fading rapidly from my pre-coffee'd brain...

I was in Cancun.  At least I was calling it Cancun, but it didn't look much like it.  More like death valley, but with sand and ocean.  I was with my nieces Gretchen and Heidi and we were riding ATVs.  And my cat Lily was there.  One of the ATVs was having problems so I took it for a drive to see if I could figure out what was wrong.  I took a wrong turn and had to go around a rock that jutted into the ocean.  I remember Lily swimming next to me - not upset, but obviously wanting to stay near me.  I think the orange cat was in there somewhere also.  (I love my kitties, but I don't remember ever dreaming about them before. Or my nieces for that matter)  Next thing I remember was being at a big, rustic building that was empty at first, but eventually there were some people there.  It turned out to be a vet office and I was asking people with dogs to keep them from chasing my cats.  There's much much more, but it's very blurry now.

Argh - frustrating. At 6:30 this all made sense and now it's just fragments.  Writing this, it seems I'm worried about Lily, though I don't remember thinking that during the dream.  She's in excellent health for a 15 year old, but I *do* worry about her.

I also remember looking at the clock and thinking how weird it was that so much could happen in a dream in a matter of minutes in the real world (seriously - a multi day-adventure took place in like 4 minutes).

I have a busy day today.  I can't recall (and don't have time to check) if my last crazy dreams were before a busy day, but maybe this is my brain's new way of messing with me.  I guess it's better than the old way which was to lie awake going to lists of stuff that needed to get done.

Another fine weekend.  Friday night Zoe was stuck in the south bay so she came over and I made us a healthy dinner with salmon and green beans.  I've been pretty good about eating well these last few weeks, watching both the quality and quantity that I eat.  I've also been good about getting exercise 4+ days/week.  I even tuned up my mountain bike and went for a 10 mile ride on the bay. It's too early to report any results other than I feel really good.

Saturday Z and I were going to drive the Coupe up to the Half Moon Bay Brewing Co. for Tracey's birthday, but the right rear tire was nearly flat so we dropped it off at the shop and took Zoomie (Z's Mini) instead.  After a burger and a few killer beers (A Russian Imperial Stout and an Imperial IPA) Pam announced that it was low tide so we all went over to the tide pools near Maverick's.  It reminded me of the pools at Laguna Beach back when I first moved to California.  I got to drive Zoomie home - my first real drive in a Mini.  It's a lot of fun to drive, but very different from the Coupe.  For some reason the heavier feel of the Coupe makes me more confident about what it can do.  Similar to the difference between my old Golf and Audi A4.  I do think the Coupe could be a little more responsive (the Mini is really "snappy") and so I need to make an appointment with Performance Art to fine tune the upgraded suspension I installed a while back.  I let Z convince me to go back up to SF Saturday night for Evil Breaks.  That was fun and I danced my butt off, but there were not as many friends there as I was hoping and I find that I prefer dancing with friends than strangers.  We left "early" and I was alseep by 3:30AM.

Sunday, I slept in a little and then my new friend Christina and I drove the freshly repaired Coupe up to the Ridge Winery in Cupertino (actually in the hills west of the incorperated part of Cupertino).  It was a really fun drive - I need to get that car out in the hills more often!  We tased the current offerings and C gave me the tour.  I wasn't very familiar with Ridge before this, but they make *really good* wine.  I've always liked big California red wines, with a taste for central CA (Paso Robles) since I went to school in SLO.  Tobin James is a particular favorite, but I've come to realize that wine doesn't have to be huge, fruity, jammy (I'm not so good with wine adjectives) to be good.  I signed up for the Ridge ATP (Advanced Tasting Program) membership and am really excited to get some limited release, single vinyard wines.  It reminds me of a more "grown up" version of Bonny Doon's D.E.W.N. membership which I have belonged to on and off in the past.  Anyway, Christina picked out an excellent selection of wine to bring back for SND.  We took a little detour and stopped to see Whisper on the way home.  Dinner was excellent as always - BBQ tri-tip, chicken, artichokes and aspargus.  Anders and his Nicole were able to come and he loaned me his bass guitar so I can figure out if I have any aptitude for the real thing before getting one of my own (I'm getting really good at bass and guitar in Guitar Hero).  It was also great to spend time getting to know Christina better (I have much more to say about this, but not in a public forum).  SND has gotten into a nice groove recenty.  The only real stress is Guitar Hero which people seem to either love or hate.  I've been trying to limit play to before 7pm or after some people have left and conversations have died down which seems to be making everyone mostly happy.

