09 end

This is probably the space where I should summarize all the big events in my life from this calendar year. Normally I'd get pretty excited at that idea, but for some reason as I sit here and face the actual task, I become less interested in it. That and most everyone has left work already; we were all told we could leave at noon, just about 1.5 hours ago, but instead I'm stubbornly trying to wrap up a design problem I've gotten myself into.

I guess I can say that I'm thankful for several things in 2009, among them:

• Laura's family having let us live with them (Ryan & Bridget throuth the end of last year, then her parents in the first few months of this year)
• For having been able to keep my job when my employer cut 1/3 of the company back in April
• For finally having been able to buy a house, and have a place to call my own
• For having been able to get back into rowing, and much to my suprise, to have gotten back into the shape that I was in five years ago when I had previously been rowing in Boston
• That I was able to spend a long weekend visiting Boston
• And most importantly, most excitedly, that Laura is pregnant, and that we are expecting to meet our boy in March.

There was a lot of other weird shit and lessons learned this year, most of which seemed to have some relationship to money, and all of which, in the big picture, really don't ammount to much, but all of which seemed to cause me much stress. Otherwise, I've got a lot of personal growing to do still, and I hope that doing so will be possible as I step into fatherhood and find myself with even less time to get things done than I have now.

So there, that's good enough for today. Happy New Year everyone.

profuse (but not necessarily interesting) blogging

Quite possibly for the first time in my life, I don't want it to rain. The dirt (mud!) in my back yard is far too wet for me to run the tiller over it to break it up, not to mention anything about tilling in good compost in preparation for planting my trees. So every day I stare out at my trees, still in their nursery pots, knowing that those poor roots are eager to get planted so that they can grow, and knowing that I can't do much about it right now.

I more or less decided to say 'the hell with it', and just go fight the mud and work in the compost as best I can, tilling until the tines get clogged, then clean them out, then go again, over and over as much as is necessary until the job is done. But we'll see how that goes. In the mean time the rainy days just seem to keep stacking up, which I know is a great thing for the state's water needs, but bad for me and further proof that I just should have made this happen back in September or October.

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Laura and I decided to wainscot the bottom half of the walls in the kid's room and paint the top half. The wainscotting will be the same white color that is on the walls of the house now (Frazee's "Swiss Coffee"), but the top half needs something different. Laura was initially thinking about a neutral color, but in our recent rush to try and get things done and be vibrant and different, we chose a blue that was supposed to play off colors in a new crib skirt. Without thinking I purchased two gallons, THEN went to apply some to the wall to check it out. BAD DECISION.

In and of itself, this is a pleasing color, but it ain't going in my boy's room, and both Laura and I agree on this. WAY too pastell-Easter-eggy-BLUE! Just not the right color. And thanks to the policies of every place I've ever purchased paint, we can't take it back. So it looks like my garage will have a sky-blue ceiling some day, when ever I get around to texturing and painting it, that is. And maybe I'll use some of it to paint under the eaves outside the house (I've heard this is good for keeping bugs from nesting up there; they think it's sky and go elsewhere).

So now we've purchased a quart of a substantially more neutral shade of brown which we'll try out and think about before we buy all the paint we really need. Later we'll revisit the addition of color to the room with accents and decorations.

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After the paint incident I had this great idea for a small business. You get on-line and tell me what color paint you'd like to sample in small quantity. I go buy it, dole it out, and send it to you for a small fee. That was you can try out colors without having to buy a whole bunch of paint. Of course the problem would be that I'd end up with gallons and gallons of random colored paint that nobody wants, and lots of money spent buying these unused paints. Oh, and then a coworker of mine pointed out that Lowes will sell paint samples in small jars, mixed exactly to the color you want.

So much for that money making (?) endeavor.

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I keep forgetting to mention that we cancelled our cable TV subscription. "What the what?" you might ask yourself? Well, we kept complaining that we have all these damn channels that we either never watch or never seem to find much to watch on, and that the money we were spending on it could go to better used (like, perhaps Netflix or savings). We also realized that most every night we come home from work, complain about the things we need to get done around the house or something we'd like to be reading, but then every time without fail sit down and watch TV instead.

With very few exceptions, we really only watched some of the networks and Discovery. And since no cable company seems anywhere closer to offering a-la-carte channel selection packages, we killed the cable and put up the antenna, which actually pulls down all the networks (even in HD!) and PBS. I know I experienced serious withdrawals during the first couple days, but we're slowly aclimating.

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Movie review: Sherlock Holmes. Very entertaining, decent story, good FX. The scene where they make you think that Watson dies is odd, because they bring him RIGHT back without allowing for any real recovery time. Otherwise it was a good movie, and they set themselves up pretty well for a sequel. I would recommend this film.

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Lastly, and briefly, Laura and I are in the market for better cell phones. Naturally I'd love to switch to an iPhone, but I need something that fits in the existing budget, which is to say I don't want to spend any money on a new phone. That said, I want a phone with a good camera, and one that let's me keep track of schedule stuff, takes notes, etc. My brief research so far shows WAY too many choices, most of them too expensive. Any ideas?

nonsense the the back yard

HOW IS A PERSON EVER SUPPOSED TO HAVE THE TIME TO KEEP UP WITH ALL OF THE CRAP on the internet? My goodness, someone has a baby (Laura's friend) and she posts every 26.5 minutes. News articles are coming out all of the time, some of them with actual, legitimate news! I need to plug a wireless router into my BRAIN in order to be constantly downloading stuff, and then I need a second brain just to sift through it all in a vain attempt to find anything useful or interesting! Usefulresting! That's my new word.

BACK YARD! My back yard is ... beginning to get out of control. Wait, let me back up a step.

NO PLAN. I've come to realize that I've been operating all these years without a real plan. I just do the stuff I enjoy, which usually comes at the expense of not getting done the stuff that I really need to do. Consequently I quess at what should come next. While that works sometimes, lately it has backfired. A lot.

Back yard. Again.
I dug five holes in anticipation of planting trees in my back yard. Then I realized I might not be able to afford the trees. Then I realized I could make it work out, but that essentially all the holes were in the wrong places. So I re-dug four of those five holes, and added a sixth hole a day before it rained for an entire weekend. All of my tree holes filled with water, and after a week when they still had not drained on their own, I spent two hours bucket-emptying them by hand.

Later I decided I needed to break up the chunks of clay I dug up so that when it does come time to plant, my new trees won't be loosely held in by huge blocks of earth. So I knocked down my dirt piles and attempted to break up everything with a tiller, except that there is still SO much water in my dirt that it actually binds to the tines of the rototiller, forming tha fast spinning wheel o'mud which eventually just skims over the dirt and fails to break up any of the clay.

