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Thursday, March 30, 2006

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 1 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: 5 Min Nod

Todays Tidbits:
i forgot to finish yesterdays post.. i forgot to say that if they banned guns due to bad people having it therefore nobody should have it. Then they should ban the illegals. Ban everything!

So today i had another wierd dream but i don't remember it as of now.. ugh.

But todays fortune cookie says 'Someone in your life needs a letter from you.'
So who would that be? And do emails count?

Today we broke open Fluffielady's xmas present of the HP Photosmart 8250. The heads move so fast that it rocks the table a bit, and this table has a 75lb 21" CRT monitor! Anyhow doing some research, i found out that paper does make a big difference in color picture prints. It's kinda wide, and it takes 6 ink tanks! woo! I made a 4x6 print of a photoshopped wedding picture and it came out pretty good. Now i can photoshop and print photos with wild abandon! Well till the ink goes..

My grandmama has been in the hospital for a while now, and we visited her tonight. She seems to be doing well. Fluffielady and i think that she had caught one of those waves of crazy heavy flu, which fluffielady had (for a month) but i didn't (how odd). I guess she was in the ICU for 3-4 days with a fatty fever but is now doing better. At first i thought it was heart related but i dunno after visiting and looking at her, i think it was the icky flu. icky flu go away!

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 1.5 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: 0 Min

i had this dream 2 or so days ago where i was 400-pounds and my shooting coach felt sorry for me and hooked me up with a personal trainer. All i remember was doing these crunchies where you twist your torso to the right and touch your knee and then to the left etc.. well my leg was this chunky mass of flesh! Thats nasty! whats going on??

I like this whole immigrant rally / protest thing.. what part of 'illegal' does one not understand? There are Legal immigrants that come through the boarder, they live in mexico, come to the US to work, pay taxes (which is good), they can't file taxes (to take back their paid taxes, which is good), but they tend to use it up in terms of hospitalization / law enforcement action (which is bad in two senses, money and the feeling of security). i'm proud of these legal immigrants, they filed the paperwork, got hired, gone through probably months of red tape n what not just to cross the boarder to pick the veggies / fruits / whatever labor needed.
I find it similar to gun control, theres people who do the paperwork, follow the rules applied throughout the years, and yet there are those who can get stolen ones and use it to their evil means.

All i (well not me exactly) hafta say is:
"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Theodore Roosevelt - to the president of the American Defense Society on January 3, 1919, three days before he died.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Time to relax from this mess..

At the beginning of the month, i gave up my usual 2 units of red blood cells and recieved a 50$ certificate to be used at the hornblower cruises. I didn't think much of it then, till a few days later i decided to lookup how much the thing actually is. For the brunch cruise it's 65$ each and dinner varies from 85-99$. So being the cheapie that i am, well we just chucked $17k but thats at the end of this post so i have a right to be cheap, off to sunday brunch we go. Hey, i payed with my blood already! jeez.



Pic by Fluffielady...
It was quite a beautiful day, silly (over color-balancing canon) pic shows it all grey but it wasn't.
The food was not bad, it was quite relaxing. We were seated at the captains lounge (Oooo!), meant for couples i think and it had a piano player on our deck only. It's the standard spin around the bay. From Pier 33 northward towards the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and the backside of Alcatraz and back the Pier 33 in a span of 2hrs. The wind was gentle and the sun heating us up was a good feeling, up to a point that is.

Off to the second part of the story.
Yesterday, Fluffielady and i went to the lovely town of Pittsburg to the Diablo Ford dealership where we meet our future SUV, the 2003 RAV4.

It's a 2wd, but it's Pearl White with all that shimmer (More Oooo's), and i think they priced it too low, in which we tried to haggle but they try to play that game of 'oh it's a pricing error, we shouldn't have priced it so low, but we will honor the price since your here, so we can't go any lower than what you've got.' All i remember was when i was sitting at the dealership my buddy Jhin spatted 'Car dealerships is the #1 place where the consumer has the least amounts of rights.' Stop playing with my emotions!

It's not bad, on kelley blue book and edmunds.com both price this rav4 at 18k from dealerships, then add tax and blahblah and the hassle of the haggling. My next vehicle shall have AWD, I still don't understand why suv's aren't off-road capable.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

And so Star Wars life begins.
First by the ghetto 3-d R2D2 holographic display.. "This message is for Obi Wan.. We need your help! Bzzt... Bzzt.."

