I'm baaaack!

Oh my.
Where to start.....

My vacation was absolutely incredible. A fun, fun time was had by all.
Here now is my attempt to actually capture a small amount of the fun and craziness in one consolidated write-up.

Thusday: I flew out of SFO and arrived in Chicago around 5:30 pm. My friend, Tammy met me at the airport. It should be noted here that Tammy had just returned very early that morning from a 6 day trip to Costa Rica. She arrived at 2:00am, managed to get a couple of hours of sleep, went to work early, left work, and drove directly to the airport to pick me up. Poor thing. She was exhausted. We drove to her Mom's house (where Tammy had slept the night before) to pick up Tammy's car, and had a nice dinner together. We got to Tammy's house around 9:00, and even though we were both wiped out, we managed to stay up past midnight catching up. (After all, I had to see her photos from Costa Rica!)

Note: Time change: I had to set my watch ahead 2 hours. Tammy had to remember to set all of her clocks ahead 1 hour since she hadn't been home since Daylight Savings started.

Friday: slept in a little bit, packed our weekend bags, and headed out for a big breakfast before the big road trip. We had a nice, leisurely drive from the suburbs of Chicago, through Indiana and eventually to Ohio. Along the way, we stopped off at some random truck stop in Indiana that had a Dairy Queen inside! We were drawn to this particular truck stop because of all of the billboards along the way announcing their Log Rolls, and their collection of souvenirs from all 50 states! What a hoot that was. One Dairy Queen Chocolate Covered Cherry Blizzard later, and we were back on the road. We usually stay in the Miamisburg/Dayton Mall area (where I lived in 1989/1990) but the hotels that I liked were sold out this year. Instead, we stayed at The Courtyard Marriott in Beavercreek. Tammy used to live in that area, but we were amazed to see how much it has changed in the last 15 years. (Imagine that) Turns out there's a NEW Mall in this area, and every chain restaurant you could possibly imagine. We check in to our hotel around 9:00pm then head out to a local Chili's for dinner.

Time change #2: set watches ahead another hour. this is getting confusing!

By this time, Tammy and I are remembering that of the best things we can remember about our years of living in Ohio is how nice everyone who lives there is. We had very nice service and help at our hotel, and all of the restaurants that we went to. Another thing I had to get used to was that smoking is still allowed in restaurants/bars. Sitting in the non-smoking section of a restaurant really doesn't do much good.

Saturday: Wake up at 9:00am to meet my friend Rob for breakfast. Rob is my friend from the UK that I've known through color guard since 1988. We've been fortunate enough to see each other almost once a year at WGI. Last September, Dick and I traveled to Spain and spent some good, quality time with Rob, and his (ex) Partner, Andrew. When we picked up Rob from his hotel in Miamisburg, I reminded him that the last time we saw each other was in Spain.... and now here we were in Dayton, OH. Go figure.

We were going to eat at the local Bob Evans, but poor Rob was needing a break from the whole color guard thing, and the restaurant was simply swarming with color guard people. Instead, we decide to get off the beaten track, and we found a lovely mom-and-pop diner in downtown Miamisburg called "Happy Days".

Side note: There's something in water in Miamisburg. It's BIG Hair central. When I lived there, I had the biggest hair ever.

After we eat breakfast, Rob mentions that he doesn't have any afternoon plans, so Tammy and I invite him along to our big Saturday afternoon event: Drive to Kentucky to the GAP Clearance Center!

The Gap Clearance Center was all we remembered it to be: jeans for $9.99 or less, shirts/skirts/sweaters for $7.99. It was great shopping! If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend it! :)

We drove the hour route back to Dayton, had a quick dinner at a TGI Fridays (I'm telling you, it's all about the chain restaurants in Ohio!) then we made our way to World Class Finals at the UD Arena.

Finals started at 6:00, but we got in a little late - 7:30. We made it in for top 4 of Scholastic World, and for all of Independent World. That's 19 guards in all, plus a couple of exhibitions, so it turned out to be PLENTY!

side note: what's in these days in the color guard world? Apparently, straight, long hair is in (and I thought perms were making a comeback!), variety in themes again (thank goodness! no more guard-after-guard of classical music!) crushed velvet is in again? who knew? Oh - really cool, intricate floor designs. Floors have come a long way, baby.

But really, it's no longer about the show for me. I enjoy watching still, but I don't really want to watch more than 20 guards at a time. This must mean that we're getting old, but it's really all about going to Headquarters after the show to socialize and have our annual reunion with friends.

True to form, we stayed at Headquarters until 4:00am this year. You gotta love that. I really love seeing everyone, and feel fortunate that we have a date and venue that we're all at each year.

Sunday: we set our alarm for 11:00am, since check-out is at Noon. One quick big breakfast at the local Bob Evans, and we're off again! We made very good time on the trip home, and made it back to the 'burbs of Chicago by 6:00. We had a wonderful dinner with Eileen and her family at their home. It was the perfect way to end the WGI weekend. (Thanks Eileen!)

Monday: We hooked up with my friend Jason, who had just moved back from 3 months in Australia. We also had dinner with Tammy's new friend who she met on the Costa Rica trip. Jason brought us to a fantastic little Italian restaurant in The Heart of Italy.

Tuesday: We spent the afternoon at one of the coolest museum exhibits I've ever seen:
Body Worlds.
It was fascinating. So well presented, and so educational.
I know that there's a simliar exhibit being presented in San Francisco, and I really can't recommend it enough.

So, that's the very long scoop. Can you tell that I put less and less detail in each day as I wrote? ;) Good to get it all out, though.

Longest. Blog. Post. Ever.
:)

Here are some photos from the trip!

Mid-West Vacation

I'm heading out tomorrow for my semi-annual trek to the mid west.

I'll be flying into Chicago, and staying with my good friend, Tammy.
We'll be driving to Dayton, OH on Friday to attend WGI - Winter Guard International over the weekend. It'll be my 18th trip to the competition since 1986. Egads!

While we're in Dayton, we're going to take a sidetrip to Kentucky. The Gap Clearance Center is there (not to be confused with the Gap Outlet at Outlet Malls). This is very, very exciting. We always find loads of great buys there.

We'll head back to Chicago on Sunday, and will have dinner at our friend, Eileen's house.

I'll be in Chicago for 2 full days - Monday and Tuesday. On one of these days, we'll also have a chance to catch up with Jason, who just returned from 3 months in Austalia. Jason writes travel books and articles for travel magazines. His first book was recently released, and he's starting a whole new series now.

I'm really looking forward to this vacation. It's my chance to see so many old friends, all at the same time. Most of my color guard friends still attend WGI each year, and I'm so happy that we get to spend time with each other year-after-year.

Dick will be staying at home all of this time, of course. For some reason, he doesn't seem to be very interested in coming to Ohio with me to watch color guards! ;) I'm sure he'll be up for some Xbox Live if anyone is interested!

Google Maps

This is so cool!

Type in your address, and see your house via satellite maps!
Cruise around the city, county, state, or country!

GO HEELS!

Horray!

Tar Heels win first national title since 1993

Yes, I stayed out of the room the entire time.
It was stressful enough just waiting in anticipation, and hearing Dick yell from downstairs!

Dick is very happy now, and that makes me happy, too :)

Perhaps now, we can put that whole Santa Clara incident to rest ;)

My boyfriend is a CSS GOD!

We spent a large part of the day yesterday working on a big CSS project together. It was SO helpful for me, and we had loads of fun, too. (isnt' this what most couples do for fun on the weekend?)

I'll just add it to the long list of qualities that I love about him. :)

Spring Forward

Did you set your clocks?

In 1990 my sister and I were living in Dayton, OH for color guard. Our big competition of the year fell on the weekend with the daylight savings time change. Since we were gone all weekend, and other people were in charge of our schedule, we didn't really think about the time change at all. The competition was in Buffalo, NY, so we took a bus, and didn't get home until Monday night.

We completely forgot about the time change.

That Tuesday or Wednesday, we had to return the U-Haul truck (we were moving back to CA) that we had used to bring some of our furniture to a friend's house.

About an hour before the truck was due, we realized that we had totally spaced on the time change, and we only had about 5 minutes to get the truck back, or we'd be charged for an entire extra day!

So we rushed over there, made it just in time, and felt like complete dorks that we had gone a whole 2-3 days without remembering about the time change.

Puttin' in time at 251 Post Street

I've been spending a lot of time at the building on 251 Post Street lately.

The Adler's Gallery is on the 5th floor. We're working on redesigning their 8-year-old site right now, so we've had several meetings lately.

This Wednesday, I spent a few hours at Takada Gallery on the 6th floor. Takada recently had a nice site designed for the gallery, but needed some one-on-one tutorials on Photoshop and Dreamweaver so he can do his own updates. It was a very productive meeting, and he plans to hire me a few more times until he feels more confident.

After my meeting, I walked down to the 5th floor to check-in with Cynde. She suggested that we should try to set up an appointment with the Bridal Salon on the 2nd floor while we had some time. When she called over, they were already booked for the rest of the day, but they suggested that we make an appointment for Friday when they start their 2-day trunk show.

Cynde and I went in yesterday afternoon. I liked many of the designs that they have (which hasn't really happened in any of the stores that I've gone to so far) but I especially liked the designer who they were featuring in their trunk show. We selected about 6 dresses to try on, but I put my favorite one on first. That was it - I found "the dress" :)

Let's hear it for Serendipity!

