Friday, March 31, 2006

On the way to Pier 39...

...we stumbled upon an apparent traffic induced street rumble. We missed whatever caused the problem but managed to see the good stuff. (click on pictures)


I think there were three cars involved, maybe four. A hispanic guy was talking on his cell phone and had taken off his belt, looped it around his hand with the buckle at the end and was waving it wildly at the family standing in the street. His girlfriend was crying, trying to make him stop. The family, standing in the middle, were doing their best to separate everyone. At one point, the driver of the gray car walked back to his car and got in.

He then lurched forward in his car to try to hit the hispanic guy! This is when grandma stepped between him and the hispanic guy and made the driver stop momentarily. Of course, things started to get crazy at this point. Oh yeah, and that's the hispanic guys truck sitting there in the road. Anyway, the hispanic dude starting flinging his belt all over, his girlfriend got on her cell phone and was crying, the other people were trying to calm everyone down...and then the driver in the gray car actually pulled up and bumped the hispanic dude! He pushed him back about a foot. So the dude stood there with his hands out in the "I'm the king of the world" pose and the driver kept on pushing him backwards with his car.

Eventually, everyone got in their cars and tried to drive away. An SUV that I didn't notice drove away and when they did, their driver side mirror fell off. I'm not sure how they were related if at all.


The hispanic guy waited for the police to show up and when they did, it was three cars full of coppers! Because traffic was so thick, they pulled over the other offending cars that were near by and put the driver and the hispanic guy in cuffs. I'm not sure what ended up happening cause we got bored and left.

Meanwhile, I was pretty excited about the fight in the street because we were trying to catch up to a group of girls that had walked by. Maybe it's just me but I was wondering why they were wearing these ridiculous boots!

While they paused to watch the fight in the street, I took a quick photo. Unfortunately, it doesn't give the boots justice...they were all fury and thick like Eskimo boots or something. People, we were in San Francisco!! Not Anchorage!

Anyway, I got my ghetto-fabolous photo, baby strollers included, AND witnessed a street rumble. I was pretty happy. :)

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Museum Trip

We just got back from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Let's just say that by the time I left, I was depressed and angry. And not for the right reasons either. Rather than being emotionally influenced by the art, I was really just angry that I had spent all that money to look at garbage and depressed by what was considered art. Sure, there were a few nice pieces by artists such as Matisse and Frida Kahlo but on average, it was crap.

I'm surprised I feel this way, considering my background. Still...I am bitter. Yes, I'd like to add bitter to my list of emotions. GAH!!! I raise my fists at you SFMOMA!

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Our first evening in San Fran

For my birthday, Faythe and Ryan generously gave me the gift of a hotel room at The Handlery. I'll take pics later. So far, it seems very nice. The trip has started out interestingly. First, we were on a later flight than I thought. So we left San Diego a couple hours later than anticipated. Then, we got a shuttle from the airport to our hotel - let's just say we were lucky to escape with our lives. Everyone on the van was snickering when the driver got out to drop people off. We were the last people and everyone told us "Good luck" when they got out.

Then, we got to our hotel. We were given a room key and walked into a room with someone elses stuff in it! At first I thought Ryan and Faythe were here. I was excited! But because the ironing board in the room was blocking the door, we decided not to go in. Instead, we returned to the front desk. They gave us the run-around, saying that this was our room and basically said there was nothing they could do. Fortunately, I found Ryan's cell phone number and gave him a call. Ryan called back and talked to them. Shortly, they gave us our new room key to a family suite. I'm not sure if this was due to "stern words" from Ryan (he sounded really annoyed) or of it's all they had left. Either way, we're happy! Now we're off to find food.

With all that has happened, I think this is going to turn out to be an eventful and fun-filled vacation. :) Thank you Ryan and Faythe!! Hey, everone do Ryan a favor and check out his site. He has a whole line of guitar pedals that he's built himself! You can also click on the Toadworks logo in the right column over there. ---->

Friday, March 24, 2006

Snow in So Cal

Kinda weird seeing a palm tree and snow in the same photo but there they are!