IO2Technology is on it's 2nd generation of holographic display using airwaves up to 30". And its interactive, your finger acts like a mouse pointer!

Friday, March 24, 2006

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 2 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: 20 Min

Doodoo, if you are gonna war-drive, please don't do it where people notice you.. 'cuz Some dood in Rockford, Ill. Got a fine of 250$ and a year of probation for 'borrowing' ones wi-fi connection.. heh heh Thats why i love such things as the nokia 9500 and the HTC Wizard. Stealthy hacking!

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Bah, back to the real world. This years Annual Boardmeeting was pretty short due to the silly weather. The window for rightous riding was cut short to only 2 out of the 4 days up yonder. It was the only 2 days in which it wasn't dumping inches of snow, ugh!
Thursday night, packed and ready to go. I looked up the weather at Truckee and at Norden, CA. 100% snow predicted for friday till 4pm which it lowered to 70% snow, dood.. I called up my coworker, Mr. D. and tell him about the conditions, he graciously offers a ride in his 4x4 highlander (in which i still cannot find). I'd like to thank T-dog aka '10-7M' for all the hospitality, the drive and our fights on who pays each others food\gas.


Yes, he's got Pop!

So Friday comes and we casually drive up to the cabin situated in Graeagle, a sleepy (literally) town in Plumas county.
Saturday:
Weather Conditions at Northstar : 2/3 Blue Sky with Puffy Clouds, Super Light Snow at Times, Snow Flocked Trees, People up the wazoo..
Snow at Northstar: 2ft deep powder *if* you happen to go off the runs. Loose Packed runs, not too hard, not too soft.. Mmmm yum!
My buddy Alton along with his ladyfriend Janet meet us at Northstar for some slushing around the snow. I haven't been to northstar since last year and it's construction is going pretty well! They've setup a starbucks (of course) and the ice rink.


5$ all day ice skating!

Theres still a ton of construction still going on over there. They're trying to go for the whole resort package deal for the familia. Even fluffielady wouldn't mind going to northstar now, whoa!
The runs were excellent with a few stuck moments in 2ft deep powder, it really sucks when you just sink into the stuff. But when your floating, thats the beautiful sensation of riding on fluffie pillows!
It's the first time my canon has gone through the test of snow, i 'accidentally' covered the whole thing in snow and it seems to be working still (heh).
So with my new (to me) Palmer board, i get working on the baby halfpipe that the gang found. I seem to be able to twist clockwise but not the other way, great! Time to gain some experience points in 1) riding fakie, and 2) trying counter-clockwise 180's.
After pouncing around in the snow, we ate at the truckee diner. Then it was back to the cabin where Mr. D passes out instantly on the couch. I toldcha it's a sleepytown..
Sunday:
Weather Conditions at Alpine Meadows: 3/3 Blue Sky with a fluffie cloud here and there, White Flocked Trees, Blinding White Snow ..
Snow at Alpine Meadows: Same Soft packed snow, slight hard spots when off-trail.
Sundays silly, Mr. D, gives me a tour of the area and into the Plumas-Eureka State Park, home of the Plumas Ski Club and it's Longboard races. And actually Mr. D. and I found ourselves at the 'Snowball 2006 Longboard Races'. We didn't stop to see but it's a ski race in which people dress the dress of the time period and skiied on Wood Plank Skiis 10-15 ft long!
After the little tour we headed to northstar for day 2.. Unfortunaly there was not a spot to park! Even the overflow parking near the entrance was overflowing. it was getting to noon and Mr. D. somehow had an itching for french fries. Ok, we headed to Alpine Meadows and found a parking spot by luck and a german group leaving, selling their tickets to us for cheap. Alpine meadows is silly, 41$ all day pass or 39$ for half day (12:30pm)???
Anyhow Mr. D. Gets his french fry fixing and went into the hills. Their french fry order is really meant for 2 people, really, trust me..
We go and ride and i think that ball of potato got to him. It's quite a brick to be carrying around while trying to exercise! Anyhow, my goal sunday was more Exp. on Riding Fakie and 180's.
It out to be a pretty good day actually.
Monday: We hear on the news about the storm thats coming. We clean up the cabin and decided to go Rav4 hunting. We load up and i call 511, it seems that Highway 80 is closed to trucks due to spinouts. Mr. D. Doesn't like the idea of spinning and we ventured to the 'all-weather pass.' The pass consists of going north to highway 70 and joining up to highway 99, north of sacto. The drive was rainy and it got to snow a bit, which meant it was probably wild on highway 80. I got to pass through, Plumas, Butte, Yuba, Sutter counties all in one day! weee! Poor Mr. D. i drug him around to the vacaville and fairfield automalls. Both places didn't have any Rav4's, this is getting insane. Theres nothing out there! I wish that each auto mall carries a list of all the other companies used cars. It would be so much easier than going from one place to the next across the street to the next. ugh.
Now i'm back and i dun wanna go back to work!