It's funny, because I thought we have been doing really well with this whole wedding-planning-timeline so far: we've booked our venue, the caterer, the photographer and the band. I figured 6 months was plenty early to start looking for a dress. Well, what do I know! The employees at the Bridal Store said that they'd have to pull some strings and put my order through as a rush to have it made in time. They said they like to plan on 6-9 months to have a dress made and delivered! That's crazy!

There's a really funny story about the style name of the dress that I really want to share. However, if I put it up on my Blog, Dick will know the style name (he already knows the designer) and he'll be able to see what the dress looks like. Oh well, too bad. Remind me, after the wedding, to tell you what the funny style-name story is.

Napolean Dynamite

Just got this off of Bruce's Blog:

Napoleon Dynamite on Letterman

That is just too funny.

If you haven't seen the movie, you really must.
If you're like me, you'll sit there the entire time thinking "this is really odd". Then, you'll start to laugh. Then, you'll wonder if it's okay to laugh. Then you'll remember that you really knew someone like that in high school. And possibly, you may even recognize that there's a little bit of Napoleon Dynamite in each of us.....

Seriously, the movie is even more funny after you've watched then entire thing, and think about it over and over in your head.

Oatmeal Goodness

Lately, I've been on a Oatmeal-for-breakfast kick.

Originally, I was doing the stove-top method. That's how my Mom used to make it for me, so I had this whole comfort-food feeling from it. I'd make it with milk, and watch over it to make sure that the pot didn't boil over.

When Dick's sisters came to visit in January, one of them asked why I didn't cook it in the microwave. I said I was afraid it might boil over, but she told me that's how she did it, and never had that problem.

So then, i started to cook my milk/oatmeal in the microwave for 3 minutes. Still yummy, and less clean-up.

Last week, when Dick's Dad and nephew were here, I made oatmeal for myself 3 times in the microwave. Each time, it boiled over. I was perplexed, as it hadn't happened before.

The last time it happened, I had an "a-ha" moment. (That's when I start to sing a verse of "Take on Me")
I realized that I usually use 1% low-fat milk, and this week I had been using non-fat milk.

Could that really make that much of a difference?

This morning, I was all out of milk, so I went to the store and intentionally bought a pint of 1% low-fat milk.
I came home, measured out my oatmeal & milk, and popped it in the microwave for 3 minutes.

The verdict: no spillage.

So, lesson learned. Who knew?

BTW, I put a little bit of brown sugar and a handful of dried cranberries in my Oatmeal. It's a little something that I learned from a cool cafe that I used to go to by our old house.

Yummy! And good for you, too! (or, at least it's not bad for you!)

Back from the airport

I just came home from dropping Dick's father and nephew off at the airport. We had a very nice visit together, and I'm so glad that they were able to come.

One of my favorite memories will be when Peter said, "I didn't' realize that this trip was going to be so special."
That's pretty sweet when it comes from the mouth of a 6-year-old. :)

One thing I really enjoy about visiting with Dick's family is that I have a chance to know them, and even Dick even more. Dick is very much like his father, and I really enjoy hearing him tell stories about Dick and his siblings from when they were young. Dick's father has always pointed out that Peter reminds him so much of Dick when he was a little boy - he certainly resembles Dick at that age, and has similar mannerisms and interests.

Dick looked at Peter this week, and noticed Peter doing or saying something exactly like Dick would have said when he was young. Dick made a funny comment to his Dad: "I can tell you how this one turns out". :)

Anyhow, a wonderful time was had by all. Peter is looking forward to coming back in the Fall.

Easter Treats

This morning I was blow-drying my hair upstairs, and looking out the window on the side of our house.

I looked across the street to our neighbors house and saw one of their friends driving up on his Harley Davidson motor cycle. He was a big bear of a man.

To my surprise, he was wearing a full pink bunny suit! He didn't have a full mask on, but he had a hood with big, long ears. The best part was that he was wearing his big, huge black leather motorcycle jacket as well.

can you imagine this? :)

He hopped off his bike, and walked up the stairs to the front door. This was when I noticed that he was also carrying a large Easter Basket as well.

I love our neighborhood.

Pride

We had dinner last night at "Catch" on Market Street, near Castro last night.

As we were walking down Castro Street, Peter asked Dick and I what all of the rainbow flags meant.

Dick had such a wonderful explanation:

He said that the rainbow symbolized "inclusion". He explained that our neighborhood and community thinks that it is very important to include everyone - no matter what their backgrounds, race, color, or any preferences may be.

I don't think I've ever heard such an eloquent description of our community.

I told Peter that we are very lucky to live in an area that embraces all kinds people.
He seemed to agree. :)

Happy Easter!

You may have seen this before, but it still cracks me up.

Trains, Planes & Automobiles

or rather: streetcars, taxis, cable cars, and subways

We had a great day with our guests today! Peter got a chance to experience 4 different modes of pubic transportation in one day!

We took the "F" Muni Line (which are the antique street cars which go all the way down Market street, and along the Embarcadero) from the beginning of the line (Castro/Market) to Pier 39.

We walked along Pier 39 for just a bit, mostly to check out the beautiful views. I had bought a couple of disposable cameras for Peter yesterday, so today he was able to take photos of Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate Bridge. The weather was great today, and very clear! We walked along and saw the sea lions lounging in the sun, and eventually got lunch (fish & chips) at Aliotos.

By my friend, George's wonderful suggestion, we visited one of my favorite SF attractions to take out-of-town-guests, Musee Mecanique. I was a huge fan of Musee Mecanique when it was housed at the Cliff House, but had not been to its new home at Pier 45. The space was fantastic, and it was quite busy today. Peter really enjoyed playing many of the games there today.

We then strolled along and stopped at Hyde Street Pier. Peter was excited to take a quick walk along the "beach" so that he could dip his finger inside the Bay! :)

We went up to Ghiradelli Square where I had hoped to go into the restaurant to show peter the equipment that they use to make chocolate. Unfortunately, the line was VERY long, so we skipped it.

We were going to take the Cable Car back to Union Square, but once we found out that the line would take over an hour, we came up with a better plan:

We hailed a cab, and had it drop us off at the corner of California and Van Ness. Once there, we boarded a Cable Car, and took it the entire way up California Street back to the Embarcadero.

By this time, we were all pretty tired from all of the walking and excitement of the day. When I say "we", I mean, Dick, Dick's father and I. Peter was still full of energy! We decided to take the underground MUNI, or the subway, as I told Peter, from the Embarcadero back to the Castro Street Station.

We came home just in time to watch a full evening of College Basketball while eating pizza for dinner!

BTW: Yes, North Carolina did win.
Yes, Duke Lost.
No, I didn't watch the game.

I was upstairs for the entire first half or more getting some work done. Then I went downstairs to hear how close the game was. Dick's father and I decided to retire to the kitchen and eat ice-cream sundaes while "listening" to the game (ie: Dick yelling and screaming) while Peter ran in every two minutes to give us the update on the game. Each time he came in, he said, "Trina, don't come in!"

What a nice day.
Tomorrow we plan on covering Chinatown and Union Square.

Word.

I've been doing some administrative work (from home) for the Always Dream Foundation this week. I've been using Word & Excel to merge documents/letters/labels from spreadsheets. I don't use this stuff very often, so whenever I come across a feature like this, I'm so impressed! It's very cool. Good tools to know.
Go Office! :)

Stepping in for the Long-Eared One

As I just mentioned, Dick's 7-year-old nephew is coming to visit us tomorrow for a week. He'll be here for Easter Sunday.

When his Mom and I realized that, she asked if I would mind putting an Easter Basket together for Peter - he's just on the verge of believing, and not believing ;) I had thought of the idea as well, and was more than happy to help Mr Rabbit find his way to Peter here in SF.

I went to Target yesterday, with a list in hand of suggestions that Dick's sister had made. I wanted to make sure that whatever I assembled was close to what he was used to getting at home - no need to arouse any more suspicions!

I have to say, I had a lot of fun putting together my first Easter Basket. I got the standard Chocolate Bunny (named Peter Candytail), plastic eggs (which I filled with chocolates & candy), and miniature nerf football, a pair of sunglasses (which his mom said is a tradition with them) and (my favorite) a travel-sized "Simon" game. Remember that handheld electronic game from the 70s? They actually had several remakes of games from that time period. I was happy to see a new and improved version of "Merlin". I had the original version when I was about 8 years old. I loved it. In fact, I still have it somewhere boxed in my closet at my parent's house. I know my friend from junior high, Sheri, still has her's, too!

My parents were always SO good with delivering special presents from the Easter Bunny, Santa, and even "The Great Pumpkin". (Did anyone else have a Great Pumpkin deliver goodies to them?) My parents were so creative, and looking back, I really appreciate all of the work and effort that they put into making our holidays special. They used to write us notes (from Santa, Easter Bunny, & Great Pumpkin) with our gifts. I eventually figured out that they would write with their non-dominant hand to disguise their handwriting! (how clever!) One year, The Easter Bunny delivered hand-painted ceramic Raggedy Ann & Andy bookends for me. I LOVED them. I remember looking at their bottom side, and seeing the initials "B.C." engraved in them. I asked my Mom (whose name is Barbara) what the initials meant. My mom, in her ever so quick and witty way replied, "Oh - that must mean "Bunny Country"! That's some quick thinking, Mom! :)

Anyhow, The Easter Bunny (or Peter Rabbit) will be delivering a pretty cool Easter Basket to His 'n Her Condos on Sunday.
I hope Peter likes it! :)

Preparing for out-of-town guests

Dick's father and 7-year-old nephew, Peter, are coming in to visit tomorrow. They will be here through next Wednesday.