I finally was able to buy the trees and have them delivered yesterday, but then last night at about 11:30 a random, freak wind storm came in from the east and blew all of them over, prompting me to get up out of bed and go move all of them around the side of the house and out of the wind. Oh yeah, and the wind stopped AS SOON as I finised moving the trees.

Good times. Oh and every time I walk around my back yard now, each boot becomes roughly 10 lb heavier what with all the mud that cakes on.

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I have to touch on a theme again, because I can't seem to stop whining about it. If any of you know a way I can earn money on the side of my real job, legally, please let me know. Baby is on the way, and so is a reduced income. Must dig way out of small financial hole and weld a lid on that hole.

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Lastly, remember one thing today: Usefulresting.

my new money making venture

I've just come up with the most brilliant idea for a new cable TV and web media network. The Nothing Channel (C). People always complain that there's nothing on TV, well, we provide that, guaranteed.

Tune into our channel or log on to our web site ANY time of day, ANY day of the week, and there you'll find nothing. No talking heads, no unconfirmed reports of Big Foot roaming the streets, no promises and no follow-through. Nothing at all.

The overhead costs should be low, as should the upkeep. It would be like a vacation for all those tired bloggers and lost mediaphiles looking for ... relief? ... from the pounding insane flurry of information overload.

Our main competitors (Simply Turning off the TV, Inc., and Not Hetting On-Line, LLC) would be very hard to beat, though, so writing up my business plan will be tricky, but I think I can do it.

real versus fake tree?

Quick poll: For those of you who celebrate Christmas (I believe that includes all one or two of my readers), do you favor a real tree, or an artificial one?

I've been leaning torward purchasing an artificial tree, mainly because I usually go crazy with stringing up lights, and it'd be nice if they were already on the tree, but also because I like not having to worry about watering it or it drying out. But the trade-offs of course include having to give up the nice smell, the realness of it all, the fact that a fake tree, at some scale, is obviously fake, and that some day, when my kid(s) is/are old enough to go out, it'd be pretty cool to take them out to get a real tree.

So what's your opinion?

reboot for the brain

I feel like I have an old brain, one that's operating inefficiently like a PC running Windows. Everything is cluttered and slow, all the young kids are so much more hip on where to go and what to do, and I with my trodding, slow processes at work, and at home, look on in bewilderment as they all seem to zip past me, understanding everything and having answers, solutions, or bright ideas about where to head next.

Is there such thing as an upgrade for the brain? I need a faster processing unit, and some savvy new software that will allow me to access the information of the world more reliably. Maybe I can find some brain steroids?

boy, hip, yard

It was probably poor blog-ettiquete of me to not to post a comment two weeks ago that Laura and I found out we will be having a boy. All few of you who follow my blog already knew (I think) that she was pregnant, and by now already know that we'll be having a boy, but, and this is mainly because Nicole gave me a hard time about it, I had to make it official by posting it here.

Yes, I am a little freaked out, but WAY more than that, I am very excited, and looking forward to March, not because of the sleepless nights that probably await me, but because I am excited to be a father, and make my kid laugh, and take him hiking, and to learn all about him as I fumble through trying to show him this world.

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Let's see, what else. My hip hurts. It has for the last couple of weeks. I think it's related to my body needing a break from rowing, but I can't confirm. My low back has also begun to bug me, so it's probably a good thing that this Sunday's race in Foster City is our last of the fall head racing season, then rowing will take a back seat to work and home projects for the duratin of the winter (and with the kid coming, rowing could be taking a permanent back seat). So hopefully the dull pain is temporary, and not an indication of any other post-dislocated hip issues. It's seriously been over two years since I dislocated! Crazy.

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Oh, I also started working in the back yard. I borrowed my father-in-law's rototiller, and used it all around the back part of the yard to break up the surface dirt. The next part, which starts this evening, will be to rake through it and sift out all the rocks and junk. After that I'll either be trenching for irrigation or just planting trees and hand watering. Either way, I want to get the trees in within the next couple weeks so that they have all winter to get established and start growing.

back to work.

credit and idiot drivers

I heard two ads on the radio while driving in to work this morning for companies that can help you reduce your credit card debt. Both of them liked to say "Do you have excessive credit card debt? It's not your fault, and we can help get those nasty creditors off your back."

While I can't help but agree that creditors can be nasty, I have to wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that someone who chooses to use thier credit card to rack up debts beyond which they can be financially responsible is hardly free of fault. BE RESPONSIBILE FOR YOURSELF! There's plenty of shit out there that I'd like to buy, but every day I gotta say 'no' to myself because I can't afford it! It's like the guys who's "under water" on his house payments, but who refuses to sell his lifted truck or his speed boat because he has to have them. Make up your mind! What's more important? Can you live in your boat?

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Idiot drivers; it's not my fault that you left late today. Either I'm becoming a grumpy old man (which is entirely possible), or people are driving crappier and more idiotic than ever. I suppose this is like entropy (it will always get worse), but son-of-a-B, it just seems like people don't know where they are, where they're going, or have any clue about MOMENTUM, turn signals, or any of the other cars around them (except maybe the one RIGHT in front of them, the one which they are tailgating ... yes, that's me, and I'd get out of your way if it weren't for the SEMI THAT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME (obviously you can't see that far), making me go slower that YOU'D like to go).


So I am taking to driving 65 or slower (can such a thing be done?) in the right-hand lane. I don't seem to have to deal with the idiots any more, in fact most of the time I get a pretty good show watching how people fight amongst themselves, jockey for position, and nearly kill each other trying to shave a few seconds off their commute. The only drawback to the slow lane is now I've got to deal with the fools who can't merge.


I think I've said something like it before, but when I start complaining about everything around me, maybe the problem is me.


Nah.


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Otherwise, when all else fails, Skittles.

hair loss? maybe?

It's probably just the light, or the mirror I'm using, but I swear that the hair on my head, right square in front above my forehead is starting to thin out. I keep thinking that I can see more and more of the skin on my head through my hair, and am fearful that I am beginning to experience hair loss. That's not cool. But I have a theory on this. Laura really wants our kid to have good hair, and she thinks that mine is "good" because it's wavy and thick. So my theroy is that Laura got her wish, and that my hair is starting to dissapear so that our kid can have it.

Does that make any sense at all?

What if I am starting to loose hair? And what if I loose it in some strange, continent shaped pattern right in front for the whole world to see? At least I'm tall, or taller than most people, so that it won't be obvious that I'm having this problem. How would I cut my hair? Would I go the Matt Lauer route and cut it to some strange, short length that my TV viewing fans don't like? Humm...no TV fans, so that's not a problem. Maybe I could Bic it? No, I have this strange, certain feeling that my skull is not a pretty one, definately not Picard like at all, and not deserving of exposure to the world. Maybe I'll have to start wearing a Fidora, or a Beenie.

rocks in the back yard

Today's topic is yard preparation, specifically my back yard and how I get it ready for lawn, some tress, and maybe a small deck. The deck is a wish list item, and will more or less be temporary until we can afford to install the "real" back yard hardscape (a patio), but the trees and parts of the lawn are for keeps, and we want to get them in soon so that the clay doesn't turn into quicksand when the winter rains come along.

