New Year's Eve

Can you believe it's the last day of 2004?
crazy, man.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year's Eve celebration.

See you all in 2005! :)

Bring It ON!!!

We've decided to host a last-minute New Year's Eve Dinner party tonight.

It started out as, "Let's have a few friends over for after-dinner cocktails, and board games"

Then it became, "Let's have a few friends over, go out for dinner, then come back and play board games"

I called a couple of local restaurants requesting reservations for 10 for New Year's Eve Dinner, and they all pretty much laughed at me.

So then, it became, "How about if we have some friends over, order in take-out (Chinese or Pizza), and play board games?"

Then, Lora came up with the perfect suggestion: "We could always do the Bolognese Cook-Off that we've been threatening to do for years...."

And so it begins.....
tonight, we'll be hosting:

"The First Annual Craddock-Chow/Shahine Bolognese Cook-Off"!!!

This all started a few years ago, when Lora came to live with Dick and I for a month while she was in Med School. Omar would come over to visit, and we would make dinner or breakfast for each other. It was a lot of fun.

Omar has a famous Bolognese Sauce recipe that he perfected way back in High School or College. It is fabulous.
He gave the recipe to Dick and me, and we make it for ourselves at least once a month. We once had our mutual friend, Vivian over for dinner, and we kept asking if our sauce was better than Omar's. ;)

When we moved into His 'n Her Condos, we thought it would be funny to have a big Bolognese Cook-Off (like a Chili Cook-Off) since we have two kitchens. We've been talking about doing it ever since we moved in, but never got around to it.

And now, the time has come.

In the Upstairs kitchen, we'll have "Team Shahine"
In the Downstairs kitchen we'll have "Team Craddock-Chow"

May the best Bolognese Sauce Win!!!

That's right, Lomar.

Bring it on.

Give.

The devestation in South Asia is beyond words.

Here is a good list of resources to send donations to.

"CHOW" - The Magazine

On newstands now! :)

I remember seeing this a couple of months ago, but a friend just pointed it out to me again. (thanks, Jeff)

http://www.chowmag.com/

My favorite part in the description is:

".... for people who love food, drink and fun - and think all three belong together."

Looks like I can also get a gift subscription for friends and family.
"Delight friends and family with the gift of CHOW!"

lol.
Next year, I'll give The Gift of CHOW.
All Chow. All the time.
You can never have too much Chow.

Bad Kitties

***is this because Santa Kitty already came?***

There have been a lot of "Trina yelling at the kitties" moments today.

We woke up this morning, and I went downstairs to turn on the Christmas Tree lights, and check the water level. When I turned the Christmas Tree lights on, I found Marcel underneath, pee-ing, and staring back at me with that "Deer caught in headlights" look on his face. I screamed and yelled, he ran, and hid from me the rest of the morning.

Tonight, we had a couple of friends over for cocktails before heading out to dinner. Dick had made a couple of martinis, and we left the glasses on the kitchen counter. We came home to find one of the martini glasses shattered on the kitchen floor.

"NOE!!!!"

After sweeping, wiping down, vacuming, and more wiping down, the floors are clean, and the kitties know that they did something bad.

It's times like this that I realize that it's probably a good thing that we don't have children (of the human variety). Could you imagine my blog entries.....

"Today Junior spilt milk all over the kitchen floor".

Yeah, that would be bad for everyone, and I'd probably lose my Blog audience forever.

Rainy Days and Mondays....

...and wouldn't you know that I just washed both of our cars on Friday ;)

Wow - we've been getting some pretty serious rain here!! It's supposed to keep up for the rest of the week, too. That's okay, we haven't had any significant rain in a while.

I drove down to the South Bay this afternoon.
Here are a couple of observations that I have about owning a new car:

- It's so nice to have a car where front and rear defrosters actually work!!! :) My old car really had a problem with the defrost mechanisms. Plus, the rear window had been tinted when I first bought it, and after the rear defroster broke, the back window remained in a state of constant fogginess. I could never see out very well, but when it was cold and wet out, it was flat out impossible.

- I'm also very pleased about one of the last-minute options that I specced on my MINI - the Auto Wiper/Auto dimming mirror. I think it was an additional $130 or so, but it was money well spent. The auto wipers are terrific on a day like today! Auto dimming mirror is also very nice.

I also noticed that I just felt a lot "safer" in my MINI. That's always a good feeling. I no longer have that feeling that my car could break down at any moment!

Perhaps next time, I won't wait 16 years to get a new car.

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

Merry Christmas!!!

I forgot to remind Dick last night that it is physically impossible for me to wake up later than 7:00 on Christmas morning. When I was growing up, my parents always had to tell me that I couldn't wake everyone else up until 8:00 or so (depending on what time company was coming over). Even at 34, I still get all excited about Christmas morning. Once my eyes open - that's it. True to form, I woke up at 7:00 this morning, and the kitties and I went downstairs to turn on the Christmas Tree lights, and to check to see if Santa Kitty came (he did!).

We'll be having Christmas breakfast here (pancakes!), then traveling down to Milpitas to spend the day with the whole Chow Clan. I'm really looking forward to it. Pete & Richard bought us pancake mixes, and also a sampling of four different types of bacon from the "Bacon of the Month Club" (no kidding!).

Here's wishing everyone a joyful Holiday Season, and a very Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas!!!



update
It's 8:30 am now. Time to wake Dick up! :)

It's a laundry miracle!

This just in (thanks to Blane): The most amazing t-shirt folding method EVER. I'm not kidding. You have to try this. It'll change the way you fold t-shirts forever.

Ads by Google

Hey - what's that thing up there? A banner ad? What's up?

Well, I took a cue from Omar's Blog. According to my web statistics, I get more than 2,000 hits to my blog per month. I also get about a thousand hits to my Raggedy Ann site. That's a decent amount of hits.

Google offers an ad service where if you put a banner ad on your site, and the user clicks on it, they will pay you $$. The ads are all supposed to relate to whatever is on the site. So, if I'm blogging about a specific product or company, the ads should reflect them.

This may be especially useful on my my Raggedy Ann site because I often receive emails from people asking where they could buy specific Raggedy Ann merchandise.

This will be interesting. As I scroll through the archives of my blog, I can see what products it picks up on, and which ones it doesn't. For example, it seems to notice things like the Media Center, or the Star Wars Trilogy, but it must not have any ads for MINI Coopers, or the Litter-Robot. It definately seems to like the mention of "Xbox" or "Halo", which makes sense, as there are many online retailers who would sell and advertise these products.

So, we'll see what happens. Perhaps it'll be worthwhile, perhaps not.

Mousie Cookies

I spent the day in Milpitas yesterday baking Christmas cookies with my Mom.
I love the holidays :)

We made our traditional thumb print cookies, mouse cookies, and tried a new peppermint spiral cookie recipe.

"Mouse Cookies?" you ask?

My Mom and I have been making these for several years now. It's an almond butter cookie, rolled into a ball, and slightly elongated. You add peanut halves for the ears, a small licorice string for the tail, and we use a little bit of frosting for the eyes. They're ever so cute, and yummy as well!

I didn't take a picture of the cookies that we made yesterday, but I do have this picture from our Holiday Party in 2002.

iSad :(

My iPod is ker-busted :(

I have no idea what happened. I was out on my walk today, and it was fine.
I put it in it's dock when I came home, and it wouldn't connect to the computer. This isn't unusual, so I just rebooted it.

After I rebooted it, it started to make these weird clicking noises. Then, it went to the default startup screen: choosing a language. So, I reluctantly chose English, and went on to find that my drive was wiped of all info. It also won't connect to my computer now. :(

Dick bought this for me as an Xmas present last year. He bought it from Best Buy, and also got the extended 4-year service plan. (always a good thing when you're talking about portable electronics). Now that I'm looking at the receipt, I see it was a year ago exactly. How ironic.

I'm going to make a trip down to Best Buy this afternoon. Hopefully, whatever needs to be done will go smoothly.

This will be interesting.

update

Okay, I'm back from Best Buy. So far, so good.

They took my iPod, my receipt, and my extended-service agreement. They asked what the symptoms were, etc,. They will be sending it off to their repair center, where they will be repairing/replacing the hard drive. If for some reason, they can't repair it, they'll replace my iPod entirely.

They gave me a 2-3 week estimate. That's not bad, but I'll certainly be missing my iPod in the meantime!

So far, I'm fairly impressed with how Best Buy has handled the situation. If all goes as planned, it'll be well worth the amount that we paid for the extended service coverage. Time will tell, of course.

As I mentioned earlier, it's been one year exactly from the date that Dick bought it. Had I needed to rely on the Apple Warranty, it would have expired today. Eek.

Happy Birthday to my MINI!

I know, I'm a huge dork, but I just realized that today is the first birthday of my MINI! It completed production on December 18th, 2003. I took delivery of my car at the end of January, and I've been SO happy with it ever since! It was well worth the wait.

Poor little thing is sitting in front of the house today, covered in leaves. Probably should have taken it out for a drive today, or at least washed it. Oops.

How many other people know the exact production date of their cars? Or, how many actually would care, for that matter? ;)

Censorship gone too far

This is fairly ridiculous.

I just ordered a Christmas present from lego.com for Dick's nephew. I also had a gift-note sent with it.

