trying new things

The good thing about trying something new is that you get to see all kinds of things that are out there. It expands you world and gives you a different perspective on everything, even things that haven't changed, because you have changed.

thirty something

when is winter over around here? I got off the plane last night and it was thirty something (degrees). and I had to scrape ice off the windshield and wait for the beast (my pet name for the bronco) to thaw before I could drive off. all the while sitting there in the cold. not that welcoming. kinda made me want to get on a plane back to cali.

yeah for sleeping in

and sleeping in my own bed. 

and trying new things.

technology

The iphone handily helped me find my way back to the rental car retun. I was able to take some surface streets after a missed turn (or two?), which helped since finding your way back to the freeway and then sitting on it isn't that fun in cali.  All the while it (the phone) kept me company with my favorite tunes ;-)

Everything worked out and I was just in time for everything (my flight) so there was no waiting around.  It was nice to sit down on the plane with nothing to do after the long day. By then even driving seemed like it took too much concentration.

But overall it was a most excellent trip. 

California Highway 23

this road is so not as fun in a toyota "whatever this is" car. it's a 4 door yaris by the way and it's really not that bad of a car. except it's totally not a lotus and this road was made for a lotus.

relay race

today I had to get up at 7:30am, which is still like the middle of the night if you ask me. by the time I had my morning meetings and came back after lunch I was about to pass out in the conferance room. unfortuntatly there was still another 3 1/2 hours of meetings to go. It was like a relay race and I was the baton.

Gonzales Rd sunset view

Having a blast

Why is everyone sitting inside??? It's so nice out here with the sun warming my back as I eat my sandwich. Yum!!!!!!!!!!!!

superhero

I'm like a superhero. I just went into my closet and changed into "business woman," lol.  I like my outfit.

Gross!

I forgot how bad So Cal tap water was ;-P

channel 4 news

Weird, the news people on TV here look so much older after 3 years.

SciAm MIND: Feb 09

I was reading this on the plane today:

http://www.sciam.com/sciammind/?contents=2009-02

Found these two articles very interesting:

• Placebo Effect: A Cure in the Mind
  
• How to Avoid Choking under Pressure
  

I also read Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" which was pretty amusing. I like her "laugh at your problems" approach to life. 

flying sunset

I saw sunset from an airplane today.  There was a deep, wide, red semicircle sliding down under a layer of clouds. Pretty spectatular. 

*silent* Go Fish!

...except it isn't really silent when you're laughing hysterically.  I was trying not to but I was laughing so hard there were tears running down my face.  So was the person next to me. Totally fun.  

We had these cards that the teacher brought in that had different people drawn on them or shapes, colors & numbers. We had to desribe them by signing. I think it was the confusion and the faces people were making that made it so funny.  That class is awesome.

Evan wins his UFC fight in London!

TKO, Round 1, 2:13.  

Go Evan! (he trains at our gym) - UFC 95 - Results

You can download the fight for $1.99 on ufc.com.  You can see Ben in the background and hear him yelling at Evan too.  Fun ;-)

saw the stars on lorane

I saw the stars on Lorane Highway tonight.  So so bright.  Really beautiful out there.  Lots of sparkling ones. 

glowing embers

today at sunset the edges of the clouds glowed like the embers of a burning fire when you blow on them

warm warm warm

I went out without my coat on. This is exciting people! Love the sun.

quesadilla's inspired by brian

I made quesadilla's tonight. They were made with corn tortillas and habanero peppers (cheese of course) and salt on top.  I used the frying pan and not the microwave. Yum! 

I get excited now every time I use the stove.

You know what's really exciting? There's unlimited new stuff for us to find. Awesome.

Yeah for rolling!

I love jiu-jitsu.