I have access to a rototiller, and I know where I can rent a trencher to install the irrigation, but I'm having problems finding the best way to remove all the small, annoying rocks that are scattered over the yard surface. I bought a rake and tried it out on a small part of the side yard. Of course it works, but it takes a lot of work, and I'd like to be able to do the whole yard and get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

One idea I saw on line was to give some kids each their own bucket, and turn them loose in the yard to collect rocks. Actually I think that's an awesome idea, one that could keep them busy for hours (and give their parents a mental break). But because I don't want to break any child labor laws, does anybody have any ideas? I saw this one awesome thing called a Rock Hound, but you need to rent a skidsteer to use it. That actually sounds pretty cool too. I wonder what that costs?

back at work

That fun, relaxed, having a great time feeling that was pervasive over the last six days ... I can already feel it slipping away as I sit here at work again. It's not so much that work is bad as it is I just would rather be somewhere else. Maybe at heart I really am a lazy looser. Maybe I spent my allocated "work energy" on all those hours at Marine World and Unitrans, back before I became a "professional". Maybe I'm just attracted to not having to think or problem solve, which doesn't sound good when my job is to solve problems by thinking. Hummmm. Look at that, a few days away on a mini-vacation did almost nothing to solve the nagging problem I have of wanting to be somewhere else, and not being able to focus on my work. Maybe I need some of those ADHD drugs they give kids who are just being energetic. I certainly need to get something straightened out here and get focused.

rowing (watching it) and friends and food and rain

We've been here and there around Boston, stopping by the places we often visited when we lived here. Friday we hung out in the Public Garden and later had seafood for dinner. The fall colors are only just barely starting to show themselves in this part of New England; we were hoping to see more of them, but it would appear that the storm that is coming through the area today marks one of the first real cold snaps the area has seen so far this fall.

Saturday we headed down to the Charles river to watch some of the head racing (rowing), and of course for me to pout about not being able to race here ... AGAIN. One of these years it will work out, dammit. I was also able to meet up with a friend of mine who now lives in Seattle and who is out here with his employer. I also was fortunate to bump into two people I knew when I rowed out here previously, so even though those visits were very brief, it was fun to see those people again.

Last night we met up with a BU friend of Laura's who lives out here with her husband and their 12 week old son. We had dinner on our own then met them for drinks at a cool, schwanky hotel that used to be a prison (only in New England). Well, I had a drink, Laura had a soda. I had forgotten just how sophisticated people dress out here when they go out. We were dressed up okay enough, but everybody else ... MAN! Fancy shoes, jeans, dresses, all the girls all coiffed up, even the guys were sporting the fancy hairdos. Tom Shaw would be jealous.

It's such a busy, energetic, crazy air here. With all the colleges in the area, and with Europe so much closer (relatively speaking), there is so much liveliness here that either doesn't exist, or that I just don't see in Sacramento. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad to live where I live because it means I can be close to my friends and family whom I love very much, but the atmosphere is just not the same.

Anyway, rain blew in today and the day has been soggy. We walked around Beacon Hill to check out all the old fancy expensive brownstones, had lunch, then later had dinner. This has been a very food intensive trip, which has been fun too.

Ok, well that's enough for now. Time to go back to the room and get some sleep. SO awesome to not have to go to work tomorrow. I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

back in Beantown

Check me out! I'm blogging from the road! Laura and I are at the hotel in Boston, hanging out waiting to meet up with a former co-worker of mine from when we lived here before. We SLEPT IN until almost 10 this morning! It was awesome! The weather is windy and showery, but it's great to be back in Beantown.

After our meeting with my friend, we'll just hop on the T and see where it takes us. Today that'll probably be out to BU where Laura went to school. Later today we may meet up with another friend of mine who lives in Seattle and works for the rowing shell manufacuturer Pocock, and who is out here with them to display and sell boats. After that, who knows, there is so much to see and do here, or we may just enjoy being here and walking around.

bulky update

A little bit of everything, at least from my perspective...

Downstairs bedroom - Painted! And ceiling fan installed! And shutters installed! The room looks nice, but the ceiling fan smells of new electronics. Normally I like this smell as the item comes out of the box, but the smell always fades. Not so with this fan. Every time you turn on the fan, the room stinks like new electronics. This is probably not a good thing. No solution yet determined.

Boston - We are going there tomorrow! It's been over four years since we've been out there, which is a year longer than Laura lived there. That's just too hard to belive. We called that place home for a while, and then moved away from it. I could live there again, absolutely, if it weren't for the 3000 miles that would be between my and my friends and family. I was really hoping to race at the Head of the Charles Regatta, but my club could not get an entry this year. It's a very popular regatta, usually they have to turn away anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the people who want to race. They "only" have room for 950 boats to race over the course of two days. That's all right. No, no, that's fine. I'm only in the best shape I've been in in the last 10 years. And I've only taken up rowing again with a team of really fast, eager, and aggressive guys who love to row. I'm sure we can recreate that again next year, when I'm busy raising my first kid. Racing aside, we are really excited about going to Boston, checking out the sights that were famaliar to us, eating a lot of good food, and just soaking it all in again.

Rowing - two races over the last two weekends, Petaluma and here at the Port. Didn't win anything, but they were still good rows. The last one beat the crap out of me. I rowed in a four man boat, and our average age was something like 32. We had two competitors, one of which we, expectedly, blew away early on, but the second which we knew would be tough. Marin has a rowing club full of very fit, very fast rowers of all ages, many of whom also have previous national or Olympic experience. Oh, and they area supported by very rich club members. So the four man boat we were chasing had an average age of 60, and we only beat them in the raw time by 20 seconds over a 3 mile course. With their age handicap of almost two minutes, they blew us away in the end. You might say that's pretty sad that guys twice our age could do so well. That's what I said at first. But I'm trying to let the moment inspire me to get faster as a rower as I get older. It hasn't sunk in yet.

The other funny thing about having gotten back to rowing in the months since April is that I've managed to loose 16 pounds. Didn't really mean to, it just worked out that way. Now my pants don't fit right any more. Guess I have to eat a couple extra cannolis at Mikes.

Work - Can't seem to finish the things I start. Every time I run a test or work through a problem, I just seem to end up with more questions, no answers, and less time. I really want to make a discovery here soon and close up this project I've been wokring on for ... crap, for a year now.

