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.

----------------

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.

--------

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.

-------------

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.