Monday, March 13, 2006

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 3 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: Zip

Work was the usual, pretty light day. Nothing out of the ordinary except for one guy pleading guilty and the judge goes through this whole scripted schpeel with a series of questions about giving up your rights blahblah. i swear i hear at least the same thing 3-4 times a day. Anyhow one series of questions involves being coerced. 'Are you pleading guilty because of a co-defendant, or has anyone put pressure to plea. The guy says yea. my lawyer. He doesn't comprehend much. But he does comprehend stealing cars.
Whata Loser..

The weekend was fun, saturday off to freaksno. Went to a birthday party, the kids 1st.. It was more a gathering for the adults than for the kiddies. Then you see everybody else with them, oi! Hung out for a bit then ventured to hang out with Andrew and Marlia.
Went there and got to ride Andrews Scarlet Red BMW 1100. It's a really gentle, smooth riding motorcycle. Meant for touring / commuting i liked it's ease. It had quite a pull, due to the large displacement, if you wanted it. Everything is adjustable, Windscreen, HandleBar angle, Seat height, it's got ABS, Heated handgrips digital gear display. The only bad things was that it's a bit heavy, but that adds to the smoothness, and at idle you can feel the jiggle of the boxer style engine bopping left to right. One annoying thing is that if you put the kickstand down, the bike turns off, even in neutral. BUT if it's on it's centerstand, the bike turns on any way you want it. Bizarro German things, usually theres a reason for it. Compared to my bike, the BMW pushes harder, but not faster like my bike. The handling is gentle on the bike and the body, the Gixxers handling is scalpel sharp but the riding angle is hard on the body. So the Gixxer is a hot knife through butter, while the BMW spreads hot butter with a smooth knife. Does that make sense?
Whatever, it's a bike, just ride..
Got to bakersfield Sat night. Went Rav4 hunting, the only one we found was at a mercedes dealership, 2003 Rav4, White, Limited package, 19k miles for $16k. Beautiful, but it's only a 2WD. It seems that nobody likes to drive their SUV's offroad. It's forsaken!
Lets see, Delilahs gone through, sketchy miles of offroad with ruts, roots, rocks and gravel. Forged through 6 rivers crossing the road. Been through 3" thick snow, and ice. She never did play in the beach or in the mud though. Me and Delilah like to avoid those two last things. Shes so cute!


SUV's do not belong here..

Anyhow didn't find what we wanted. Hung out a bit more with the parents and ventured back. Drive baby Drive!

Friday, March 10, 2006

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 5.5 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: nada

1st day of running the court all by myself (mostly).. it seemed hectic but it wasn't. On an average day my flow is usually around 18-21 clients. Today, a friday of all days, i had 25 with 3 add-ons.. Talk about when things come at you.

The past 8 days i've been having dreams again, too bad i don't remember any of it as of now. i always do right when i wake up though..

Tomorrow, we're heading out to good ol Fresno for a 1-year birthday bash with one of Fluffielady's bridesmaids. What do you get someone a year old? After venturing down there we're gonna continue to Bakersfield and see if we can look at some rav4's. Time for some wheelin n dealin.. Hopefully i get to hop onto Andrew's BMW Moto.