Home - Too many projects going on there as well. I guess I finished painting the downstairs bedroom, but I'd really like to get some other stuff done as well. Especially before the kid comes along. Maybe I'll have more time when the rowing season ends.

Movies - A couple weeks ago we went out and saw 500 Days of Summer. It's not your typical love story comedy, it's engaging and funny, and I recommend it. Last weekend we also OnDemanded (is that a verb yet?) Away We Go with John Krasinski and Mayah Rudolph. Also a good movie, maybe not as sharp as 500, but heartwarming, funny, and entertaining.

Well, that was kind of a boring update. Sorry. Wow, the links weren't even that exciting. Well, more to come after Boston. Ciao for now.

update

I haven't posted for a while, so I thought I'd remedy that.

And there you go.

go home, want to

REALLY WANT TO GO home right now. Just thought I'd say that. Work is dragging on today, and I have at least 1 hour to go.

In other news, and since I seem to have nothing else to talk about, my lip, knee, and elbow are almost totally healed following my bike accident. My ribs are another story. They have been sore in some way pretty much every day since the accident. This is not a suprise to me given the fall, and it makes rowing a little more difficult since the rowing motion requires lots of muscles that attach to ribs.

And so you'd probably say that I should just not row for a while while things heal up. Well, yes, that would be the smart thing to do, but I am also trying to qualify for a seat in a rowing race in Boston that my club would like to go to. We are likely to enter only one "eight" (an 8 person boat, that is), which means that only eight members of our team will be competing. By my count, there are 12-14 people who would like to go, which means that only the top 8 will make it, which means I need to stay in shape and keep competing within the club so that, hopefully, I make it into that boat. Which means that every day I try to balance the work out with the relaxing and recovering, which it turns out is not straight forward.

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In other, totally unrelated news, the wife and I watched the 3rd Pirates movie on TV the other night (it was on, we weren't necessarily looking for it). Afterwards I wondered, will they dare make a 4th? And so I looked into it today, and sure enough, it's in development. Seriously. Oh, and the Pirates franchise has made something like 3 billion dollars world-wide. No joke. That's a LOT of pistacios.

The other crazy thing is to look at how sought after that Depp guy is. He's literally got 4 movies in post-production (including a Tim Burton version of "Alice in Wonderland" where he is the Mad Hatter), and another 15 (yes, f-i-f-t-e-e-n) In Development, including a remake of Don Knott's "Incredible Mr. Limpet" and "The Lone Ranger", in which he is signed up to play Tonto.

The whole movie / acting thing sure looks like a lot of fun from the outside. If I had to choose another line of work, I'd like to consider that one. But then I think back to that one play I did when I was a senior in high school, and I remember just how awkward, and really bad I was, and I go back to doing my engineering work.

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I'm sorry I complain so much. I need to accept the fact that I've got a pretty good life, and just move on with being a productive person.

Black Bear

Oh my goodness, I can't believe I didn't say anything about this until now. Laura and I saw a Black Bear last Sunday night. It didn't see or didn't care about us as it walked past about 100 ft away from us. We were sitting at a little fire pit outside of a restaurant at the Northstar ski resort near the north end of Lake Tahoe where we were spending the weekend to celebrate Laura's birthday.

We were just hanginout out AND chatting, and when I happened to glance a little to the right I noticed a bear walking down off the hill beneath the gondola and heading towards the plaza around us. It was kind of surreal because it wasn't something I expected to see, despite the fact that we were definately in his / her house, and not the other way around. So I casually said to Laura "Hey look, a bear." Laura was up and out of her seat in a fraction of a second, and it didn't take much more of that second for me to finally understand that her move was a really good idea.

We walked about 10 feet over to the front door of the restaurant, probably so that we would have something to hide behind if the bear came towards us, which it did not. The poor guy was just looking for something to eat. The bear sauntered across the plaza and up near the windows of another restaurant. People inside that restaurant got out of their chairs and went to the window to watch the bear, almost like a scene from a zoo. Something must have spooked the bear (maybe all the people running up to the window to check him out?), and he turned around and jogged back towards the hill from whence he came.

The whole encounter was over very quickly, and no one was harmed. It was all very cool and strange, and perhaps lucky for those of us who saw the bear and lived to talk about it. It's so sad that a person can go to the forest to get away from the city, but not expect to see wild life like the bear.

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Anyway we had not been to Lake Tahoe in a couple years, so it was a real nice get away for us, even if it was only for a couple days. The choice to stay at Northstar was kind of a whim; Laura had heard about this new "village" of theirs, and we chose to go check it out. It's quaint, lots of little shops and eateries. The 1 bedroom "condo" we stayed in is located such that you could literally ski in and ski out, which would be totally awesome ... it it were winter, there were snow on the ground, and if I was a competent skiier.

Otherwise the area was generally pretty quiet, which was very nice. There were quite a few mountain bicyclists around because Northstar opens up their "slopes" to the downhill bikers in the summer time. Of course I think this looke like a ton of fun. I'd like to do it, by given my recent accident and definate novice status in the off-road bicycling world, I think it'll have to wait until 1) I actually have my own bike and can develop some skills, and 2) I'm not madly trying to get in shape for a rowing race in Boston.

And so it goes on...

bike crash follow-up

The bloody lip is finally healed. It actually healed up quickly, the only weird part was the scab that formed (on my lip) and looked really ugly for a couple days. It's funny how I've found other bruises on myself that I didn't even know I had in the days since I fell. My front tooth behind my lip was sore, but finally last night and today, after a week, it's starting to not hurt any more. The worst part of it all is turning out to be one of my ribs (I think) on my right side. It started hurting last Friday and got steadily worse over the weekend. I really don't think it's broken, but it's definately bruised. And the back side of the same rib hurts as well, which I'm still not sure is sinply because of referred pain, or there is a possibility that the seat of the bike I was on may have actually hit my back and pushed me forward as I was falling down. Good times.

Plenty to do at work, which of course means I'd rather be somewhere else. Plenty of projects to do at home as well ... stain the new hutch for the bathroom, paint two round tables for the living room, strip and paint the coffe table and entertainment center, paint the downstairs bathroom and bedroom, buy and install ceiling fan in the office, texture and paint the garage, put up cupboards in the garage, install vent fan in the garage, install knobs and pulls on cabinets in the bathroom and laundry, and my personal worst example of procrastinating, the one about which I am most terribly embarrased, MAKE A HOUSING for my damn bus destination sign. Not sure why I felt the need to list these all out here. Sometimes it seems like the only way I'll ever get to them all is to take a couple weeks off of work to get them all done. But we all know that never seems to work out in our favor. Maybe if I lived in Europe and had five weeks vacation time available to me every year. Of course I'd also be paying 50% taxes.

