I just logged in to my paypaaccountnt and checked the email addresses. Simple. I never clicked on the link embedded in the email message.

Educate yourself about phishing at Phishing

Internet Explorer 7.0 & Heuristics

Or - What has Microsoft done for me lately?

In case some of you using Windows XP haven't noticed, one of the Automatic Windows updates that you may have downloaded automatically or by just trusting Microsoft by clicking download - was that you automatically downloaded IE 7.0. What does this mean? Well for most people, it means more security! YAY!! One of the most important features of IE 7 for home users is that the new browser includes Heuristics. The definition of Heuristics is: A problem-solving technique (in the computer world - an algorithm) in which the most appropriate solution is selected using rules. Interfaces using heuristics may perform different actions on different data given the same command. All systems using heuristics are classified as intelligent.

What does this do for you? Simply put - Microsoft has enabled your Internet Explorer browser to actually notify you if you stumble upon a phishing scam or website. It reports the site as "Suspicious". The site has not been reported, at least not yet conclusively, as a phishing site, but IE7 has examined the site programmatically and determined that it has characteristics of a phishing site. I think that is pretty cool to the casual home user.

I've looked back in my years of blogs and see that I don't have any information on phishing scams. Wierd, I thought for sure I blogged about that. I will bore you with that in another post.

The real Living and Dining Room

Health Check

Well here I am 8 days after the whole coughing fit, blow out all the muscles in my neck, ER trip. What type of recovery have I had? I know you are all dying to know..... Well, for the first 5 days it was absolutely brutal. Any movement was painful for my neck due to the strained muscles and pulled ligaments. The bronchitus has been exhausting and its only today that I feel a little like myself. That's 8 days after diagnosis and probably at least 10 days after I developed it. I'm on my 3rd dose of antibiotics, the first being the shot in the butt of Roxithromycin , the second being a Z pack (a whimpie one), the 3rd starting Tuesday of levaquin. I seem to be coughing up much less green globlets since I started the levaquin. That's a big bonus. I tire very, very easily. Just a trip to lunch is exhausting or taking the garbage out. It's incredibly frustrating.

Now I just have to be very careful not to overdue it. Bronchitus, especially in asthmatics, tends to have a high relapse rate and we all know how I am. The overachiever to be sure.

Trunk Monkey - Compilation

3 Beautiful Things

1) Sinking a 25' putt for par on the 4th at Roosevelt GC.
2) The satisfying feeling of actually getting the LA Times to pay for the screen door that their carrier thru our Friday paper thru - 2 Friday's in a row.
3) The smell of fresh paint as we paint our Living Room.

2 Things that piss me off

1) The idiots at Time Warner HighSpeed internet that came out here on Saturday and didn't do anything to fix the problem, totally wasting my time.
2) My neighbor who has 4 big labs that shit on my lawn and he doesn't seem to think he should clean it up.

The bizarre of the day

Well, pretty much anything in Los Angeles......

Our new Dining Room -

What do you think? Is it too pink?

Emergency trip 1 of 1 for 2006, hopefully

Well last night was spent in the emergency room. I was at a Technical Training class in Anaheim yesterday and had such a bad coughing fit that I was spitting up blood and pulled every single muscle in my neck. I could hardly move. I've never really felt that kind of pain in my chest. It was like each time I coughed a thousand tiny pins were poking my inner chest. That can't be good.

Somehow I got myself to the Bellflower Medical Center at 5:00p and finally left at 8:30p. Not bad considering it was an ER. I had a chest x-ray, blood drawn, 2 breathing treatments, a shot for pain in my ass and another shot of antibiotics on the other side of my ass. All in all, a good day for my ass. The Bellflower ER is small, tiny even. I wouldn't recommend going there after 5pm or on weekends as I'm sure its a miserable place. Of course, if you needed medical treatment during business hours, then you'd go to your doctor right? I suppose in hindsight that's what I should have done, a day or two earlier before it got so bad. Who knew?

I was sent home with a stack of prescriptions and this morning finds me extremely sore all over, can't turn my head at all. It's going to be a lovely day.

Neighboroo

A very cool Google website

http://www.neighboroo.com/

My Dodge Magnum - in the shop

Transmission problems and Dodge/Chrysler seem synonymous. In 1980 I received possession of my parents 1972 Dodge Charger. I was thrilled. Little did I know the litany of electrical and transmission problems that would plague me for the next 6 years. I gladly let the vehicle be totaled when I did a couple 360's on the Winnipeg overpass due to ice (and bald tires....). I vowed never to buy a Dodge.

Flash ahead 20 years and I have a '06 Dodge Magnum (company car) and it now has 11,600 miles on it. Barely broken in right? Well, its in the shop because the transmission fluid is leaking like a sieve on my driveway. Did you know that most Chevy and Dodge/Chrysler new cars now have sealed transmissions with no dipstick? You cannot check the fluid level yourself, the color of it, the smell of it, nothing. If you want service, guess what, off to the dealer with you. Now of course, this issue is a warranty item and I will not pay anything for it, however, it is a royal pain in the ass & today is day 2 that they've had the car. Oh, and CarMax (the Dodge dealer I took it to in Inglewood) said that they had 4 cars yesterday with same problem. The 300's, Chargers and Magnum's all use the powertrain. Great. Gotta love American quality.