Today was a lazy day.  I didn't get much sleep over the weekend, and fortunately I didn't have much work to do  (well, nothing time critical anyway).  I had a long lunch with Nicole.  It was the first time we'd had a real conversation in quite a while and I'm pleased (and still a little amazed) to find that after all we've been through, she is still my good friend and confidante. After lunch I had intended to put the rack on my car and go for a mtn bike ride at Fremont Older, but instead I fell asleep on the couch for 4 hours.  At least now I'm caught up on my sleep and can get back to the regularly scheduled work week tomorrow

I'm too tired for a full account, but suffice to say this has been one of the best weekends ever.  Friday I ditched "work" and spent most of the day with cuddlycommando at the Legion of Honor.  It was the first amazing spring day so it was nice to spend some time outside.  We saw the Faberge exhibit which was interesting, but more crowded than I care for and after a picnic lunch, went back to see the regular art exhibits.  It was the first time I'd seen "real" art and really appreciated it.  I'm looking forward to going back and spending more time really taking it all in.

Saturday was Sparky and Erin's wedding.  fearlesspookie borrowed the Freedom Bus and drove a bunch of us from my place to the wedding.  It was one of the best weddings I've been to, officiated by my friend Russ and with most of the SND crew attending.  After an early dinner and dancing, we piled back into the bus and back to my place for the after party.  Hosting dinner every week, I kind of forget what it's like to have an actual party.  It was great with excellent music provided by Jack and lots of smart and sexy people to interact with.  One of my favorite moments was snuggle time with Jen and Oliver.  It was nice to get to know them a little better.  Things finally wound down around 6AM and a bunch of people slept over.

Today has been a perfect lazy Sunday.  People started moving again around noon and I made breakfast for the survivors. Spookie, Corinne, Mathew and I hung out grazing on leftovers and watching Firefly on the Blu-Ray player.  It may not sound like much, but it was sublime - probably because they are some of my favorite people.  A couple of emails got SND plans worked out without me having to leave the house to go shopping.  It was a smallish turnout, but that's always nice.

I'm looking forward to being in bed asleep before midnight tonight.  Tomorrow I'm going with Spookie to return the bus to Anton in Winters.  I guess that makes it a 4 day weekend for me.  I am sure I will look forward to work and a more regular schedule on Tuesday.

I was in a class on advanced optics taught by Jack (a good friend who is a brilliant PhD chemist and probably also knows more about optics than I ever will).  The class was 110% engaged and felt like a group of good friends (possible the SND crew?)  We all looked forward to each class and learned by figuring stuff out with Jack's help rather than just him lecturing and us remembering.  It came time for the final exam which was to take 3 days.  The first 2 days were amazing.  The problems were based on the material we'd learned, but nothing we'd seen before and yet, I'd learned the theory so well I was able to solve the problems.  It was exhilarating*. The third day was not so good.  I arrived late for some unknown reason.  The test was a package that included a bunch of lab equipment I'd never seen before. I sat down and started to read the problems and knew that I wouldn't be able to solve any of them.  I think I woke myself up at this point to avoid the emotions this would have created...


I very rarely remember my dreams and I got up at 7AM (that's *really* early for me) to write this down, but it already seems to have lost a lot of detail.  It may have keyed off a conversation I had with Christina last night.  The simple analysis is obviously feelings of inadequacy, but I think it's something deeper than that.  Maybe something in the lost details would have helped pinpoint it.  I am going to keep a dream log by the bed to see if I can capture any more detail in my future dreams.


* I have one real-life experience that this reminded me of.  I was at Cal Poly, living at the Moon and had read the August '85 Scientific American article about the Mandelbrot set.  It included the formulas which were not terribly complex, but involved complex (imaginary) numbers.  I used the math and programming I'd learned in school and was able to write a complex math library (in pascal! gack) and based on that a program to calculate and display Mandelbrot fractals on my 16MHz 286 PC.  It was slow as hell, but worked great.  I think I still have my code around somewhere.  Adding a 287 math coprocessor improved the speed by something like 50X.