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Crash, the movie


Tonight I saw the movie Crash. What a good movie! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Definitely worth watching! I had no idea what it was about as I don't usually watch movie trailers. I won't spoil it for you either.

I was angry during a lot of the movie...angry and tense. It was a good story but I'm sure glad it's over. But I still recommend watching it. Go, rent it now!

If it wasn't for the political attention surrounding Brokeback Mountain, Crash would have won more awards at the Oscars.

Photos of Laura's tatt

Laura and I went to Avalon Tattoo on Sunday for her first tattoo. Here she is smiling and happy to get her body permanently disfigured (hehehe) and possibly losing her shoulder, so her Mom decided.

Here's Jacek's, the tattooist, ink set-up. He put the different colors of ink in disposable tiny blue containers and dipped the needle into them as he needed. The plastic wrap was used to help create a sterile environment and those bottles of liquid were used to sterilize and clean Laura's shoulder.

He's already done the outline here and is filling in the green in the stem and flowers. He used green and yellow to create highlights.

No, it's not blood. :) Rather than use white to fill in the petals since white will fade quickly and turn gray or brown over time, Jacek (who looks a lot different than his picture) used pink with some white highlights. Laura is very much into pink, so the coloring is perfect for her.

The chick in the other room doesn't look too happy. She was getting a large tattoo from her knee to her ankle and only had the outline and one color done. Meanwhile, Laura was pleasantly surprised at how relatively painless the tattoo process was.

Yay! She's all done! It only took about forty five minutes for the entire process. Meanwhile, that girl behind us is still waiting for the next round.

Here's the final product all lubed up in its moisturized glory! I'll be sure to get a photo later when it's healed. When I last talked to Laura she said it was itching like crazy. And I'm happy to report that her shoulder hasn't fallen off!

Birthdays - PABS!

As the end of the month nears, I'm faced with a daunting reality that I can't avoid. I'm *gasp* aging. I will officially be one year older. This birthday is hitting me harder than any other. 34 is well into the 30's. I can't fake it anymore. You know how it is when you're in your 20's...nobody expects a lot from you and you know it. But 34. That's some serious business. Not to mention that if I should ever want to have kids, I have to make that decision pretty quick and do something about it. Anyway...

34!

Oh yeah, on a side note I've realized that for the first time ever, my boss is younger than I. Sure, it's only by about six months. But. GAH!!

Laura got a tattoo!

Last Sunday I went with Laura to Avalon Tattoo. She got a cute daisy on the back of her shoulder. I have to say that I was pretty impressed with Laura. She didn't cry or get teary eyed at all! It was almost as if Jacek was drawing on her back with a marker! I took some pictures too...I'll post them tonight, hopefully.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Hair cut

I decided to get my hair cut on Monday. Thankfully, my most favorite hairstylist ever had an opening. He's the kind of gay guy you see in the movies, the kind you expect when a gay man cuts your hair. I just love him to death! When he cuts my hair he looks like he's creating a masterpiece. Sometimes his left hand is stuck in the air as he combs through my hair and fluffs it to his expectations. He makes a lot of funny facial expressions too. He bites his lip, squints, sticks out his tongue...I love watching him work. He also will maneuver into all sorts of positions to get the perfect cut too.

Anyway, since I was shedding hair all over the place and the lint roller was having a hard time picking it up off the car seats, I decided to get it cut. As always, a hair cut can do wonders for a persons psyche too! So far, comments from coworkers have been, "What did you do to your hair?" and "I like your hair cut, it's different." I guess you take compliments where you can get them.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Doctor appointment

I had a nice long appointment today that was very productive. Well, I didn't get a whole lot of answers but I did get my nerves soothed. I also got a prescription that I'll be taking for the next three months that may make me "moody."

Oh yeah, I'm sure the next few months are going to be eventful! If nothing else, it will make for some interesting blogging. :)

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Day 2 update


I know diets are hard to adjust to in the beginning.

I'm now eyeing over a packet of honey.

