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Today is grey and nasty-looking. Yes, I decided to ride my bike today. I decided it yesterday when it was sunny and pretty. Why must nature be so tricksy?

Grey weather makes me want to listen to plaintive teen rock or slow, folky, depressing music. I was going to listen to some Olive, but I realized that all of my music got nuked when my work machine died on Monday. Fortunately for me, I had not taken home all of my cds. I had both the blue and green albums by Weezer at my fingertips. This music would be perfect for listening to as I fight my way home on my bike against the wind. I know it really isn’t that bad outside, but the ride from work seems a lot longer for some reason.

I want to get an ipod-type device to listen to on the way to and from work, but I don’t want to fork over the $250-300 for a boring white box with a circular button. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a wonderful device and it will change my life, but I seriously doubt it. I just see it as the “it” thing to have and I just don’t think it’s worth it. I mean, there is so much more I could get for $250 besides a storage device with headphones. I still want something, but there’s got to be a low-cost, non-apple alternative that doesn’t look like crap.

Rant, rant….
And now off to fabulous teleconference…..

Yesterday was my first time to experience and earthquake. It was so subtle I barely noticed it. I was sitting at my desk at work talking to my coworker when I suddenly felt a little light-headed. I closed my eyes and focused for a second and then it was gone. I thought it was just me until someone else walked by and asked me if I’d felt the earthquake. I asked “Is that what that was?” The guy I had been talking to didn’t even pause our discussion when it occurred. He’s lived here for a while so I’m sure it’s a normal event for him.

Five minutes later, I got an email from Danny asking if I’d felt it. He said that he felt kind of dizzy and queasy for a few seconds before realizing that it was an earthquake. Nothing shook and pictures did not fall off the wall. Basically, the movement just made us temporarily sick.

I thought there might be some aftershocks, but I didn’t feel anything else. The epicenter is located more than 200 miles from where I work, but I can only imagine what it would feel like if one of the same magnitude hit nearby. I try not to think about it too much.

I had a very blonde moment yesterday after riding my bike to the train station from work. I thought I had been the victim of a cruel, food-throwing stunt.

But now for some background information….

On Saturday, I managed to somehow cut my pinky toe while showering. I got out of the shower, started to dry off and looked down to see blood on my foot. Upon closer inspection, it looked like I had scratched it on something and a little blood was seeping out of the wound - no big deal. I cleaned it up but realized that I had dripped blood on my new bathmats. Ugh..annoying.

So, back to the bike story. It was a very cold and windy day and I was struggling to make it to the station without just getting off and walking the rest of the way. I finally made it there. I noticed that my ankle felt colder than the rest of my body, so I looked down and I see red all over my sock at the ankle. My first reaction was “Crap! What did I do to myself now?” Upon closer inspection, I saw that the red liquid was also on the outside of my pants, so it obviously didn’t come from me. Whew - that’s good. It was some sort of tomato sauce. I thought for a minute and recalled that I had not ridden through a pile of garbage and no one had spilled anything on me. My last guess was that someone had dropped something with sauce as I was riding by and it got on my pants.

The whole situation was annoying because I needed to get on the train and I didn’t have time to clean up before boarding. I got home, cleaned up and explained the situation to Danny. Seeing my perplexed look, he smiled at me and said “Well, you probably just ran over a ketchup packet and it squirted you in the leg.” Oh, yeah. That makes more sense than someone throwing food on me. Now, if it had been mustard I totally would have figured it out on my own. Totally.

First of all, I’m really cold. For some reason, my office is painfully cold. I have three sweaters: two to wear and one for my lap. The weather outside is grey, but not any cooler than usual.

In addition to being cold, my computer at work died for some unknown reason. It is okay since I save all of my stuff to the network, but it is still a pain in the butt because I have reconfigure all of my personal settings on my new machine. Honestly, I’m just happy to have something that’s working. My old machine wasn’t a piece of crap either. It was brand-new. I swear I did nothing weird to it. Maybe I burned it out by working too hard. Yeah, that’s it.