SND was particularly good last night.  MoST and Suzanne joined us. It's always great having irregulars to stir things up and they're perfect for the job.  Mike came over early to watch his current favorite movie on my Blu-Ray / HDTV system (Transformers - perhaps not the best picture ever released, but visually stunning in full HD)  I made 2 meatloafs.  1 with beef, pork and veal with a pound of bacon on top and another with turkey and veggies.  They both came out great and amazingly, the "healthy" turkey one held it's own against the birthday death loaf.  Pam made mashed and baked potatoes and bacon wrapped dates for desert (so amazingly good!)  Best part is I have lots of leftovers.  My recommendation - come to my house for a meatloaf sandwich for lunch some day this week :)

I slept *really* well last night.  I didn't roll ofer and look at the clock until almost 9:00 and hopped out of bed in an interesting mood - happy to start the day, but without the usual to do list repeating through my brain.  Ahhhhhhh.

Friday was the LoungeFest party at Russ and Pam's place in Pacifica.  I tried to come up with a loungy costume, but ended up in blue jeans with a dress shirt unbuttoned too far and a gray sport coat I haven't worn in years.  Which apparently looked good on me since I got a lot of compliments.   The Teasedale's always throw a fabulous party and this was no exception.  Good people and fun lounge-themed outfits, food and music.  I stayed far too late talking and drinking excellent wine so I ended up crashing there. 

Saturday morning while recovering from a mild wine hangover with coffee, cold spam and chocolate cake, Spookie texted me about going to the Elizabeth Street Brewery (ESB).  I was horrified that I'd never heard of it.  There was a time when I could name most of the breweries in California and certainly every SF brewery. My new friend Christina and I headed out to meet Spookie, Steve and Liz there.  It turns out to be a guy in Noe Valley who homebrews and built a pub in his garage for friends to hang out in.   He can't sell the beer, but you can buy a hat or make a donation if you like.  He makes unusual beers like Chocolate Milk Stout and Vanilla Porter.  The beer was great, Richard the brewer seemed to truely enjoy serving his homebrew to friendly strangers and his "customers" graciously cycled out as new people showed up so the tiny pub never got too crowded.  Beautiful.  I predict that word of this place is going to spread fast and soon it will be too crowded to be fun - just like the Barleywine fest @ Toronado (which IMHO sucked balls this year)  My recommendation - follow the ESB twitter to find out when he's open and check it out  soon.  Richard mentioned a barber shop where the owner has a still and serves homebrew rye and absinthe.  I must find that and get a shave and a sazerac!  After ESB, a few of us grabbed some beer and hung out at Steve and Liz's place a half block away.  A perfectly mellow afternoon talking with friends and listening to good music on vinyl. 

Now it's Sunday and I'm planning dinner for the SND hordes.  It's windy and rainy so I'm going the comfort food route - meatloaf!  I'm listening to iTune playing only songs it's never played before and it's finding all sorts of gems in my rather large collection of music.  Or, more likely, I'm just in a really good mood an all music sounds good to me right now.  I haven't felt this happy and content in a long time.

I'm going to break the rules a bit and do this on LJ since it'll get sucked into Facebook automagically.  And since I'm probably the very last one to do it, I'm not bothering to tag anyone else.

1) I'm a hardware guy.  Most of my friends are software / science geeks, but I've always been a hardware guy.  When I was around 10, I had a Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine.  For fun I'd disassemble it, reassemble it and start it up for a few minutes.  I still have a bad habit of taking my toys apart to see what's inside.

2) I have a problem with claustrophobia.  Things like watching a video of someone squeezing into a crack in a cave make me really really uncomfortable.

3) The first song I remember really liking is Popcorn. I still kind of like it.

4) I got my first computer in 1978.  It was a Radio Shack (Tandy) Model 1 my dad got me for xmas.  I befriended the geeks at the local computer shop who helped me upgrade it from 4K to an inconceivably huge 16K of RAM.  Around that time I also had a SWTPC CT-64 dumb terminal and a 300 baud modem and spent a lot of time on CompuServe until they started requiring a credit card.

5) After several fast food jobs, my first "real" job was at the computer shop mentioned in #4.  It was a local mom and pop place where they stuck me in the back room and had me fix Apple ][ computers.  The owner taught me a few things and somehow I got really good a figuring out weird problems.  I always used a can of Dow Scrubby Bubbles to clean the case and keyboard before returning the repaired machines.

6) I never much cared for dancing until Saturday night at Burning Man 2003 when a bit flipped in my brain and I learned to enjoy it.

7) I have a large group of truly amazing people whom I call my friends, but I am only really close with a few people.  I'd like to change that.