Getting Creative

(which doesn't take much when you've pretty much never cooked anything before)

Oddly enough what brought this about was the idea that I had some spinich in the fridge I needed to use up before it wilted and got scummy. (That description may be a bit graphic. I just grossed myself out.)

migration

Today I was driving back home along NW Expressway and off to the left there were all these small little clouds bunched up together right over the mountains along the entire horizon.  The sky above that was cloud free and it looked like this highway of clouds, like a great cloud migration with all these little coulds swimming north.

it's cleaning day!

got up early, specifically so I could clean. it's going great. clean, clean, clean. exactly what I wanted.

speaking of cleaning. I got this email from susie today:

i didn't have enough space to load up all of my new program, and i moved all my videos to an external hard drive, then i was looking for programs to delete. and then . . . by chance? (the angels were yelling at me?)  . . . i emptied my trash.  and voila i had 57 extra gb! a good lesson for me. (i think i'll go clean out my closet now.)

For some reason I empty my trash all the time (at least on the computer, lol). Daily I'm sure. Somtimes more than once.

it's february

Yeah, I'm sure everyone's aware of this already, but it's february. I somehow didn't realize it till I was booking my flight. Somehow it was still January in my mind.

warmer

It was a little warmer today. Whenever it gets over 50 here I can feel a change. I no longer want to suck my hands into the sleeves of my jacket. And I can roll the window down while driving and not get cold. It's so nice. Makes me excited for the summer. It's gonna be so awesome to go driving with the top off again. Feeling the wind in what little hair I have is an interesting sensation.

Today was the first time I've been asked by a gas station attendant to see the engine (of the Lotus of course).

I really want to test drive one of the SC's, just to see what they're like. Maybe that's a bad idea though. We all know what happened when I test drove a Lotus last time ;-)

Although I will be in Cali at the end of the month so if the T.O. dealer has one I'm all over it.

I think I've spent enough this month on brakes/service to deter me from trying to get a new one.

new new new

Ok, check it out: https://www.nineplanetsdesign.com/

The new site is live. All CSS (no tables), except for the forms which I'll do later. It's 2:59 am and I should probably go to bed now.

Same basic design but: wider, new background, updated colors. Move of an overhaul of the code than the design but I think if you compare to the old site you'll see it looks more up to date.

paint the sky

Eugene has awesome sky paintings...

Humongous puffy, bright white clouds;

Darker, heavy, rain filled clouds in shades of gray.

Sparkly wet roads and glowing grass blades

shimmering in the sunlight beaming through the clouds.

I love driving during sun breaks.

we made sushi

It was easier than I thought. I think I'm going to get one of those roller things and make some myself!

Oh yeah, and I brought this Chai Spice cake from
Sweet Life that was really, really good.
It was a random choice but it turned out to be a good one.

I spelled aesthetics right!

without spell check. that's impressive. i surprised myself.

dimmer switch!

I got my car back last week and when I turned on my headlights I thought something looked odd about the display (speedo and tach), but it was daylight so I didn't pay much attention. 

Then it got dark.

The lights were out on the display and I couldn't tell how fast I was going (except for kind of knowing by what gear I was in and what the engine felt like.

So I made an appointment to have them check it out and went in not knowing how long I'd have to be waiting there.

Turns out, not that long at all.  It was the dimmer switch, that I didn't know existed. It's hidden on the steering column behind where you put the key in. They figured it out in a few minutes.

Back when I first got the car I didn't know for about a year that you could lock or unlock the doors without the remote.  It seemed like their should be a way I'd just never seen one and there wasn't much need to go looking. Then one day I saw this switch, hidden in front of the shift knob. Guess what it did!  

They sure stick some buttons in some crazy places on this car. Maybe I should read the manual to find out what else I don't know about my car.

coming soon...

Started this a couple months ago but then got busy. The Nine Planets site needs an update as it hasn't received one since I build it 4 years ago. Coming soon: a wider screen, all CSS version! It was a good opportunity to try an all CSS site. Learned a lot in the process.

yeah for getting caught up

and I mowed the lawn too

tree hugging

There's some trees holding up a jeep that must have fallen off the road on Fox Hollow near the peacocks. People are rolling off Fox Hollow left and right.  They put up big arrow signs on the turn where that honda rolled off last month. There are some turns that you really have to slow down on there. Expecially with the leftover gravel they put on the roads when it snowed. They cleared most of it off a while back, which is nice beacuse it sounds like someone's shaking a rattle when I drive over it in the Lotus. But there's still some left and it's easy to slip on.