Not much else is going on. It is pathetic how much Danny and I look forward to sleeping in on the weekend. I do love ignoring the alarm clock and waking up in time for lunch though. Despite my affinity for excessive sleep, I got up early (10:30) and went to church yesterday. I haven’t been to church in a long time but I kind of miss it. I don’t know if I’ll continue to go to the church I visited, but I had to check it out at least once.

Aside from sleeping a lot this weekend, Danny and I had Indian food at another lunch buffet place. It was good, but not as good as the first place we went to, Passage to India. We also hit In and Out Burger again. Aside from having crappy fries, they do make the best cheap burger around.

Yesterday, in the spirit of getting out of the house, we drove to San Jose to check out Santana Row. One of my friends told me it was like “the Rodeo Drive of San Jose.” It is very pretty but very expensive. Gucci, Cartier, Burberry, and more places I can’t afford to breath the air in. It was cool though just wandering around. I thought they’d have more restaurants and unique shops, but it was mostly well-known brands.

On Friday, I found out that my company is shutting down the week between Christmas and New Years Day. This is cool but I need to find out how much time Danny can take off and when we’ll need to return to CA from Texas after Christmas. I’m looking forward to spending New Years Eve here this year. I also found out that Aasma will be here visiting her boyfriend then, so hopefully we can all do something together.

Oh yeah, last week was very TV oriented. Danny’s favorite show, Smallville, had its season premier on Wednesday. One of my favorite shows, America’s Next Top Model 3, premiered as well. What does it say about you when you’re 29 and 26 and your favorite shows are on the WB and UPN?

Alright now children (think “Mr. Garrison”), the word of the day is “reorganization.” Reorganization occurs when your company gets new management and they decide to rearrange everyone. This applies to me because my company has decided to reorganize my group. Normally, I wouldn’t care as long as I was keeping my job. I am keeping my job, but my boss is not. They are moving him to another area. Wait! I’ve only been here for a month! I haven’t had time to learn to hate him yet!

In reality, my boss is really cool. He actually LISTENS during meetings and then asks for ADVICE. I know. I couldn’t believe it either. It looks like my department is being broken up and we will now report to whichever group we are writing documentation for at the moment. One writer has already threatened to quit. I’ll stick it out for now. Like I said, I haven’t been there long enough to hate anyone yet. Plus, the engineering group I’ll be working with is in Mountain View, so I will probably work out of the Mountain View office more often if not permanently.

After that news, my work day was pretty much shot. I did end up having a decent day though. I rode my bike to work again. Riding back kind of sucked though because I go right by the Giants stadium and there was a game. This meant dodging lots of slow, clueless fans - like I need another reason to dislike baseball.

I know I probably shouldn’t ride my bike on the sidewalk, but I’m not crazy enough to ride it on the roads. I am amazed by the shocked looks I get from coworkers when I tell them that I ride my bike from the train station to the office. I have to assure them that I go nowhere near the streets. One of our employees got hit by a bike messenger the other day. I talked to him about it and he said there is a way to be hit by a bike as to minimize injuries. The fact that he knows that kind of weirds me out. I mean, I feel like I should learn how to avoid injury in an earthquake instead of learning how to avoid injury in a bike/person collision.

Ummmmm….

I’m trying to remember what I did this weekend. Oh yeah, I went to a branch office to work on Friday, so I slept in. I finished work around 3pm. Nice. I made a hair appointment and got my hair cut. I can’t say its the best haircut I’ve ever gotten, but I’m not unhappy and it was fairly cheap. I cut off about four inches and now my hair is just past shoulder length. This is pretty short for me, but I figure, why not?

We didn’t do much on Friday except rejoice that it was finally the weekend. Saturday, we drove over to Milpitas to get Danny some queso (finally!) at On the Border and then did a little white-trash shopping at Wal-mart. There’s nothing wrong with Wal-Mart per se, I just hate doing battle with the screaming children rolling around in the aisles. Yes, they roll on the floor. I don’t get it.

Despite our best efforts, we could not avoid going to the outlet mall since we were in the vicinity. We got out of there unscathed and headed back to Menlo Park.

Saturday night, we watched the movie “Hero.” It looked a lot like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I liked it. I don’t think it was as good at CTHD, but it was a lot of fun to watch regardless.

