Memories

I've been cleaning out my stash of storage boxes full of what is supposed to be important information worth keeping. This weekend the neighborhood association is bringing a huge dumpster and shredding company in. Everyone in our association can bring their junk and discard it or shred it. A great idea.

So I've been going thru things. Stuff I've discovered:

-- A rent dispute I had with a good friend of mine in 1989. We're not friends anymore. I think I was a bitch during that dispute. Probably 50% or more at fault during the exchange.
-- The Broadway department store doesn't exist anymore. I probably don't need to keep those statements.
-- I actually bought stuff from the Swiss Chalet mail order catalog.
-- In 1991 I was in 3 car accidents - 3/19, 4/22 and 5/19. Definitely a bad first half of that year.
-- I had a horrible run of renters for my condo. Thank goodness I listened to Dena & got a property management company.
-- The IRS and I don't see eye to eye.

The thought that comes to mind after digging thru 20 years of paper is:

"Sometimes these scars define our life, others are just evidence of missteps during the journey."

The stupid things I do...

So I'm home being a bachlorette this weekend and tonight I'm thinking, hmmm, a Mojito would be nice. I'm gonna be cool and watch Lost by the fire and drink myself silly on Mojitoes. So I get all prepared at 5 PM and get the sugar, fresh mint, shaker, muddler and varietals of rum all ready. But wait, I can't drink yet, it's only 5pm and that would be counter productive.

9:00 rolls around and I'm getting a little tired and ready to wind down. I wander into the kitchen throw a couple lime quarters into my cocktail shaker, add a teaspoon of sugar, carefully prune some mint leaves and throw them in. Mojitos are an art you see, and I'm a Mojito artist. I begin my muddling. After the contents are sufficiently muddled it starts to go terribly awry. I like to mix a little Sprite instead of soda water. It keeps that whole lime thing going. At Vons they were out of Sprite because it was on sale. I bought some bullshit zero calorie Sprite because beggars can't be choosers. I go to open this 2 liter bottle & it starts to bubble over, and over and over. All over everything. No matter how long I waited and how I finessed the cap, it bubbled over. Finally, after subduing the unruly liquid I added the splash to my Mojito. Of course, I'm very aggravated now but I'm trying not to ruin my experience. I add ice and get the bright idea to shake the concoction because none of the ingredients were cold.

Obviously that was a big mistake. I shook the cocktail shaker and this upset the Sprite (which was quite mad already) and the pressure was too much for the shaker. It exploded all over me. Lime wedges, mint leaves and liquor sprayed like shrapnel thru the air. I took the brunt of the blast. I'm quite sticky now and have decided that a glass of red wine and a bath will suffice.

Bachlorettedom is not as exciting as it was 10 or 20 years ago.

Watching the New Horizons launch from Boeing

Sitting in the Boeing Phantom Works installing a VoIP system for a new secret satellite program I had the opportunity to watch this via live feed from Mission Control. It was very exciting to see the holds, the checks, the thrill of it all really.

The New Horizons spacecraft set out on a journey to the edge of the solar system. Liftoff occurred Jan. 19, 2006 at 2:00:00 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. New Horizons is headed for a distant rendezvous with the mysterious planet Pluto almost a decade from now.

The mission plan for New Horizons is long, a 10 year journey to Pluto and then further plans out until 2017. This is how things are planned at Nasa, in decades, not years and certainly not days. You must have to be patient to be a rocket scientist. The project that I'm hooking up all our Mitel gear for plans on going "operational" around 2015. That means that from now til then they are working on getting whatever it is they are working on, working. LOL It's all very secret you know.

Possessed or Obsessed?

Last night as I stood in front of the door with my house keys, I felt something strange. I felt someone had been there. I actually pushed the door before unlocking it to ensure it wasn't ajar or broken. It was intact and I unlocked it. As I proceeded over the threshold to unarm the house I felt like I was not alone. Someone was in the house. I remembered that our alarm will indicate if it has gone off while we were gone, so I unarmed the house but it was silent. No triggers while we were out. I kept my strange sensations to myself as I quickly searched the house. One doesn't like to look a fool you know. Since all seemed well I dismissed the feelings.

Sometime in the beginnings of my night of what should be nice, calm sleep, I awoke with a scream in my mouth. The dream began with us in bed. Dena was having a nightmare. I tried to wake her but she would not. I pinched her, she still writhed in her sleep, obviously in a state of distress. Her face contorted into a silent, open mouthed scream and she mouthed "help me". I bit her, hard. She awoke and something escaped from her mouth. I screamed.
At this point I actually awoke with my heart racing and I was scared to death. Dena also awoke and tried to tell me to think good thoughts and go back to sleep. I was skeptical but thought of Hawaii as I always do when told to think good thoughts.