Territorial Highway

Sweet! Click to see it bigger.

Certain places are just waiting to be photographed. This is one that I've noticed before. There's this pile of moss covered junk on McBeth that's on my list too. I'm waiting till it's warmer and I can go on the motorcycle. 

i'm popular in idaho...

I got two separate emails from this group of my clients who were all referred by the same person.

"PS - Were your ears burning on Super Bowl Sunday?   We watched the game in Idaho with Jill & Mark and Winton & Sheryl.  We were thinking of you! -Marc"

"Just a note to tell you that we really like your responsiveness.  I saw Sheryl (Jill’s sister) and Art (her dad) last week and they were all singing your praises.  Thanks again for getting us back on track. -Mark"

It's like a chain of referrals, up to 5 now, and it covers three states (california, idaho and now new york).

inbox is organized

ready for tomorrow. a few less phone calls would be nice. a little less hectic, a little easier to get stuff done. we'll see.

work is nuts!

nonstop. crazy. can't get a break.

I guess I'm not complaining. I have the opposite problem as a lot of people right now. 

Full Moon

full moon rising just above the horizon,

big and orange and bright.

ascending above one dark cloud into a clearing

to shine for a moment, then sliding up 

and disappearing behind another.

Briggs Hill Rd

Jake wins his fight in Corvallis

Big party, no sleep.

the anti-homework

I just logged in to pay my phone bill. I have one minute of talk time this month. This week has been the opposite of last week when I tried to call someone everday like Mel had said. This week I have talked to no one on the phone (except for work). I did leave a couple messages and received several as well. But no actual phone conversation that wasn't for work. 

bjj

It was fun watching Ben, James and Matt roll today. Sucks not to roll but I have been taking a lot of notes lately that I think will help me out.

This guy came in and while Matt and Ben were rolling. He was on the sidelines "coaching". They started joking that they found their new coach and it was a good thing he came along. The guy kept talking so Ben told him to get in the ring and show them what he meant - so he did.  It was pretty sad. He rolled with Matt for like 5 minutes and was stuck in the triangle from every possible position the whole time. Either that or the arm bar. But Matt said he was afraid of breaking his arm after he smelled the alcohol on him. So he just tied him up the whole time. That guy is going to be sore tomorrow. There was a lot of struggling going on. He tapped several times but then kept crawling back in Matt's guard like he wasn't done. Ben kept yelling out the same coaching advise the guy had been giving them. It was kinda funny. After a while they just told him that his time was up cause they wanted to get back to training.

Yeah, I got my car back

...although I could have bought another car for the price of this service. I'm not even going to post it. Lets just say it was expensive. 

At least I'm keeping busy at work so I can pay for it. As long as I'm not so busy I don't have time to drive. That wouldn't be worth it.

Busy, busy, busy.

ipod & a jump rope are great companions

I like to jump rope with my eyes closed so I can just disappear into the sound.

Lorane Highway by Motorcycle

freaken awesome sunset ride
the peacocks were really squawking it up on fox hollow
more pics here...

I'm excited for it to get warmer so I can ride all over with my camera. It's easier to stop on the motorcycle and easier to find space to stop when you're not trying to park a car on the side of the road. I have several spots in mind that I want to get pictures.

It's really not motorcycle weather yet. At least not for me. It's kinda cold. The jacket is warm enough, but the fingers, they need something more. It was fun anyway though. 

panic button

Work...

Sometimes I wish there were a "scream" button on my keyboard. Something I could press while I was on the phone with somebody who was "describing" something to me (the kind of describing where they give you lots of irrelevant information) and I'm being simultaneously ambushed by several instant messages (with complicated questions) and trying to save whatever work I was doing before I answered the phone.