Speaking of money, anybody know how to earn more of it? Ha! I've got goals of paying things off, and they aren't being reached very fast.I'm not saying I want to be filthy rich, at this point I'd be happy to just be even.

Off to eat lunch now.

bloody lip

It's really quite amazing just how many times during a short conversation my teeth bump into one another. I suppose I am noticing this today because yestarday I fell off a mountain bike while riding with coworkers in Fairfield, and although the fall looked pretty bad, my face and specificaly my teeth were there to stop me. Thank goodness my teeth are ok (as far as I can tell so far, anyway). All in all the result is pretty minor, and other than the sternum pain from where I also hit the handlebar as I went ass-over-teakettle, I feel pretty good, and count myself as lucky.

Here's the key: I'd already accepted the fact that I am a novice mountain bike rider, and on many occasions yesterday I got off and walked the bike. Except for one. I walked over a steep down-graded rock, then watched as two of my three buddies completed the rock while still on their bikes. Not wanting this to be the end of it, I had to try again. Which I did. And I fell. It's very strange watching a rock come rocketing towards your face, and not quite knowing what the hell is going to happen. Yes, I am very lucky. And yes I will ride again, but the next time around I won't make a second attempt on a feature or trick that I know I can't do.

weekend = Friend's Dinner, landscaping, and a movie

Had a super swell time at the most recent edition of the Friend's Dinner at Denise & Ken's place, especially the bit where Laura and I got to tell everyone that she is pregnant! Woo-hoo! I can't tell you how totally excited I am about this. I still feel a little bad for jumping on Denise & Ken's pregnancy announcement like I did, but the timing was perfect, and it would have been awkward to wait until later; everyone would have wondered why I didn't just do it earlier. We had a great time visiting with everyone, and I'll get my couple of photos posted here sooner or later. And as of today, both my parents and Laura's parents know as well, so we're not keeping it a secret any more, just keeping our fingers crossed that everything will work out well.

That same morning I purchased my first lawn mower and edger, both electric, and Sunday morning I got out and added the "landscaping" merrit badge to my homeownwer belt. It all worked out great except for two nagging problems. 1) My extension cord was about 15 ft too short, so I was unable to cut part of my lawn, and right now it remains taller than the rest. 2) I thought I'd get some sun, so I wore a tank top, but like the idiot that I am I completely forgot to put on sunscreen, so my shoulders, upper arms, and the back of my neck are now dark pink like an uncooked salmon. Nicole, please don't tell your mom, I am already so embarassed, and it still burns like a mother, so I am definately paying the price. I keep hoping that one of these days I will learn from lessons like these...

I also went to see the 2nd Transformers movie with Paul & Tom Sunday afternoon. It was certainly entertaining and chock full of good graphics, but really I think the plot was "to have things explode", and then it was peppered with robots, Megan Fox's boobs, some kinda love story, and some acting. Here are my comments, in no particular order of importance:

• I never could have imagined Transformers being anything like this when I was a 10 year old playing with the original toys and watching the cartoon on TV
• Why in the hell do half the robots have British accents? I have nothing against the British, but most of the robots were GMC products. At least if you're gonna give a robot a British accent, make the car version of the robot be an Astin Martin or some other cool classic Brisish car
• Finally, I could understand what Megatron was saying. In the first movie he was screaming all the time and I couldn't understand a damn thing.
• Why in the hell do The Twins act like street thug rappers? And why did the little RC truck bad guy-turned-good-guy-leg-humper have a Bronx attitude?
• It is pretty sweet that Peter Cullen still voices OP
• Soundwave. In space. Need I say more? Well....Ok, the only problem with Soundwave attaching himself to a satellite is that the satellite would not maneuver correctly (think physics folks, mass is no longer what it was), and the folks on the ground would notice a problem. But of course if some of the robots can also teleport without explanation, then why not have Soundwave mount a satellite without anyone noticing.
• While we're on the subject of Physical impossibilities, once again most of the robots are WAY taller as robots than their volume would suggest when they are cars. But who cares.
• Biggest problem with the whole movie, which I did actually enjoy by the way, was the lack of any explanation for the Terminator-style girl. Uh hello? Robots disguising themselves as humans? I think we have a new and bigger problem here?!

Ok, sorry for the geek-out. My sunburn really hurts right now and I am looking for something to distract myself.

zip, row, moon

I finally found someone (here at work) with a Zip drive so that I could copy the contents of two old Zip disks over to a more practical (i.e. more current) media. When these disks were "new", they were the hot way to store a "lot" of information. By a "lot", I of course am speaking in terms of the year 2000, and I mean 100 Megabytes. I have two of these disks, and neither of them was completely full, but for arguments' sake let's say they were maxed out. I transferred their information over to my 4 Gigabyte thumb drive, where, if I do the math right, I could copy (4000 / (2*100)) = 20 times the information I have on these "full" Zip disks over to my one thumb drive. Incidentally, the thumb drive is less than 1/7 th the size of one Zip disk, and has no moving parts, so it's that much less likely to break. Check back in 9 years from now and let's see how much computer memory has grown again, and how my thumb drive has become obsolete.

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Finally, the company that took photos at the rowing regatta a week ago has posted their photos on-line. They all have watermarks across them to discourage anyone from simply copying the photos for themselves, but you can still make out most of the detail. Check out this link here, then pick any of the photos at the left side. If the link doesn't work, or takes you to the wrong place, then visit the main page (www.sportgraphics.com), set the "All Schools" drop-down box to "River City Rowing Club", set the "All Events" drop-down to "Men's (AA-C) Masters Eight", then click the "Search Photos" button.

I am second in from the right, but some of my rowing buddies are a lot more entertaining to look at, like my friend Rex in the red had who seems to be having a stroke in almost every photo. These must be from somewhere near the beginning of the race because I don't seem to be breathing in any of the photos, and I recall very specifically sucking major wind as the race went on. Anyway, they are good for a chuckle.

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Lastly, and most importantly, Happy Anniversary to the Apollo program, which today marks 40 years since it first put a human on the moon. When do we go back again, and how can I be on that ride?

I've come to believe that if I could fit in about a 20 minute nap every weekday afternoon, say around 2:30 or so, that I would be a much, much more productive employee in the remaining work hours of the day. My need for a nap only confirms that which I have suspected for years, that I am still a child, and that I would be better off outside playing than I am coupled up inside, sitting at a desk doing work all day.

So there.

welcome new niece, plus weekend recap

My sister and her husband welcomed their second child, Hayden, into the world yesterday afternoon at about 3:30. Despite my incorrect text message to some of you, her last name is the same as her mother and father, not her mother's maiden name (I really wasn't thinking when I sent that text). She is an adorable little girl, and the whole family is doing great. It was a real treat to be at the hospital, in the waiting room of course, and get to hear from my mom that she had been born. Apparently the process went ridiculously smooth, which is great for my sister, and cause for jealousy on the part of other women.