Yesterday, we ate breakfast at home and then wandered over to the local farmers market to get some fresh veggies. I probably bought more than I need, but lately I’ve been motivated to make veggie dishes at home besides salad. I also got a huge bunch of daylilies for $3 and they are now displayed on our kitchen table.

And now for the first installment of Cooking at Work (cue theme music). Today, I attempted to make a decaf mocha like the kind you pay $3 for at Starb$cks. Unfortunately, I did not have the chocolate syrup. Instead, I had hot cocoa powdered mix. I mixed this together with some coffee and some low-fat milk. It was disgusting. To get the flavor out of my mouth, I chewed a piece of minty gum. The disgusting flavor only intensified. Just think about it: coffee, milk, hot cocoa, and mint. Bleacchh. From now on, I will leave the magic-making to starb$cks.

After taking a few walks and mapping out the area a little, I found a great way to get to work via bicycle. There is a pedestrian walkway (Embarcadero) along the bay and I always see folks biking, skating, and jogging along it. Yesterday, I took my bike on the train and then rode it for about a mile and a half along the shore. The ride was wonderful. It was about eight in the morning. The weather was cool and sunny. It only took me fifteen minutes to get to work - the same amount of time it takes me to ride the muni from the train station to my stop downtown.

I never rode my bike to work or school in Austin and I’d truly forgotten how fun it can be. Since the weather is so clear and pretty, I’ll probably take my bike to work more often. Danny thinks I should get a fold-up bike so we can throw our bikes in the car, drive up to San Francisco, and then cruise around the parks on our matching bikes. Even though that sounds dorky, I think it would be a lot of fun. Maybe we’ll even get matching jerseys and wraparound sunglasses…or maybe not.

I’m tired today, but I’m hitting the homestretch at last.

As for last weekend, Danny and I visited two famous and influential Californa locales: UC Berkeley and In and Out Burger. We hit In and Out after a busy day of doing nothing. The place was packed, but it didn’t take long to order since there were only three menu items: hamburger, cheeseburger, and double double burger. In my opinion, the burgers were good, but the fries were not. They didn’t suck, but they were supposed to be homemade which I guess means not crisp and flavorless. They weren’t awful, but they were calories I could skip, so I did.

On Sunday, we ran some errands and then drove up to Berkeley to check out the campus. Aasma told me that it was very pretty so I thought we should see it. The school was impressive and the whole town surrounding the campus was picturesque. I could easily spend a weekend afternoon there wandering in and out of the shops.

Last night, we met my former coworker Beth and her boyfriend at Gombei Japanese food in Menlo Park. She had fond memories of eating there with friends, so we were more than happy to try it. The food was good and the service was fast. What more can you ask for? Beth also gave us some more great ideas of places to visit in the area. She also recommended some restaurants that serve chile con queso. Danny is drooling already.

My phone is now working. I took it to the verizon store near my house today and guess what? The software on it was screwed up. I also found out that the battery had been recalled. To fix this, they gave me a new phone, programmed it for me, and included the new battery. It’s kind of sad that the only way to fix the phone is to replace it, but whatever. I’m not expecting them to download a patch or anything in the store. Whatever.

I got this from a survey on fark called “what was your favorite now-extinct restaurant chain?”

As a kid growing up in New Jersey, Razz-A-Ma-Tazz was always a favorite place. Think a low rent Chuck-E-Cheese. They had the worst pizza in NJ and a lame robot animated animal band that would play for five minutes on stage before shutting down for 30 minutes so they could cool down. Did have good arcade games and skee ball though.

Went there as a day camp counselor a day before they closed for good. Our wonderful little charges proceeded to throw skee balls all over the place.

When it was time to eat, they threw pizza at the curtain covering the stage. When the curtain went up, and the one working robot (7 were busted by then) started banging the drums, the kids threw more pizza and soda while some of the more intellectually gifted ones went on stage and started beating on the ‘bots.

The whole group got kicked out.

Good times.

When I read this, I laughed so hard I cried. I remember going to chucky cheese and showbiz pizza as a kid and loving it. I can only imagine what the parents thought of all of those screaming, hyperactive children crammed into a small, windowless area while buzzers and music from animatronic bands sounded from every direction.