The next dream was the possession of Ipod's. All Ipod's are possessed and Apple is an evil company out to take over the minds of all that listen to it. I felt that since I often only listen in the car and not thru headphones I was relatively immune since most of the evil spurge was coming thru the headphones. But alas I was becoming possessed anyways. I was aware of it and tried to warn the world of its impending doom but no one would listen. I of course, awoke from this lovely dream that doesn't translate well into words. It was filled with terrifying visuals of evil emmanating from the headphone jack. I drifted back to sleep.

I awoke for the 3rd time with a terrible start, someone knocked 3 times with our door knocker on the front door. The knock was real. It was as loud and clear as if you knocked on my door now as I write this. I awoke scared to death. Now I'll confess that I have had this dream before. Not in a long time mind you, but I have. I also haven't had the feeling that someone was in our house for a long time. The last time that happened we put pictures of our fathers into the dining room and the presence left us. I felt our father's were guarding us. Since New Year's the fathers had been moved to the den to make room for the party. For some reason their protection only seems valid in the dining room. That's where this spirit emmanates from, I know it in my heart. The spirit is also not very nice.

The mouse

I remember the days when a mouse was just a pointing device. It had a little wheel in the bottom of it that got hair and other disgusting little things in it, and you knew when it had to be cleaned. It had 2 buttons, the left click and the right click. Now, I have an optical wirelss mouse with a scroll wheel. No ball to clean, no particular part to blame when it's slow or doesn't move, just a red little optical beam that magically senses where it needs to move.

The beam doesn't like mirrored or glass surfaces, that much is obvious. The wireless functionality is equally as frustrating as the batteries run low, you're not sure if when it's slow to respond it's your computer, the batteries, the wireless part or the red little beam underneath. You just don't know. How frustrating for a geek. Then there's the scroll wheel. I can't live without it. I had occasion to use some older mouse and my fingers kept dancing to the scroll wheel that was not there. My fingers wanted to shoot down the page FAST! Not drag an ancient scroll bar down the side of the page.

How we have evolved, I think.... Or perhaps we're just more productive? Or perhaps we just can surf the internet quicker...

New Orleans vs Grand Forks, ND '97

This is a bloggers commentary and comparison between the huge Grand Forks, ND Red River flood in 1997 vs the New Orleans debacle. There is some interesting commentary with some articles to back it up -- Find it Here

Happy New Year!

The Weather outside is....

The weather outside is delightful
But the mall is so frightful
And since there's only one day to go
Let us shop, Let us shop, Let us shop

Well, I've seen no sales on the way
Must be saving them for Boxing Day
My feet ache and I may drop
Let us shop, Let us shop, Let us shop

When we finally come in for the night
It's all about getting it wrapped
But as long as the paper is tight
And someone passed me a nightcap
Let us shop, Let us shop, Let us shop

I know, my poetry sucks -- Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight

Holiday spirit

The Gift of Time

Wouldn't a gift of time be the ultimate gift for the holiday season? What if you could give somone an extra hour a day for a week? I know that it's not possible to give time, but think about it...what would the power in that be? I can always use more time. I would like an extra hour of evening sunlight in the winter. I would like an extra hour of sleep at night. What a priceless gift. People ask me, "what do you want for the holidays?" My first thought is always time. More time! Isn't it amazing how life changes. When I was in my twenties that first thought was money.

Sometimes we get little gifts of time when we fly west across a time zone and are given an hour or two. This gift is quickly taken back when returning home, because time is cruel. Sometimes I feel like I'm stealing time when I'm finished a project early and find myself with an open chunk or hour in the middle of the day. What if I could bank that time? Think of how rich one would be with time saved in the bank. Richer than Bill Gates and the Walmart clan for sure.

As you read this blog today, think about our most precious commodity on this earth -- TIME. Do you always use it wisely? Is watching TV with your lover a wise use of your time? What about downtime? Everyone needs more downtime. I could certainly use more uptime.