8) I make my living selling junk on eBay.  I've been self employed since 2003.  I absolutely cannot imagine working for someone else ever again.

9) I find it easier to cook for 20 than for 2.

10) which is good because I have been having friends over for dinner on Sundays for at least 15 years.  It started out with a few guys barbecuing and drinking homebrew.  Now there are around 20 people at any given dinner.  In this time, I have refined the manly art of cooking virtually anything on the BBQ.  Even pizza.

11) I ran a BBS in college called the Dark Side of the Moon.  The apartment I lived in became known as "the mOon" and the apartment complex eventually became Earth Orbit though I was long gone by then.

12) I'm a cat person.  My first cat was named Max and would fetch a bottle cap if you snapped it across the room (one of the lasting skills I developed in college). I have 2 cats now, Lily and Sauren (aka Orange). Neither plays fetch, but I like them anyway.  I didn't always like cats though and back when I had pet rats I actively disliked them.

13) In 1982 (?), my friend Mike and I drove my '69 VW Baja Bug from Orange County to Oregon and back.  This was long before I had credit cards or a cell phone which made it much more of an adventure.  Especially because the bug was a POS.  We traded pot for car parts, crashed in generous strangers' living rooms and I drove the last 900 miles using a rope tied to the carburetor because the throttle cable broke and we had barely enough money for gas to get home.

14) I've owned a lot of cars. '69 MGB, '69 VW Baja Bug, '70 Triumph Spitfire, '77 Datsun Pickup, '6? VW Squareback, '77 Datsun 510 Wagon, '86 Toyota Supra, '86 Toyota PU, '94 Toyota Corolla, '96 Toyota RAV4, '00 Audi A4, '00 VW Golf, '05 VW Golf, '97 Ford F-250, '00 BMW M Coupe.  I still have the F-250 and the M Coupe.  My ex's still drive the RAV and the '05 Golf.  I've also owned several motorcycles and a Vespa scooter.

15) I've rolled 3 cars, my highschool GF's Datsun B210 "Honeybee", the Baja Bug and the Datsun PU.  I don't recommend this to anyone.

16) I built and ran a pirate radio station in college.  It was 15 watts of glorious stereo FM.  One of my proudest moments was walking into my favorite bar (Spike's) and hearing my radio station playing there. I only ran it occasionally, but after I left school, a friend ran it 24/7 until the FCC convinced him it was a bad idea.

17) I very nearly got a top secret security clearance, but quit the job that reqiured it before the process was completed.  I knew I wouldn't be at that job much longer so I told the FBI interviewer about pretty much every law I'd broken figuring they'd refuse me for sure.  Turns out they appreciated my candor and are refuse people who try to hide that stuff.  I recently found the transcript of those interviews.  I used to be a lot more interesting...

18) I was born in Alegany, NY and lived in Cheektowaga and Tonawanda before moving to California in the late '70's.  In Tonawanda, we used to ride our bikes to the Erie Canal and Niagra Falls.  In CA, I've lived in El Toro, Encinitas, San Luis Obispo, Leucadia, San Marcos, Sunnyvale and now Alviso.

19) I was a Boy Scout, but was in it more for the camping than the merit badges.  Horse riding at summer camp left me with a lasting negative impression that lasted until a few years ago.

20) I've been arrested twice.  The first time I was a minor so that's off the record now.  The second time they nabbed me for DUI in the hospital the morning after rolling my third car (see #15).

21) I'm kind of a pyro.  Fortunately that's cool these days what with Burning Man and the Fire Arts scene.  That seems to have mellowed into a fascination with light sources of any kind.  I have 3 different color laser pointers in my living room and things that fluoresce under those wavelengths set up as targets.

22) I work with high power lasers on a regular basis.  I've done some pretty stupid things with them, but managed so far not to hurt myself or anyone else with them.  Well, not counting a couple of incidents with the hair removal laser.

23) I haven't traveled as much as most of my friends, but I have been to Russia and China on business trips.  In Russia I got a tour inside one of their first nuclear plants.  It was shut down for refueling, but I still wish I'd been issued a dosimeter.  

24) I had a pet rat named Floyd who lived in a 3 storey rat condo I built under the rabbit cage in the back yard.  He constantly chewed holes in his condo to escape, but when I called his name he'd come out of hiding and climb up my pants and shirt to sit on my shoulder.