I tried to have the card read: "Happy Holidays to Peter! Love, Uncle Dick & Trina"

It sent an error message back to me, saying something the lines of, "Because this is a children's site, we cannot allow the use of the word "dick" in your message."

Oh, for crying out loud! That's his name!

We actually ordered from lego a couple of years ago, and I remember coming across the same problem.

Like there aren't any other men named Dick out there! The Vice-President of The United States, for example!

Bah-humbug!

Kudos to Craigslist

I put a posting up for my 7 bags of FREE CD jewel cases on craigslist.org this afternoon. Within the first hour, I already had 4 responses!

What a great service.

I feel much better giving these away, then throwing them in the recycling bin!

You want 'em? Come and get 'em!

I spent the entire day (when I wasn't at Costco) organizing Dick's entire CD collection. It's a project that I've been meaning to do for months, and I finally had a reason to get it done today.

What does this project involve? Alphabetizing about 700 CDs (by catagory, no less!), removing the CD and the cover from the jewel case, and slide them into Case Logic Binder sleeves. We're trying to consolidate over here, and 5 binders takes up a lot less space than 700 jewel cases....

So, that leaves me with....

7 grocery paper bags FULL of empty plastic jewel cases.
These are great for all kinds of CD & DVD needs: giving photo or music CDs to friends and family, travelling, replacing broken jewel cases, coasters, .... you name it!

Interested? I'm giving them away! Come and get them!
(I still have a bag full from when I orgainized my CD collection months ago)

I'm hoping some of you can use these (which is unlikely), otherwise I'll try my luck at giving them away on Craig's List. (a good idea from Willo.)

Third time's the charm

So, you all know that I enjoy Costco as much as the next guy... okay, I like Costco a whole lot more than the next guy ;)
That said, I managed to get more than my fill of Costco this week.

I've been getting our Holiday cards ready for the last week or so. If you've seen them from previous years, you know that create them digitally, and have the printed as photos. (oops, if you thought they were real, then pretend you didn't just read that) I usually get the images printed as 4x6" photos, and stick them in a card with an opening for a photo.

This year, I thought I'd make it easier on myself, and I decided to have them printed out as photo cards. I brought in my digital files into Costco on Tuesday, and was told that my order will be ready on Wednesday afternoon. Since I was at Costco (on Tues) I decided to get my shopping done. I've been going to the South San Francisco Costco on S. Airport Blvd. lately because it's much quieter than the SF Costco, and not much further.

I came back Wednesday afternoon, and my order was complete! I checked it out, and the photo looked great. However, there were a few typos in the text. It read:

Happy Holidays 2004
dicks, Trina, marcel and Noe

Suddenly, Dick's name is plural, and is not a pronoun ;)

I pointed out the error, and they double checked my order form (which was correct) and offered to reprint it for me. Unfortunately, they were in the middle of printing a huge job, and told me that I'd have to wait about 2 hours. Now, I had just finished all of my Costco shopping the day before, so I didnt' actually *need* anything. To top it off, I forgot to bring my cell phone with me. So i wandered around, checking out some aisles that I had skpped on Tuesday. I checked back at the 1-hour photo booth after an hour, and my order was ready. Horray! I double-checked the printing, and it was all fine, so I took my order home. When I got home, I noticed that they had cropped a good 1/4" off all sides of my image. I suppose that under other circumstances, that would be fine, but since I had created this image, I kind of wanted the entire image as I had intended it to be. (That's the perfectionist in me, I suppose) I still had 1 sample of the mis-printed card (with the typos) and noticed that it was not cropped, so I knew it was possible to have it done correctly.

Do you see where this is going?

Yep, I went back to AGAIN Costco this afternoon. I went to the photo counter, and showed them what had happened. They said they would fix it (which I appreciate) and was told it would be done in an hour. Okay. That's not bad. I had intentionally planned on eating lunch there, so I would have something to do to pass the time. One hour, and one slice of pizza later (and some more browsing around the store) I returned to the photo counter. The machine had broke, and I would still have to wait another hour :( Grrrrr... I had literally run out of things to look at around the store - and that's saying a lot! I discovered that they sell Dremmel Tools and accessories - who knew?

Another 45 minutes later, I went back to the counter to check on my status. This time, they were ready, and everything looks great. *sigh of relief*

I think I may be experiencing Costco overload now.

#$@*#

grrrrr.

i just caught Noe pee-ing under the Xmas tree. :(
Can't blame it all on Marcel now.

What's up with these cats?

They'd better be careful, or Santa Kitty may not come to visit this year. ;)

Grrrrr....

I woke up this morning having to clean up after an ant raid.

Right before going to bed tonight, I discovered that one of the cats (the big one) PEE-ED under the Christmas Tree!!! :( Grrrrr.....

Bad kitty!

This happened a couple of years ago when we had a tree before, but we figured it was because Claude was visiting, and everyone was getting territorial. This year, we hoped we would be safe. No luck. Two days in, and there you go.... We were prepared, at least, I put a plastic tarp under the tree, and we used white sheets instead of a tree skirt. All things considered, it was a fairly easy clean-up. (something I'll probably be doing several times over the next couple of weeks if Marcel keeps this up)

Next year, I'm afraid we'll have to get an artificial (ie FAKE) tree.

I'm so mad at my kitty. :(

The Best of... Part 1

..and speaking of ants... (see earlier post)

This reminded me of the worst/most bizarre ant raid story that I've ever had.

It happened almost six years ago - well before the word "blog" entered my vocabulary.
I did have email, of course, and immediately sent out this story.

Since I have a few good "pre-blog" stories tucked away somewhere, I thought I'd make this the first installment of "The Best of Trina Chow". :)


From: Trina Chow [mailto:trina@sirius.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 1999 11:39 AM
Subject: The wrong way to start a day...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
I am so grossed out right now!
I have to share this with you guys because it's so unbelievably disgusting!

Okay, you know I don't often consider myself a girly-girl, but in this case,
I was the biggest girl in the world....

I came to the gallery to work this morning - The Adlers are out today, so
mind you, I'm flying solo here...
There is a box on my desk, along with all of the other mail for our
neighbors, who don't come in on Tuesdays.
I look closely at the box, and it is COVERED with ants! Not just covered,
but ants are crawling in and out of all of the holes!
I look closer, and notice that there is a HUGE trail of ants going from the
box, across my desk, down the side of the leg, down to the floor, and across
the floor in two directions, going at least 10 feet in each direction
(really, no exaggeration!) To make matters worse, our carpet is a dark
gray/black, so you have to look really closely to find the trail. And, when
you finally do, you realize that the carpet is just crawling with them!!!
YUCK!!!

Mind you, I hate bugs! I don't care how cute they try to represent them in
Computer Generated Animated Movies!

SO, if this wasn't all gross enough, I just had to look at the box to see
where it was from.
Get ready for this:

It was from "Rainbow Meal Worms".

WORMS!!!!!

There was a label on it in bold red which said "LIVE CONTENTS".

OH MY GOD!!! LIVE WORMS!!!!

So, let's recap the scenario: a box of LIVE WORMS sitting on MY desk
attracting thousands of ANTS that are going into the box EATING these LIVE
WORMS!!! And, let's not forget, I'm working by myself today!

Oy. I don't get paid enough to deal with this. No, really. I don't get
paid enough to deal with this!

Okay, thanks for letting me vent. I feel much better now. Now that I've
procrastinated by writing this, I guess I'd better go clean up that mess
now. Yuck.

May your day be much more normal than mine.....
-Trina

PS In case you're wondering, "Why Worms?" Our neighbors, who sell jewelry
shaped as animals are called "For Animal Lovers, Plus". Apparently, this
Rainbow Meal Worms company sent them a box of "Sample Worms" because they
assumed they were a pet store. Unbelievable.

Ants!

We woke up this morning to an ant raid in the upstairs bathroom.
Lovely.

It's not a huge surprise, as we had a rain storm last night, but still... such a pain.

So, I whipped out the RAID, wiped away the dead bodies, then washed and dried the floors.

I really hate ant raids. It's such a nuisance.
And now, poor Noe has to watch for ants in her food.

Ugh.

Christmas Time is here....

(sing the song from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" in your head now...)

Yay! I love Xmas time. I love to get the Xmas tree, and decorate the house, and send out Holiday cards, and make hot apple cider...

We got our Christmas Tree this weekend! We drove over to the Delancey Street Christmas Tree Lot on the corner of Market and Noe. It's a good cause, so we like buying our trees from them. We found a beautiful tree! It's almost 9 feet tall! When I was growing up, my family used to go to a Christmas Tree lot in the foothills, (where you cut the tree down yourself) and I would always insist on finding the tallest tree on the lot. (We had a vaulted ceiling, so the sky was the limit - literally). We have 9-1/2 ' ceilings here, so a 9' tree was the limit.

Now here's the funny part. We brought the 9-foot tree home on my MINI. :) it actually worked out much better than I expected. We protected the car by first draping an old plastic shower curtain across the roof, then put a large sheet of heavy cardboard on top of the plastic. The tree actually fit on the roof just fine. The length of the roof is actually much longer than my old Integra, and it is entirely flat.

Here's a picture:

MINI Christmas!