I'm certain that my nephew has no idea how his role as "the one who gets all the attention" is about to change. It'll be especially interesting watching Casey & Jeff deal with a 14 month old boy is now walking, grabbing everything, and trying hard to start talking, whilst dealing with the diapers, feedings, and erratic sleep patterns of the new little girl. I wish them all the best luck and lots of energy to do so! But I'm sure they'll do great. I did snap a photo with my cell, but it turned out very poorly, so I'll have to get a copy of a good pic from my mom and share it with you all later on.

At one point we snuck out to grab some burgers for Casey & Jeff (and ourselves) from a place near the hospital that the nurses recommended. If you're ever in Walnut Creek, check out Gordo's Gourmet Hamburgers. I wouldn't call the place gourmet, but the burgers were pretty good, and they have an interesting mural painted on the walls, including this bit

I'm not sure how Stewie earned a place amongst Batman, Superman, Hulk, Spiderman, and Thing, but if a parrot, a unicorn, and some kid with a candle can be on the wall, then why not a child with a British accent and a football head.

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Saturday we purchased some unfinished furniture (on purpose) for our master bath. We'd wanted a small unit for the open, empty corner of the bathroom to hold towels, TP, whatever, and we found a great unit, made out of real wood, for way less than if we'd bought from a regular furniture store. No, it's not as cool and original as a Telford piece, but I don't (yet) have the skills or the tools to do it, and by "yet" I mean probably not any time in the next 5-10 years. If you're looking for anything, the place we went had a pretty good selection, despite everything being crammed into a relatively small space, and there being NOBODY else there.

Saturday evening we visited Steph, Jeff, and their daughter Alexis at the birthday party they threw for her. S&J were fairly busy with all the activities and all their family that was there, so we didn't really get to visit too much, but it was nice to catch up during the short time we did have.

Sunday was rowing races at Lake Merritt in Oakland. I rowed in two different single events (me by my little self in a long, narrow boat with two oars) and an eights race. I was pummelled both times in the single, mostly because I just don't have enough practice time in it. I enjoy rowing the single, and I'm glad I raced it, but it just didn't happen. The eight went much better, and actually was a hell of a ride. We took second to a real sharp boat from Marin, and beat several other really fast boats. It was so fast, and hard to keep up, or breathe. It was a lot of fun, and I came away from it with a medal, so that felt nice. I'm still waiting for the service that was at the event taking photos to post proofs from the racing on their web site. Perhaps I'll link a couple here (if they aren't totally embarrassing) once they come out.

And I'm spent.

sore muscles

Ok, so the rowing practice Tuesday morning and today, combined with my own use of my rowing machine at home on Wednesday morning has left me with some sore muscles. Awesome! It means I'm finally doing some hard work outs! Or it means I'm old. I do turn 35 in just 12 days. Wait. Crap. Ah man.

I don't have any brilliant insights for you today. Sorry about that. Instead, I will leave you with a photo of this:

This is now my favoriate lemonade, good lemony flavor, not too sugary. It's available at Nugget. Have a nice day.

improving self confidence

Self confidence. Where does one obtain this trait? My compliment of this attribute has waxed and wained to very large degrees over the years, and at any given moment may not be the same as it was just a few moments before. One "moment" is here defined as "a short while", which sometimes is a couple minutes, and sometimes is equal to the combined length of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, special features included.

But seriously, there will be days where I feel like I'm on top of things, I know what I am saying, and I believe in the way I am presenting myself and my work. Then there will be moments (the short kind) like this morning where I overheard coworkers discussing some engineering stuff (that's what we engineers do, talk about "stuff"), using terms that I know I've learned about at some point in my educated past, but that I could not talk about with any smidgen of authority.

So how does one become more self-confident? Is it through the practice of succeeding at ones tasks? What if you won, but were never really challenged along the way? Is it by learning from failures? Is a person born with self-confidence, or can someone fake it? What happens when I have kids? I want to reflect (shine? beam?) a sense of self-confidence so that they can be confident in themselves, but does it even work that way?

Don't worry, I'm not melting down. I've got a rowing race (three of four of them actually) this coming Sunday and I'm going through all the motions of getting myself physched up for them. So many times I'll get all amped up and ready, only to reach the starting line, or just get into the race and find myself looking for ways to ease off a little so that I know I can survive the entire race. There is something to be said for establishing your pace throughout a race, but I hate ending a race knowing that I could have pulled harder.

So anyway, it's not all about the rowing. I actually ask myself some of these questions from time to time, and really wonder at the answers. No wonder I'm a crazy person; I haven't found any of the answers yet!

4th weekend recap

Hung out with the Morrills Thursday evening after work, which is always fun. Hannah sure enjoys bossing people around (well, me anyway). She instructed me on how to hide things and how to dress up for "the party", which included me wearing some sort of feathery headband and a plastic lei necklace. She's always a crack up, and it's nice to catch up with Adam & Nicole.

Friday and Saturday mornings I went sculling (rowing in a single shell), trying to improve my technique before I go race at Lake Merritt in Oakland on the 12th. The sculling oars tear up my hands because I don't do it quite often enough to establish good calluses, so I am left with very (not) pretty blistered hands. That aside, the rowing is a lot of fun, and I am very hopeful that I'll be strong enough to qualify within the team to race in a big boat at the Head of the Charles in Boston this fall. I really enjoyed rowing on the Charles when I lived in Boston, and I just missed rowing in this popular fall race when I was out there because there were a few guys faster than me, so I am hopeful that I can have another go at it, and this time get in. Either wasy Laura and I are going out there to hang out and enjoy the fall colors (we purchased our flight tickets yesterday); we haven't been out there since she graduated four years ago.

Saturday we hung out at Laura's brother's place up in Folsom and BBQd. It was a rather laid back afternoon, as they usually are when we hang out there. They have an awesome back yard, perfect for such occassions, and they have a Wii, so when it gets dark out we retire inside and play Mario Cart. As always I ate too much. The evening was capped off, at least for Laura and I, watching the Boston Pops perform at the Charles River esplanade and the fireworks that they launch overhead. Yes I keep talking about Boston; it was a fun time and we have a lot of fond memories from those years.

What else? Oh, we purchased a bedroom set yesterday evening. And a Cal King matress (yeah baby!). We'd been looking at a lot of different options for a couple weeks, and finally settled on this particular one because (1) a lot of the furniture stores suck, (2) a lot of the furniture stores don't have what we were looking for, and (3) we finally, temporarily have the money to buy something.