Day 2


Day 2 on my new diet. The evils that occupy the candy machine at work are calling me. I'm proud to say that so far I've been able to resist.

Friday, March 17, 2006

YES! I THWART THEE TEMPTATION hehehe

Thank you to whomever ate all those chocolate chip cookies in the conference room. Now I will not be tempted by them whenever I walk by.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Happy Birthday Athena!

I'm so proud and I'm not even related! Congratulations to Jen and Dave on the birth of their beautiful baby Athena. She entered the world on March 10th. What a cutie!

Monday, March 13, 2006

A message for Faythe, the pictoral





Something sorta funny from work...

A co-worker asked if Mexico was a different country or part of the US.

Now I fear for our future.

ARGH!

I fear I may be losing my mind.

Why is it that I insist on combining Mom's phone number with other people's numbers when attempting to make a call? Surely, when calling my own phone, I would realize quickly enough that an Oregon area code is not going to work with a San Diego phone number. But no...

Why is it that I half expect to see a dead body in the elevator when I lazily sneak onto the elevator at work? Seriously! Every single time the door opens, I expect to see someone sprawled out, blood seeping through the carpets. As the door opens, I eagerly peer in through the crack, anticipating a body.

Why is it that when I look at my betta, I can imagine him in my mouth?? EW! All wiggly and slimy?

Why is it that when I look at aquarium fish larger than a couple inches I can instantly visualize them frying in a frying pan, their skin caked with batter?

Why is it I'm sitting here when I can now drive home and instead I'm typing away on my blog?

*sigh*

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Real Life Simpsons Intro (click here)


The best part is Homer's crack when he's turning to run into the house. Does Homer have a crack in the cartoon intro?

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Blocking ribbing

Hey, anyone out there have experience with blocking ribbing? I steamed the life out of some acrylic ribbing and now I'm not sure if the ribbing will ever return to its original stretchy shape. Any ideas?

The apocalypse aka IT RAINED!

There's been some weather in the So Cal area. Yesterday a tornado touched down in Leucadia, about five miles from work. OK so it was a Cali tornado and it only took out one tree. Nevertheless, it was a tornado! It's also been hailing, raining, snowing, whipping around water spouts, etc. Today it hailed so much that it refused to melt and accumulated in pockets creating the illusion of snow. Shawn swears traffic jams were caused by people slowing down to look at the patches of hail. He's probably right. A box on the side of the road can cause a traffic jam.

Which reminds me, on my way in to work today while in the middle of a downpour, I saw a guy standing on the cement divider between the 805 north and south bound. The divider was splitting into two so he was standing with his legs spread, talking on his cell phone with his long coat flapping in the wind. Oh yeah, and it was POURING. Jill suggested he looked like Neo from the Matrix and she's right!

The weirdest part was the car about 50 feet away that was trying to turn around in the middle of the fast lane. The driver finally gave up (traffic was going slow enough for me to witness all this) and started driving the wrong way in the fast lane. It was all quite surreal. You see this stuff on the news, but never in person.



On the way home from work I stopped at a view point and caught this shot. The sunset really shows off the clouds as Mother Nature geared up for another night of thunder and lightning storms. I can't wait!! I'm hoping it rains, especially since I won't be driving anywhere tomorrow. Then I can enjoy weather from the comfort of my own home.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Quiz, my score 8/10


Can you tell the difference between programmers and serial killers? Click here to find out.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Faythe, you're not gonna believe it!

That's right, I just ordered a Cox Combo! Now I can set up my wireless router (the DSL PPPoE connection was causing havoc), get better shows on cable AND have unlimited nation wide free long distance all in one package!

Next items to welcome me into the 21st century (that still may take a long time coming): cell phones and TIVO.

American Idol - the guys (extremely long)

OK so I have to admit, I was busy surfing around looking for WWE stats (did you know an average of 5 million people watch WWE Raw in one night) when Apollo reminded me that American Idol was on.

Apparently I missed Gedeon (somehow that doesn't bother me at all).