This is Peter's first time to San Francisco, and I think it's the first time that he'll be away from his parents for this length of time.

I've been trying to come up with some fun things for us to do while they're here:

SF Wharf area (horribly touristy, but I know Peter will enjoy it)
Cable Car rides
The Exploratorium
Tour of SBC Park (Peter is a huge sports fan) I took this tour a few years ago (the week after the Giants were in the World Series) It's a great tour, if you like baseball.
Chinatown/Union Square
The Jelly Belly Factory Tour complete with lunch at the cafeteria (hot dogs, hamburgers & pizza shaped like jelly beans)

We'll also be having Easter Brunch with my parents in the South Bay.

Should be a fun week! I'm sure we'll all be exhausted by the end of it ;)

St. Patrick's Day

I'm not Irish (Obviously) and I don't drink beer, but I've always enjoyed St. Patrick's Day!

When I was growing up, one of our special treats of the year was when my Mom would make Corned Beef & Cabbage for St. Patrick's Day dinner (a Chinese tradition, don't you know). We always loved it, and I don't think I've had it in several years.

I was grocery shopping the other day and noticed that corned beef & cabbage were both on sale - for obvious reasons. I thought, "Why not!" and bought all of the essential ingredients. I came home, and sent an email to my mom asking:

"How do you make Corned Beef & Cabbage?"

I was actually at her house Tuesday evening, and she was making it, so it was helpful to be able to watch first-hand. Turns out it's pretty easy, and just takes time.

I knew I had an appointment today at the gallery, so I didn't know whether or not I'd have enough time to make dinner tonight. Instead, I decided to make it yesterday. It turned out GREAT, and was everything I remembered. Dick said he really enjoyed it, too, so it looks like I'll carry on the tradition of making this an annual meal! :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The New Battlestar Galactica Miniseries

Dick and I borrowed The new Battlestar Galactica Miniseries DVD set from Mike last month, and we only started to watch it tonight.

We only made it through the first two hours, but I have to say: so far, two thumbs up!

Here's the funny thing (because I seem to find so many things in life funny):
I just assumed that this was meant to be a sequel of sorts to the original Battlestar Galactica series from the 70s. I used to LOVE that movie/tv show. I'm not sure what the appeal was for me, but it's something that I remember a lot about: the character names, etc., I actually had the little "Muffy the Dagot" action figure! What a geeky little girl! I even got a met the original Apollo (Richard Hatch) at Fashion Fair Mall in Fresno when I was 6 or 7. He gave us (my sister and I) an autographed photo :)

Because of this, I was awfully confused tonight. I kept wondering why all of the characters had the same names as the characters from the original! I thought that perhaps these names were "passed down" from generation to generation. I assumed that this new series took place 40 years after the orginal series that I know and loved. (the new series made mention that the last time they had contact with Cylons was 40 years ago. I figured the old war that they were talking about was the old series!)

But then, with that theory, things just got silly. I kept recognizing names for everyone. Each of the characters with the same names even had the same rank/positions on the ship. Down to the little orphaned boy named Boxey. That's when I realized: "wait a minute. This just doesn't make any sense." (plus, you know, he didn't have a dog - but did anyone else noticed that the kid looked *just* like the kid in the original?)

We turned it off after two hours so we could get ready for bed. I immediately called my Mom and asked, "Why are all of the characters names the same as in the first series?"

She totally laughed at me and explained that it's not a sequel, or continuation of the first series at all! It's simply a remake!

A remake.

(insert light bulb here)

Fancy that.
I had no idea.
D'oh!

It all makes so much more sense to me now!
I can forget everything I've ever known about the old Battlestar Galactica, and start new....

Anyhow, that's my first review, for what it's worth. We're enjoying it so far.
Thanks for lending us the DVD, Mike! :)

South Bay Shopping

I had my annual meeting with my tax accountant today. I've been using her for 6 years now, and she is fabulous. She's really great in understanding the idiosyncrasies of having a small business in your home, and everything that goes with that tax-wise. If you need a good accountant, let me know. Her office is in Hayward, so I made an appointment for the morning, so I could swing by Milpitas to have lunch with my Mom today.

Whenever I'm in Milpitas, I like to run a bunch of errands down here. It's just more convenient than running errands in the City. At the very least, I almost always make a stop to Target since our closest Target to home is in Colma. Anyhow, while I was there, I was strolling through the grocery aisles - they have all kinds of groceries there now! And here's the surprise: I found a BUNCH of things that were considerably cheaper than what I buy them for at our local (chain) grocery store. I even found items that I could no longer find at my grocery store for about 40% cheaper! Who knew? I may have to consider doing some bulk grocery shopping whenever I come down to the South Bay. I think it'll be well worth it.

One more step in the right direction...

There's still a long road ahead, but at least we're going in the right direction:

A San Francisco Superior Court judge declared California's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional Monday, saying it violates the "basic human right to marry a person of one's choice.''

Read the entire article.

PS: I'm a big fan of our mayor, Gavin Newsom.
GO Gavin!

Mango-licious!

Is it Mango Season?
I just returned from the grocery store.
Mangoes are on sale for $.99 each. Plus, they're nice and ripe!

I'm eating a super-juicy, yummy mango right now!

Star Wars Trailer

In case you've missed it, here's the full-trailer:

Star Wars Episode III Trailer

Oh, yeahhhh!! Wookies and all.

The movie opens on May 19th - that's only 2 months away!
I'm sure my sister and I will try to see it on opening day again - want to join us?

..and on a lighter note...

This makes me laugh.

It reminds me of when I moved into my condo - the first time.

My parents came over to help me move. We were planning on hanging my art on the walls, and they introduced me to this handy tool called a "Stud Finder".

When they first told me the name of it, I cracked up! I joked that all we had to do was bring it to Castro Street, and we'd find plenty of studs. (beep, beep, beep!)

I had told my sister that story years ago. She found this cartoon strip sometime last year and clipped it out for me. I just found it when I was sorting through my tax receipts this weekend.

So, tell me how you really feel....

Honestly?

Well, today I'm feeling....

sad
overweight
out of shape
uninspired
unemployed
grumpy
surly
blue

but I do feel loved.
and I know that's the most important thing.
and I'm very grateful for it.

Signs of the Times

I passed by a store today on Diamond @ 24th Street. It's some kind of furniture/design store.

If I remember right, it opened about 3-4 months ago.
It still has a huge banner going across the front of the building stating "Grand Opening Sale!".

I noticed today that the windows have a new sale sign painted across them:
"Going out of Business Sale".

Hmmmm.
I think they should probably consider taking down the "Grand Opening Sale" sign.
The two sales kind of conflict with one-another, don't you think?

Denied!

Today is the first round of games for the ACC Tournament.

UNC played Clemson today at 9:00am (PST). I have pilates at 10:00am on Fridays, so I knew I'd be out of the house for most of the game.

I came home at 11:20 - I figured I had left PLENTY of time for the game to finish. Plus, the Tar Heels were heavily favored. It *should* have been a safe bet that they would win.

As soon as I unlocked the front door and stepped inside, Dick looked across the room at me, and yelled, "Not Good. NOT GOOD! STAY AWAY!"

Egads.

Okay. So I closed the door, and stood outside for the next few minutes, completely oblivious to the score, or what was going on.

Turns out UNC was ahead by 4 points with 20 seconds to go. Apparently, at one point they were down 13 points with 9 minutes to go.

I'm lucky that I didn't come home to find Dick passed out on the sofa from the stress.

UNC did win - and all is well with the universe again.

Until 10:30 tomorrow morning, that is.

It's going to be a LONG weekend.

Public Transportation: The Good, the Bad, and the Smelly

One of the things I love about living in a big city is having the option to take public transportation here and there. Although we certainly don't have the best system compared to most large cities, it's not bad, and I'm just happy to have it.

We live about 3 blocks away from the Castro Station, which is the underground MUNI line. It's very convenient to take downtown, or to take it to transfer to a BART station. It's often a heck of a lot easier to take MUNI down to Union Square, than it is to drive, and especially to find and pay for parking. A one-way trip on MUNI is only $1.25 (although they are probably going to raise it to $1.50 soon) one-way, but the transfer is good for two hours.

Since we moved from the Mission, I haven't had a reason to take BART lately. I took it this past weekend, and honestly, I kind of forgot how very convenient, and actually relaxing it is. I went to Stockton on Saturday for my Grandpa's birthday. I took BART to Pleasanton (about 45 minutes) then met my parents at the station. They drove from Milpitas, picked me up at the Pleasanton BART station, and the 3 of us rode to Stockton together. At first, I was planning on driving, but then I remembered that it was the same afternoon as the cranes were going under the Bay Bridge, and they were going to stop traffic for a while. Really not worth driving - that would have added a lot of time to my trip. That's when I decided to take BART. Dick dropped me off at the station, then I listened to my iPod, and read a magazine all the way to Pleasanton. very nice.