That's all for now.

diesel cars

There was a segment on NPR this morning about diesel cars and how they actually can get better mileage than hybrids. NO KIDDING? They also spoke about how Europe has really high gas prices and how that's pushing European auto manufacturers to produce more diesel powered cars. NO KIDDING! We don't have them here in California in nearly the same quantities because of the state's emissions restrictions, which cause the manufacturers that sell cars here to hesitate pumping research dollars into the design of cars which will meet those standards, which is incredibly unfortunate because, particulates aside, pound for pound a diesel will pump out more torque (see raw car moving effort) than a comparable gasoline engine, and do it while getting 30% (or more) better gas mileage. And really, most people drive short trips involving a lot of stop and go, so it's torque you need and not engine speed (which, incidently, is why hybrids are great...their electric motors LOVE to generate torque at low speeds, and so do quite efficiently...now if it weren't for the need to burn fuel to generate the charge they need to spin...). In fact, even at higher speeds, you still need torque to quickly speed up and pass someone, so torque is king in regular cars!

Anyway, the few of you that read this probably already agree with me, or just don't care about this issue, but it was just super, super irritating to hear this story in the context of "hey, gas prices are on the rise again as we settle into the summer, which is making people look at diesel". IDIOTS! Why haven't we been looking at diesel for years and years? Why does it take a rise in gasoline prices to make people look at alternateives? It's the same old crap...auto manufacturers push what people will buy, which is why big ugly SUVs got so popular, despite the fact that they were terrible gas consumers. It's just like people buying cheap crap mortgages and the realtors / lenders that were responsible for originating them. Put some thought into your decisions and take some damn responsibility for your actions people! Think ahead!

Anyway, whatever. I'm just irritated because Honda still hasn't released their diesel Accord in the states. I'm very happy with my Accord, but I'd love to be getting 50+ mpg with a diesel and a 5-speed. When the current car rolls over some high mileage value, maybe I'll have to look at Audi or VW.

anniersary and awkward facebook moment

Today is my one year anniversary at my job. Hard to believe that much time has passed already, and that in that time I lived with my brother in law for nine months, and that I bought a house. It's also crazy for me to think that in August it will have been two years since I dislocated my hip. Time definately flies.

Totally different subject. Facebook. Some of you are on it, other of you hate it. I don't cherish it, but I think it's an interesting tool and I've managed to use it to reconnect with a few people I have not seen in years, even if only to say hello. But as of today I think it got weird. Both my sister and my mom have sent me friend requests. Of course I have to accept them. But wheras before it was friends from high school, college, and past jobs, now my immediate relatives can see who my friends are? Not exactly sure why I'm weirded out by this. Luckily I don't have any awkward videos of myself posted on my profile page.

radio stations and their traffic reports

I don't listen to morning radio shows too often, mainly because all of them here in the Sacramento valley are terrible. Come to think of it, radio in general here in the valley isn't too hot; a couple stations are okay, but with the recent demise of KWOD (for what reason exactly? oh yeah, because we need ANOTHER top 40 station to only really play the top 15). When I lived in the Bay Area, I often listeded to Alice (KLLC, 97.3) in the morning because they have a much more entertaining radio show. It wasn't always great, but the people are so much more lively and have such a better "thing" going on between them, a better dynamic if you will.

I tuned into Alice this morning because I couldn't find anything to suit my picky nd ever changing tastes for music as I drove into work, and the first thing I heard was the current traffic report. Now, in general, traffic reports are useless unless you actually haven't left your house / work yet. There's really no point to knowing what's going on on the roads when you can just as easily look out your car window (kinda like checking the weather on the TV when you could just look outside). There is one exception to this, and that is when, if you are lucky, they actually provide a report for the freeway YOU are on (instead of just every other freeway), and actually tell you where the accident is, AND it's far enough ahead that you can exit and take surface streets to get around the problem. This of course also assumes there are convenient and usable surface streets to take around the problem, which is generally not the case when you commute 101 along the SF peninsula.

Anyway, they reported something about delays on 280, 85, 17, 880, 680, and pretty much everywhere else. I think at one point they may have even said that traffic on the Bay Bridge was so slow it was moving backwards. In the midst of all that gooey trafficy gridlocked insanity, I had to hoot and hollar because my new commute takes 20 minutes and (so far) rarely ever involves gridlocked traffic. What's my point? I was happy about my new commute! That's all.

Target Shopping Rules

These are the rules when shopping at Target, at least as they apply to Laura and Andy.

1) NEVER SHOP AT TARGET, because if you do, Rule #2 must be enforced.

2) You will spend more than you meant to when you ignore Rule #1 and go shopping at Target.

So there.

Look at that, I let a whole week go by without posting a single thing. I bet I could be pretty good at not posting... but I suppose that's not the point of this blog. The point is for me to wright something.



Last weekend Arthur Brito visited my house. He has his own landscape archetecture business in Alameda, and Laura and I just happen to have a non-landscaped back yard at our house. We have some ideas for what we want to do, but we thought we'd get some help from a professional, and since Brito is such a nice guy, why not call him up? So he visited and took some notes, showed us his portfolio, and we reminisced a little. He does some pretty nice work, and at this point it looks like we'll likely work with him, though I think the actual planting and development of the yard will take a couple years since there's no way we can afford to do it all at once. Anyway, it was nice to see him again and catch up a little.



I also started back to rowing last week at the same rowing club in West Sac where I learned to row "way" back in the spring of 1998. There are a lot of unfamiliar faces and I am really more of a boat anchor than a boat mover, which come to think of it is a lot like how things were when I started into rowing 11 years ago. But it feels great to get back out on the water and to have rowing back in my life again. The best physical shape I've ever been in was either in the summer of 2000 right after I had rowed with UCD, or in the fall of 2004 right when I was rowing with Community Rowing in Boston, but since that part of my life, I really hadn't been doing as much exercise-wise, and now that I am getting back into something, I can really see what I've lost. Granted the jobs I've had and the hip dislocation have made it very difficult to stick to any sort of regular good exercise plan, and when the day comes that Laura and I have kids I'm sure it will be even more difficult, but now I'm looking to make the most of this opportunity to get back into shape and to just enjoy rowing and being back on the water.

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Before I forget, congrats to Jenny and Scott on the birth of their new baby girl!

coffee and taxes

Laura and I stopped into a Starbucks this morning to grab a couple HoChos before heading in to work. This particular establishment is right at the Industrial exit off of I-80 on the east side of the causeway in West Sacramento, so you might expect a lot of transient traffic. I wouldn't say that the place was crazy busy, not by any stretch, but there were plenty of people moving in and out of the place, both on foot and via the drive through, trying to get their morning injection of wake-me-up juice. It all kind of looked like people flocking to church to do their daily confession.

