Old friends & Ice Cream

In one of those rare instances of last-minute/spontaneous planning, I got together with two old friends from high school, and their families this afternoon!

Kimi was my only friend who I have stayed in touch with over the many years since high school, but through the two HS reunions, and the wonder that is Facebook, we have both managed to reconnect with many old school friends over the past few years and months.

I hadn't seen our friend, Tim, since, well, graduation in June of 1987. He also lives in San Francisco, with his wife and two sons - ironically, we only live a mile or so away from each other.

Kimi and Tim's mutual friend from college, Mike Wertz, is an illustrator, and was signing copies of his latest book, Singing for A Curious Collection of Cats, at a local bookstore in Bernal Heights this afternoon.

Kimi mentioned to me that she and her family were going to be going, and asked if I'd like to join them, and also meet up with our old friend, Tim and his son.

I was a little late to the book signing, but got there in time to listen to the music, and enjoy a nice visit with friends.

We found a local ice-cream store on Cortland, where Kimi's husband, Manuel, treated us all to ice cream cones. What a nice time!

Dancing the Night Away

My Mom, working at the Registration Table

Tonight was the "Dancing the Night Away" event benefiting Kristi Yamaguchi's Always Dream Foundation, and the Always Dream PlayPark.

My family and I have been working for (website, and some admin stuff) and volunteering for the Foundation for about 12 years now. We have a big fund raising event almost every year, but I think this year's was the biggest, and I believe the most successful.

It was a really great evening: Cocktail reception, live auction, and a grand ballroom for dinner and a show. We had professional dancers and celebrity dancers from "Dancing with the Stars" perform an hour and a half show. The show was fantastic.

I was helping out behind the scenes this year, with a few other volunteers, making sure the dancers and celebrities had everything they needed, and giving them their cues for getting to the stage on time.

It seems like everything went smoothly, and like everyone had a really great time. Congratulations to the Always Dream Foundation on another successful event. All proceeds from the event are going to the construction of the Always Dream PlayPark, which will be built in Fremont, CA this summer!

Time to say goodbye

On a sunny Memorial Day afternoon, we decided to bury the ashes of our dear, sweet kitty, Marcel.

It has been just over 2 months since Marcel passed away, but we've been holding off from burying his ashes until the time felt right.

Today, it felt right. Maybe it was because the sun was out for the first time in 3 days, creating a nice sunbeam in the exact spot where we've been planning to bury him: underneath the Japanese Maple Tree, surrounded by the pretty purple flowers that have been blooming from the geranium plants.

My parents had brought a few large rocks from their yard for us to choose from to use as the marker. We selected the one that reminded us of a kitty curled up, napping. I painted an "M" on the front - Marcel had an "M" design on his forehead, and we used to always say, "M for Marcel!".

I was very sad as we said goodbye to our Marcel one last time today, but I'm happy remembering all the wonderful memories we have of him.

"Every Little Step"

Wow.

If you've ever seen "A Chorus Line", if you've ever heard the music and loved it, if you've ever danced, if you've ever auditioned for anything... you should see this film. (How's that for a rave review?)

After reading a review, and especially after talking with my friend, Philip, I knew that Dick and I had to see this film.

"A Chorus Line" is Dick's favorite musical, and it's up there on my list, too (since I finally saw a performance of it last year). If you know Dick, you should ask him about his first experience seeing "A Chorus Line" in London's West End when he was about 14 or 15. It'll explain why he knows the lyrics to every single song.

Seeing this film made me even more bummed than I already was that we missed the Pre-Broadway Production of "A Chorus Line" when it came through San Francisco 3 years ago. Seriously bummed. We had tickets and everything, but unfortunately, I was sick that day, with what turned out to be the precursor to my appendicitis.

We did manage to see the touring production of it when it came through San Francisco last July. It was fantastic, but I really wish we had been able to see the original Broadway (revival) cast.

This documentary was so well done - I can't say enough about it. I'm so glad they made it. If it's showing in your area, (my poor sister - it's not showing in Vegas!) I highly recommend going out to see it.

testing my new webhosting service

checking to see if everything has propagated...

Back in the swing of things...

9th hole at Golden Gate Park

This afternoon, Dick and I headed out to Golden Gate Park to play a round of 9-hole golf. I haven't played since September, when I developed tendinitis (golf arm, apparently) in both of my arms. I've been trying to be very careful since then, and they are much better now then they have been in a while. I still notice them once in a while, but not nearly as bad, or as often.

I managed to make it through the game pretty well, all things considered. I played a pretty average game for me, which I was thrilled with. No pars, but no lost balls either, so I'll take it!