I know this is a little early, but I had to share this great picture that I found.
It's from the Atlanta, GA Holiday Parade.



Cute, isn't it?

Guess the TV Sitcom Character

This is pretty funny.
A friend from my mini2.com forum told me about this.
I don't know anyone who has been able to stump the computer yet. Let me know if you're able to.

update

Okay - i finally managed to stump it with "Doyle" from "Angel" :)

another update
After adding "Doyle" to the database, I tried it again, and it got it right! cool.

HUGE Amazon fan

I'm such a huge fan of amazon.com. Between amazon.com and costco, I've managed to get almost all of my holiday shopping done! Plus (and this is a huge added bonus) Free Shipping, and no sales tax! All from the comfort of your own home. (I haven't figured out if this is good for bad)

I've even found gifts for my kitties! :)

Soup!

Happy December!

Brrrr... it's been cold here. (cold for our standards, that is)

Dick and I both really enjoy cooking soup during the winter. Our favorites include Jacque Pepin's Split Pea, Turkey Sausage/Potato/Cabbage (also Jacque Pepin) and a Chinese-style noodle soup (mom's recipe).

I've had a craving for Butternut Squash Soup lately, and I've been on a hunt for a good recipe.

I had dinner at Omar & Lora's the other night, and they gave me a great recipe. (they also gave me a taste of their leftovers!)

(I orginally had the recipe here, but decided it may not be so cool to post a recipe on a blog. Email if me you want it!)

Yum!

...and speaking of Thanksgiving

I was inspired today by Paula's Blog. It reminded me of the real meaning of Thanksgiving. Not the turkey, the food, the traffic, the shopping, etc., but the REAL meaning... Giving Thanks.

So here's my list of the many things that I am grateful for. I try not to take any of it for granted, and I realize how very blessed I am...

My boyfriend/fiance/love of my life/best friend. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I still find it amazing that I'm lucky enough to have found someone in this world who makes me laugh, smile, love, and enjoy life as much as he does. He's loving, compassionate, smart, talented, artistic, geeky, and not too bad at Halo :)

My family. I've always known that I have a wonderful relationship with both of my parents and my sister. My parents had us when they were very young, and have said that we all grew up together. They have always been very loving, supportive and understanding of any choice I've ever made.

My extended family. I am 34 years old (with an older sister) and I am fortunate enough to still have all four of my grandparents. It's quite amazing, and believe me, I know how lucky I am. We are a very close family of grandparents, parents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and second cousins. We get together for most holidays, and all live within a couple of hours from each other.

Dick's family. Yes, they'll be my family soon, too :) I'm especially grateful for the love, support and friendship that they have given me, even from the very first time I met them. They have always made me feel like I was part of their family, and I am very grateful for that.

My friends: Those I see every day, every week, every year, and even those I only see once every few years. I am so lucky to have so many friends in town, nearby, in state, across the country, and even the world. Those friends who I can go for months on end without seeing, and have an immediate connection with again - those are special friendships.

Fuzzy friends. I love my kitties, and appreciate every day that we share together. There's nothing like the unconditional love of a pet.

My health. I've dealt with some health issues of my own in the past, but I also realize how minor it is compared to what other people face every day. I do believe that having questioned the stability of my health at one time has made me appreciate how important our health really is.

My work. I've had my web design business for almost 8 years now. That's simply astounding to me. I'm thankful that I've had the opportunity and ability to do work that I truly enjoy, from my home, on my own terms, and to have the ability to make a living out of it. I love what I do, and hope that I can continue to do it for many more years to come.

Creativity. Art, in one form or another, has always played an important part of my life - drawing, painting, music, dance, color guard, etc., . I am thankful for the creative outlets that I've been given throughout the years, and for the people who have helped me to devleop my talents.

Worldly Possessions. Although I realize that "things" are not entirely necessary for a happy life, I'm very grateful for those things that I have that make me happy everyday. From my Raggedy Ann collection, to my MINI Cooper, and even my computer...I know how lucky I am to have all of these material possessions in my life.

Our Home. I believe in serendipity - events that are "meant to happen". My (upstairs) condo used to be owned by my friend, Andrew. I used to come over and visit him at his place, and I always had a "feeling" that it would be my home one day. I remember thinking once, that perhaps Andrew would move one day, and that he would possibly rent it out to me. Well, a couple of years later, he and his partner decided to buy a house together, and sell both of their properties. I was just out of art school, and not in any financial position to ever consider real estate opportunities. Long story short, my sister and my parents heard of Andrew's move, and suggested that we all invest in the property together. Years later, I moved into Dick's house, and after much debate, we decided to hold on to the condo, even though renting it was problematic. You all know the end of the story: my tenants gave notice around the same time that my downstairs neighbors decided to sell. Dick bought the downstairs unit, and we combined both condos to make one beautiful house. It was truly meant to be.

A friend of mine who I hold great admiration for once told me that "good things happen to good people".

I know that I've had my fair share of good fortune already. I've lived a very charmed life, and I appreciate every single moment of it.

My thanks to all of you for sharing your lives with me.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.

..and now it's time to play more Halo ;)
(i'm grateful for the shotgun)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day! :)

We're driving to Stockton to spend the day with the rest of the family at my Grandma's house. (over the river, and through the woods....)

Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!

Holiday Schedule?

Okay - I have a question:

Thursday morning is garbage day on our street.
Does Sunset Scavenger pick-up the garbage on Holidays? Their website doesn't say.

I'd be really surprised if they do, but our neighbors are all putting out their trash cans, so I guess I will too. (such a lemming)

update
Thursday morning 8:30am

Answer: yes, Sunset Scavenger does come to pick up trash on holidays! (or at least on Thanksgiving)

A Better Day :)

Had a good day today. (and it's only 4:00!)

I had a very good meeting this morning with a new cient: UCSF Medical Center. I'm going to be doing a site for a group there. It's going to be a fairly large project, so I'm excited to take it on.

I also had a lucky moment today.

I went to the Cartoon Art Museum today to pick up some art and animation pieces that I had loaned them for the Johnny Gruelle exhibit. I met my friend, Andrew there - he was the currator of the exhibit. I was excited because I found a metered parking spot right on the street in front of the museum. The meter had a sign saying it was for passenger loading only during the hours of 9:00am - 3:00pm. I got there at 3:00, so I figured that the spot had only opened up for regular use. I also noticed the street cleaning sign, and read that I was clear from those times as well. The meter was only a 30 minute meter - another reason why I figured the space was available. (do you see where this is going?) I met Andrew, and we went up to the offices, signed our stuff out, and I decided to help Andrew load his car first, since he had so many pieces. I got back to my car at 3:15, and saw an officer getting ready to write a ticket. I questioned him, and pointed to the sign on the meter (saying that I could park there after 3:00) He pointed up and across to another sign that was bent and hard to read stating that it was a tow-away zone from 3:00 - 6:00pm!!! Eek! Usually I'm really good about making sure to read all of the signs. The sign on the meter must have distracted me! Anyhow, it was all fine. He let me go without incident. But *phew*!!! I would have been so sad (and upset) to have walked out, expected to see my beloved MINI, and for it not to be there!

...I'm taking a moment to thank the universe right now...

Do Not Disturb

I'm having a grumpy day.

Maybe I should just go back to bed.

Litter Robot - my second review

(for those of you who are interested....)

We've had our Litter Robot for almost 4 months now. I wrote my first week review of it way back in August. I've received a few emails since then from people asking for an additional review.

So far, I'm still loving it! On the whole, I'm much happier with this than I ever was with the LitterMaid. It really does work as advertised. My favorite part is that it's very easy to keep clean, and especially easy to dump the waste from the garbage bag/litter tray. I usually clean out the litter try every 2-3 days, which isn't bad, considering we have two kitties!

I finally got around to actually cleaning the globe today. I know, I was a little remiss in doing this. It probably should be done every 2 months or so. I know that some people clean it once a month. I had dumped out all of the used litter before, and filled it entirely with fresh litter. That was easy.

To clean the globe, I simply lifted it off from the base (very easy), brought it outside to our backyard, and powerwashed it with our hose. Then, I took it inside, put it in the bathtub, and scrubbed it down with dishwashing liquid. That seems to have done the trick. It was super easy to clean, and pretty fast to dry.

We still have an occasional "accident" with our kitties - sometimes they go in without turning around, and they simply aren't in far enough. It's still pretty easy to clean up, and doesn't happen very often, so I'm not complaining.

So, final verdict: 4 months into ownership, and I'm still happy with it.
Here's a good forum with lots of good information about the Litter Robot.

♥ 6 Years! ♥

Today is the 6-year Anniversary of the day that Dick and I met! Yay!

We met on the Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving in 1998. When I look at a calendar, I see that it is technically November 22nd, but I think it's just easier to remember it as "The Sunday before Thanksgiving". :)

I blogged about the whole "how we met" story last year, so I don't want to bore all of you with a repeat blog.
If you haven't heard the story before (and you care) you can find it here.

6 years already, and it just keeps getting better.... :)
I'm such a lucky girl.

HDTV!

I'm so spoiled....

Dick bought a HDTV tuner card and installed it into our Media Center PC today. We also got a HDTV antenna and 1 GB RAM.