Sweet childish days, that were as long, As twenty days are now.
-- Wordsworth

Wonders of modern technology

The cable guy was here. I picked up a new dual tuner DVR/Cable box from comcast on Monday. I was very excited. I installed it and nothing but problems. The guy is here today and has gone thru 3 new boxes before finding one that he thinks will work. Isn't that promising....
Just so you know, if you are having voice/mouth syncing problems between your HDTV & the cable company, it could be the quality of physical cable you are using. Nowadays, with HDTV you MUST use component video or DVI cables. It was like watching a japanese Godzilla movie dubbed in English.

My printer hates me. Its one of those combo jobs, multi-function they call it. Too bad it doens't function at all. My old Brother Multi-function was a black and white laser that worked perfectly fine. I just needed a new drum and it was $225; but for $200 I could get this other Brother MFC that was COLOR. It was inkjet and I thought, well, who cares...it's color. How fun will that be. I can print Well, apparently no fun at all. The printer only lasted a year and 100's of dollars in inkjet cartridges. I don't print that much....

There's a conspiracy you know. It's all about the consumables baby. People don't think about consumables. Whether it's an ink cartridge, saw blade, drill bit, or copper cabling, it's all about the $$$$ The $$ is in consumables.

Another tragic human legacy

The October 2005 issue of National Geographic has a stunning pictoral review of the Outer Hawai'ian islands, or more appropriately atolls and reefs. The compelling portion of this story was the trash that has accumulated on these far flung, uninhabited isles and how the hundreds of thousands of seabirds eat it, ingest, feed it to their young and die from it. Mostly plastic but this bird in the picture had a lighter, a couple bottle caps and mounds of plastic. It died from starvation as you can imagine. Plastic having no nutritional value.
I've subscribed to the National Geographic magazine for decades (OMG! did I say that) and like to think I do my tiny part in educating myself and supporting their causes. However, with that said, it's hard to read sometimes. After all, coming face to face with the staggering number of unimaginable atrocities we've committed on planet earth and her inhabitants is hard to bear.

Further reading material on the wonderful spread of plastic pollution throughout our oceans:
Europe:
South Africa:
Pacific Ocean:

And the worst of it all, an excerpt below:

One bright summer morning when the captain of the private research vessel Alguita sighted an island where no land should be. The size of Central Europe, this floating island was made of plastic bags.
Six-million of them, according to the logbook of the vessel that lost them. Destined for Taco Bells across the USA, the junk food bags had collected into a single massive blob more a thousand miles off California’s dreaming shore.
As correctable as any unconscious habit, plastic pollution pervades the high seas. The plastic island Moore logged in February 2004 was found inside the three-million square-mile area of the North Pacific Ocean directly under a giant “H” on TV weather maps. Now dubbed the “Eastern Garbage Patch”, this vast high-pressure zone mirrors and interacts with a oceanic circulation called the North Pacific gyre, whose endless rotation traps and congeals our refuse under the scrutiny of starving seabirds who see the tiny plastic pellets as food.

My first ball mark on the green..

That's my ball mark. It's huge, eh. In the background, middle of the picture is the flag. I was so excited, hopping up and down from the tee. That ball even took a piece of grass with it! I'm sorry to say that I missed the putt for birdie but made the par.

Rancho Park

2000 Graves

Not sure if any of you noticed or heard, but on Santa Monica beach to raise awareness of the 2000th US Soldier dying in the Iraq war or conflict or invasion... these graves were set up on the beach. It was a sobering site to be sure. Some crosses had names on them and how/when that soldier died. I wanted to take a picture and continue in my small way to pass that awareness along.
The "fresh" looking graves near the front of the picture are just that - new deaths over the 2000 that died while the memorial was up.

The Idiocy of Air Travel in America

Today's SFO events:

-> A United counter agent calls the SFPD on an international business class traveller
-> TSA takes my last screwdriver

There was a long line for the Premier Executives (and everyone else) in SFO this morning and people were getting frustrated. There was only 3 (up from the usual 2) agents to handle this long line of self-important frequent fliers (myself included). This obviously foreign fellow gets up to the counter (you could tell he was flying on a paid fare business class ticket from somewhere abroad, $$$$) and he says "I've been waiting for 30 minutes, why are there not more people working? What is the hold up?". The snotty agent promptly says, "you should tell management to hire more people, it's not my fault." The guy says, "I'm the customer, I'm the reason you are in business, you should smile and say I'm sorry." The snotty united counter agent calls the SFPD. Can you believe it!? I was shocked. 3 SFPD show up and take the guy aside and talk to him. You think he'll ever fly United again? I guess not.