I know that people buying coffee products is not a strange thing in any sense of the act. The crazy thing to me was the manner in which everyone ordered their beverages; how crisp, well practiced, and odd their orders were. "Half-cap triple shot no-whip non-foam venti with room." WTF? Again, nothing about what I'm saying is new; plenty of comedians and feature films have poked fun at the skitzo variety of coffee options that exist these days. I'm merely making an observation. Like the guy in what looked like weight-lifter or pajama pants, bald head, denim jacket, leg twitching as his previous buzz wears off, ordering his coffe. Outside of Starbucks, I would probably peg this dude as someone I don't want to mess with. But here, listening to his rediculous requirements for bending and twisting the flavor of a damn coffee bean, I just had to laugh at the whole thing. What makes us happy? What gets us through the day? Why am I spending money on hot choclate at Starbucks when I could probably make a better one at home in just about the same amount of time, and probably for less money? That's it! I'm now officially on a search for a good hot choclate product which I can make at home.

Funniest part of it all (at least to me) was a guy who pulled up along the curb in a large mobile crane. Yes, the kind with cables and a hook, and that lifts heavy things into the air. He quickly u-turned it in the court outside the establishment, and left it running as he ran inside for his coffee product. I guess it's not that weird, just seemed funny to me. No stranger than someone driving a bus through a Caffino drive-thru to get an orange juice, anyway.

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Ok, one last bit for today's entry. I jumped onto California's Franchise Tax Board web site just a few moments ago to check something out regarding my own taxes, and one of the first links they have right now is to a page (see it here) that lists the top 250 individuals or corporations who currently owe more than $100,000 in back taxes. Three years ago I screwed up my witholdings and had to pay a big sum of money to make up the difference, but that sum of money PALES in comparison with some of these people. Why do I use the word "pale"? Because the number one dude owes almost $10 million in back taxes. Again I say, WTF?

no a/c at home

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.

Any the air conditioner at my brand new house doesn't work. So that's nice. Turns out that the 2nd floor can get up to 83 degrees F when the day's heat has risen into the high 90's. Good times. I need to invent a HEPA-window screen so that I can open a couple windows and let in some cool(er) outside air without the threat of Laura's pesky allergies driving her crazy.

Walks and Bees

I went for a walk today. I've gotten into the habit of doing this fairly regularly at work, where I put on tennis shoes and break outside to get some (more-or-less) fresh air, to break up my work-clogged thoughts, and to de-smoosh my butt after confining it to a chair in front of my computer for all of the morning work hours. It was warm out there! It feels like summer is coming on already, and it's only April! But the birds seemed to enjoy the heat, they were singing and chriping and going all crazy hanging out up in the olive and oak trees.

The coolest thing I've seen yet on these walks was a hoard (gaggle? bunch? tons?) of bees swarming around what appeard to be their nest inside one of these nearby olive trees. I didn't know what it was as I approached, and I honestly thought somebody's fan or small jet engine was working away, cooling off a nearby building (you know, 'cause a jet engine would be used to cool a building). Turns out it was the flock (swarm? oodle?) of bees doing their bee thing, flying all around in their air traffic patterns waiting for their turn to drop off whatever goods they had back in the nest. Trust me, it was crazy, and impressive.

Buzz!

Not Worldly

I need to rededicate part of the effort my brain expends every day on work, worrying about work, and worrying about how my work's paycheck can pay for bills towards more worldly items like getting to know people better, partying, learing about what really goes on around me, and not being blind to the way people act and the things they say. I've got illusions that I could be a writer of interesting things, but then I go and read other people's blogs, or catch part of the Daily Show, or listen to a guest on NPR, and I see just how smart and insightful so many other people really are, and just how plain and empty I am. Now that's not a dig against myself (suprisingly), so much as it is an eye opening experience of the gap between who I am and who I want to be. I want to contribute something good and meaningful to the world. And I want it to be more than just having ferried people around in a bus for a couple years or designed some cool mechanical shit. What's missing here? How do I build a bridge to get from this side of the river of life over to that other bank where stuff is happening?

Workwise Overwhelmed

I...am overwhelmed. I am often overwhelmed, and in such ciccumstances tend to stop responding via speech. Right now it's work that is overwhelming me with responsibility and very important, complicated tasks, but it's happened before that personal events have overwhelmed me, to the extent that I don't know how to respond, can't provide worthwhile support, and am a pretty much useless person. And so as an alternative to actually dealing with the problem, I tend to start making lists of all the things that I know I have to do, or I think about food, or I check email. I don't know whether I'm just not equipped to deal with difficult things, or if I am just dumb. Either way, it's frustrating, and painful because I let others down.

My engineering mind tries to go into "solution" mode, and I begin to look for ways to fix things. Often times the truth is that there is no fix, or better yet, that one has to work harder to find the brightness inside of a problem. When a problem is not mechanical, I have to find another way to get through it, and that's where I struggle.

I'm not looking for anyone to tell me what's right, in fact I know that I need to find the answer for myself, but it's difficult to find that answer when the full functionality of my brain is generally dedicated to finding the solution to said engineering problems, or worrying about the costs of things, or something else that, really, in life, just shouldn't matter as much as I let it.

...and on things go...

Back to Blogging

I don't know how long this will last, or how exciting it will be, but I'll give it a go again.

Hi, I'm back and posting. I'll try to keep it interesting. For starters, I am happy to say that I did not loose my job last week. My employer had to "right-size" (by the way, I freaking hate that term) because the "economy has caught up to us". There is a lot I could go into here, but this is not the place, and frankly, I'm not a manager and I didn't have to make the difficult decisions that our management had to make. Suffice it to say that after about a week of being scared about the potential of loosing my job (along with everyone else with whom I work), it was finally made clear who was staying and who was going.

I feel pretty crappy for the people who lost thier jobs, and it scares me into a reality of how thinly I might be holding on to this one, but at the same time I'm very glad to still be here and to still have a paycheck. So yes, I can make the payment on the house that I just moved into three days before it was confirmed that I will be keeping my job.

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In other news, finally having a house after half a life of living in apartments is super-duper-sweet. There are already a thousand projects that the wife and I would like to do, but the need to work (thankfully I still have the job) sucks up most all the available time. This concept is nothing new to anyone reading this blog. One of the laws of the human part of the universe is that there will never be enough time to do all the things you want to do. Unless of course you don't care about doing "things", in which case there is time to waste just like sprinklers watering a lawn on a rainy day. We have a first class dirt back yard, like a blank canvas ready to be painted. All we have to do is agree on how to fill it in, AND then fill it in.

After almost a year of living with family and generally having several people to come home to and hang out with, it's strange now for the wife and I to be the only people home in a comparatively large house. It's got nothing to do with the two of us having to actually talk to each other (man, what a drag!), it's just that suddenly there isn't anyone else around! This can only mean that we have to start hosting parties. Now only if we had a back yard for people to appreciate.....