March 5, 2000

Stuff . . .

So far today, we've done a lot of moving of stuff-- its a really good thing that we've got a garage here because we need it for storage.  I don't know when people had cars small enough to fit in these garages anyway-- back in the 50s when these apartments were built, the cars were huge so I have no idea, unless everyone owned a Volkswagen Beetle (the old ones, of course), how any car could've fit in these garages. BUT, the point being that at least we have someplace for storage-- we've changed bathroom rugs and towels again but the last sets aren't old enough to throw away but save for when we have a house.  We've also recently purchased new pillows for our bed so that means that the last set that isn't old enough to be thrown out completely, just old enough to hold for a second bedroom someday, gets moved out to the garage in a storage bag.  So, as George Carlin would say, "We've got a lot of stuff", and thankfully, we've got somewhere to put all of this stuff!

Errands . . .

The errands have been run as well today-- there were only a few things that I wanted to look at from the OSH How To Fair yesterday-- plants for the replacement of Spike and some seeds for my mother-in-law and for spices that I'm not patient enough to wait to come in to the store in seedling size.   (BTW, I'm afraid that the transplant of Spike didn't allow go well-- he was in pretty bad shape.  We put him outside to get some sun for a day or two but, on Thursday one of the Earls got to him so today, we've found a replacement for him an indoor palm of some sort with some shorter moderate light plants.)

The grocery shopping for veg, fruit and staples is done along with the usual runs for gas, etc.  So, we are technically prepared for another week, even if it is a short week-- don't forget we're going fishing on Friday (I hope!).  Right now, its kinda misting in places and that means that somebody is washing their car somewhere in northern California-- KNOCK IT OFF!!  (Okay, so it just means that its springtime in northern California but, oh, well!)

Maybe more later as time and activity permits . . .

Where to Start?

Well, you see, its like this:  we've got a critter in our ceiling.  We live in the top floor of a two-story apartment complex and there is something playing, knocking, rapping, dragging, clawing and scratching up there.  We first noticed on Monday (couldn't help but notice for all of the noise the little bugger was making!) and we notified the complex office.  They called the exterminator who came out on Tuesday.  The exterminator went up into the attic and put out something and said that the critter would be gone in four days.  Well, either its back or it has relatives!!  Last night (actually, this morning), there was a scratching, rapping, clawing sound in the ceiling or walls (sorry, couldn't tell you where because of the lack of directional hearing) from 12:25am until 12:41am.  I was so pleased, you can't imagine!  I was actually scared to get out of bed the rest of the night because I didn't know if it hadn't found a way to chew through the wall like they do in cartoons and horror movies!!  I didn't want to be the one to find it in our apartment!!

Speaking of critters, the Earl had a hey-day in our pots yesterday.  No, they didn't get to the newly planted and seeded lettuce pots but they did get to everything (all of the bulbed pots, Spike, and a small yucca plant) that we have on the table that Brian built.  I am not pleased and trying to figure out how I'm going to get a pellet gun for Brian for his birthday NOW when it actually isn't his birthday for well over a month!

Today's Activities

As I've been telling you all week, we're going to the "How To" fair for Orchard Supply Hardware today-- I look forward to this one all year!  I've even managed to convince Brian to bring along the digital camera-- that way we can photograph ideas as we see them!  Okay, maybe that's a bit "over-the-top" but I think it'll be easier to remember ideas if we can see them!

Happy Birthday!!

My brother-in-law, Bill, and his eldest son, Joel, are having a birthday today!  Happy Birthday, guys!!  Bill doesn't have a computer suitable to see any kind of electronic greetings with and no one seems to know Joel's email address-- we figure he's got one but just hasn't told the rest of the family what it is . . . hmm.  I think someone need to talk with him!

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Anyway, more later, if time permits . . . have a GREAT sunshiney day!!

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Birthday Update . . .

I spoke with Joel today-- his company doesn't have internet access for anyone who doesn't need it for their job because too many people were playing games-- now why would people do that when they're supposed to be working??  Anyway, he doesn't have an email address at home because he hasn't bothered to find an ISP-- Can you tell these people do not live in Silicon Valley???  Joel is a quarter of a century old today and, fortunately, his parents have found the fountain of youth and are not, themselves, aging despite this "birthday" thang! ;>)

"How To" Fair Update

Okay, Brian wouldn't let me take the camera but, it was still great to see all the new gadgets and things.  I have a tendancy to walk slowly and stop occasionally so I found myself sans my husband a couple of times.  I'd look ahead and there he'd be with his arms crossed over his chest waiting "patiently" for me.  Hah!!  I really enjoyed the fair and, on top of it, we got to meet and speak with Nick Stellino.  He's an excellent Italian cook and PBS Chef (formerly "Cuccino Amore") and this fall he has a new show starting-- "Nick Stellino's Family Kitchen".  He has a new book by the same name which we bought and had him autograph-- I'm really looking forward to the new show already! He is a really nice guy with a lot of neat stories about Italy and growing up learning to cook.  His wife, Nanci, was with him today also; he talks about her on most of his shows-- he talks about family a lot!-- so it was nice to meet her, as well.