I've had this screwdriver in my laptop bag for 4 years. Yes, you read it right, 4 years. It's been through more airports than I can count, always coming away unscathed, until it's 2nd visit to SFO. It's not a big screwdriver, about 3 inches long in the shaft, which is metal, and that slips into a plastic handle of about another 2 inches. They searched the bag and took it. I was so sad. It was my last Baypoint Innovations screwdriver. That's the company that was bought and sold and I have fond memories. sniffle, sniffle

Whacky Tourists...

This is Arlene and Dena dressed in their "wacky tourist" outfits. Scary aren't they. This is the first year since, well I cannot remember when, since Dena has dressed up. I have to admit she was very into it and completely in character. Matter of fact she drove us nuts she was in character for so long. Her moniker was Myrtle, sounds like turtle and she was from Miami but originally hailing from NYC. A little scary she had an entire history and life for this character. The shoes certainly make the outfit.

Captcha - What is it?

You've seen it before, probably when buying tickets or what have you. This technology is for preventing automated ticket buying agents or "bots" from buying up all the good tickets from Ticketmaster. The technology is called CAPTCHA and stands for "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart". It is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. A common type of captcha requires that the user type the letters of a distorted and/or obscured sequence of letters or digits that appears on the screen. Because the test is administered by a computer, in contrast to the standard Turing test that is administered by a human, a captcha is sometimes described as a reverse Turing test.

So this technology is being used to prevent a new type of spam, called Splogging. A splog is where an automated program creates a useless spam type blog or website and puts code on it so that google and other search programs will "index" it and think, oh, good web site, make it available to people when they are searching. Splogs have become a major problem on free blog hosts such as Google's Blogspot service. These fake blogs waste valuable disk space and bandwidth as well as pollute search engine results.

Google's Blogspot has provided me with the opportunity to use Captcha to prevent spammers from putting comments on my blog (spam comments). So, if any of you leave comments you'll be asked to enter in the captcha phrase, like on ticketmaster. And thanks for your comments....

Views from the air

I was flying home from Seattle the other day, my home away from home, and a pretty spectacular thing happened. We failed to climb very quickly after take off, but I just ignore anomalies in the air now. The pilot soon came on the intercom & said that we were @ 13,000' and were going to stay there while we flew by Mount Rainier. Well, Mt. Rainier is 14,000' high. So, we'd be just below it. It was on the left side of the plane and the view was stunning. I was so sorry I didn't have my digital camera. The view to the left here in the Blog is sort of what we saw, but in no way captures the image. If there had been a hiker up there, I could have waved at him and him at me & we would have had a moment.

So we're flying along all chatting excitedly on the plane about what we've just witnessed and the pilot comes back on and says he's feeling sorry for the people on the right hand side of the plane. He says he's going to do a flyby on Mount St. Helens. He had climbed to around 20,000' and Mount St. Helens was just below and to the right. Normally when flying over this area of Washington State, Mt St. Helens crater is shrouded in clouds. The pilot literally tipped the plane on it's side and we got a view right inside the crater. We could see the steam coming out of the volcanic vents and the moon like landscape inside the crater, amazing. Then, he did it again. Did you read that? He DID IT AGAIN! What a rare opportunity that United pilot had afforded me. Thanks.

The lives of the rich and not so famous

Dena & I had the marvelous good fortune to end up with dugout club seats. We were in those mysterious blue seats directly behind home plate. What you don't see beneath there is an entire restaurant, catered by Wolfgang Puck. For Sept. 5 they were serving a lovely Honey glazed turkey with a cranberry/apricot sauce, Thyme infused flank steak, a plethora of grilled vegetables, unlimited Dodger dogs, a freezer full of Hagen Daas and much, much more! Too much to list, I don't want any drool on your keyboards.

With Derek Lowe (Dodgers) and Hennessey (SF Giants) on the mound and yummy peanuts in our hands we left the air conditioned comfort of the club and sat in our seats. What a different view and different feeling. You are almost not part of the crowd, but part of the field. The sound is different, you can hear the umpire call the strikes, see the smirks, frowns or smiles on players faces as a ball or strike is called and you can talk trash to the visiting players as they stand in the on deck circle. They can hear every word because you are no more than 5 feet from them. We watched a rookie whose first major league at bat be belittled by several fellows in the blue seats and could almost see him visibly squirm in his uniform.

This was an experience we will never forget. What an amazing view. We still like our seats though! We like to be part of the crowd.

The Falcon

Flickr is an amazing photo web site that you should check out. Spectacular and breathtaking will be words you'll need when you view it.