I also took MUNI yesterday afternoon. I was in Union Square, and took the K Line to Castro St. Station right smack in the middle of rush hour. I forgot how much I don't like to take MUNI during rush hour. It's generally VERY crowded - standing room only once you get on at Powell Street. So yesterday, I crammed myself into the crowded car - trying to find a space where I could have something to hold on to.

So here's when I remembered an important detail about riding MUNI during rush hour: It turns out that I am the perfect "arm-pit height". What does that mean? It means that when I'm standing in a crowded MUNI train, surrounded by lots of tall men, my nose is right about at the height of most men's armpits. Yep. that's a lovely thought. That's what happens. See, all you tall guys out there - that's probably the last thing that you think about when you board a crowded train. But we short people notice these things. ugh. Something to be aware of.... ;)

trina.com

I registered my trinachow.com domain about 5 years ago. I had originally wanted "trina.com", but that domain has been taken for several years, but didn't have anything up for the longest time.

I just checked out trina.com and it looks like it's the TriNa brand softdrink that I saw in Spain.

The entire site is in Spanish, but it's not hard to figure out the different sections in the navigtion.

There's a Trina Arcade section where they have games like "TRINAABILITY" and "TRINABLOCK". This cracks me up! Looks like you have to be logged in as a member to play. oh well.

Fun with Trina! Who knew?

MINI's first service

I brought my MINI Cooper in for her first service appointment yesterday.

I'm still so impressed with how cars, and car service have improved since I last bought a car in 1988.

My MINI (like most newer cars, I imagine) has a service indicator that appears for a couple of seconds whenever I turn on the engine. It lets me know how many miles i have left before I need to bring my car in for service. The service indicator takes into account both milage as well as driving patterns. The first service (essentially an oil & filter change) is supposed to be scheduled around 10,000 miles. However, since I mostly drive in the city, and don't drive as many miles per month as most people, my service indicator had me go in around 9,000.

This is pretty amazing to me, since I used to bring my old Acura Integra in for an oil and filter change every 3,000 miles or 3 months. My, how times (and cars) have changed!

I'm still very happy with the service that I have recieved at my dealership, East Bay MINI in Pleasanton. I had an amazing car-buying experience there last year, and I had heard good things about their service department as well. I was able to make, and change my appointment easily, was was told that my appointment would take about one and a half hours. My service technician was very friendly and professional, and called me when my car was ready to be picked up. (I was having lunch with my Mom). My car was complete within the hour and a half, and was also nice and clean when I picked her up.

All of this, and any other service that I need to have over the next 3 years are all covered under my warrantee. :)

I should also mention that I drive about 40 miles to Pleasanton just o bring my car to East Bay MINI, even though the San Francisco MINI dealership is just a couple of miles away from my house. I had been to the San Francisco dealership several times while I was still shopping for a car, and was never very impressed with the service that I received. I have also not heard very favorable things about their service department. I figure it's worth the drive out to Pleasanton to get great service from the dealership that I'm happy to support and recommend.

I Love having a new car!

Instant Message worm

I've been fortunate, and haven't really had any problems with security viruses or worms over the years (knock word) - it's one of the perks of using a Mac over the PC. (I should mention here that even though I use a Mac, I still think that it is important to be cautious. I run Norton AntiVirus on my computer, and it occassionally does find some buggy files.)

However, I just read about a new type of worm that has been released over the past couple of days.

Instead of using email to send around a virus, it sends a link to people in your Instant Message address book. If you had received the worm, and it infected your computer, the virus could spread by sending out Instant messages to all of your IM buddies, making it look like a message sent by you. It's similar to email viruses, but people are much more suspect of opening attachments or links sent via email these days.

I probably wouldn't have thought much about this (being a Mac user, and all...) but I did receive an IM from my friend, Martin today. It contained two lines. The first was along the lines of: "This is funny - you should see this", and the the second line was a link. Since I hadn't heard of this virus technique before today, I clicked on the link to a url that ended with a .pif file. Luckily, it came up as a broken page, meaning the page had been pulled down, and the worm no longer is operational from that link.

I IM'ed with Martin later on, and he explained the virus to me. He had received an IM from a friend earlier, clicked on the (virus) link, and it in turn sent out IMs to people in his contact list.

So the moral of this story is: be careful out there. We're trained to no open links or attachments in our email, but now it seems important to be careful what links or attachments you open over IM programs as well.

Be warned.

Basketball Diaries... er....Blogs

Hurray! UNC beat Duke 75-73 today!
Good thing, too. We are a much happier household when the Tar Heels win.

Now, you may recall that fateful game that UNC played against Santa Clara in November. It was UNC's first game of the season, and they were heavily favored to win.

Well, they didn't.
Between that game, and the UNC vs. Cal game that Dick took me to on one of our first dates (which UNC also lost - being heavily favored) Dick had since deemed me "bad luck" when it came to his beloved basketball team.

After the ill-fated Santa Clara game, Dick informed his entire family (all Tar Heel fans) that I am bad luck, and should never be allowed to watch a game live again.

Happily, UNC has had a great year so far. The best that they've had in 12 years. So far, they've only had 3 losses - the first being against Santa Clara, and the other two were very close games against ranked teams.

Generally speaking, this means that Dick "allows" me to watch most of the games with him. However, if it starts to look bad, he has asked me to leave the room, and will not permit me to watch the game until after is is over (we record it on our Media Center). Dick's sisters have both thought of calling me during particularly low points in the games to make sure that I am not watching, and if I am, to please leave the room.

UNC has had two huge games in the last week: UNC vs. Maryland (last Sunday) and today's game against Duke. These were two very important games, and it was obvious that they would be nail-biting. I was flat-out forbade to be in the room during the last 10 minutes of the games. (I tried to walk in a couple of times to see the score, and Dick would "shoo" me out)

Shhhh... here's a little secret
My sister called me today towards the end of the game. I told her that the big game was on, and that I had been banned from watching. She asked me what the score was. Since I "wasn't allowed" to go downstairs, I quickly flipped on my little TV in my office. There was only about 3 minutes left in the game, and the Tar Heels were down by 9 points. Uh oh. I immediately turned the TV off again, just in case I really am bad luck! Turns out that that was as high as Duke would score, and that UNC managed to come back from being 9 points behind, and win the game in under 3 minutes.

Today's win means that the Tar Heels have not only beat Duke (their arch-rival) for only the 3rd time in the last 16 games against them, but they also won the outright Atlantic Coast Conference title and a probable No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

See how much I've learned by dating Dick over the past 6 years? Honestly, before then, I didn't have a clue what "March Madness" referred to. Impressive, eh? Ah, what a girl won't do for her guy ;)

Dick is still bitter about the Santa Clara game. Several times over the course of the season, the commentators would say something like "How did Santa Clara beat this team?". Dick would yell back to the TV, "Two Words: Trina Chow!"

I spent the day with my parents yesterday, and didn't get home 'til late. Dick was out for a late dinner with our friend, Martin. Anyway, I came home, and saw the pile of mail on the kitchen counter. There was a Santa Clara University magazine on the top of the pile (my sister got her undergrad degree there years ago, and I've been receiving mail for her from SCU for years). Anyway, I came home, and saw a post-it stuck to the front of the magazine that read (in dick's handwriting):

Trina -
Thanks again for helping us beat UNC!
-Your friends @ Santa Clara

LOL. Very funny.

Entourage Question

Hey, all you Entourage Gurus out there.... I have a question.

I was helping a friend with his new 20" iMac yesterday. He's had it a little over a month. When he got it, he imported all of his email, addresses, and calendar info into the appropriate Apple apps (he imported from his PC files). He has since installed a full version of Office:2004. He has been wanted to try Entourage, but had been unsuccessful in being able to import the info from the Apple Apps to Entourage. I looked at it with him yesterday, and sure enough, realized it may not be possible.

Entourage has so many options of what kinds of programs/files to import from. It does not have any of the Apple Apps (Mail, iCal, Address Book). It does, of course import from a text file (tab or comma delimited, or from a MBOX-format text file) So I thought we could just go to the Apple Apps and have them Export as a text file. No can do. It exports, but you can not choose what type of file it exports as, and whatever that is isn't a text file that Entourage can read.

I assume this may be one of those things that is simply not possible, but I thought I'd check in with the pros first.

He doesn't want to re-import from his PC because he now has a month+ of information that is only in his Apple apps.

Any comments or suggestions?

Silly Sci-Fi Songs

My Sister sent me this Star Wars Rap. It's pretty funny.

Made me think of a Star Trek Spoof song from the mid-80s called "Star Trekking". (does anyone else remember this?) You gotta love the web - I haven't heard this song in almost 20 years. (not that I was missing it, mind you!)

Bizarre Wedding Things....

I know I don't blog about it much, but yes, we are still planning on getting married :) We actually have the date and venue all set.

Okay, I have a confession.
Please don't think any less of me.
Today my Mom, and Dick and I went to a Bridal Faire! (eek!) I know, I kind of can't believe that we went either, but we thought it might be worth checking out to gather some info on cakes, photographers, etc.,

Truth be told, it wasn't as crazy as I expected, which was a relief. I thought it was going to be much larger, but we were done after an hour and a half. I told Dick, "It's kind of like MacWorld, for weddings..." to which he replied, "except that these people are a lot more aggressive!"