I just finished watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It's alot better than the original boring movie. But it has the usual philosophical tidbits. Yes, the usual jap. anime questions, with the unusual jap. anime story. This time technology has enabled humans with the simplicity of plug and play bionics. Everything from hands to brain to body transfers. Technology brings humans into the digital world, some people are wirelessly connected to the net, or can communicate with each other by just thinking. Then comes the hacking, and the conspiracy.
The main characters work for 'section 9', one of those secret squirrel agencies that deal with emergency rescues. They get the latest in gear and weapons. One of their neat toys is a networking group of robots called Tachikomas. The twist begins when one of the section 9 guys decide to give the tachikoma some gourmet oil thats organic (isn't synthetic better?) Eventually the tachikoma begins to gain individual thought, and since they are networked, the others gain individuality as well. The bots start wondering about things like death.
So the story is one where at the beginning theres a bunch of little stories. And after a while those stories begins to surround itself about a hacker who found out a scandal and is trying to expose it. It gets nifty but the usual jap. anime ending relys on the human moral and the philosophical. Talk about serious mindplay. All that just in a cartoon, sweet..

Time to watch Appleseed The Movie.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 2.5 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: nada

Yesterday was supposed to be 90% chance of rain at 9am and 100% chance of rain at 10am when i looked it up saturday night. I decided to disengage my high power match. Well it was bloody sunny till noon. Good one Weather.com! jeez.

Got to J's place and partied there for Vickie's Birthday. It was pretty cool, everybody was having good times a flowing. My kung-fu is waning for my poker skills have dropped. Walt won 1st and Robyn 2nd. Walt gets the honorary award of:


Congrats Walt!

Today the real training begins, lets see how crazy this gets. It shouldn't be that bad, i didn't have that much trouble this time.. heh

i've decided to start archiving some vhs onto digital formats. I'm also trying to figure out the best encoding for space and dvd-burning ability. Weee!

Saturday, March 04, 2006

This ain't working..

Today i decided to go up to the mountains with Capt'n D. We pack up and head off around 6:30am. After reaching Forest Hill, we ate at the usual silly Jack-in-da-casket. This Jack-in-da-crack has i'd say 75% of the time something queer happens *if* i go with someone there. Usually the order gets messed up somehow. i'll let Capt'n D scribe the event.
The last time i was here was the crazy Martin Luther King weekend ride where Jenny had a crazy time trying to get a Sourdough Jack breakfast sandwich, never got it, but got 3 other sandwhiches instead. Speaking of which, Happy Birthday Jenny!
Theres something up with the workers there, i've been noticing that in Auburn, the town with the fiddle festival (held in June / July), has a growing population of illegals. In Jenny's and Capt'n D's instances the order taker wasn't that fluent in english.
Anyhow ate and went to the car and then noticed that the ex-fob car, a 1988 honda accord with a bolt on metal spoiler had this pic on the side window:

Well it's not the exact pic but we forgot to snap one for posterity.
What are they trying to say? They are illegals and that they are taunting La Migra to send them off? i never did understand those types of stickers, such ones as "bad cop, no donut." When people want to lay-low and hide under the radar, these stickers is like wearing a danger orange vest on a duck hunt with Dick Cheney. Thats ok, we need to get rid of these scum-suckers.
So we laugh at that for a bit and start heading East on 80. We see a road sign saying "Chain Check in 10 Miles... Chain Control over summit.." A few exits later it's bumper to bumper traffic with non-existant movement. I had a flashback of that Martin Luther King weekend and knew that it's over, done, finished. If we were near a sign saying chain check in 10 miles and traffic isn't moving, time to bail. Luckly we were right next to a exit and just turned back, kinda sucks that you go all that way for nothing. But i've learned from last time, that once you see that, it's over. So we do our alternative plan, go to Fry's in Sacto, and head home. Weekends suck for the snow. =( Lets see, i think it's 7 times that i wanna go, 3 canceled out due to speculation of weather, 1 canceled due to getting there and seeing that it's not worth it. 3 out of 7, ugh!
Get home and fluffielady's found some Rav4's online to look, but i give the dealerships a call and it's sold a few days ago. bah! Oh well, cleaned up and UE (her real name is Hui-Tsui just pronounced U.E.) came over we ate at this hole in the wall burrito place near the Shack. The place was packed and loud! The food is huge but theres no 'stuff' in it. I ordered a steak burrito and it's filled with Rice, Beans and Meat but thats it, no salsa, no sour cream, no option for super, nada. Fluffielady and UE's foods were also just meat n beans. So if your a meat n bean kinda person thats the place for u. The food is HUGE, the price is good but meats n beans for u!
Looked up the weather for tommorrows High Power Match, How does one avoid 90 and 100% rain? I don't think i'll be shooting this month, bummer.

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