All in all, we had a good time.  Learned some stuff and grew a little more impatient to have our own house!  Both of us are do-it-yourselfers so it is going to be fun when we do get around to buying one.  We reached an agreement at one point today: The garage will be a nice place for all of the tools!!  (Who needs to park cars inside a room called a "garage"???)

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I think that's gonna be it for the night-- I'm still working the border on this cross stitch-- I'm hoping it'll go faster once that's done!  Have a great one--

Home early. Marcia asks me to point out that our lovely hosts at PBI have seen fit to have a DOA email server (I can't even ping the bugger at the moment, that's down!). If you need to send Marcia email for some reason, send it to her Yahoo address. That's it for now. TTFN, Brian.

Now I'm Home

 . . . and while the email did a catch up some of the "lost" email a few minutes ago, its not perfect yet so please use the address above if you need to send me an email.  Sometimes Yahoo is slow but it is better than PBI at this point!

More Plans . . .

FINALLY, I've gotten through on the ReserveAmerica website to be able to reserve camping reservations for Brian and I in September at Clear Lake!  I've been wanting to fish there for a long time but, so far, its not been very easy to get into the campground.  That is a very popular lake in California for fishing and, as a result, it is generally booked up LONG before I think about making the reservation.  But that won't be the case THIS year!!  Yippee!!  I'm really glad we got in because I've never even been to the lake so it'll be a lot of fun for me.  Yes, that implies that I think Brian has been there before but I could be wrong . . . but, obviously, if Brian's never been there either, we will end up having a lot of fun exploring together, don'tcha know?

More Fishing?

Well, actually, it'll be our first fishing outing of the season due to all of the rain that's been happening.  Hopefully, next Friday, Brian and I can play hookey and go fishing-- I'm DUE and then some!!  Everybody cross your fingers that there's no more rain for at least eight days and, if you're in Northern California, do NOT wash your car!!

Sad News Today . . .

Brian's grandfather, Bob-Bob, passed away last night.  He was a sweet, gentle man who loved holding my hand when we visited.  I thanked Brian today for loving me and marrying me-- if he hadn't, I would never have known the wonderful and caring man he named "Bob-Bob".  I didn't know him for very long but I feel privileged to have known him at all; I loved him, too, as a very special grandfather-- I will miss him.

At our wedding, Bob-Bob asked to meet my parents . . . I'm sure by now that my Mom and Dad have found their way to him, introduced themselves and have at least scheduled, if not played, a round of golf together.

Bunches . . .

 . . . of little things to tell you all about today: first, unbeknownst to myself, I had an annoying little pop-up box that was coming up on my site-- just like Delanae had with her new site.  I had downloaded and encoded my webpage so that I could see a Star Trek communication badge as my cursor.  I had no idea that when I was doing that, it was popping up a little box to have my readers go there, too!  Needless to say, I didn't think that was too cool!  It was buried in the code and Brian took it out for me this afternoon; I have just permanently removed it from the file here at home.  My most sincere apologies for the rudeness of all of that-- I had no idea, really!  (I don't like it when things get buried in code so you can't tell what they're going to do when you're on another machine and opening the page!!)

Okay, then, I get home and realize that I've lost my sunglasses-- well, 'kay misplaced them temporarily. I'm not good at that and at least I admit it!  I have a tendancy to lay things down and not put them in the same place as before so I end up not being able to find them for far too long!  So, I'm trying to retrace my steps from yesterday when I wore the glasses on my way home from work . . . I went to the management office . . . I got the mail . . . finally, when I was on the phone with the management office I found them: the glasses were in the pocket of the coat that I was wearing yesterday.  Certainly not a usual place for me to put something!!

The English Home

The long awaited magazine, The English Home, has finally appeared on my doorstep!!!  YEAH!!!  I do believe you've got a fairly good idea of how I'll be spending my evening then, right?  Right!!

More on VTA

My early morning email check turned up this thought process from Don Armstrong:

 Don't KNOW, but ....

It must be Lockheed - if it was VTA it would be all
along the line. I guess, if my mental picture from
your description is correct, that some lawyer or risk
management consultant has got into Lockheed's ear and
convinced them that it's a better bet to have precau-
tions in place to stop people from accidentally or
deliberately charging out in front of a rail vehicle.
They could be right too. Some jelly-headed judge could
be capable of deciding in that case that Lockheed had
been negligent; and the legal costs alone might be
enormous if either a contingent-fee lawyer or an
insurance company was trying to get Lockheed to be
the one to pay.