Hopefully, my arms won't hate me in the morning. We'll see how it goes. I was really happy to be out playing again!

House of Prime Rib!!

We're having dinner tonight with my parents at HoPR!! Yum!!

Tomatoes in San Francisco?

I've heard of stranger things. Let's see how this goes! Thanks to my
Mom and Dad for helping me out in backyard today!

Groundbreaking Celebration of the Always Dream PlayPark

This morning, I had the honor to attend the Always Dream PlayPark Ground Breaking Celebration. It was very exciting.

The PlayPark has been in the planning stages for nearly 4 years, and construction should start within the month. The PlayPark is the vision of Kristi Yamaguchi - it will be a playground in her hometown of Fremont where kids with and without disabilities will be able to play together.

The goal is to have the PlayPark finished by the end of the summer.
More information about the PlayPark, and Kristi's Always Dream Foundation.

"Guys & Dolls"

I'm helping out backstage tonight for a production of "Guys & Dolls"
that my 12 year old niece is in. Here she is in her fancy costume. :)

New Harry Potter Trailer

My Mom had just mentioned to me last week that she hadn't seen a new trailer for the new movie in a while. :)

Riding on the Metro

We're trying to take the MUNI Metro downtown, but all of the cars have
been full with the Bay to Breakers aftermath. Here are a couple of
Elvis zipping away...

The view from my rear view mirror...

I met Dick and Andy for lunch at the Cliff House after they finished playing their round of golf. (I'm still nursing tendinitis in both my arms, in case you're wondering why I wasn't playing.)

Dick and I drove separate cars on the way home - not very green, I know, but we came from two separate places. It's absolutely gorgeous in SF today - sunny, clear and high 70s. We drove home along Highway 1.

When I came to a stop light for a turning lane onto Sloat, I noticed that Dick was stopped immediately behind me. :)

Dick playing Golf at Lincoln Park

I'm kind of cheating, because I'm not actually there to take the photo, but Andy just posted this picture of Dick on the 17th hole at Lincoln Park.



What a great photo! The view doesn't get much better than that, does it?

Today is Dick's first attempt at playing an 18-hole course! I hope he enjoyed it!

Omar was right...

This is the line at Comcast this morning. I don't think the picture
shows it, but it's at least 20 people deep. I arrived at 9:10am - I
figured that was pretty safe since it opens at 9:00. I guess there's
no good time to come. There are a lot of grumpy people here.

Is this because I said that I wouldn't drink the Kook-Aid?

Oh, come on! How many Mac problems am I supposed to have in one week?

Ugh.

Has anyone else had this problem?

karma?

update
Well, that wasn't so bad.

found this article online, and tried the following fix:

I opened iSync in the Applications folder. (You can find that by clicking on the Finder, usually to the far left of the dock/toolbar at the bottom of the screen.) Then I went to the top of the screen and clicked "iSync", then "Preferences" then Reset Sync History. This totally solved the problem.

"Hi, I'm a Mac, but here's one of the things that Apple doesn't tell you about..."

So, yes, I am a Mac. I've been using the Mac since 1984, and I've never owned a PC.

I'm a huge fan of Apple products in general.

With that said, I love my Mac, but I refuse to drink the Kool-Aid.

Over the years, I've learned that not all things Apple vs. PC are black and white. This probably has a lot to do with me becoming a little more open-minded and educated about the world of PCs from my hubby, who used to work at Apple, worked on Mac products for several years, is still a fan, but (gasp) has been using a PC for several years now.

Let's set the record straight:

Not all Macs/Apple products are fail safe, and without problems
and...
PCs are not the evil entities that they are sometimes made out to be.

It's just not that simple.

Case in point: I'm on my third Mac laptop. I had a Powerbook (Wallstreet) that I bought in 1999, G3 Powerbook that I bought in 2003, and my current MacBook Pro that I've had since June 2007.

This last MacBook Pro has had it's fair share of problems (which have all been documented on this blog). I've had to bring it in twice to have the hard drive restored, had the battery replaced, and needed two new logic boards.

I just got it back two days ago with the newest logic board.

Good news: it seems to be much faster now, which is fantastic, and the monitor issues have been fixed.

Bad news: (and here's what Apple doesn't tell you...)

When you've been using Apple's Time Machine to back up your computer routinely, but you need to send you computer in for a new logic board, when you get your computer back, it doesn't recognize your old Time Machine files.

Not that this is a huge deal. The easy solution is that you just wipe out your old Time Machine back ups, and start fresh. Meh.

But, isn't that what Apple and Time Machine are all about? Ease of use.