The installation of the new tuner card and RAM went smoothly. I think it's so cool to open up a computer and look at all of its guts. Dick is a pro at all of this stuff, so it took no time at all.

So far, the new HDTV tuner card is way cool. We get about 10 local station in HD now - most of the major networks. The picture is just outstanding! We also get the benefit of two tuner cards, so we can record two programs at the same time! That's huge - we used to be able to do that when we had Ultimate TV at the old house, and I really missed having two tuners. Now we can have one program recorded in HD (which we could never do at the old house) and the other in standard broadcast.

Now Dick is an HDTV nut. He keeps going through the program guide, just looking for programs that are broadcast in HD. It looks like I may have to sit through a lot more college and pro football now (roll of eyes).

No more basketball games for me :(

It turns out that I am bad luck.

Anyone who knows Dick knows that he went to UNC (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and that he LOVES the Tar Heels Basketball team.

One of our first dates (almost 6 years ago) was to the UNC vs. Cal game at the Pete Newell Challenge at the Oakland Coliseum. Prior to this game, UNC had been one of the country's top teams, and was slated to easily win against Cal. Unfortunately, it was a huge upset, and UNC lost.

It was the beginning of the end.

Ever since that game, the team has had some very rough seasons.

Dick blames me.

UNC's team is supposed to very good this year. I think they are ranked #4 in the country.

Last month, Dick bought us tickets to this year's Pete Newell Challenge: UNC vs. Santa Clara. Again, UNC was favored to win.
Well, here's what happened.

Dick said that he's never going to bring me to a game again. :(

I'm lucky he didn't call this whole engagement off. ;)

Dookie

I just came back from my morning walk. I was listening to one of my all-time favorite albums, "Dookie" by Green Day. I don't know what it is about that album, but it just makes me happy. :) Perhaps it reminds me of my old art school days, and my "wild days" (ha!) of going to concerts. The year that Greenday released "Dookie", I saw them in concert 3 times: Live 105's first BFD (which was the best ever), Lollapolooza, and the Greenday Concert in Berkeley. They were really fabulous live in concert. That sounds funny coming from me now, since I haven't been to a rock concert in years.

Green Day has come out with a new album this year called "American Idiot". It's a "rock opera" has has received glowing reviews. I want it. It's on my amazon.com wish list.

So, back to Dookie... (funny sentence out of context, isn't it?)
There's just something about it. I realized this morning that it's perfect "work out" music. Really strong, fast rhythm and beat. Makes me want to learn how to play the drums.

Dick has taught me a little bit on his drum set. I think I may want to try it again! I think I did okay. At the very least, he said that I had good, natural rhythm. (years of color guard, finally paying off) Speaking of, I had a hard time getting all four of my limbs to do something different. I was able to manage 3 okay (2 hands, one foot) but just couldn't get in the fourth. I'll have to try it again. I figure (back to my color guard days again) I can toss a flag in the air, have it rotate 2 full rotations, turn 1 and one half times, and catch it behind my back solidly... all within 4 beats of whatever tempo you throw. Really. With a little practice, I'm pretty sure I can get coordinated enough to play the drums a little better. ;)

Xbox Big Brother

Thanks to a helpful tip on Reeves's Blog and the magic of MSN Messenger, I now recieve an alert whenever there's any new Xbox news.

Even better (or scarier, however you look at it) I am alerted anytime one of my friends logs on to Xbox Live. It even tells me what game they are playing.

So, watch out fellow Xbox Live gamers...
I'm watching you!

:)

The Halo2 "Time-Suck" Effect

Yesterday, we were playing Halo2 Live with Reeves and Pete. We started to play around 1:00. Early on, I asked what time it was, and said that Dick and I needed to leave our house around 4:00 to have dinner in the East Bay. Pete said, "It's 1:20. We have plenty of time!"

I didn't have a watch on, or a clock in the room, so I had no concept of time while we were playing. 3-4 games later, I started to get a little tired, and thought it would be a good time to stop. I put everything away, walked downstairs, and saw that it was 4:00!!!

Where had the time gone???

Welcome to the Halo2 Live Time-Suck Effect.

As a matter of fact, we played for many hours this weekend. We started on Thursday night (as you can see from my last blog), and now all of a sudden, it's MONDAY!

Where did all of the time go?

Halo 2 Live

Wow.
That was awesome!

we just played 2-3/4 hours worth of Halo goodness!

I have to learn the new maps and weapons, so I still kind of suck (good thing I was on Murphy Dog's team) but that was SO COOL!

We had 5 players playing at a time - from 5 separate houses/Xboxes.
The maps were gorgeous.
The sound was amazing.

In case there was any question:
Halo 2 ROCKS!

More city annoyances

Thursday morning is trash day in our neighborhood.
I collect the trash, and bring out the trash and recycling bins on Wednesday evenings.

Some time between 8:00 and 9:00 this morning, some idiot decided to rummage through our trash, and spill some of it out along the sidewalk.

I had to go outside in the pouring rain, collect soggy pieces of misc trash, and put it all into a new trash bag.
Now I'm wet, and grumpy and filthy.

I am so annoyed right now.

It's not unusual for people to rummage through our recycling - I understand that. They can take the empty bottles and cans and turn them in for $$ at the recycling center.

But TRASH?
Hello?

It's garbage, you idiot! What exactly were you expecting to find? There is no hidden treasure deep within my trash! It's used kitty litter!

Imbeciles.

I'm going to have a very low tolerance for stupid people today.

(end rant)

Holy Warthog, Batman!

Halo 2 clears record $125 million in first day

That's amazing.

Halo 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the day has come.
go get your copy.

see you online.
Xbox LIVE gamertag: Noe Cat

The Last Box

Okay, so it's been 6 full months since the final move into His 'n Her Condos.
Today, I momentously unpacked The last 3 boxes of "stuff" that have been sitting in the upstairs (extra) kitchen.

I know, 6 months is a really long time. I don't have a good excuse. I just never got around to it.
I have heard of the "last box phenomenon" from friends and family who have moved before - you've unpacked everything, and are completely organized except for the infamous "last box" that just sits there... for months, maybe years. ;)

I've had my large Raggedy Ann Painting in our bedroom closet since we moved in to the upstairs condo in March. We put it in there with some other artwork to keep it protected. This was the last thing that we needed to hang. It's a large and heavy piece, and I needed Dick's help to hang it up.

We finally got around to hanging it yesterday (yay) which (finally) allowed me to organize the closet in our bedroom. Now, that may sound ridiculous: "How could you have not been using the closet in your bedroom?" The closets in the upstairs condo (there are two) are TINY. They are an average width, but they are only about 10" deep. That's not deep enough to put hangers in. When I lived here by myself before, my parents & I put shelves in the closets to make them more functional.

Dick and I have our clothes in two different places: the closet units that we built in the spare kitchen, and a large chinese cabinet in the front room upstairs. My clothes have all been kind of packed in the cabinet, and I knew it would really help if I could spread my stuff out in the bedroom closet.

I went out today and bought two additional shelves and built them all in the closet. I was able to take all of my stuff out of the cabinet, and into the closet - much more organized this time. I was also able to take those final 3 boxes (which were from the two bedroom closets from the old house) and finally unpack them!

Hurray!
(applause)

Big week for the Xbox

...and we still haven't gotten our fill of Star Wars: Battlefront yet...

It's a big week for the Xbox. It's holiday shopping time, and all of the video game companies are releasing their big titles this month.

We went into EB Games on Saturday, and saw the DOA Ultimate is out now. Dick and I pondered whether or not we should buy it, and we decided that we'd wait for a few months. We're still playing Star Wars Battlefront, and Halo2 is being released on Tuesday. We saw Pete Saturday night, and told him that we didn't buy it - which he seemed to understand and agree with our rationale. However Pete called yesterday afternoon from Best Buy saying that he was buying DOA Ultimate so we could all play together. (He obviously misunderstood the memo from Saturday). So, since Pete was buying DOA, we caved, and asked him to buy 2 copies for us. He bought 3 copies, came over to our pad, and we played for an hour or so before we all had to get going. It's great fun, although pretty much the same as DOA 3 - with the exeption (of course) of being LIVE enabled! There are new fighting grounds, and new costumes (woo-hoo) but it plays pretty much the same. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, and weren't able to play LIVE last night. We'll probably check it out tonight. Looks like we'll all have to go through our own copies, and play the regular mode for a while to unlock various extra costumes, characters and locations.

Now, I realize that some of you guys don't enjoy playing DOA - it doesn't compare to Halo or GR. True, it doesn't require the same amount of skill as the other games, but we have such a great time playing it. We have a great time KO'ing each other, and often scream and howl at the moves and costumes! ;)

The big Xbox news is, of course, the release of Halo 2 tomorrow. Dick will be getting our copies tomorrow morning. Really looking forward to it. I usually play in slayer mode against other players. I really love the campaign mode, but I have a problem with motion sickness if I play too long. I might look into getting those little motion-sickness wrist bands and see if those help.

Hey Mike, check this out: TriXie's Top 10 Xbox Hotties. When Dick and I first started to date, Mike couldn't remember my name, and teased Dick by calling me "Trixie". Well Mike, it looks like Trixie is alive and well, and writing for Xbox.com!

The Incredibles!