Since you deal professionally with the absurdities
lawyers can promulgate, you may be able to judge
whether that could be the case. On the other hand, my
mental picture may be wrong.

P.S. I understood Uncle Sugar to be Uncle Sam in
sugar-daddy giving-away-money mode.

Regards, Don Armstrong.

I tend to agree with the conclusions that you've
drawn here, Don.

I don't think it says anything about Lockheed's
thoughts for the intelligence of their employees
but, it probably has less to do with their intel-
ligence and more to do with the fact that who
knows what employees are likely to do these days.
And you are probably right that because of some lawyer-promulgated lawsuit filed somewhere, this
is the risk management company telling Lockheed
how to avoid problems!

I suppose it could be just coincidental . . .

Thanks for your 2 yen's worth,
Marcia

Now if I could just understand the timing behind the signal lights and traffic lights!!

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Perhaps more later, if and when time permits . . .

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I've been pouring over the pages of The English Home . . . a wonderful magazine!!  There are two separate pages set up for subscribing-- its a new magazine-- in addition to a separate mail-in card that's already been offered to someone . . . if anyone's interested, send me your snail-mail address and I'll forward the subscription info to you-- it would be money well-spent-- I've already gotten some ideas out of it!!

That's it for now then . . . g'night to all!

Calendar?

Give me back my calendar!!!  Yeesh, what is going on with this "zooming" thing . . . you know the one: where the calendar goes zooming by us!!!  March already?!?!?!?  At the rate we're going, it'll be Christmas in about 20 minutes!!

VTA/Lockheed

Offering an opinion about the Lockheed/VTA question from last night, John Vogt has this to offer:

> The reason for the Crossings is simple -- there is money in it for the VTA.
> Uncle Sugar is giving away "free money" to rail (railroads, transit
> authorities, etc.) to all who provide a Crossing Signal at grade.
> IMHO the better way is to change grade crossings with seperated crossings
> (but there is no money for that <seg>
> Edit this anway you wish or don't use it.
> John D. Vogt

Well, that works to a point . . . I figure because Lockheed Martin does so much work for the government that they got the extra "allowance" to put gates up from CalTrans (the California Department of Transportation), your "Uncle Sugar", I presume.  However, the grade crossings are all the same: everything, both streets and tracks, are at the same level.

My theory is that the people at Lockheed are not able to cope with or discern safety strategies on their own so the government had to help them.  Makes you feel warm-n-cozy about where our tax dollars are going, eh?

Thanks for your input!

I have a niece, Faye, who sends me just about every type of chain-letter that comes across her email.  Whenever I get these messages, there are at least ten people being copied.  She shares and shares alike!  She is a sweet kid though and every now and then, comes up with a few zingers.  A few weeks ago, she passed on a file to me that had what I considered to be one of the best .sig file lines in it:

WARNING:  I have an attitude and I know how to use it.

Wednesday Night

Its the first Wednesday of the month so you know what that means: I'm alone!!  I get this once a month-- that's the only time I get to be alone!!

Tonight is "How To" night on the virtual eve of the Orchard Supply Hardware How To Faire this weekend!! I am beside myself with glee!  I am hoping we have lots of mentions of the Faire this weekend on the promos between the shows-- need more details . . . ALWAYS!!!  But, first, after I finish the dishes, I'm going to do some cross-stitch-- I'm actually making SOME progress on the border finally-- I've only ripped it out twice (I didn't like the border in the pattern)!

Have a good night all . . .

Happy Sadie Hawkins Day!

I've never heard of this and, yes, I get to say this again: This is another "holiday" that my upbringing didn't allow me to have in my youth.  Believe it or not, Karen (the florist that Brian and I use) had to explain this to me tonight and, yes, Brian has received his red rose from me as a result of the explanation.  When I was growing up, this wasn't any day at all except Leap Year Day, once every four years.  I have a cousin that was born on this day during a leap year so she's having a birthday for the first time in four years.

"Sadie Hawkins Day" was in March or April where I grew up and, actually, it was called "Twerp Season"-- one week out of the year when the girls could ask the boys out for a date (of course, we paid for it, too).  This was a big deal-- I only participated one time but, I'm grateful that I had no other opportunities.  (I cannot imagine myself married and living in Michigan because Gerrit DeVries asked me out on a second date!  ARGH!!!)

Whatever your traditions be, have a "Happy Sadie Hawkins Day"!!

Lockheed Martin?