We turned on the TV and stumbled into what we thought was a concert of some sort, but it was Chris! Damn! I have to say I'm quite impressed. Of course, Randy liked him. I don't remember what Paula said...some sort of "blah blah blah I like you because you're nice" that I don't quite remember. But Simon said, "It was a bit indulgent." I'm not sure what that meant by that since I missed most of the performance. I don't care though, I like Chris and I like his sound. Sorry I don't know what he sang, but I can look that up for you later if you want.

Seacrest made some comment about "You're over customer service aren't you" to Chris and Chris replied, "I'm done." They were making references to his old job but it really hit home for me cause seriously...I'm done. Yeah. Anyway.

Next was Kevin. His little "getting to know me" footage was him talking about how he likes rap. *sigh* "I enjoy rapping to his music," he said about Kanye West. And then....AND THEN he sang Starry Starry Night. I was pretty disappointed. I mean, I was actually hoping he was going to rap. YEAH!! That would have been really funny. I thought it was a good choice for him but it still sucked. It was not AI material. I could imagine him singing at a high school talent show though. Seems like he has a really good sense of humor.

Randy said "I always knew you were a hip hop man like me." He made a dog pound reference which caused everyone to 'woof woof' and then in the background I saw one of the girls stand up and do chicken wings with her arms and flap them. HAHAHAHA! I mean...Hey! That's MEAN!

Paula kept on talking about how it was a sincere performance, yada yada yada. Simon said, "People will enjoy it in the way you like to watch puppies play." LOL He also said, "You have the Granny Vote" and "it's very juvenile." And then as the camera panned away he ended with a classic, "I'm not being rude."

When Bucky started to sing I thought oh no, oh no no no. He was singing a country song! But then I got distracted with the way he was standing behind the mic. It was almost like they needed to get a room or something. I half expected him to do something rude to it. After I got over the whole mic stand thing, his voice started to grow on me. I started to like it in a Kid Rock meets Cookie Monster in a cheap motel room kind of way. Keep in mind that I've missed his past several performances so this was all new to me. The song ended much too quickly or maybe I was too distracted by the mic.

Paula used a bunch of adjectives to describe why she loves him. Simon said it was ok but not good enough. I have to agree. I was distracted by Zoe lovingly scratching my leg (ouch) when I looked up and I was suddenly seeing double. Apparently Bucky has a twin brother named Rocky??? And they have the same hair and silly grin? ARGH! And who in their right mind would name their kids Rocky and Bucky!

Next Peter Brady, I mean Will, sang. His eyes freaked me out. He stared. I wasn't impressed. Another night at karaoke - maybe if he had a few drinks in him he'd sound better.

I can't remember what Randy and Paula said but here was Simon's response to Paula's positive comments, "You must have been starved for entertainment as a child." LOL And then he said to the Brady kid, "You've got the middle-aged vote" and pointed to Paula. hehehe When I think of Brady singing, I think of Vegas.

I get up a lot when watching tv and was away checking my mail online when Apollo told me AI was on. I walked over to see someone in a rabbit costumer talking about the Easter bunny. It was Taylor! I don't know what that was all about, I was stunned.

I liked Taylor's song choice (something by Michael McDonald) and the more he sang, the more I liked it. I have to say that he looked pretty funny while singing. His right fist was clenched and he was flailing his arm around wildly along with one half of is body. His dancing was like someone having seizures and for one moment, I thought he was a blind guy. Despite all that, I still like him. He's an endearing guy and has a lot of potential. Oh boy, here I go sounding like Paula. *sigh*

For one brief moment I got an image of that one mean looking muppet with the big furry uni-brows but it went away as soon as he started talking. Nice kid.

Randy made some comments about his dancing but still liked his singing. Paula wanted to use his steps at her next job (oh come on Paula, is that the best you can do?) Simon said (Faythe get ready), "You could single handedly kill the music video industry" and "Definitely a radio performance." I still liked it though.