That's the truth. I was actually pretty turned off by how super-friendly and aggressive most booth people were... although I understand that it probably works well for them.

But really... here's how it went:

We stop (briefly) at a booth, just to see what they have.
Immediately, we're asked, "SO, you're getting married!"
us: Uh, yeah.
booth: SO, when's the big date?"
us: Um, well, October...
booth: OF THIS YEAR?
us: yep.
booth: Well, you'd better hurry then!
us: yeah, okay.
booth: CONGRATULATIONS!
us: okay. thanks.

I'm not kidding. that happened numerous times.

It made us joke about the same scenario at a MacWorld convention:

booth: So, when'd you buy your iPod?
us: I got it for Christmas.
booth: GREAT! Have you put all of your music on it yet?
us: yeah, we've been working on it
booth: Well, you'd' better get to it fast!
us: um, okay.
booth: Congratulations!
us: thanks.

hee hee. The visual makes me laugh.

I was flipping through a bridal magazine that we got from the show.
I have to say that so far, I'm not finding these things particularly helpful. Maybe that's just me.....
Anyway, here was something that blew me away
It was a letter to the editor:

Q. My little sister keeps on telling me that I'm snappish. And my best friend is always complaining she never sees me anymore. Don't they understand that I'm planning a wedding?

A. If you're tired of reminding them that you're just a little bit stressed, stop talking and start shopping. Classy Bride's black baby-doll tee that says BRIDE in caps reminds your friends and family that there's a reason you're on the edge. You're busy!

Oh my. There's so many things that are wrong about both the question and the answer, that I don't even know where to start.
I've asked my sister, and numerous friends to let me know if I come anywhere close to becoming "that girl". Or, anything that even hints of it. I'm fairly certain that it wouldn't happen, but the thought of it makes me shudder.

Jury Duty follow-up

I've got to say, I've quite impressed with the judicial system in San Francisco.

As you know, I served on jury duty last week. Yesterday, I received a letter in the mail yesterday from the judge who presided over the case. I'm very impressed with the unexpected follow-up.

Here's what it said:

Dear Ms. Chow,

I want to personally thank you for serving as a juror on the People vs. (defendant's name) case. Those of us in the justice system are well aware that jury duty invariably involves personal sacrifices along with the frustration of what appears to be an unwieldy system. Your commitment in accepting this important responsibility ensures that our system of justice continues to work and work well. You time, energy, integrity and patience were critical components in this case and in the American justice system.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for improvement as a result of your jury duty, please drop me a note. We are proud of our new "one-day, one-trial" system and its reduction delays, but we know we can do better.

I sincerely hope that your experience was interesting and worthwhile. I certainly enjoyed having you in my courtroom. Your participation as a responsible citizen is to be commended.

Very truly yours,
(judge's name)
Judge of the Superior Court

Word.

This is probably pretty old, but it's the first time I've come across it. Makes me laugh.

Word, yo.

Generous Deeds

I called my State Farm Insurance representative today to go over some tidbits about my condo insurance.

My parents have had the same insurance agent (for our houses, and our cars) ever since they moved to Milpitas in 1978. Our agent, Bob Hollister, has always been so nice to all of us, and has been an excellent agent. He gives us very good rates, and is quick to follow up on any claims that we have submitted.

When I talked to him today, I mentioned that Dick and I are engaged now. He was so sweet, and expressed his congratulations to us. He asked if we knew whether or not we'd need "event endorsement" insurance for the site. I told him we would, but that I didn't have the information quite yet.

He let me know how much it would be, and then he paused and said, "You know what Trina, I'd really like to take care of this for you. Your parents have been such good customers, and they've been with me for so long. I've known you ever since you were a little girl. I'd really like to do this for you."

I was speechless.

What a very kind, and generous offer.
What a very, very nice man.

Done with Jury Duty

This just in.. I'm done! Yay! I've fulfilled my jury duty commitment - for the year, at least.

The whole process what actually very interesting, and I'm happy to have had the experience. It was a criminal assault case. We listened to witnesses for 3 full days, then spent a day (Thursday) deliberating. We came to a unanimous verdict by the end of the afternoon. We read our verdict to the judge and the court Thursday afternoon, and quite frankly, made the assumption that we were done. To our surprise, we were asked to return to the jury room. The judge said that she had to discuss "something" with the attorneys. An hour later, we were thanked for reaching a verdict, and we were instructed to return to court on Tuesday at 10:00am.

Huh?

So, we all went home - confused, a little disgruntled because we weren't told why we needed to return.
I figured our questions would be answered first thing this morning.

We all returned this morning at 10:00, and were instructed to please come back again at 10:45.

ugh

We all came back at 10:45, and waited outside the courtroom for another 45 minutes before they finally asked us to come back in.

The judge thanked us again, and told us that we were dismissed. Apparently, they were in court all morning discussing an issue that they thought they might need us for, but in the end, they decided to have the judge make the final ruling.

So that was the anticlimactic end to my week+ of serving on jury duty.

All in all, it was actually a good experience. It was an interesting enough case, and it was good to learn how the whole system works.

President's Day

When did "Washington's Birthday" become "President's Day"?

I remember that when I was in school we celebrated Lincoln's Birthday one week, followed by Washington's Birthday the next.

So, it seems that we still celebrate Lincoln's Birthday, but Mr. Washington now shares his birthday will ALL Presidents?

a-ha. Here's an article about this on sfgate.com.

Blogger from the past

I just read an article in sfgate.com stating that after 11 years, Justin Hall has stopped blogging. That's wild.

I worked with Justin many, many years ago. We worked together way back in 1996 at Electric Minds. (It was my last summer before finishing art school, and I was working for Abbe Don at that time) Justin was the first person to teach me the art of HTML text/layout formatting - pulling out words and quotes from the straight HTML paragraph, and formatting them so that they would stand out in an artistic way. Back then, Justin was probably only 22 or 23. He was the first person that I ever met who had an online journal that he constantly updated. We have a word for that now, of course: "Blogging".

According to this article in sfgate.com, The New York Times Magazine had labeled Justin Hall as "The founding father of personal blogging".

Over the years, I checked into his site on rare occassion. Mostly just to see if he was still out there, and what he was up to.
I hadn't thought to look at it over the last couple of months. Reading about him on sfgate.com was a heck of a way to catch up on him and his blog.

The web is a pretty wild place.

Stocking Up!

I'm such a sucker for a good sale/bargain.

Gatorade is on sale this week at Safeway for $.79. It's usually $1.99.

Dick and I went through a lot of gatorade while we were sick, so it was time to restock anyway. Good timing!

My sister and I have this crazy little game that we play with grocery receipts. We like to see who can come up with the largest savings by both dollars, and percentage.

I think I may have the winning ticket here:

I bought 36 bottles (3 cases) of Gatorade today. (I know, it's excessive, but it was such a good sale, and it'll keep)

My total was: $31.22
Club card savings: $43.20
Total Savings value: 58%

:)!

Psssst.... Hey Buddy, want a kitten?

Oh my goodness... this is so cute.

I just got an email from an old high school friend who is now living in New York. Greg has a friend who recently adopted a stray cat, and it turns out that she was pregnant.

She gave birth to a litter of 5 kittens last week.

Look how cute they are!!

They are looking for a good home for the little ones.
Anyone interested?
They are in New York, but perhaps something could be figured out.

Happy Hatch Day!

My sister's pet cockatiel, Crissy, turns 25 today.

Yep, you read it right: 25 years old.

Unbelievable.

We adopted Crissy in 1980 when she was only about 6 weeks old.

It's no secret that Crissy and I never really got along. She used to attack me, and chase me out of my own room.
She adores my sister, though. She lives with her now in my sister's apartment.

When we first got Crissy our vet at the time told us that Cockatiels usually have a life-span of about 15 years. She's obviously well past that age now. Our current vet (who we have been seeing for well over 15 years now) has said that Crissy is that oldest Cockatiel that he's ever known.... and she's still going strong!

25 years! That means that she's older than our two friends (Aditya & Ami) that we had dinner with last night!

There's some perspective for you.

Xbox Powercord Recall

This doesn't seem to be too serious, but probably good to follow-up on anyway....

Microsoft recalls Xbox cords after users burned
Free replacements available via Web or toll-free number

Here's the xbox.com page.

Showing our Age

We just got back from a very nice dinner with our friends Aditya and Ami. They are much younger than Dick and I (they are in their early 20s) and something inevitably comes up in our conversations that remind us of the generation gap - usually some sort of Pop Culture reference.

As Dick and I were walking home, he started to "whistle a happy tune". Well, actually, he was whistling "Darling Nikki" from Prince's Purple Rain, which I recognized immediately. I laughed, telling Dick, "You know, Aditya & Ami wouldn't know that song...."

Then I mentioned that I had just listened to that song, along with the rest of the album a couple of weeks ago.

Here's the funny part: My exact words were: "I just listened to that song on my Walkman a couple of weeks ago".

On my Walkman.

Oops. There's a slip! Must be showing my age. ;)

Ah yes, it's true - I was lucky enough to get a Walkman (generic brand, NOT a Sony) from Santa when I was 13 or so - right around the time that they came out.

You know.... about 20 years ago.