We went to see The Incredibles last night with Pete & Richard.

So far, I've loved every movie that Pixar has done. I've enjoyed some more than others, but on the whole I think they're such amazing films - they generally are an amazing combination of incredible animation mixed with interesting stories. I'm always amazed at the quality of animation that they improve upon with each release.

Dick and I both walked out of "The Incredibles" thinking it was their best film that Pixar has put out yet. I loved the story: I thought it was clever, funny, and not fully predictable.

Okay, that's my review.... such as it is.
Go see it. You'll love it.

"Honey??? Where is my Super Suit??!!"

Star Wars: Episode III Trailer

Okay, I assume that anyone who is interested has already seen the teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode III.

Just in case you haven't, here it is.

The best deal in Union Square

Dick and I just came back from a lovely afternoon in Union Square.

I meant to mention this before, but forgot...
Here's the best deal in Union Square:

Nordstrom.
Shoe Shine
$2.50

It's such a bargain. The shoe-shine station is on the first Nordstrom level, between the men's and women's shoe departments. I've had my old Doc Martins shined there before, and Dick had a pair of his shined today. (the guy looked at Dick's shoes, and asked "What Happened?" Dick replied, "I wore them for 10 years".)

The guys who work there are super - they've been there for years, are very professional, and do a bang-up job.

So, the next time you go to Union Square, remember to wear a pair of your old favorite shoes, and go to Nordstrom to have them brought back to life!

It's Time to Meet the Muppets!

Coming soon (March 2005) to a post office near you....



Pete and I are both pretty excited about it.
It's the little things... ;)

Oy.

...and that's all I have to say about the election....

Rock the Vote!

I'm sure I'll be echoing everyone else's blog when I say:
Get out and vote today!

San Franciso Real Estate

Dick, Pete, Richard & I took a walk along Noe Valley's 24th street yesterday afternoon.

We passed a Port-o-Potty on the sidewalk that had a "For Rent" sign on it.

The sign said:

For Rent
Studio apartment
$1,000/month

hee hee.
:)

Happy Halloween! (one day late)

Creep-o-Rama 2004 was Saturday night, October 30th. I think it was a great success, and hope that everyone had a good time!
We had the usual crowd of 50-60 people over - some came as far away as Southern CA.

Dick's band Gafas de Soul played for the third year in row, and entertained the crowd.

Dick and I had more of a "concept" couple's costume this year. We came as "Snow White" and "The Artist Formerly known as Prince...Charming". We had posters up in the hallway to serve as props.

Thanks to all who came! Great costumes, great friends, great time!

Pictures are posted!

Good Fortune

I forgot to mention this last week...

Last Thursday, we had Lora over for dinner. (Omar was out of town on business)

We ordered Chinese Take-out from our local place that delivers. We've been ordering from them for years.

Our order came with 4 fortune cookies. I usually forget to open/eat them, but since Lora was here, she and Dick opened them up when we finished our meal.

Dick opened his first. Here's what it said:


Isn't that a great fortune?! Let's not forget that there were 4 cookies, and any one of us could have chosen it, but it was Dick that chose the cookie with the correct gender-specific fortune! :) Not to mention that this was all quite timely!

Generally, I take fortune cookies with a grain-of-salt (of course) but I think this one is a keeper!

Playing with the Big Boys....

At last! I have a XML site feed for my blog. (at first, I thought this was the same as an rss feed, but Dick just corrected me)

...and to think, the technology was there all along.
All I had to do was look for it... kind of like Dorothy finding her way back to Kansas.

So, here it is:
http://www.trinachow.com/blog/rss/trina.xml

Add me, baby.
Perhaps now I'll make "the list" on Omar's page. ;)

Marcel's worst. birthday. ever.

Our poor Big Cat, Marcel has had a rough couple of days.

This past Sunday (10/24) was his 9th Birthday! (We adopted him from the San Francisco SPCA when he was 4 1/2.) When Marcel came downstairs Sunday morning, we noticed that he was walking with a limp. Poor guy - he partied to hard the night before, and now he was paying for it. ;) We decided to keep an eye on his limp to see if it improved over the next day or so.

Monday morning, he was still limping, so I thought we might as well bring him in to the vet just to make sure it wasn't anything serious. (Noe had a limp about a year ago that turned out to be an infected wound that we couldn't see) Our vet is in Milpitas - I've been bringing my pets to this doctor for over 20 years. I also figured that we've been delaying bringing Marcel in to get his teeth cleaned, so we may as well do it all at once and get it over with.

I brought Marcel in at 10:00am. The doctor check out his hind leg, and couldn't find anything, so he figured it was probably a bruise or a minor sprain that would heal in time. That was good news. More good news: Marcel lost almost 2 pounds since we last brought him in 3 1/2 months ago! Yay! He's "down" to 15.2 lbs. now.

We still needed to have Marcel's teeth cleaned (he's never had it done before) so I was told to leave him there, and pick him up at 4:00.

I picked Marcel up at 4:00, and they brought him out to me in his carrier. They said his teeth were in good shape, and that the procedure went well. Poor Marcel - he was still quite groggy from the anesthesia. I was told that his gums may be sore from the cleaning, and he also had part of his front left paw shaved from when they put the IV in him.

Poor little guy. He was not happy with us.

I kept imagining him saying things like "This Birthday Sucks!" and "This is the worst Birthday ever!"

I had severe Momma Cat guilt.

When we got home, I tried to give him just a little bit of his regular dry food. I think his teeth were too sore to eat. I went to the store and bought him some yummy soft food. That was a HUGE treat for him - he ate the entire portion I gave him, and I think we all felt a lot better afterwards.

The joys of City-Living

Okay, you all know that I LOVE living here in SF.

With that said, every once in a while, something happens that makes me wonder, "Would this happen in the 'burbs?"

Dick and I walked out our front door this morning to take him to the train station. We noticed that someone had thrown-up on our front porch. (a.k.a. vomited, up-chucked, spewed, hurled..)

Nice.

Lovely.

and then I have to wonder, "Why?"

"Trina" Brand .... Broccoli?

I was taking my daily walk today and passed by a produce box on the street:

"Trina" Organic Broccoli

Too bad I didn't have a camera with me. I just did a search on the web, and didn't find anything about it.

funny.

So far, the different "Trina" Products that I'm aware of are:

"Trina" brand softdrink: (as seen here with yours truly)


"Trina" brand cosmetic bags:
(I used to have a "Trina" bag. Maybe it's time to get another. These are all pretty cute, don't you think?)

...and now..

"Trina" brand Broccoli!

No picture. Too bad.
Okay, I'm officially the biggest dork in the world. When I finished writing this blog, I decided to take a walk with my camera, and take a picture of the box. I thought I'd better do it now, in case I Don't ever see it again.

Dork.

I realize that this isn't too exciting for all of you reading this, but it amuses me. My name isn't very common - at least not common enough for me to ever find things with my name on it when I was growing up: mugs, door plates, etc.,

I find it very amusing that I can't find my name on a San Francisco Mug, but I can find it on a Box of Broccoli.

Update 10:00 pm
I just caved again. The power of the web is too strong a force for me. Resistance is futile.

I just bought the cute "Trina Pretty in Pink Purse" (you've just gotta love that name!)

Funny name games

My sister called me the other day, laughing and saying, "Did you know that if you accidentally have your hands misplaced on the keyboard, your name comes out as "Truba"?"

I said, "Oh, yes! i've been doing that for years!" (typing my name incorrectly, that is) "Truba and I are great friends!"

I've also realized that my name is an anagram for: Train
I don't mis-type my name so that it comes out "train", but occassionally, some spell-checker will say "Did you mean to say "train"?" LOL

There are also some funny things about the pronunciation of my name:
Tree-na.

A long time ago, a new friend was trying to remember my name during our second meeting.

Our mutual friend (who had first introduced us) gave him a clue: "The first part of her name is like a very tall plant. The second part is the opposite of "yes"".

I thought it was a pretty good clue.

My (new) friend looked at me, and in all seriousness said, "Ferno?"

:) - that was my nickname for the entire next season.

Time to go back to Ohio?

Some of you may know that I used to live in Dayton, Ohio, and that I go back almost every year for WGI (International Color Guard Competition). The only other outing that I take while in Dayton, is a trip to the Gap Clearance Center (which is actually in Kentucky, along with the Cincinnatti Airport).

Well, I may have just found another "must see" for the next time that I'm in Ohio. Paramount's Kings Island is just outside of Cincinnatti, not far from Dayton. I had gone once in the winter the year I lived there.

Anyhow, Kings Island has announced a new ride that will open in Spring 2005: The Italian Job Stunt Track. Imagine: a roller coaster with MINI Coopers! :) It looks like tons of fun!

Start Spreading the news

Okay, the reason I haven't blogged in over a week is because I had something that I really, REALLY wanted to write about, but I had to wait until we made some phone calls first.

So, let's pretend that it's last Sunday, October 10, 2004.
4:00pm EDT to be exact.

As I mentioned in my last post, Dick and I traveled to North Carolina last week with my parents. We spent the first few days in the Smoky Mountains - the western part of the state where Dick grew up. We tried to time our trip with the "changing of the seasons" or, the beautiful fall colors.

