Plan "B"

O.K. I'll be the first to admit that the last time I went on a real hike was with a rucksack on my back and an awful lot of green :-) K and I and a new acquaintance "A" went to Rancho San Antonio for a hike this morning. The workout was eclipsed by the awsome nature around.

So, I decided to go swimming again last night since our regular Wednesday night Bible study is temporarily moved to Thursdays. I showed up at the gym pretty late - almost 9 o'clock. But the pool was packed again. Filled to overflowing with Asian women all doing their graceful laps. With determination and endurance, they did lap after lap before I could even get into the water. It's as if they all know something about global climate change that we all should.

But again, swimming kicked my bottom. 15 minutes: 5 full laps. Sigh, I had hoped for much more, but I just can't catch my breath. I'll see if I can find more information online about how to swim.

Anywho, I got into work the next day (today) and started filing through my spam - err, email. Here's the reason why I cancelled my personals account...

Hello!!! My name Elena. I just to see your picture on a site of acquaintance Yahoo and I want to have with you acquaintance. I hope, that you to not have that against and will write on my address of e-mail imcharminggirl@***.ru
My address of e-mail bears in itself the truth and I really to be charming. I know, that you would like to see my picture and I shall send you it at once as soon as I shall receive from you your letter on imcharminggirl@***.ru
I shall wait very much and I think, that we can have good acquaintance
Elena.

Yeah, she's a local girl for sure. Especially with an .ru domain. This one was pretty tame. I've gotten emails from my personals ad like "Hi, I'm a hot, lusty....just waiting for you." You get my drift.

No, I'm not going to find what I'm looking for there.

I guess I would consider myself a Renaissance Man. At least somewhat educated, with several interests - despite the notion that some of my favorite pasttimes include crayons and construction paper.

We went to the Renaissance Faire in Casa De Fruta last weekend. I'd never been to one, so I really didn't know what to expect.

It was fun. I really liked the boothes that sold more authentic types of garb. Chainmail, swords, and of course - pirate clothing. I now wish that I had at least brought my pirate hat, so I could pick out a cool feather. K picked up a pair of cool feather earrings, and I ended up getting a Jolly Roger Henna.

It was clear that some of the people in attendance think about their costumes way more than I do. All the people dressed up had real leather boots, whereas I have plether. They carried around real swords, whereas mine is plastic (in order to get it through airport security ). Many of them even had real hair. :-)

I found myself up on stage a couple of times. Throwing apples at Broon the juggler or showing off my manly physique at the Bold & Stupid Men show. I hope I was the bold one.

Anyway, I understand that they have one weekend for pirates. Now, even though my costume is not as nice as some others, I think it would be fun to dress up and go. Meanwhile, it sits in my closet awaiting the end of October.

P.S. I didn't include any photos of K. I'll ask her permission first.

I just took ownership of a device that we use for checking the temperatures on servers down in the server farm. As far as I can tell, it has the option to put a couple of different sensors on it. So, I'm going to go a little nuts with checking the temperatures of different things. If I start talking funny, check my mouth for a wire coming out of it.

I've decided to not just have a room temperature sensor, but I might even hook up the seat of my chair. :-) One thing I've always been curious of is the difference in temperature between the two sides on my Peltier device.

In a nutshell, it converts electricity I get for free with the 75W solar panel in my office window into heat on one side and cold on another. I also use the panel to power a small electric fan which helps to cool off the hot side, making the cool side colder.






"Get a life", you may be saying. Well, I've got one, and it's pretty darn cool. I like my toys.

It seems that the little piece of metal that could - finally couldn't anymore. The agitator simply won't go 'round anymore. Oh well. I found a few agitators online for $25, but I'm not too thrilled about the notion of repairing a washing machine with the capacity of a chipmunks cheeks.

So, I'll likely have to go out and find a new washing machine that will fit in the closet space. I think the area is where the heater used to be before the prior owner put up a new one in the attic. Nice one though. Err, heater that is.

Anywho, I went to the barber the other day and got my regular person. "How would you like it?", she asked. "The same as last time", was my response. When she finished, I thought to myself, "this is how it was last time!?"

She took off some serious hair (and I don't have all that much to throw around). Anywho, it'll grow back before too long, so -- whatever. I think I'll start making a habit of going to this young guy who just got his own shop up north. It'll be a trek, but I'll get to see the smartest and most beautiful Goddaughter in the world while I'm up there. :-)

Then, since I didn't feel like cooking anything that would only be enough for one day (I allow myself to eat out every Wednesday so I can get to church), I went to Uno Mas. I LOVE their chicken fajita combos.