That's when I realized that iPods are the Walkmans of the new generation.
(not to be confused with Prince and the Revolution or even Prince and the New Power Generation.... HA! Now we've come full circle! ;) )

We live in such interesting times....

Mmmmmm. Corn Dogs.

The Doggie Diner Head has found a new home!

For some reason, I'm quite fond of the Doggie Diner Head. It's quite appealing to me.
Dick I have gone to the Carousel Restaurant several times over the years to enjoy a yummy lunch of corn dogs and milkshakes. (Mmmmmm)

We're also in the routine of going to Carousel for lunch whenever we go to visit The San Francisco Zoo. Which, granted, has only been about 5 times or so....

This is a photo that I took of the Doggie Diner Head a couple of years ago when it was still adjacent to Carousel.

I'm happy to see that the Doggie Diner Head's new home is just a few yards away from it's last home.
It also happy to think that you'll still see the Doggie Diner Head smiling at you as you drive down Sloat Blvd on your way to the ocean.

Civic Duty

I just got home (early!) from serving my second day on jury duty.

Without going into any details at all about the case, here's some of my random impressions about serving jury duty in SF:

I'm reporting to The Hall of Justice on Bryant Street between 6th & 7th Streets.

Unfortunately, there aren't any good public transportation options for me, so I'm driving my car there.
We get $3 dollars off the cost of parking at the lot across the street, but it's still $9/day! Seeing as I may be serving jury duty both this week and next, that'll really add up! I think we'll get compensated $15/day, plus $2.50/day for mileage. Whoopee ;)

Another thing that I noticed is that *everyone* jay-walks while crossing Bryant Street, going to the Court House. Isn't that funny, and very ironic? There's a police station right there. It's a very long block, so it would be very out of the way to go all of the way to either intersection, so everyone just jay-walks. You'd think they'd put a pedestrian crosswalk in the middle of the street.

We get 1 1/2 hours for lunch break. I've decided to stay in the area to eat, because the parking lot does not have in/out privileges. I've been walking down to The Trader Joe's on 9th/Bryant for lunch. I had a nice salad yesterday for $3.00, and an 8-piece order of California Rolls today for $2.69. Not Bad. I also went shopping at Nordstrom Rack today. That was fun! I bought a cute little fitted down jacket. I made sure to leave enough time to walk back to the parking lot (so I could put my shopping bag in my trunk) before going back to the court house. I figured it would be a faux-pas to walk back into the jury box with a big shopping bag :)

As I said, we're scheduled to report this week, and next week if necessary. We'll see how long it takes. It's hard to say, as I've never done this before.

Happy Valentine's Day!

However you choose to celebrate, (or not) have a Happy ♥ Day! :)

Flu-be-gone

For the first time in over a week, I slept through the whole night last night, without being woken up every couple of hours by fits of coughing. I woke up feeling much better. I think I may be finally almost over this flu bug!

The cleaners came this morning, which was perfect timing. I decided to utilize my newfound energy to rid the house of whatever flu germs may be lingering. It's a gorgeous day out, so I opened all of the windows to air out the house. I also did several loads of laundry - including the sheets & towels.

The house and I both feel much better now :)

80's music quiz

This is a great 80s music quiz

Dick and I took it this morning, and we scored 65.

There were a lot of answers that we actually did guess correctly, but we misspelled the name/word. Oh well, what are you going to do? *I* know that we got it right ;)

We did really well on the early questions, but by the middle of the quiz, our brains had turned to mush from too many song lyrics dancing around in our heads.

I'm especially proud that I got #44 correct and that Dick got #83.

Let's see how you do!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year!

It's the year of the Rooster! Any Roosters out there?

Time to Venture Out....

After a full week of being sick and being cooped up in the house, it's time to go outside again.

And how's this for a reason:

Jury Duty.

Yep, tomorrow I have to report to jury duty at 9:30am. I consider myself lucky that I hadn't been called in earlier this week: I got a couple of extra days to get over this flu.

Truth be told, I haven't actually had to report to jury duty before, so I'm kind of curious to see what it's all about.

Stop. Jammie-Time!

One of the perks of staying-home-sick, is that you get to lounge around all day in your pajamas with no guilt.

I am a BIG fan of lounging around in a comfy pair of pajamas! I suppose one could argue that I *could* do this everyday, since I work from home. However, I assure you that I really do make every effort to take a shower and put on street clothes. :)

Anyhow, back to the jammies....

I love pajamas. I have several pair.
I have to admit that I stopped wearing most of them about 5 years ago when I discovered the best.brand.of.pj's.ever.

Several years ago, I was the web designer for Camp Sark - a company that was based upon the writer/artist known as SARK. They had a fund raiser in form of a Pajama Party - it was held at the Hotel Monaco in San Francisco. I volunteered at the event. Many stores and orgainzations donated goodies for all of the guests. One of the items donated was a pair of Karen Neuberger pajamas for each person.

After wearing my new pjs at the event, they quickly became my favorite pair of pajamas! I soon noticed that they became the only pair of pajamas that I wanted to wear. I don't know what it is: something about the blend of the materials - it's just SO comfortable!

Over the years, I've met several other people - women & men who agreed: ever since they put on their first pair of Karen Neuberger pajamas, it's the only pair of pjs that they'll wear! I have since recommended KN pajamas to friends and family - everyone always loves them. I now have two pairs for the winter, and another set for summer.

So, the point is: if you're a pajama fan, go out and find yourself a comfy pair of Karen Neuberger Pajamas! You can find them in department stores like Macys or Nordstrom, and also at discount stores like Marshall's or Ross.

In fact, Valentine's Day is coming up! :) Go buy your sweetie a pair of comfy jammies!

Progress..

Today I managed to get out to the grocery store. Our rations were running low ;)
I was pretty tired when I got home, so I took a nap.

ah, these are exciting days....

Childhood comforts

I promise that my blog will be interesting again someday...


As I mentioned before, my chest is completely congested, and I spend all my waking hours coughing. Dick went to Wallgreens today, and picked up a jar of Vicks Vaporub for me.

I haven't used this stuff since I was a kid. I was sick often when I was growing up, and had a lot of upper respiratory problems. My Mom used to use Vicks Vaporub on me, and it always made me feel better.

I put some on tonight, and that smell immediately brought back all kinds of childhood memories. It was actually very comforting. Plus, I forgot how well this product really works! I can't believe it hasn't been in my medicine cabinet all these years :)

Feeling Better...

and now for the his 'n her condo health report.....

Well, today is the first day that I haven't had to take a nap. That's a good sign.

We're feeling better, but still taking it easy. My mind is much more clear today, so as soon as my body catches up, I'll be good to go!

Today was the first day I actually felt like talking with people - I chatted on the phone a bit, had a quick visit with my sister, and even managed to play some Halo2 without passing out!

I am, however, coughing up a lung or two....

That's pretty much the worst of it - lots, and lots of coughing. It kept me up all night (and Dick, and the kitties, too).
We're also really low on energy here.

I'm really bummed because we had to pass on dinner at Roy's tonight :(. My parents are taking my sister out for her belated birthday, and also before she leaves to go to Boston for a month. I'm so bummed that we can't make it.

The good news is that Noe feels better today! :)

One of these days, I'll try to leave the house again....

The family that stays together....

gets sick together.

I'm sick. (but feeling better than yesterday)
Dick is sick (feeling a bit worse than yesterday)
Noe is sick (poor little thing)

Marcel better get out of the house while he can!
(he's walking around with a mask over his nose and mouth)

I was reading my cousin Bruce's blog yesterday. It said that he and his family (his wife, and their three daughters) have been passing around the flu with each other since the weekend.

I guess that's what's going on over here, too. Only, I didn't know that our poor kitties would get sick as well!

Our front door should have one of those Caution ribbons wrapped around it.
"Contamination Zone - Beware"

iSick

Looks like I finally caught that flu that's been going around.

I've had a sore throat for the last couple of days, but last night it really hit me.
My whole body aches. :( I've been in bed all day.

I can't remember the last time that I was sick, which I suppose is a good thing.

Dayquil & Nyquil are my friends.

I'm crawling back into bed now.
*cough*

Duh.

Sometimes I'm amazed at how clueless I am....

We celebrated Chinese New Year this weekend with my family (a little early). Somehow, we got onto the conversation of computers, then inevitably discussing Macs vs. PCs. We also started to discuss IM programs - MSN Messenger vs iChat. My cousin, Kenneth (who at age 4 taught my Dad to use a Macintosh in 1984) mentioned that iChat should use the same Tabs feature that is incorporated into Safari. (I should also note here that Kenneth is now almost 25, and at Med School at UCSF - did I mention how much time flies?).

Anyhow, back to tabs... I'm such a dork. I was like, "Tabs? You mean tabbing between the fields?".
He said, "No, you know, TABS. It lets you have one window open, with different tabs for each site..."

Oh yeah.
I've been using Safari for well over a year now, and I vaguely remember coming across the Tabs feature before. I noticed it only when seeing the "Open in Tabs" option for all of my folders. I keep a lot of folders in my Booksmarks Bar - all categorized. Most have several sites in the (ie: client sites, client sites local, finances, etc.,) I've never had a need to open ALL of those sites up at the same time.

So, the bottom line is: it never really occurred to me to explore the Tabs feature.

Because I'm a dork.

Until this morning.