On my way to work, I pass a major Lockheed Martin complex located on Mathilda Avenue in Sunnyvale, California.  Along the western side of the street, is the trolley service run by the Valley Transportation Agency ("VTA"), obviously referring to "Silicon Valley".  I have a question for anyone who either works at Lockheed Martin or for the VTA:  Why is it that the street entrances for Lockheed Martin are the ONLY place that has railroad crossing barriers?  Is it because Lockheed Martin people aren't smart enough to figure out on their own: "Oh, hey, that must be the trolley coming so I won't cross the tracks right now".  Or is Lockheed the only place that has a barrier because the VTA doesn't give a hoot about the rest of us when we have to cross the tracks somewhere else?

I have my theories about this but, I'm willing to wait to draw my conclusions until someone offers another explanation-- please, feel free to email me if you think you know why.

Statistics for the Month

I think its interesting that my most frequent reader is not my husband; my most frequent reader is an IP address so I have no idea who it is in reality.  There are, of course, two ways to look at this: 1) we have such great communication in our marriage that he doesn't need to read my pages to know what I'm thinking or 2) he doesn't care.  The good news is that I KNOW that the former is the case-- we have got a really great line of communication in our marriage.  (I may not always like what he has to say-- and vice versa-- but, that's another story entirely!)

This month, the statistics were a little odd . . . "Odd??", you ask in that tone that can only be presumed to be a question.  Yes, it seems that there were more than double the total number of hits but only three-quarters the number of page reads visited by the additional one-third-plus higher unique sites.  So what that means is that there were 10,387 hits, with 1,221 page reads made by 447 unique sites coming by for a whopping 806 visits.

As for countries: Canada, France, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, and Sweden, among those that are not completely identifiable.  There were a total of my precious readers who were unresolved or unknown-- I believe that I feel for those of you who are, as yet, unresolved and unknown.  I don't think that it is an enviable position to be in but, I could be wrong!  The non-profits and educational are picking up as well-- with my luck, I've turned into some anthropological study!

I know I say this every month but, Thanks for coming by and being friendly!!!!  Keep those cards and letters coming, Folks!!!!

Happy Return!!

Last but not least, a big "Welcome Back" to Tom Syroid!!  Long overdue and sorely missed, his observations and commentary on computers and the world will (hopefully) return to a somewhat regular state.

Tonight . . . tonight . . .

I've got some cooking to do . . . want to make some soup for my lunch and a big bowl of salad so that I don't have to cut it up in the morning-- I am not awake enough to handle a knife!!  So, that means that I have to get to it so that I can get it done before midnight.  Have a great night!!

Majorly Impressed!

Last night, I have to admit: I was surprised!  I have a tendancy to form and keep an opinion for years.  I'll bet it has been ten years since I've seen the movie "La Bamba" for which, Lou Diamond Phillips lip-synced to Los Lobos' rendition of the song by the same name.  Since that time, I've always held the opinion that their music was Latino music and, in my opinion, bad Latino music.  Sunday night, at The Fillmore, I was pleasantly surprised-- not only did the new material impress me (I've already told Brian that I want to get the CD) but, with the exception of
one song, I felt like they were patently avoiding Latino-type songs!

Ah, yes, but then it got better:  Bonnie Raitt-- red hair and all-- cruised onto the stage!  I couldn't believe it-- she is a long-time San Francisco resident rumored to be the type to drop-in on any concert or club date but, I have never seen her live before last night!!  She wasn't totally familiar with the band's new CD but faked it well (except for one song) and even did a couple of slide solos that were killer.  My life is complete now: I've had the love of an excellent man (my Brian) and I've seen Bonnie Raitt play live!  Life is good in Paradise, eh?

I've been to several venues here around the Bay Area but none is quite so hallowed when spoken of as "The
Fillmore" (and yes, that's said with a brief pause before the "The").  It never occurred to me that there wouldn't be seats-- why would it?  The Fillmore has been around for 35 or more years-- why wouldn't they have put seats in the thing??  Thankfully, I wore comfortable but supportive sneakers and was able to move around a little bit (I had a 6'3" beacon to keep my spot safe).

More later, I'm sure but had to get started with this much . . .

8:30pm!!

Well, my night is hacked!  I had planned to do a bunch of stuff here on my website and around the house tonight but, having had to leave to go to a meeting and stopping off at the CD store, by the time that I called Brian to see about dinner, I already had a raging headache on the way!  CD store?  Oh, yeah, we got that new Los Lobos CD-- what can I say?  I was really impressed with the concert!!  I also picked up a couple by Bonnie Raitt (I have always enjoyed her music!!) and the new one by Loreena McKennitt, "Elemental", and last but not least, The Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody".  What can I say?  I'm a sap for some of the old stuff . . . SOME of the old stuff!!

Brian, once finished with his race (Motocross something-or-other), wants to watch some more of the Black Adder tapes and I am finding that I like the Elizabethan better than the first year's set.  So, because of the lateness from last night, we more than likely will unwind with a show or two off the tape but still call it an early night.

So much for what I wanted to get done, eh?  Oh, well . . .

Current "Musings"

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