P.S. Update on the salt water ice thing - I think I needed to mix the salt into the water a bit more. Or use kosher salt, which is a bit flakier. I'm trying again, but this time, I've stirred the salt into very hot water first.

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

First thing I did this morning was forget it was today. Then, I decided on making it Talk Like A Parrot Day. Whenever someone comes into my office to ask a question, I repeat the question back in my parrot voice. Then, I squak and whistle.

That's not going to get annoying anytime soon, eh?

Our department goes out for lunch about once a month. Each month, a different member gets to pick where we go. I almost always pick a place where breakfast is served, but others pick all other the food map. Today's pick was by Rose. She picked the Mexican restaurant down the hill - El Amigo. It was yummy - and especially yummy because they serve Mexican breakfasts all day. I got the huevos con chorizo. YUM! I've grown to like spicier foods. Not flaming hot like Rocco, but the regular, "wow, that's got a kick" hot. This was pretty mild, but still good.

Then, it was back to the best dual monitor wallpaper I could find. This machine is called pirate, and I use it to mount all my other machines (which are named after ships).

O.K. You caught me. I was just trying out my new camera. :-) I want to get my head around all the features before throwing it into the water.

Anywho, at the end of the day, I remembered that I work at one of the most beautiful offices in the world.

A co-worker and I have ocassionally talked about coming up with Office Space II (The Pointy Haired Empire Strikes Back). I think we'll need to include my morning today which is the final chapter in an 11 day long help desk ticket. I'll exaggerate here, but not enough to really change the crux of the story...

Day 1: Peter can't get into his email, so he opens a help desk ticket on the web.

Day 2: With no phone calls or anything, and nothing really to do at work without email, he goes back to the web to find out the status of the ticket. It was immediately closed with no action. "Thank you for using the Help Desk."

Day 2 + 2 minutes: Peter reopens the ticket with different wording and attempts to explain that he can't get into his email as many different ways as he can. He leaves several phone numbers, personal numbers, cell numbers, and office location.

Day 3: Online poker appears to be the only thing that gives the illusion of productivity. With the screen turned the right way, it gives the appearance of and engrossing TPS report.

Day 4: Peter comes to work to find that he has a voicemail. It's Ashok from the offshore help desk instructing Peter to reply to the email he just sent, so they can get started on the problem. The message was left at 3:30 am in Peter's time zone.

Day 4 + 2 minutes: Peter adds a comment to his open help desk ticket explaining that he's unable to respond to the email because his EMAIL ISN'T WORKING!

Days go by as well as most of the movie with Peter simply not having email and, at this point, making up various excuses for why the help desk isn't helping. (The straightforward answers weren't cutting it).

Day 11: As customary, Peter begins his day by turning on his monitor and going to the help desk web site. His ticket was closed because the "customer could not be contacted."

That's my story. It's all true except the part about online poker. It isn't my primary email address, but the effect is the same.

After church today, I decided to hit the gym, but this time I decided to swim instead of run on the treadmill. I resisted the temptation to try out my new underwater camera - that woult just be a restraining order waiting to happen.

So, I get to the gym and make my way to the pool. The pool was pretty crowded for a Sunday afternoon, and the people swimming were pretty serious about getting their laps done. I entered the water and tried my best.

I'm not an olympic swimmer and I'd never make it out of the first leg of a triathelon, but I can swim. I mean, I can float and move around. I know how to swim, but I never really put any effort into doing laps, so this was really my first attempt. I suppose the fact that I didn't have goggles or a swim cap really helped convey the message that I don't do this on a regular basis. Usually, I just dog-paddle, and that's been good enough for me. If I ever really needed to make distance, I'd backstroke. The backstroke's pretty easy, eh?

I swam and swam and swam and swam some more - I was swimming for what seemed like hours, but I finally made it to the other end. I was breathing pretty hard and couldn't believe how much that took out of me. I caught my breath and made my way back to where I started.

WOW! This swimming thing is really a great cardio workout for your arms. I can bench and lift more now that I've been working out, but swimming is a totally different workout for your arms. I could kick pretty well, and I think I had o.k. form, but after about 4 laps, I noticed that the people in the lanes next to me hadn't stopped swimming at all. They're fish. I'm convinced of it. I tried the graceful, moderated pace that they were doing - [gasp, gasp, gasp]. After 5 laps, I just decided to tread for a while, then called it a day.

My goal is to make 10 complete laps back and forth without stopping before the cruise in 50 days. I've got some work to do.

or not...

