Category Archives: Uncategorized
midweek update
I’ve been working pretty hard these past weeks. I really love my job. I know I’ve gushed about it before. But there is not a day when I go into work when I think to myself, “Gee, I wish I worked somewhere else.” Well, except for a day a few weeks ago when I saw a series of photos that someone took of their tour to Pixar. Heh. I really enjoy working with the people we have. I think we have a fantastic group. I really enjoy using our product. I enjoy the constant learning and introduction of new hardware.
Speaking of fantastic groups and enjoyable workplaces, I have spoken to several people from my Supernews/remarQ days recently. I really miss working with them. They were the first people I met out in California, and they were like family. We saw each other day in, day out. We stayed at the office long after all our work was done. Almost everyone was single, and had no one to go home to in the evening, so we ate dinner together, watched movies together, and generally bonded together. The family atmosphere really helped when we were working together. I think back on those times, and half-wish we could go back to those days. But now, we have people to go home to, for the most part, and have different groups of friends, and things are good in a different way. I think I should become more proactive about seeking them out though. I had lunch with Linda last week, and it was really, really great. Next week, I am going to have dinner with Lim, Alan, and Gene. Woo! I can’t wait. I told Lim to remember to ask Ashlee. OH! I will see if Edy is free. I will have to remember to ask him. I hope I don’t forget. My mind has been on the fritz lately.
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Lots of birthdays are coming up. My mom’s is next week, and my niece’s is 10 days after that. Then two weeks after that is my little bro’s b-day. Then mother’s day! Eek!
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I am so late on this boat, but I have been reading Wil Wheaton’s blog lately. Stand By Me was my favorite movie to come out of the 80s, and is probably in my top three movies of all time (though I’d be hard pressed to tell you what the other two are, if you were to ask), so it has been fascinating to look into his personal blog and discover that he’s like a lot of people I know. Weird.
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I bought these shoes in black: 
They are called “Macroscopic” and I don’t know why. It’s weird that shoes are named in this fashion. I saw another pair of shoes called “Microphone”, which I thought was funny, since they totally look like shoes your hold to your mouth as you sing into the mirror. It weirds me out when bras are named. I don’t want to wear a “Melissa” or anything, frankly.
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I love Seppo very, very, very much.
firefox is so cool
I didn’t notice until today how to use the “Live Bookmarks” feature of Firefox. It’s really another rss/atom reader, but it’s so cool how it integrates into the browsing experience. Read the how-to here. It’s very easy. I strongly recommend putting your favorite rss/atom subscriptions into your “Bookmarks Toolbar Folder”. This lets you have one-click access to the most recent entries. Nice.
perspective
It’s strange how things can seem really big when they aren’t. I was stressed out this week because I was having a lot of laptop network issues, and ended up losing a week’s worth of prevously completed work due to a backup mishap, in addition to the actual days lost on trying to get this issue resolved. But you know, it’s really not a big deal. So I have to work this weekend to make up the work, but I can live with that. I’ve had worse deadlines. I was feeling so sorry for myself when I heard from my friend Holly that someone broke into her apartment and made off with a bunch of things. That is such a terrible thing to happen. There is the loss of things, but more importantly, there is the loss of keepsakes that your memories are tied to, as well as the loss of the sense of security and safety in your own home. The feeling that someone can interrupt and manipulate your life at their will at any time doesn’t leave for a long time after things like this.
I lost merely some data that has no personal value to me, and I got so upset. But that doesn’t compare at all to having things that have personal meaning get taken. I hope against hope that my friend will be able to recover some of her stuff somehow.
Tonight I spent time with some good friends and some good food. It was how life should be.
tv roundup
The best/most fun shows on tv right now (for me) are the following:
- MI-5
- The Dog Whisperer
- What Not To Wear (both UK and US versions)
- America’s Test Kitchen
I note that none of these shows are on the network stations. Oh crap, I’m wrong, because I forgot to include Lost. I feel like I traded in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy for What Not To Wear, and Good Eats for America’s Test Kitchen. While I enjoyed the other two, I feel like I definitely traded up in some sense. I guess in a way, Lost is my stand-in for Survivor.
Seriously, if you have a dog or are considering getting one, check out The Dog Whisperer on the National Geographic channel. You’ll either learn a lot or laugh a lot, or possibly both.
blogs amok
Lately, I’ve been keeping my eye on the following non-friend, non-political blogs, which range anywhere from totally frivolous to somewhat productive (ok, not really):
* Uncapitalized because the website writes it that way.