25) It's kind of depressing how hard it has been to come up with 25 interesting things to write about myself.

Everyone seemed to like the Sazeracs last night so I figured I'd post the recipe just in case anyone else wants to try. If you look around you'll find several variations, but this is how I've been making them:

2 oz Rye Whiskey. Not bourbon!
1/2 oz simple syrup (or, for the non-lazy, 1 sugar cube muddled with bitters)
3-4 dashes Peychaud's Bitters. Not Angostura!
mix above in a pint glass filled with ice

Coat a chilled old fashioned glass with absinthe.  Pour out any that doesn't stick to the sides of the glass. If you order a Sazerac in a restaurant and they actually know what you're talking about, they'll almost certainly serve it to you in a martini class.  This is wrong!

Stir or gently shake the booze and strain into the chilled, coated glass.

If you're less lazy than me, garnish with a twist of lemon. Not a cherry!

Enjoy!

I've been on a bit of a retail therapy kick recently which means I have a few new toys.

I've owned a Garmin Nuvi 350 since they first came out. I paid over $800 for it if that gives you any idea what an early adopter I was.  I love it, but the power button is flaky and it sometimes needs to be reset a few times before it works right.  So after much research, I upgraded to a Nuvi 265WT.  It's the wide screen, has the new, faster processor and updated UI, has bluetooth for handsfree cell calls and it comes with a lifetime subscription to real-time traffic data so it can route me around bad traffic!  So far, I like it a lot. 

• The wider screen, faster cpu and new UI are great.  The 350 would sometimes lag on updating the screen which was annoying at best and caused me to miss turns on occasion.  The new UI shows your current speed and a better indication of what your next maneuver will be.  It also boots up, uncompresses the maps and finds the satellites *way* faster!
• The bluetooth handsfree is much better than the crappy visor clip-on thing I got at Costco and that makes one less gizmo in the car to distract me (well, not really though as you'll see).  My Treo 755p linked up with it easily, although is has spontaneously disconnected a few times.  Reconnecting is sort of annoying since it takes about a dozen keypresses to navigate to the appropriate menu and back out.
• I haven't had the opportunity to test the traffic rerouting feature, though it does show a list of nearby problems so I know it's working. One thing they don't tell you before you buy is that the lifetime traffic data subscription is supported by little ads that show up when you stop moving for a while.  I was offended at first, but I don't think they'll bother me, especially considering that the traffic data subscription used to cost $15/month.

Apparently they changed the format of the "favorites" file so I couldn't transfer that from the 350 to the 265WT.  It took about an hour to manually enter my (fairly long) list of favorite places. Otherwise it was a smooth transition.  I got it through Amazon where the price was nearly the lowest I found and with cheap, *fast* shipping and no sales tax it was a great deal.  Seriously, it was like $3.50 for shipping and took 2 days to get here.  I love AMZN!

I also got an OBDII Trip Computer / Engine Display called a Scan Gauge II.  I have it installed in my M Coupe, but haven't yet figured out everything it can do.  I'm mostly interested in the instantaneous MPG display since I got almost 28MPG driving home from Pasadena after the Thanksgiving holiday and I'd like to get more than 21 around town.  I also got this from Amazon.  The whole thing started when I cashed in my overflowing bucket of pocket change for about $60 in the form of an Amazon credit (which is way better than paying 9% to the coin counting machine).  Maybe I was convinced by this example screen



Lastly, while it wasn't exactly retail therapy, I bought a Dye Laser on eBay on Black Friday.  A dye laser doesn't work by itself - it is powered by (or in laser geek terms, pumped by) another laser.  In this case a 30 watt green laser which I just happen to have in the lab here already.  The dye laser should be capable of producing about 10 watts of 630nm orangish red, similar to the color of a helium neon laser, but 1000 times brighter.  Usually when I buy a laser, it's for work, but this one is for me to play with.  Ultimately, I'd like to split a few watts of green out and recombine it with the red and feed that to a scanhead so I have a 6-8 watt red/yellow/green projector.  Which I'll almost certainly never use other than maybe once at Burning Man.

I'm really getting into cooking "real" food (i.e. anything not made on the barbecue).  Tonight there were only 9 people over for dinner which is actually kind of nice since we all fit at the main table (it seats 12).  I made "Pasta with Caramelized Onion Trio, Arugula, and Mozzarella" and "Broccoli and Cheese Soup".  Just a double batch of each rather than the usual 4x and both came out great.  I think I applied too much heat after the fresh mozzarella was added to the pasta since it melted and I think it was supposed to still be little balls when served. It tasted great anyway.  Erin made a salad with mostly stuff from her garden and there were a couple of baguettes.