On a side note, do you ever wonder if Paula later regrets the things she says? You know, like she's sitting in her car saying, "What the hell was I thinking, 'I'll use your steps at my next job??!' " *banging head on steering wheel*

OK, it's Elliot's turn and of course, I'm distracted. Suddenly, Elliot is talking about infections. What? What did I walk into? He starts singing and I'm thinking, this is pretty good. Not bad. Not outstanding but not bad. I think he's going to be one of the finalists.

He finishes and Randy says "I'd make a record on you tonight." He also says something about Elliot still singing very well even though he has hearing-loss in one ear. I guess that's where the infection thing comes in. *phew* Paula is so excited she almost knocks over her drink and grabs her cup just in time. Apollo makes some comments about her spilling her rum & coke (he's convinced that she's drunk every night). Simon calls the song a "cop out" and says he hated it. Of course, every time Randy and Paula disagree he rolls his eyes and waves his hands at them as if to say, "but you're idiots what do you know." Poor Simon. At least he's honest.

Finally, Ace sang. His footage was about he had done some work as a handy man. Not work-safe one-liners that only Faythe could say started invading my thoughts. Plus I knew she'd enjoy the image of Ace as a handy man. Oh yeah, he left his hat on too this time. Ace sang Butterflies by Michael Jackson. I have to be honest, at first I was thinking, what the hell?? But then I really started to like it. This dude sings falsetto and somehow makes it sexy without being sexual! All the girls were standing up and yelling.

Randy liked it and made some positive comments about his falsetto. I can't remember what Paula said. I'm sure she gushed goodness while she blushed. Simon said he only liked the beginning and ending. Randy didn't agree with his comments about the middle not being good at all. I definitely liked it. I've never heard the original, I wonder how it would compare?

Anyway, that's all I got. I can't wait until Faythe's satellite is repaired so she can continue with the reviews!

American Idol

Like Laura says, "I am no Faythe." But I'll try to review the girls for her tonight since she's *gasp* been slapped in the face by Mother Nature.

I will try to be mean - I mean - I will try to be brutally honest like Simon.

BBL

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Neighbor cat

Meet "Cat," who often comes on over for a pet. I don't know what his real name is so we call him Cat. I see him down around the corner hanging out in someone's yard so I know he's loved by someone which is good, not many street cats are really loved around here. If you click on the picture you can see his funky freckles.

Looks a little possessed but really, he's a sweet kitty. Here he's trying to tempt me into following him home. Maybe if I had a few more drinks in me, fella. hehe

I've made my decision.


I want Mandisa to go all the way! She rocks the house!

Of course, she's 29. I'm not sure how they feel about "older" people.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Thanks Faythe and Ryan!


Why does everyone keep saying it's too early for wine? I'm sure this morning in Europe hundreds of people had wine with or for breakfast.

So, Friday I got a package with TWO bottles of wine in it!! Faythe and Ryan sent them to me. Along with some sour Mentos that are long gone and some Bad Cat stickers. They're pretty damn funny.

Ok so the wine on the left is a Riesling that Faythe picked up at CostPlus. I haven't tried it yet. The bottle on the right is something Ryan picked up, a Bordeaux. Apparently Faythe's tastes run with German wines while Ryan is "a huge fan of French wines."

Hopefully I'll get to try them out tonight. I just noticed that an old Jerry Lewis movie is on. hehehehehe!! (and not funny just because I've had some wine already)

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

The Voice of Reason = PAB

I went to a yarn store and walked out with only $12.40 in yarn stuffs. I bought 2 yarn balls that were 40% off (the only reason I bought them) and two packages of elastic thread. I looked around the store and nothing screamed at me, nothing begged to go home with me.

Of course, the Voice of Reason keept telling me I did not need more yarn. I don't have any specific projects lined up and if I do, they didn't have the yarn I wanted. Reason kept whispering in my year about the other yarn I had at home, the yarn I was so excited about when I first met it. Then Reason nastily pointed out that I had stuffed all the beloved yarn away in bags or bins without a second thought. *sigh* It's true, I have other yarn I can use.

Hopefully, Reason will take a hike soon.