We flew from SFO to Charlotte on Saturday, got in mid-afternoon, and drove to our lovely B&B in Asheville. We spent all day Sunday driving through the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a gorgeous day - very clear. The fall colors had begun, but were not in their full glory yet. (we were probably a couple of weeks early). The Blue Ridge Parkway is a great drive - there are scenic over-looks every few miles. A few of these over-looks have hiking trails that you can hike to the top, or to a ledge.

We went on one of these hikes at "Waterrock Knob Trail". It was only .5 miles, but became pretty steep early on. About halfway through my parents had decided not to continue on, and I was beginning to wonder whether or not I wanted to complete the climb. I told Dick that this trail was considerably more steep than the last trail we had done, and he said, "Yes, but this hike will be much more rewarding!". So, we continued on. 3/4 of the way up, this City Girl started to get a little more tired, and even a little cranky :) I said, "There had better be a pot of gold at the top of this mountain....or at least a rainbow!". Soon, we were at a pretty little clearing, just a few more feet from the top of the mountain. Dick was standing behind me, and said, "Well, I don't have a pot of gold, but I do have *this*". When he said this, I thought he had a piece of candy for me from the hotel. Instead, I turned around, and he had a gorgeous diamond ring! He said, "I think we should get married", and with that, he got down on one knee, and proposed. :)! I was so shocked, and happy all at the same time, that all I could get out were words like "Really?" and "are you serious?". Eventually, I came back to my senses, and was able to say "Yes".

So, that's the "Big Proposal" story, It's very funny, and makes me smile. Dick really outdid himself this time - he took me completely by surprise, and I absolutely love the way he did it!

Here are a couple of fun pictures. The first picture was taken seconds after the proposal. A young couple was coming down from the top of the mountain just after, and offered to take a photo for us. (okay, the truth is, they came down the mountain, and I said, "He just proposed to me". The young woman started to fan her eyes, because they were tearing up - it was very funny).



Here's another picture that my parents took once we hiked back down the trail.


One more story:
Earlier in the day, as we were driving along, the road became just a little windy, and I thought it might be a good idea to take a Dramamine. Of course it made me drowsy, so I needed to take a little nap. I later found out that it was during this time that Dick and my parents had walked out of the car (to admire another overlook) and he asked for their permission to marry me! I really loved that he did this. They were very surprised, and apparently, took a few seconds to give him their answer!

My first thought was to blog about the news immediately, but Dick reminded me that we should wait until we saw his family, and made some phone calls before we "put it up on the internet". Of course, he was right, so I waited until we had called my family in CA, and saw his family later that week in Chapel Hill.

So, that's it. That's the story.
That's all the info we have for now.
We don't have a date yet, but we'll keep everyone posted on the progress.

Gadgets that Rock when you're traveling!

We just came back from a week in North Carolina! (more on that later).
Our flights went really well - we flew direct from SFO to Charlotte, NC.

Here are some things that we brought that made a HUGE difference on the flights:

1. iPod - 40GB of music. it simply Rocks.
2. noise-cancelling headphones. These were wonderful! I used it with my iPod, to watch the inflight movie, and even to just lesson the noise of the airplane.
3. GPS - this may sounds somewhat ridiculous, but really, it was fabulous! Dick got this great Streets & Trips software with a GPS Locator, and installed it on his laptop before we left. When we were on the plane, we just attached the GPS devite to the window, and voila: we could see where in the world we were! It was so cool! It showed where we were, what our altitude was, how fast we were going, etc., It was also very handy to have as we were driving around the mountains, and across the state.
4. a power adapter for the plane/car. We were able to keep Dick's laptop charged during the entire flight, and also when we were driving around. It was really nice to not have to worry about the battery running low.
5. FOOD - We flew in coach, and you just never know what kind of food you'll be served. I planned ahead, and made sandwiches, chips, carrot sticks, and rice crispy treats for the trip. Turns out, our airline (US Air) doesn't provide food anymore, although you do have the option to pay $7-10 for a meal. Our bag-lunched worked out great!
6. Water. You just can't have too much of it on a flight.

Domestically Challenged

I just picked up an iron today for the first time in several years.
Really.

Generally speaking, I don't iron at all. I intentionally don't buy clothes that need to be ironed.
This is kind of funny, given the fact that my sister claims that she irons almost every day.
Some genes just aren't shared.

I figure it's been at least 3 years that I've ironed anything. I know this because that's about how long I've been living with Dick. I used his iron today, and realized that it was my first time because I had to really look at it to figure out how to configure the settings.

To make matters just a tad more embarrassing: I'm not even sure that the ironing that I did today would even be considered "real ironing". I ironed some placemats that I just washed yesterday. They looked so sad and wrinkly, that I had no choice but to press them.

Does ironing a flat, rectangular piece of cloth count as actual "ironing"?

Stay on Target

Can't. Stop. Playing.

We've been playing an awful lot of Star Wars Battlefront.
We played last night with Reeves & Pete, and then again with Pete for a few games tonight.
It's addicting.
Good Star Wars fun!

We'll be going back to Shan's pad tomorrow night to watch "The Empire Strikes Back".

I am once again a full-fledged Star Wars Geek.
I'm going to have visions of AT-ATs dancing in my head tonight.

Star Wars: Battlefront... Full Version

Okay -I caved again. Dick and I ordered Star Wars: Battlefront for Xbox on amazon.com last weekend, but it hasn't come yet. Actually, it hasn't even been shipped yet, so it could be a couple of more weeks.

Today, on my home from the gallery, I went to EB Games, and picked up a copy. We figure that we'd need two copies anyway (so we can play multiplayer/Xbox Live) so we might as well get another copy NOW!

Wow.

It is fabulous.

Everything you'd want out of a Star Wars game. We were playing stormtroopers, and rebels. We were riding Tauntauns, and flying Snowspeeders. We even saw Darth Vader running around. It was SO COOL!

..I haven't been this excited about a new game since we got Halo! really.

go out and buy this game so we can all play online!

It's a blog-miracle!

I just realized that Dick's blog has been updated more recently than mine!
uh-oh. how'd that happen? ;)

A9.com

am I the only one who wasn't hip to A9.com?

I think it's fairly new, so I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt.

Dick just showed it to me. It's very cool. It's a combination of amazon.com and google.com. I don't know much about it - perhaps it's a partnership of sorts?

Anyway, you type in a search, and it brings up the following results: web, books, images, movies, reference, history, bookmarks & Diary. Very cool. I did a trial-run and typed in "Raggedy Ann" and it came up with all kinds of good stuff. Even found some of my own paintings on page 2 when I looked under "images". wild.

bonus: Dick just made a purchase from amazon.com. When he checked-out, it gave him a 1% discount for being a A9.com user!

Star Wars: Battlefront

I popped in the Bonus DVD from the Star Wars DVD set into the Xbox this morning.

First impression: Star Wars Battlefront rocks.

We played split-screen, so we could both play.

It's not quite as elegant looking as Halo or GR, but it's pretty darn good. It's especially good if you're a Star Wars Fan.

good news: it is Live enabled!

so that means that all of you (and you know who you are: Pete, Omar, Reeves, Mike, Rob, Martin & Shan) need to go out and buy this game so we can all play online together! it's like GR: you can play against, or with each other. You can also choose whether you want to be with the empire, or a rebel. There are several characters to choose from (yes, you can play a Wookie, and yes, you can shoot the Ewoks).

try it: you'll like it. ;)

4-way Stop

I'm pretty sure that no one else would find this intersting, but I'm very happy about it.

I noticed last week that a 4-way stop was placed at the intersection of 23rd Street and Castro.

This is big news. I used to drive through that intersection all of the time. It was inbetween my place, and both houses where Dick used to live. The problem was that it was a stop for those of us on 23rd street, but not a stop for those on Castro. It was a steep hill on Castro, and was a horrible intersection! It was difficult to see whether or not traffic was coming, and it was confusing for all drivers. It always seemed like it should be a 4-way stop.

I used to say (only half-kidding) that this intersection would be the death of me someday.

Dick and I (and my family) have figured out all routes to/from our house to avoid that intersection!

Anyway, I'm sure that there have been many accidents in that intersection over the years. I'm relieved that the city has done something about it.

My Monitor is two-timing on me!

Dick just bought a new PC. I've adopted his old PC, which he's had for about 4 years now . I like to use it to check for platform/browser differences on my web sites, and I also run Quickbooks on it.

I have a HUGE desk, but alas, it is already full of stuff, and I didn't have room for another monitor.

Now, I know that this is old news for all of you uber-geeks, but this is new news to me, so bear with me....

Dick got a cool switch that hooks up one monitor to two computers.

What does it all mean?

You may remember that I have my trusty-rusty Powerbook laptop connected to my 17" monitor. I also have my Powerbook connected to a full-size keyboard and mouse.

This switch allows me to have my 17" monitor connected to my Powerbook, as well as to my new PC. With a flip of the switch, my 17" monitor, keyboard and mouse can go from working with my Mac, to working with my PC!

It's pretty cool.

I was trying to figure out how I was going to fit another monitor onto my desk. Now I won't have to! (and Dick gets to keep his 15" monitor, and use it as a double monitor on his new PC. (along with the super, humungous, Bad Ass 20" monitor he just got).

check it out:
one second it's a second monitor for my Mac, the next, it's a monitor for my PC!