I didn't do any cooking at Mom's for Thanksgiving (well, I mashed the potatoes), but before the holiday, I made another chicken soup.  I get a cooked chicken from the grocery store, remove the meat, stew the carcass to make broth, add rice, frozen veggies and the chopped up chicken meat (plus salt, pepper and some other random spices).  Simple but delicious.  And the feral cats love to eat what's left of the carcass :)

Ganked from digitalutopia 

1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names)
Francis Louise

2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)
Clarence Albert

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name)
Crkevi (sounds more like my Dune name)

4.DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Purple Cat (hey wait, that's my Pimp name)

5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live)
Paul Alviso

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add "THE" to the beginning)
The Orange Sazerac

7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Keui

8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie):
Chocolate Peanutbutter Oatmeal Raisin, yo!

9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet's name, current street name)
Lily Wabash

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Max Greenhaven

Got my hair cut a couple of days ago which was the end of the blond tips left over from Burning Man.  I always forget that I like how I look with short hair.  Not sure if I'll dye it again before the holidays but it's nice to keep the ultra conservative side of my family guessing about me :)

I kept seeing expensive bottles of fake kitty pheromones in the pets stores and finally found some for a decent price on Amazon and ordered it.  It's marketed mostly as a way to keep cats from spraying and clawing, but also as a way to calm nervous cats (i.e. when you're introducing a new cat to a house or taking them to the vet).  Lily and Orange have never gotten along so I wanted to see if it would help.  I got a couple of the diffusers and a spray bottle.  The spray showed up a couple of days ago and has already made a huge difference in their behavior.  Orange is way less aggressive and both of them seem a lot more relaxed.  Yesterday when I got home from the gym they were both curled up on the same couch!  Not cuddling or anything, but sharing a couch is huge - they hardly wanted to share a room before.  I'm a little worried that it's making them too mellow, but Orange is her usual rambunctious self when she's outside so I think it's OK.

Went to the gym Monday and Tuesday.  Taking today off since my calves are sore.  I "ran" 3.5 miles on the elliptical machine on Monday, 3.1 miles (5K) of it in 28 minutes.  Not going to win me any marathons. but pretty good for me.  Yesterday I tried to use the treadmill, but that's still much harder for me so I'm  going to stick with the elliptical until I lose some more weight.  I'm at my all-time high weight again, but strangely, not feeling completely disgusted with myself about it and trying to keep it in mind so that I eat better.  I've been making yogurt (nonfat), banana and frozen fruit (mango today) smoothies for breakfast.

I went to the DJ Jason Lee CD release party on Friday at Chez Herbst and had a great time.  Great music and a bunch of Stargaze folks I haven't seen in a long time.  I set up my Redline Beambox and my original starfield generator laser shows which people really seemed to like.  Jason's techno set was excellent and Radley's late night / sunrise chill set was fabulous.  I haven't spent much time in Newark, but I like it and want to know more about it. The downtown area looks like it's been there quite a while and must have an interesting history.  Jack and I were up early (i.e. noon) and found a greasy spoon nearby for Breakfast.  I took the scenic route home past Cargill Salt and all sorts of other industrial areas.  I have a weird fascination with all the cities around the bay - maybe just an excuse to drive around and check stuff out.

Saturday was Dave's not-birthday party in Bob's hangar with more good friends, BBQ and bad movies on the big screen.  I faded out early (midnight) due to not getting much sleep the night before.

Today I slept in and then made 2 kinds of roasted chicken fo SND - one with lots of garlic and herbs and the other with shallots, peaches and balsamic vinegar.  Both came out great which further increases my excitement for cooking indoors.  Who knew I could do anything other than BBQ?

I can't imagine anyone wanting the job Obama just got.  He does seem like the kind of person who will find a way to make things better without splitting the country any more than it already is.  It is just incredibly strange to me how polarized the people in this country are.  While I doubt many republicans will listen to him, McCain's concession speech asking his supporters to work *with* the new president was encouraging.  I just hope people will cut him some slack when things don't get better overnight.