There's a new Margaritaville in Grand Turks with a 500,000 gallon pool and swim up bar. :-)

http://www.margaritaville.com/grandturk.php

Well, I haven't written because a lot has been going on lately - which means that I should be writing about it, but I've been busy. I thought I'd just start the ramblings now...

The underwater kit for my new camera showed up on my door like an abandoned baby - um, in a cardboard box. Oh, backup - I was in the market for a new digital camera. Mostly because my old one was 2 MP, but I got "permission" from myself when a little plastic thingy fell off in Oahu last month. Wow! Has is been a month already? How long has it been? No clue - that's why I blog; so I'll know where I was. All this traveling and blogging reminds me of this website/blog I found a few weeks ago that I've been keeping up with. It's called Broken Cookie and it looks like this family travels continuously. Am I jealous? Yes. It's this pesky work thing that prevents me.

Anywho, I'm really excited about the upcoming cruise and at the notion of finally taking some underwater pictures in November. Hmmm, I guess I won't be doing NaNoWriMo this year (again). Or I could give it a 20 day shot to see what I come up with when I get back. We'll see - maybe the cruise will help give me some ideas.

I bounced my last novel attempt off someone last night (late last night). The result made me wonder if I could really build a ring laser.... <10 minutes have passed>

O.K. I think I cured my bordem for the day. I was feeling idle and decided to try an experiment. I took 1 Cup of H2O and different measurements of Salt (.5, 1, 1.5, 2 tsp). Mix well and attempt to freeze to see at what level salt water won't freeze in a household fridge :-)







Then, I made sure that I could still tie a bowtie. Yep, I can check that off my list. Have I mentioned that I'm really looking forward to the cruise? True, it's a short one, but I'm looking forward to relaxing - and not relaxing.

I don't think so, but what do you think? And who is Frank Lampard?

Click Here!

If you're looking for a 9/11-free zone, you've found it.








We went to Teatro Zinzanni again last night, and today I'm a little beat. As always, it's a very strange place indeed. I fully believe that if the tent had collapsed with Rocco "the birthday boy" Juliano there, the world would have lost half of all its theremin players.

The hula hoop player was perhaps my favorite. Thelma Houston was Madam "Z". She's best known for her 70's hit "Don't leave me this way". This was later redone by either Bronski Beat or The Communards - I can't recall what they were calling themselves at the time. Now, it's a big retro favorite, and she sang it at the end of the show. Of course, I picked that time to hit the restroom thinking that nothing would happen. I got back just as everyone was dancing around.

Would I go again? YOU BET'CHA! I wouldn't want to make a habit out of it, because it's pricy, but it's a nice diversion. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it.

Hey Rocco! Send me that picture of me walking. I liked the way it came out. Whatdayasay we take a weekend day sometime and try taking modeling shots of each other? It would be neat to look back in 50 years to see what we looked like.

Here's some from yesterday:


The birthday boy


Rocco loves Angelina




Body guard and Jedi Master

... Josh. Well, not really [wink], but I did just buy some braces for my tuxedo pants. Ya'll call them suspenders, but they're called braces. Some nice, old fashioned, Y-backed leather-ended braces. I took them home and tried on my tuxedo. Yep -- "Cameron" from Ferris Bueller, but that's o.k.. I'll have a vest over them. Gone are the days of cummerbund. Someday though, I think it would be fun to find one of those retro tuxedos with the powder blue fringed ruffle shirts and go my high school reunion or something. I think that would be festive.

I also just ordered some woven name labels for my shirts. I spent enough on these puppies that I don't want some random laundry person scrawling my name on the colar with a Sharpie pen. Yes, it's just "things, things, things" with me lately, but it's all in preparation for the cruise. O.K. that's just a thing too, eh? But I'm not getting materialistic on you.

Those nightstands I purchased a few weeks ago wasn't the top of some slippery slope or anything. I just tend to go a wee bit (just a little) crazy before a cruise with things I think I need.

I think cruises are as much fun and as luxurious as you make them. I enjoy oogling over the 94 forks and knives that I have to pick from. Especially the little ones at the top of the plate. Those are always a surprise (unless it's for the snails - bleck). I love seeing the people in uniforms all running around making sure we have enough water/coffee/whatever. You can learn a lot from someone just by observing how they treat waitstaff. How demanding or understanding or high or low maintenance or easy going or terse or mellow or indecisive or assertive or whatever.

I'm hopeful that this next Caribbean won't be like the one with Hurricane Wilma was last time.