It's pretty cool. The only problem is that when it's switched to my Mac, I have my monitor settings at 1280x1024. When it's in this mode, it shows faint, gray vertical lines in any body of white. (it does not have this issue when it's set to 1024x768.) Kind of annoying. I'm trying to decide if i can live with it or not, or if I should just physically switch out the monitor cables for the times that I use a PC. Kind of a pain, but it might be worth it. It's also possible that if we buy a newer, better switch, that this problem will be remedied.

Does anyone have any input on this?

update
9/25/04

we just bought a newer, smaller, cooler switch. It all works fine now - the monitor resolution problem has been fixed. This newer switch also allows me to use "hotkeys" to switch from computer to computer so I can make the switch without having to reach around and press any buttons on the device.

More Star Wars DVD info

Easter egg Instructions

Movie Discs

Each movie disc has a set of 3 different animated menu schemes, patterned around the major worlds visited in each film. The different menu sets are randomly accessed when you boot up the disc. However, it is possible to directly access each scheme individually with the use of special codes. During the Attention warning screen on each movie disc, try entering the following codes with your remote:

Code 1 - "Audio"
Code 2 - "2"
Code 3 - "10+", "2" (or "12" depending on your player), then "2" again

Each of these should allow you to access a different specific menu scheme on the movie discs.

Bonus Disc

To access a Star Wars Trilogy gag reel, go to the Video Game & Still Galleries menu page. Using your remote, press "10+", "1" (or "11" depending on your player) and wait for the pause as the player accepts the input (note that a small box next to R2-D2 will illuminate if you're on the right track). Then press "3" and wait for the pause. Finally, press "8".

Look also for additional outtake clips during the credits of The Characters of Star Wars featurette, and funny lightsaber spoof clips during the credits of The Birth of the Lightsaber featurette. You don't have to do anything to access them other than watch the featurettes.

Halo for Wookies

That's a direct quote from the review of the new video game "Star Wars: Battlefront"

I assume that it's a one player only game, and since it's available on all platforms, it's definitely not LIVE enabled. oh well. there's a game demo that came with the DVD set. We'll have to check it out.

A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away......

for those of you who have been living under a rock, the Star Wars DVD Set is being released TODAY! :)

I've had it on my amazon wish-list for months. I've been trying to be good - thinking I'll just keep it on my wish list, and wait until Christmas to (hopefully) receive it as a gift.

But, honestly, I'm not sure if I can wait until then!
I read a review about it this morning, and all of a sudden, I had that "I've got to have it now" sensation run through me.

My sister and I were just talking about "retro t-shirts" the other day. She was digging through some of her drawers at my parent's house, and came across some great t-shirt from the late 70s/early 80's. They still fit! They're great: she found her old soccor uniform from when she was in 6th grade (I kid you not) and a "Lake Tahoe '81" shirt. Both are baby blue. How retro. I was thinking that there would be ONE shirt that I saved for a long time, but I have a feeling is gone by now. I had an old t-shirt with Princess Leia on it from the original Star Wars film. It was really, really big for me at the time (I was like, 8) but there's a chance it would fit like a baby-T now. have to go look for it.

But I digress.... back to the Star Wars DVD set. Shan had mentioned that he pre-ordered it, and said he'd have us all over to his place to watch it this week. I really hope this happens! Shan has a fabulous loft here in the City. He has a projection HDTV set up that projects the TV on his wall to be something like 8x6 feet. and he has a great sound system. I am all over it.

I just might bring my "Star Wars Trivia Pursuit" game with us - that would be fun.

uh-oh. The Star Wars geek in me is really coming out....

did I ever mention that I have 2 large boxes full of all of my original Star Wars toys and action figures? They're in my Mom's closet at their house. I started collecting the action figures when I was in 2nd grade - pretty cool for a girl. I had all of the action figures from the first movie - included the often-coveted Boba Fett. I also have some of the playsets, some of the ships, and all of the die-cast metal ships. those are so cool. I pulled them out a few years ago when Episode I came out.

Oh, and have you ever seen this? Star Wars ASCIIMation - it's fabulous.

..and now that I've released the inner Star Wars geek in me, I feel the need to run out to Costco to buy the DVD set.....

update

I have no will power.

I totally caved.

who was I kidding? (well, no one, it turns out) ;)

After I posted this blog, my Mom called saying "I can't believe you didn't order it! My copy is being shipped to me today!"

then I IM'ed Dick letting him know that it was coming out today. He said "Why haven't you gone out to buy it yet?"

So, I checked out the prices online. Amazon.com had it for $41.99 no tax, free shipping. but, since I'm lame, that would mean that I would have to wait a week for delvery.

Costco had it for $43.99 plus tax.

Best Buy had it for $42.99, plus you get the "Star Wars Insider" Magazine thrown in! ;)

so, it was off to Best Buy! I got there at 10:30, and it was swarmed with people. I got in line, and noticed that I was the only girl. lol. What's with that?

So now I have The Star Wars Trilogy DVD Set - Widescreen in my hot little hands. I guess I'll have to wait for Dick to come home before I pop it in. ;)

My friend's husband is in a tiny little clip on the Bonus DVD - he was at Grauman's Chinese Theater on opening day of the Phantom Meanace. I'll have to look for him.

...and while we're talking about it...

Did I ever tell you about my trip to Skywalker Ranch? It was several years ago - way back in September '98. I found an old email that I sent out to friends... ah, the days before blogging.

here goes....


From: Trina Chow
Date: Wed Sep 16 22:47:21 1998
Subject: Geek Alert!

Just wanted to share my best "celebrity sighting" yet:
Today, I went to Skywalker Ranch (Yes, of the Star Wars fame) for lunch and a tour.
We have a friend/client of the gallery who is one of the lead animators there.

So, guess who sat at the table next to us during the entire time that we ate
lunch????!!! (And, by the end of the meal, we were the only two tables left)

?
?
?
?
?

Yes, the big man himself!!! We were a mere table away from GEORGE LUCAS!! Ah yes,
the Star Wars Geek's Dream. No, I didn't embarrass myself - no autographs, no
pictures, no dropped jaws. It was just a very cool experience.

We noticed when we first entered the dining room that there were various tables
with reservations signs posted on them, and that the one by the fireplace read
"Reserved for George". We figured that they must keep that sign there all the time
for him. The restaurant itself isn't very large, and our table wasn't ready for us
when we first arrived. So, we got a tour of the main building - saw lots of great
props from the films: C3PO's hands, a model figurine of Bobba Fett, and Jabba the
Hut, Indiana Jone's Whip, etc. We eventually sat down to eat, and less than 5
minutes later, in walks George Lucas!

So, that was my day. Not bad.

The joy of having two kitchens

There are so many wonderful things that I just love about our house.

We had a small gathering today for Dick's birthday. We had a few friends come over for a BBQ and dessert.

I call the upstairs kitchen the "staging kitchen" whenever we have parties. We don't use it much otherwise, but when we do use it, it's really cool to have! First of all, I'm able to store all of the party food and drink in the kitchen upstairs and not have to worry about running out of room! it's awesome! During the party, I was able to get stuff ready for dinner upstairs, and bring it down when we were ready to eat. We also kept the dessert upstairs until we were ready for it downstairs.

I also keep all our of party supplies upstairs in the cabinets. It's awfully handy whenever I need to pul out the paper plates, serving trays, or plastic utensils!

it's such an unusual luxery that you wouldn't even think about unless you happened to have an extra kitchen. And really, how many people have 2 kitchens in one little house?

Funny thing... Love the His 'n Her Condos! ;)

Good Earthquake Tips

My sister just sent this to me over email. It was the first email that I've recevied in a very long time that I actually thought was important enough to pass along.


EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP'S ARTICLE ON THE "TRIANGLE OF LIFE"

Edited by Larry Linn for MAA Safety Committee brief on 4/13/04.

My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the
American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced
rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an
earthquake. I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with
rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several
countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries. I
was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation (UNX051 -UNIENET)
for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world since
1985, except for simultaneous disasters.

In 1996 we made a film which proved my survival methodology to be
correct.

The Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul, University of
Istanbul, Case Productions and ARTI cooperated to film this practical,
scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins
inside. Ten mannequins did "duck and cover," and ten mannequins I used
in my "triangle of life" survival method. After the simulated earthquake
collapse we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film
and document the results. The film, in which I practiced my survival
techniques under directly observable, scientific conditions, relevant to
building collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival
for those doing 'duck and cover'. There would likely have been 100
percent survivability for people using my method of the "triangle of
life." This film has been seen by millions of viewers on television in
Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was seen in the USA, Canada and
Latin America on the TV program 'Real TV'.

The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City
during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under their desk. Every
child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have
survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was
obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the
aisles. I didn't at the time know that the children were told to hide
under something.

Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings
falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects,
leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the
"triangle of life". The larger the object, the stronger, the less it
will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the
greater the probability that the person who is using this void for
safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings,
on television, count the "triangles" you see formed. They are
everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed
building. They are everywhere.