I made a deal with myself that I'd start being more productive if Obama won.  OK, it's noon and I'm sitting on the couch with my laptop just like any other day, but I did go to the gym this morning for the first time in months. I just hope people will cut me some slack when things don't get better overnight. :)

but I have 5 bars now...

I bought one of these. I hate that I am paying to improve Sprint's infrastructure, but it works amazingly well and since my only real complaint with Sprint is the shitty coverage at home, it's not a bad deal.  The repeater I bought a few years ago cost 3 times as much and barely made any improvement (and has been powered off for months)

Oh, and I voted today (permanent absentee) which didn't make me feel dirty at all.

When the crazy Mexican neighbors set off fireworks, the cats disappear under my bed.

When the crazy Mexican feral cats have a screaming fight, both my cats run outside to see what's going on.  Orange just jumped from the top of the entertainment unit, half way across the living room and out the front door on the second bound.  Guess she doesn't want to miss a good ass-kicking.

Last weekend I got slightly more stupid than usual in my car.  I was showing off and ended up going up a curb and nearly taking out a light pole.  The curb trashed a $300 tire but I just glanced off the pole.  This all happened across the street from a performance tire shop so I left the car there, crashed at a friend's place, got a ride back in the morning and had the shop order a tire to be installed later in the day.  Most of the damage from the pole buffed out (really) and once I get the car aligned, it'll be pretty much back to normal.  Had things gone just a little differently, I might have really hurt the friends who were in the car and / or totaled the car.

Yesterday some friends came over to use the hair removal laser.  I had turned it on to warm up before they got here.  When we went to the lab to get started, it absolutely reeked of burning electronics and the laser had powered off.  I got the system for almost nothing, but it is a $75,000 machine which means replacement parts are stupidly expensive.  Today I had a look inside and it was obvious that the problem was just the water pump and when I had a closer look, the problem was just the starter cap.  I found a replacement cap at a local surplus shop for $2, installed it and it's working like new. 

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( meemy goodness )

Finally my favorite weather has come.  Clear and sunny, with a few clouds, but *cool* temperatures.  I need to go to the beach for the full effect.  I'm not sure why, but it has always given me a feeling of melancholic nostalgia.  I think a mini road trip is in order later this week.  Lunch in Point Reyes sounds good.  I hope we get a few weeks of this before it gets colder and rainier.

I thought I had noticed a bad trend where I was sleeping in later and later, but it turns out the clock in my bedroom was an hour fast.  I'm not sure how long that lasted, but yesterday I used the alarm (for the first time in months) to get up at 6:45 for the electronic flea market.  I snoozed a couple of times and when I made it to the espresso machine in the kitchen, it was actually  only 6:15AM.  Well, maybe this'll shift my daily schedule a little towards the mornings.  The flea market went better than I expected since I brought only stuff that I planned to scrap out afterwards.  I came home with $500 and about 1/3 of the original load.  Totally worth getting up that early.  No more flea markets until April due to the rainy season.

I'm still being terribly lazy though.  Just doing the bare minimum to keep Junktronix making enough to cover expenses.  It's great that I can survive with such minimal effort.  Or maybe it isn't since I have little incentive to put more effort into it.  Maybe I should start with some simple goals like saving enough to get the brake/suspension upgrades for the Coupe and / or get big flat screen TV.

I still haven't done my back taxes.  Fuck.  I've got Monday and Tuesday to get something cobbled together and postmarked by Oct 15.  Mental blocks suck.

I've been avoiding looking at my investment accounts, but they've lost about 1/3 their value.  I'm going to stick with my long term view and not make any radical changes, though the temptation to move everything to something that makes a guaranteed 2-3% is strong.  If Obama doesn't win the election, it won't matter anyway since I'll have lost all hope for the future.

Dave and I tried to do a quick test of his rail car on the "abandoned" tracks near Alviso, but had barely gotten the machine off the flatbed when a SJ cop showed up and and ran us off.  Apparently that run is still used to deliver chemicals to the nearby water treatment plant.  He was pretty cool about it after checking me for outstanding warrants and realizing we were just a couple of geeks.  Dave was smart and kept his mouth shut and so the cop didn't run his record.  That was my first close encounter with a law officer in quite a while.  It went well in the end, but I'd still rather avoid it in the future.  We ended up test running the rail car in the parking lot behind a friend's work. 

That's all for now.  I have to go look for something interesting to make for SND.  Last week's roasted salmon and root vegetable burritoes turned out great and has got me excited about *not* bbqing for a few months.