The problem with Time Machine is that it's so simple that it's very limited on what you're actually able to control. Basically, you can turn it off or on, and you can specify the location of the external drive that you want to back up to. Pretty limited.

Anyhow, I called Apple Support to see if there was some way that they could help me find some hidden settings somewhere in my preferences to link my computer back to my old Time Machine Files.

The first person I spoke to was very nice, and helpful in the sense that she passed me along to another person who was more of an expert in such things. He admitted that this is an ongoing problem, and that in all of the cases that he's had, he's never been able to successfully walk a person through the process over the phone. It's just too complicated. Why? because it involves opening a terminal window, and doing a bunch of UNIX programming to sort things out.

Many moons ago, I worked at Sun Microsystems and learned the very basics of UNIX. Probably not enough to get me through this, though.

He offered to find a computer repair store in my city where I could bring my computer and my external drive, and they could fix it relatively quickly for a small fee. Hmmm.. I asked why I couldn't go to the Genius Bar at an Apple store, and he said that I could, but that it would take a lot longer to get in, and the people helping me may or may not be able to complete this successfully.

Now, luckily, I just happen to live with one of the most brilliant computer scientists I've ever met, and he has plenty of experience in many computer languages, including UNIX. I told the Apple Care rep this, and he suggested that Dick do a google search to find some instructions on how to solve this problem using UNIX.

So, we did just that. Dick found this helpful site:
10.5: Repair Time Machine after logic board changes, read the instructions, took many notes, typed in a lot of code, and eventually got it all up and running.

For the record, I took a screen shot of the UNIX code that he wrote. Not that I expect anyone to read or understand it, but I wanted to point out how incredibly difficult this would be for the average Joe Mac User to be able to pull this off.


UNIX gobbily gook

If Apple/Mac is always tooting about how simple their products are supposed to be, how is it that this is the second time I've had this problem in just over a year? And, even if it's a complete fluke that I had to have a logic board replaced, why is it so difficult to point my computer back to my Time Machine files so that I can have access to my back up files again?

Don't believe the hype.

No computer brand is trouble free.
There are no perfect computers manufacturers.
There are no evil computer manufacturers.

Companies make computers, and they all have issues.

The scene I came home to tonight....

... Dick, playing Xbox Live with Reeves, while Noe supervises. :)

Mom & Sis!

My sister is home for the day (yay!) so my Mom and I are spending the
day with her in Oakland! First stop: Oakland Grill for breakfast/lunch!

Star Trek

Wow.

Best. Star Trek. Movie. Ever.

Do Not Disturb

Please do not disturb the cute, little, fluffy kitty who has been
sleeping in the bed all day.

It's so hard being Noe. ;)

MacLemon

Good Grief.

This is what a diagnosis test result looks like when you have a bad video chip, and you have to replace the entire logic board, which had already been replaced a year ago.

I have AppleCare, but it's still going to take 3-6 days to be repaired.

I am just about ready to toss this computer out the window.

San Francisco Fog

It was clear at my house, but this is what I saw as I drove to the
other side of Twin Peaks. (about 10 minutes away.)

Gotta love those San Francisco micro climates !

Spontaneous and random family gatherings

Cousin Bruce and Auntie Lani

In a fun and random chain of events, I managed to spend some nice quality time with two of my relatives today!

My Auntie Lani called me just after noon today, asking if I had lunch plans. She was in town for a conference and was able to leave a little early. She came over after 1:00, and we decided to head over to Queen Malika for crepes.

When we walked into the cafe, and told her that this was a favorite spot for Dick and me, and also that my cousin, Bruce, was a frequent customer here as well.

Auntie and I had a really nice, long, one-on-one visit. We don't get to do this very often, and we both enjoy it so much.

About 1.5 hours later, I saw Auntie's eyes light up, and she waved to someone outside the window.

Yep - Cousin Bruce was coming in! It was very funny. He usually stops by Queen Malika a couple of times a week, when he's in town, to get some work done. When he walked in today, he said, "Well, I can see I won't be getting any work done here today!"

The three of us had a nice visit - Bruce and I tried to explain the difference between Facebook and Twitter to Auntie, and also how each of them are used. It was fun.

A very Happy Belated Birthday, to my dear cousin, Bruce. (he hit a milestone yesterday.)

Happy Birthday, Boo!


Auntie Lani & Trina (taken by Bruce, and posted on his Twitter feed)

Two Chinese Sisters and their Tall White Boys

We returned from Vegas on Thursday, but I only got around to posting my photos from our vacation today.

I really like this photo of the four of us having dinner at Bouchon Wednesday evening.