I trained the Fire Department of Trujillo (population 750,000) in how to
survive, take care of their families, and to rescue others in
earthquakes. The chief of rescue in the Trujillo Fire Department is a
professor at Trujillo University. He accompanied me everywhere. He gave
personal testimony: "My name is Roberto Rosales. I am Chief of Rescue in
Trujillo. When I was 11 years old, I was trapped inside of a collapsed
building. My entrapment occurred during the earthquake of 1972 that
killed 70,000 people. I survived in the "triangle of life" that existed
next to my brother's motorcycle. My friends who got under the bed and
under desks were crushed to death [he gives more details, names,
addresses, etc.]...I am the living example of the "triangle of life". My
dead friends are the example of "duck and cover".

TIPS DOUG COPP PROVIDES:
1) Everyone who simply "ducks and covers" WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSE is
crushed to death -- Every time, without exception. People who get under
objects, like desks or cars, are always crushed.

2) Cats, dogs and babies all naturally often curl up in the fetal
position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural
safety/survival instinct You can survive in a smaller void. Get next to
an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will
compress slightly but leave a void next to it.

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during
an earthquake. The reason is simple: the wood is flexible and moves with
the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large
survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less
concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into
individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed
bodies than concrete slabs.

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply
roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can
achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a
sign on the back of the door of every room, telling occupants to lie
down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.

5) If an earthquake happens while you are watching television and you
cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down
and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

6) Everybody who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed.
How? If you stand under a doorway and the door jamb falls forward or
backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls
sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you
will be killed!

7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different "moment of
frequency" (they swing separately from the main part of the
building).The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump
into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The
people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair
treads. They are horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesn't
collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the
building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the
earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by screaming,
fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the
rest of the building is not damaged.

8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible
- It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than
the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of
the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be
blocked.

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls
in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what
happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The
victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their
vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by
getting out and sitting or lying next to their vehicles, says the
author. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get
out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had
voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns
fall directly across them.

10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices
and other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact.
Large voids are found surrounding stacks of paper.

Pictures from Spain

I just finished uploading some pictures from our vacation to Spain. I did a quickie job – just to get it up quickly. I didn’t take much time to edit – sorry!

Click here to see the pictures

Enjoy!

Now available on Ebay: "Trina Chow"

I just got a random email from ebay:

New items have been found on eBay matching your search named trina chow.
Search run on Sep-15-04 09:14:37 PDT

New Items Found for trina chow
  1 item found for 'trina chow'

Here's a link to the item

I didn't even know that I had a search going for my name. Funny.

if you actually want to read the article that this is referring to, you can see it on my Raggedy Ann Site. It's under the navigation bar titled "Target the Family Article".

Everyone is blogging these days...

Willo told me about this (very funny) blog

Don't show my kitties! they may want to start one of their own! ;)

Adjusting to time zones...

So far, this whole jet lag thing hasn't been too bad for this trip. I'm a big fan of jumping right in to a time zone, whenever possible. I figure that after a long flight, your body is wacked out so much that you just have to re-train it immediately to the new time zone. (granted, that certainly doesn't always work!)

When we arrived in Spain last week, we had been traveling for almost 24 hours straight - flying from SFO to Heathrow, taking a bus to Gatwick, waiting at Gatwick for a few hours, the flight to Malaga, cab to bus station, bus ride to Granada, cab from bus station to apartment. I think we got to our apartment by 6:00pm or so. We freshened up, and took a bus into town to have dinner and explore the city a little. We probably got to bed by midnight, and I think we slept in 'til 11:00am the next day. We didn't have any issues with jet-lag on that end of the trip. Dick was a little tired on Wednesday afternoon, but he pulled through it. We usually didn't get to bed until well after midnight - such a Spanish thing to do! I'm sure that it helped that we slept in until 9:00 - 11:00am each morning whenever we could. It was nice having such a leisurely vacation.

On our way home, our flight landed at 6:00pm. Dick slept on the plane for 4-5 hours. I probably got about 2 hours in early on. We came home, had a small dinner, and got to bed by 9:00. We woke up around 6:00, and did pretty well throughout the day. We both got a little tired around 3:00, but kept on going. We fell asleep around 9:30 last night, and I got up around 5:00 this morning.

That's not too bad considering that the time difference between here and Spain is 9 hours.

Today is both of our first days back to work. Dick will be getting on the 7:15 Caltrain, and I'll be going to the gallery later on in the late morning.

We'll see how today goes!

Happy Birthday Dick!

Happy Birthday to my Sweetie! :)

Dick has the day off, so we'll spend the last day of our vacation celebrating his birthday.
It looks like it's going to be beautiful out today - time to hop on the Vespa!

Home Sweet Home

We're home! Our flight got took off about an hour late, but we managed to land at 6:00pm. My wonderful Mom picked us up at the airport and drove us home.

We had a nice leisurely morning, and checked out of our hotel at 11:15am. We walked about 5 blocks to the nearest Tube Station, and took the Picadilly Line all the way to Heathrow. It was definately the way to go! No worries about traffic, or slow drivers ;).

We managed to get upgraded to Business Class again - very exciting! The flight went well. I slept for the first hour or so, and stayed awake after that. I thought it might be best, so I can sleep through the night tonight. I watched three movies: "Godsend", "The Stepford Wives" and "Raising Helen". All were fine, but definately not worth paying full price for!

So, that's it for now. I'll post some pictures from our trip over the next couple of days.

London, baby, LONDON!

Greetings from the land of MINIs! :) I've seen several dozen already, and we've only been here for a few hours.

We had a very nice last day in Spain yesterday. We went out to the main touristy destination area of Marbella, and gawked at all of the enormous yatchs. Dick decided to stay at the apartment to relax, while Rob, Andrew & I drove up to their new house in the hills. It's a gorgeous building that they've been working on for two years (to the day). It's almost complete, and they're very excited.

We woke up early this morning (6:30am) had a quick breakfast, and left for the Malaga airport at 7:30. The drive back was uneventful (thankfully) and we made it in plenty of time. The return flight on EasyJet was good as well.

After a painfully slow hired drive to our hotel, we managed to check into the Cranley Hotel (Located in Kensington) at 2:30pm. Our room is lovely, and I'm looking forward to relaxing in it this evening.

Dick and I dropped our stuff off and decided to head out to explore the area. We ate at a lovely little cafe, then made our way to Kensington Gardens. The weather held up well (no rain) and we walked around for a couple of hours. We managed to (finally) find the new Memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales. It's a very clever design, and I was happy to see it.

We're walking back to our hotel now, and happened upon this convenient Internet Cafe. (I love these things.

Our flight leaves Heathrow tomorrow around 2:30pm. We'll be leaving here around 11:00 - probably catching a cab to Paddington Station, and taking the Heathrow Express Train from there. I'll be on the lookout to see if I can find the "actual" Paddinton Bear there - do you think Dick would let me bring him home? ;)

That's all for now - we'll see you all again when we're back home Monday evening.

Semana Fantastica!

"Semana Fantastica!" That was a slogan that we saw at a department store in Granada - they were promoting their back-to-school sale. We thought it was an appropriate way to sum up our vacation - "Fantastic Week!" ;)

We enjoyed our last days in Granada. Dick and I made it to the Cathedral in Granada, which was beautiful and interesting. We also took a long walk and admired the Moorish architecture. Our last evening was spent with Adrianne's Spanish mother and brother, and one of her friends from school. The 7 of us went out for a nice dinner, and enjoyed each other's company. Adrianne's "brother", David, is quite a character. We had a great time getting to know him with our broken Spanish, and his broken English. We went to bed around 1:00am, which is apparently early in the Spanish culture. Adrianne and David went out to a rock concert, which didn't even start until 1:00am, and then went out dancing afterwards. Adrianne said she didn't even get to bed until 5:00am, and woke up at 7:00 to meet us at 8:45. poor thing.

We woke up early on Friday morning, just in time to say goodbye to Richard, who had to leave for his 9:00am class. Adrianne came by around 8:45, and the three of us went out for Churro & Chocolate - possibly the best breakfast known to man. We had churros a few days earlier, but I made the mistake of not ordering the chocolate. I had assumed it was like a hot chocolate, but it turns out that it's more like a thick, chocolate sauce that you dip the churro in. DELICIOUS?!!

We got our luggage from the apartment, and caught a cab to the Avis rental car office Downtown. We got our car (I have no idea what kind of car it is!) and made our way out of Granada, and onto the freeway! This was Dick's first experience driving Internationally, and he did very well! we just kept following the signs to Malaga, and then Marbella, and managed to find our way to Rob & Andrew's vacation rental without getting lost! It took about 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Rob & Andrew's vacation property is absolutely gorgeous. It is truly luxurious. We've been completely pampered here. We spent the afternoon laying out by the pool, and walking along the Mediterranean. We'll be going out later this afternoon to look at their new house that they've been building for the last two years. I'm excited to see it.

We'll be driving back to Malaga tomorrow morning to catch our 10:30am flight to London. We should arrive in London around Noon, and will have the entire day to do some relaxing and quick sight-seeing.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. We went to a grocery store today, and finally managed to find some "Trina" softdrinks! We bought a couple of cans to try - one orange, and one lemon. (they also had pina colada, and pineapple) As Dick says, "That's a lot of Trina" ;)