Said button would let out a voluminous scream (except the person on the phone couldn't hear it). In theory it would be kind of like the whistle on a teapot, where once you reached a certain level it would open up to let off some steam.

I miss my car. Definitely worth the extra shipping to overnight the new brakes (either that or wait another week!). I want my car back.

I'm this lazy...

I'm not sure this is really that funny, so much as it's just embarrassingly analogous to things we have done ourselves. 

the moon

the moon is hanging out just over the rooftop of the neighbors house. it's a half moon, yellowish orange.

playing with css

css = cascading style sheets

I added a background pic to the blog and made the opactiy of the content area 80% (black)

css makes it easy to customize. fun. i love customizing stuff.

i made something good

I made it Friday night and several times since then. I'm not know for cooking but there's no cooking involved in this, which is why I was able to discover it. I made and sat down to eat it and was pleasantly surprised.  

Although there's no cooking involved per se, there's rice. I make the rice in a weekly batch in my rice cooker, so it's always ready to go. I have to say this has been one of my better purchases. The problem with cooking rice on the stove - or, really, my problem with cooking rice on the stove is that I would forget about it. I would go back to my computer and then not remember I was cooking it till I could smell it, which meant it was burned on the bottom (burnt rice smells like popcorn). So thanks to the rice cooker, there's no more burned rice.

So here's what I made. It's kind of a enchilada bowl kinda thing.

So I take a bowl and put a corn tortilla on the bottom, then grate a little cheese over it, then another tortilla and a little more cheese. Then put some rice on it and some beans.  Microwave that for two minutes. 

In the meantime cut up some tomato and get the following out of the fridge: two kinds of salsa (if you like hot the stuff from cafe yumm is awesome) and sour cream. When it's done in the micro, just throw a little of everything on top and mix it up. It helps to cut the tortillas with your fork, which is easy to do after they've been zapped.

This is great if you're lazy and like mexican food. 

When you never cook, anything you make seems pretty impressive. So while this may not sound like anything to some people. It was very exciting for me.

front brakes

OMG... Front brakes for the lotus cost $1100 including parts & labor!

On the up side, I made it to 45k miles on one set (seems wrong).

On the down side, I hit metal (why didn't someone warn me).

I got the car serviced at 35k miles and they say I had 50% left on the pads.  And 10k miles later it's all gone. Literally - all. I heard scratchy sounds last time I drove it so I gave it a break after that.

I was already going to get an oil change so I conveniently had an appointment to take the car in this morning (noon is my morning).

I drove from Santa Clara into downtown (15 min ride) and only used the brakes 5 times (lots of downshifting) because the right side brake pad is gone (crunchy metal sounds).

Don't let the $45,000 price tag fool you; this car is expensive. $600 for a set of rear tires that wear out every 7,500 miles. $150 for an oil change. $1100 for front brakes - just the fronts.

I probably have about 5,000 miles left on the rear brakes. So...

But honestly. I don't care. It's worth it to me. I LOVE my car. Driving another vehicle is not the same. Not even close. I'd still drive my car if it were ugly, because it drives sooooooooooo well. Totally sticks to the road; there's nothing like it. The good looks are just an added bonus.

what are you doing?

I got a new contract (work) so I got exactited and wanted to dance on my mats. 

Except Ben was sitting there working...

Hmmm. Whatever, it's my house.

I cautiously walked in and started skipping and hopping around on the mats. This was met with a look of confusion (more like a... u r crazy, is something wrong with you look). So I explained and then continued my dance and handstands. Isn't this how they celebrate at every company?

note to self...

Do not ride motorcycle in winter if you will be coming home after dark in 35 degree weather. 

Freezing.

Not like normal freezing.  Like painful, painful freezing.  The rest of me was ok but my fingers felt like they were burning off; burning with cold. Very, very unpleasant.  I almost pulled over just to warm them up but it probably would have been futile so I just sped up in hopes of getting home quicker. My fingers have never been this cold, not even in snow.

I clearly do not have winter riding gloves.