I used to have 5 browser windows open, and each window had it's place on my monitor. In fact, Dick just said to me last week, "You have more windows open than any person I know". Which is probably true. It's not unusual for me to have 7-10 browser windows open at a time. But with the magic of the F9 key, it was still really easy to find things. Somehow, I thought I was organized.

So this morning, I recalled my conversation with Kenneth, and re-explored the Tabs feature. I created a new Bookmarks Bar folder called "everyday" and put the 5 sites that I regularly go to everyday in this window. Now I can have all of my regular sites that I cycle between in one browser window, with easy access to all. It's pretty sweet.

All this, at the same time that I'm thinking about making the switch to Firefox. (which I see also has Tabs.. but does it have a "open in Tabs" option from the bookmark folders?)

Sometimes it's a wonder that I manage to be productive at all....

Happy MINIversary!

Today is my MINIversary!

I can't believe that I've already had my MINI Cooper for an entire year. Time really flies.

One year report - all is well, and I'm still in love. "She" (MINI Driver) has about 8500 miles on her now. I need to take her in for her first service soon. I'm happy (and relieved) to report that the first year has been trouble-free (knock-wood)! Even better, I still smile everytime I go out for a drive.

Looks like it's going to be a nice day today. Think I'll celebrate by giving her a long, over-due bath :)
(shhhh - it's a surprise!)


(this came to me via email this morning from miniusa.com. Isn't that nice? A birthday card for my MINI!)

Amazon Yellow Pages

(Found out about this from Willo's blog)

This is pretty cool.
Check out amazon.com's new Yellow Pages.
I typed in my zip code, and it showed me all of the restaurants and stores in my neighborhood. Not only did it have the name and information about the restaurants & businesses, but it also has photos (which is the coolest part). You can actually "walk" down an entire street that these businesses are on: you can see the businesses, houses, and even random people walking along the street. (I keep looking for any pictures with Dick or me walking around our neighborhood. You never know!)

Here's a blurb on how they did it:
The most powerful technology A9.com invented for Yellow Pages is “Block View,” which brings the Yellow Pages to life by showing a street view of millions of businesses and their surroundings. Using trucks equipped with digital cameras, global positioning system (GPS) receivers, and proprietary software and hardware, A9.com drove tens of thousands of miles capturing images and matching them with businesses and the way they look from the street.

The whole process (except for the driving!) is completely automatic, making it fast and efficient. Block View allows users to see storefronts and virtually walk up and down the streets of currently more than 10 U.S. cities using over 20 million photographs. We are driving and at some point hope to cover the whole country.

Here's the full explanation of the process.

We Will Rock You

Am I the only one who thinks it's odd that the album Queen's Greatest Hits doesn't have "Bohemian Rhapsody" on it? It really is such a great song, and surely should be considered one of their greatest.

I suppose it's just the music industry's way of having you buy other albums....

So, I think I'll buy it from iTunes. The way I figure it: it's a 5:55 minute song for $.99. That's a deal!

Color Guard Trivia:
Which WGI World Class guard(s) have used "Bohemian Rhapsody"?
Bonus points if you can name the years as well. :)

..and speaking of His 'n Her Condos...

Dick and I just had our first annual Home Owners Association meeting.

Yep, even though it's just the two of us, we still need to have a official Condo Association for our two condos.

Since I've been here longer, I decided it was only right to establish myself as "President". :)
That, of course, would make Dick the Treasurer. (see how nicely that works out?)

Dick compiled the annual Treasurer report today.
After we reviewed it, I told him, "The President thanks you for all of your hard work". Then I leaned over and gave him a kiss.

I asked him if he thought this was the first time that the President of this Condo Association has ever smooched the Treasurer. ;)

Historic His 'n Her Condos

This is so cool.

I was looking at the site for the San Francisco Public Library and found a link to the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection.

They have hundreds of historic photographs in their online database! If you live in San Francisco, you should check it out!

I did a search for "Eureka Valley" and found some great photos of our neighborhood dating back to the late 1800s.

This one is the best. It is of our block, looking South. Our house is on the left. It was taken in 1926.



I think it's so cool that we have a photo with our house that's almost 80 years old!
It's funny, the whole street looks so similiar to how it looks now. The only thing missing are the trees along the sidewalk, and all of the cars. Ah, the days before residential parking permits ;)

You can actually order reproductions of these photos from the library. Unfortunately, you can't order them online - you have to actually call the library and speak with a live person ;). I think I'll order a few, and keep them in a scrapbook of our house. I also hope to make it down to the library, or the Water Works department to find out more historic information about our home.

Things that make me happy

I spent the day in Stockton yesterday to celebrate my Grandfather's birthday.

When I got home last night, I reflected on some of the things that made me happy throughout the day:

My Grandpa. He turned 88 yesterday! He's still as youthful and happy as ever. My best memories of growing up with my Grandpa was that he always teased me, liked to make jokes, and was always smiling. I told my Grandpa that this must be his extra-lucky year. In the Chinese culture the number "8" is a lucky number. 88 must be extra lucky!

Donuts. We stopped by the Safeway bakery on the way to my grandparent's house yesterday. My mom was going to pick up a birthday cake, but then we passed by the donut counter. My Mom and Grandfather share the same love of custard-filled donuts. We picked up a dozen (assorted) donuts, and brought them to my Grandparent's house. We stuck a candle in his "Birthday Donut" and sang Happy Birthday. I think it made him very happy.

iRockin' in my car. I really love listening to my iPod in the car. It Rocks. Literally.

Parking. There's nothing like being out all day, then coming home to find the parking spot in front of your house still empty, and waiting for you. :)

A Picasso from Costco?

would that make it a "Picostco"? ;)

Wow.
You really can buy anything from Costco!

Helpful tips for visitors

Dick's sisters just left this morning to fly back to North Carolina. We had such a wonderful visit with them while they were here!

We did all kinds of fun things: We did a ton of shopping in Union Square, ate a lot of yummy food (Ton Kiang (dim sum), House of Prime Rib, and Hyde Street Bistro to name a few), and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see the White Shark". My parents hosted a (mostly family) Engagement Luncheon for us, and timed it with Dick's sister's visit so that they'd have a chance to meet the whole Chow Clan.

Here's a helpful shopping tip for out-of-town guests: Did you know that Macy's has a Visitor's Center on the 6th floor of the Union Square store? If you are from out of the Bay Area, you can go to the center, present them with a hotel key, or an out-of-state driver's license, and you'll get a visitor's card good for 12% off any purchase! Who knew? Such a great deal!

RAM-tacular!

Woo-hoo!
I just installed another 512MB RAM into my PowerBook! That brings the grand total to the limit of 1GB!

I had installed another 512MB module way back in April of last year. That was added to one of the 256MB modules that came with my laptop.

I know I've been a little slow in adding this, but RAM is still pretty pricey! $200 for 512MB from the Apple Store. (see my old blog entries to read about the problems I had with non-Apple RAM)

So, let's see how this goes - time for a test drive!

iHappy! :)

I picked up my iPod from Best Buy today!
It has a new hard drive, and seems to be working swimingly now :)

I wasn't able to test anything out when I picked it up from the store because the battery had been completely drained. I took it home, sat it in it's cradle, and recharged, and synched.

I'm not absolutely positive, but it seems as if I have a newer version installed (although I just checked, and I thought I had been up-to-date before). There are several additional settings options that I have now that I never had before. I'm a bit confused why I wouldn't have had them before, since I always downloaded the latest versions, but....

I now have new options like "backlight" on the main menu now (which is incredibly handy). I used to have to go into settings, then choose backlight timer, then select one of the options. This will be useful to have when I use my iPod in my car at night.

And speaking of having my iPod in my car...
I'm really happy that I was able to get it back today. Dick's sister's are still visiting, and we're all driving to Monterey tomorrow to go to the Aquarium. It'll be nice to have all of our tunes at the tip of our fingers again!

Aerobed

Inflatable mattresses have come a long way...

Dick's two sisters are visiting us this week from Noth Carolina. We have one staying in the guest bedroom (aka The Raggedy Room) and the other (who didn't want to sleep with a bunch of dolls staring at her) is sleeping in the TV room downstairs.

We bought an aerobed a couple of years ago, after our friend Rob spent the night and had to sleep on our crappy inflatablle matress. We woke up the next day and he said, "Dude. I have one word for you: Aerobed". So we tossed out the old mattress, and found a double-sized aerobed for our guests.

Now, I should point out here that I slept on inflatable mattresses for years. All throughout my color guard years (so that's 4 years) and also my first year living in San Francisco. I had it until it sprung a leak in the middle of the night, and I woke up on the floor. That's when I realized that it was time to invest in a real-for-sure mattress.

We set up the Aerobed last night, and it was amazing. It has a self-contained pump that inflated it within a minute. This sure beats my old method of using the cool setting on a hair dryer, or worse, manually inflating it with your mouth!'

Kathy said it was really comfortable to sleep on, and was much more comfortable than the old crappy inflatable mattress that Dick used to have ;)

iObsolete

I had a fun time at MacWorld yesterday.
There's a couple of funny things that happen whenever I go:

First of all, unless you bought one of their products within the last 2 months, you'll immediately feel obsolete. This always happens to me. Last year was the first time that I went that I actually felt "hip" and up-to-date. I had recently bought a 15" Titanium Powerbook (which had finally elevated me into the world of USB and Firewire, and away from my old SCSI devices) and Dick had bought me a 40GB iPod for Xmas 2003. At last, I was at MacWorld with all the current, cool toys, and all of the accessories that I saw were actually relevant!