I have a couple more that I’m trying out in my daily rotation, but some are just waaaay too involved (like the weird spy-esque blogs) and fall off my radar. I find that the ones above are pretty good to provide a good 5-minute entertainment break during the day. I’ve been glimpsing at 43 Folders and Lifehacker, which I lifted from another blog. 😀
food.helava.com
I figured I should stop littering my blog with food-only entries and pretend to have a life outside of that, so I created a separate blog for Seppo and me to post to for food related stuff. http://food.helava.com, feed at http://food.helava.com/atom.xml.
snippets
I cut Seppo’s hair for the first time on Saturday. It turned out nicer than I thought it would. I’ll post pics at some point. 😀 We took off a whole lot. Seppo says that may admiration of my own handiwork is “unseemly”. Heh.
I got to chat with my cousin for the first time in years! It was really great to get back in touch with family. I’ll have to tell my other cousin out here about him. 🙂
Turns out that my other cousins (yet another set) might move to Atlanta. That would be really nice because then my sister’s kids could grow up with the babies in the other family, as they are roughly the same age.
Court invalidates California’s ban on same-sex marriage
Good job, Kramer!
In his 27-page decision, Kramer – an appointee of former Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican – said the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates “the basic human right to marry the person of one’s choice,” and has no rational justification.
Rejecting California Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s argument that California is entitled to maintain the traditional definition of marriage, Kramer said the same explanation was offered for the state’s ban on interracial marriage, which was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 1948.
The judge also rejected arguments by opponents of same-sex marriage that the current law promotes procreation and child-rearing by a husband and wife. “One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to marry,” Kramer said.
seven years
And no itch! 😀 Today is Seppo and my seven year anniversary. Yay! 🙂 I love that man.
I had a bunch of updates, but I had to reboot before I got to save it because of some horrible computer problems. My laptop has been plaguing me and my IT department for a full solid week now. It is humiliating, as well as frustrating, because I’m sure they think I’m doing something to my computer and not telling them about it. The typical user error and PEBKAC* condition.
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The last few weeks have been full of great food and company. It was kicked off by a dinner at Alan & Becky’s house. We were inspired by the delicious food (I was really impressed by their fantastic use of ginger, which I’m really clueless about) and the fun we had eating together (I hope we can get a real table one day), so Seppo and I have been on a roll recently. Holly came up for Presidents’ Day Weekend, and we lazed about, mainly indoors because of the rain. It was so good to see her. Even when I haven’t seen her in a while, I feel like I can say whatever to her and she’ll understand. She’s really awesome. Seppo & I made our first “plated” dinner for a small group of people who had come over to see Holly.
That was followed by a 1-yr anniversary celebration of the day that Mobi joined our household. Shush! I don’t want to hear it. Heh. We invited Seppo’s mom over for dinner, and she brought over a little fluffy bunny for Mobi.
Last week, Lindsi invited us over for some of that mochi chicken for dinner. It was so good that I must have eaten a good pound and a half by myself. Damn, that is some good chicken. We invited her and D over for dinner on Sunday evening, and served french bread with some truffle cheese, reduced balsamic vinegar, and two pestos (sun-dried tomato and basil) for appetizers, and parmesan-crusted salmon with asparagus and mashed potatoes (garnished with a parmesan crisp) and salad for the main meal. Oh yes, the pestos were for the main dish but we had so much left over that I served it with the bread. I think it would have been improved had we served the salmon with a squeeze of lemon or a splash of white wine during cooking to give it a little brightness. Possibly, the reduced balsamic could have replaced the sun-dried tomato pesto for the same reason. Anyway, we are still working out the kinks. It was really nice sitting back with them for a while and hanging out. So much fun.
We also went to dinner with Sean and Hoa to a very tasty small Japanese restaurant in San Carlos. Eat eat eat. Chomp chomp chomp. Man, they are fun to chill with.
Next week, we are making dinner for Alex and Tracy, I think. The date hasn’t been finalized yet, but he agreed to it already, so too bad. Heh. Gotta figure out what to cook though.
Seppo’s dad is coming in to town today, so we are going to have dinner with them on Saturday. His b-day just passed, so we better go buy something tomorrow. Eek!
*Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.