This year, I have an older model Powerbook, and my iPod is already more or less obsolete. I have what's known as the 3rd generation iPod. Last year, Apple launched both the Mini iPod, as well as the click-wheel full-sized iPod. I was looking mostly at the protective skins that you slip over the iPods, and almost none of the vendors had any merchandise for my model. (I'd have to order it online).

Those guys at Apple... they have a way of making you think you need to buy the newest stuff each year...

Which brings me to my second point: Dick and his friends call it "The Apple/Steve Jobs reality distortion field". They showcase their new products, and you immediately think, "I HAVE to have one". "How did I ever live without one?" :)

I saw the new iPod Shuffle showcased at the Apple booth before I had a chance to read anything about them. Initial reaction: they are fabulous. Tiny, lightweight, good UI, and really good for working out, etc., and all for $99! I came home and told Dick all about it, and thought he should get one for his commute on the train. His reply: "It sounds to me like YOU really want one." Hmmm... he's probably right.

The Mini Mac was also pretty cool to see in person. When Dick bought his new Dell last year, it was a complete package: CPU, monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, etc., Which is all good and fine, but what if you already have all of that (minus the CPU) That means, you have extras, which you either store, give away, donate, etc,. I think it makes sense to offer the CPU without all of the accessories at a lower price than the whole kit and caboodle. At least it's nice to have the option.

...and, you know.... it's cute as can be. (which is really what Apple products are all about)

So, what did I buy? I was a good girl. I bought a new long-sleeved t-shirt from the MacWorld booth. It matches my short-sleeved, white t-shirt that I bought last year (and just love)

What does it say?

"Mac Chick" :)

I also got a XtremeMac SporrtWrap for my iPod. I was looking for something like this for when I take my daily walks, or work out. (you know, for when I actually have my iPod again)

That's it so far.

I was also pretty enamored by the Adobe Creative Suite Presentation. Might be time to upgrade to the entire suite.
I'm such a sucker.
..a geeky sucker.

I think I must be their target audience.

Here Comes the Sun....

:)
Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day!
Hope you're able to get outside to enjoy it.

International Blog-arama

I just added a new addition to my Blog-arama list. My 20 year old cousin, Cheri, is studying abroad for a quarter in Santiago, Chile.

It has occurred to me that 3 of my friends/family that I have listed on my Blog-arama are outside of the US. That's pretty cool. I love the power of the internet.

Before Cheri left for Chile, we discussed how different the means of international communication are now from just a few years ago. In 1988, my sister studied abroad in London for a semester. At the time, international phone calls were very expensive, and I don't think my sister was able to call home more than once a month while she was gone. She also wrote us letters in form of a daily jounal on rice paper, which reduced the cost of air mail postage. Now, Cheri is in Chile, and Dick's neice, Adrianne, is in Spain, and they have the power of the internet to stay in touch with loved ones in the States. They have digital cameras to share photos, and even have the ability to video conference with us.

It's really miraculous how much technology has changed over the years. Now I'm just sounding old, huh?
"These kids these days.... in my day...." lol

It just occurred to me that Cheri's first big move-away-from-home adventure is taking her to Chile at age 20.
Adrianne moved to Spain at 21.

When I was 19, I moved to Dayton, OH.
ring.....!. Hello? Clue phone.... What was I thinking? ;)

MacWorld

I'll be making my annual trek to MacWorld today with my Mom and my sister today. Anyone else planning on going this week?

My Mom and sister are both very excited because they both got new Macs within the last year, and my sister is also in the market for an iPod. Fun for all!

Let me know if you'll be there, and I'll look out for you.

Hair Issues

I haven’t had my hair cut in over 3 months.

I just scheduled an appointment to have my hair cut this Wednesday morning.

As I was getting ready to go to bed tonight, I noticed, “Hey, my hair looks really good right now”.

Why does that always happen?

It’s like some kind of bizarre hair phenomenon.

iFrustrated

It's been 3 weeks since I brought my iPod into Best Buy for repair.

I have to say that so far, I'm not terribly impressed.

It's been diagnosed with a bad hard drive - which I knew when I took it in. They did tell me that it would take 2-3 weeks, which seemed like a long time to me at the time, but what are you going to do?

I just called the service department, and they are still waiting for the part to come in. They been waiting for this part for 2 weeks now. Doesn't that seem like a really long time? For a hard drive?

So, no new news yet.

What good does it do to have an extended warranty on something if it takes more than a month to have it repaired? I know that I shouldn't really complain. Truth is, I'm fine without my iPod - it certainly isn't a necessity, but something nice to have. Plus, Dick's sisters are coming into town this week, and I'd like to have it in my car for some day trips that we're planning.

At this rate, it'll be more than a month before I get it back.

Testing...1,2,3

Dick's been trying to talk me into using Mozilla Firefox as my regular browser.
It has a Live Bookmark feature than enables me to read my bloglist via XML feeds.

So, this is a test to see how well it does in updating new posts..... :)

Video Compression

I don't claim to have any expertise in video.
That said, I had a client who sent me a 4.4MB .MPG file last week, and asked for it to be put up on his website.
Well, I knew it was a big file, but hey, people have big bandwidths these days. Let's just put it up...

It looked fine on my Mac, on all browsers: Safari, IE, Netscape & Firefox.
It looked fine on my PC.

My client gets back to me, and says that it's really jumpy on his computer. Dick reports the same results from his work PC.

Okay, let's just shrink the size down.

I ask my client if he's able to do it on his end. He's not.
Okay, not problem. I'm a professional. I bought Quicktime Pro.

Turns out, there's no easy way to shrink down/compress video in Quicktime Pro. I did find the export option, which did allow me to scale down the size of the video, but it did not include the soundtrack.

Time for the big guns.

I call Pete. Pete is in the video industry. Pete can help me.

Pete looks at everything (thank you, Pete) and comes to the same conclusion as I did: there's no easy way to do this.

Then, we found this on Apple's website:
“It is not possible to export the audio portion of a muxed MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 audio/video stream using QuickTime. For editing purposes, the entire MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 stream is treated as a single sample.”

Okay - that answers that.

So then, clever Pete starts to look on the web for some shareware that we could try. We try out several. None of them do the trick.....

Lucky for me, Pete found some old (as in Mac OS8.6.1 or later), unopened software that he had laying around. He offered to give to me, since he's never used it. It's an app that claims to be "The camera-to-web streaming solution". Yep! That's for me!

I installed it today, and (after about 5 tries) it does the job! yay!

I went from a 4.4MB .MPG file to a 792kb .mov file. Excellent.

That should do the trick. I've alerted my client to the change, and I hope that he sees the difference on his end as well.

This just shows that you never know when you're going to need and use that old software that you have laying around.

Pack-rats unite. ;)

early

We're back in the routine of waking up at 6:30am, leaving the house at 6:55, and getting Dick to the train station at 7:15 to catch the early baby bullet train. It's been raining lately, so I've been driving Dick so he won't have to ride the scooter in the rain.

Oy. It's early.

This is why we can't play Halo too late ;)

It's still dark out when we leave. I watch the sunrise on the way home.
It's also dark out when I pick Dick up at 5:38pm.
Poor guy never sees the sun.

Good thing I bought him a happy light!

iBummed :(

It's been more than 2 weeks since I brought my ker-busted iPod into Best Buy for repair.

They've sent it off to their repair facility in Southern Cal, and it's been there, waiting for a part (hard drive) ever since. I called this morning, and the rep told me it'll be another 3 days to a week before the part comes in. They'll then have to repair my iPod, and ship it back after that, so I may be iPodless for another couple of weeks. :(

Drat.

I'd like my iPod back soon, please. I miss it.

...and the winner is...

The Bolognese Cook-Off was a great success. It seems like everyone had a great time!

The plan was changed just a little bit: Dick and I started to cook a little early, so by the time that Omar & Lora got here, we were already at the "simmering point". We thought it would be easier, and more social for everyone if they were able to cook in the downstairs kitchen as well. So, we didn't take advantage of having two kitchens this time... maybe some other time.

So, who won?

Who was victorious in the First Ever Bolognese Cook-Off????

Believe it or not, it was a tie.

Yep - we had 10 people over. 5 people (blindly) voted for the "pot on the front of the stove" and five people voted for the "post on the back burner of the stove". It was pretty funny.

Special mention goes to Shan, for sitting there for minutes, contemplating between the two sauces. He took it very seriously.

So, here's what I've learned about Omar and his recipes....

He recited The Bolognese recipe to us more than 3 years ago. We wrote it down, and we never stray.

It seems that Omar "alters" his recipe! He says it's always evolving.

So, Omar and Lora came in last night with different ingredients! WHAT? No Classico sauce? Bay Leaves? Tomato paste from a tube?

What's going on?!

No, Lora, really, I'm not bitter. ;) I find it all very amusing.

Thanks to Mike & Bunny for bringing a tasty salad, and to Reeves & Paula for all of their work on making us a yummy chocolate fondue for dessert. Mmmmmm.

We had a good time. It was a nice way to welcome in a new year.

Happy New Year!

Good Morning!

Happy 2005 :)

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.