Old Journal Entries

• 3/30/00
  It was a movie (American Beauty) and dinner (noodles *yum*) with Daryl yesterday cuz we were both dogged out by Candice, who, apparently double booked and was a bit too busy to call before I drove to the city.

  Today I picked up a pair of Volkl Vertigo G30's that I'm going to demo this weekend at Tahoe hopefully they'll be as good, or better than the Merlin III's that I tried at Crystal -- I think I'm buying new gear next year, it's just a question of what.

  Tech News: got my Palm V synced and running, some of my custom apps don't quite work as expected, but then they're a few years old so I'll just have to go find newer versions to load, now that I have even more memory in my palm to waste.

• 3/28/00
  What an exhausting weekend, tried to ski with Angel again, and even when she had straight skis she was too fast. Demo'd a pair of K2 Merlin III's (178cm) and they were quite a change from my Pre's. The tails rarely slid out, even when I needed them to, but carving was definitely easier, and they were much quicker in the moguls. I'll probably demo a different pair this coming weekend, then shop around for what I want to buy for the upcoming season.

  Angel & Ken also got me bowling again, after a horrid game (129) I put the red hammer away and stuck to my white dot -- things were much better then, shot a 228, 192 (7 strikes 3 opens and a spare !!!) and a 232. Now I remember part of why I quit bowling, even though I was scoring well, it was extrememly frustrating trying to control the ball (and my technique) on such a slow lane. I don't thing Angel quite appreciated my frustration, until I reminded her how I had to put up with her ski technique frustrations from a half a hill behind her ;)

  Sunday was a full day, woke up early to see the Kingdome implode, that was cool, tried to play more volleyball, but ate at the Buddhist Church food fest and managed to see "The Whole Nine Yards" it was pretty funny.

  Sonics lost both games I attended, at this rate I won't have to worry about flying up for any playoff games. That might be a good thing, cuz at this rate I won't have been home for a weekend in about 8 weeks - the kittys are really getting upset.

  Tech News: VPN appears to work well, and now I have my new Palm V to play with. Next up is adding the additional disks to the server so I don't have any space problems at all.

• 3/24/00
  Massage turned me to jello today, so it's a good thing I finished my taxes yesterday. Went to see Romeo Must Die, it was pretty entertaining it starred Jet Li, Russell Wong, and Aaliyah (the singer) very good if you like minority action (kung-fu) flicks.

  Tech news: got my 2nd interface running (100baseT) and the Personal Ravlin (VPN box) works pretty good too. Unfortunately I can't get the software to route between the two interfaces so for now I'll have to settle for switching between the two in a serial manner.

  Anyway it's off to Seattle again to see the Sonics (twice !!) maybe go on a date, and also to ski with Angel (double digit days here I come). Also should mention that I'm now being offered blind dates, gee I must look lonely ;)

• 3/22/00
  ACCKK, DSL was out for most of the day today, it seems that when they upgraded my service, they decided (yesterday) to try and upgrade my speed too (would've been nice but it didn't work) so it took till this evening for them to fix it.

  Managed to play bball last night but was quite the slug (we played on the big court) knee was kinda sore, and by the end of the night so was my ankle. Everything else (shoulder, hand, elbow) was still the same soreness from skiing, but tomorrow is my massage so hopefully that'll help.

  Tonight it's all about taxes, gotta get that refund before the big rush. After that I can start taking my mac apart again and getting it all setup for remote work access (VPN)

• 3/21/00
  2nd day and I'm more sore than ever, good thing I have a massage scheduled later this week. It was a busy weekend, helped my sister move on saturday, then it was off to see the gang: Tira at Northgate, Barri's new store in Edmonds -- The Papery, some of the volleyball folks bowling (I guess it was MikeC's birthday but there was no cake there ;) finally topped off by Aunty Ruth's birthday dinner (pictures will be up later this week).

  Sunday it was up early (at Angel's by 6:30am) then it was off to Steven's Pass for a bit of skiing. Angel was going to race, so we took a warm up run (Big Chief) to get to the top of the course. There was new snow everywhere, thick and a foot deep -- I managed to see some nice snow by a tree, tried to go around it, skis disappeared, then I heard the dreaded *click* *click* and it was foward face plant snowball time -- by the time I climbed back and dug out my skis Angel was gone, good thing we had radios ;) anyway most of the rest of the day was the same type of snow, very soft and forgiving (believe me, I found out firsthand). Angel is fast (no big surprise there) and she won the gold in the slalom for her class. Tried to ski with her racer friends but just couldn't keep up, and they weren't even trying to go fast. Weather was spotty most of the day but it was typical NW skiing with great snow. May try and do it again next sunday (Crystal). This time, if we go I'm gonna demo some sidecut skis so I don't powder out so bad ;) All in all, it was extremely fun, but very depressing skill-wise, back on the learning curve I go.

  That night I sub'd on Ken & Angel's vball team, things were fine until the end of the night (when we had to ref) after I sat down everything from the waist up stiffened, and I'm still sore, even after soaking in my spa. Then it was up at 5am to fly back to work, I managed to be effective for about 3/4 of the day before I went home, good thing we had a forfit at our bball league, I'd have been totally exhausted today. But I now feel good enough to try and work out the kinks at my bball open gym tonight.

  Sure have been travelling alot, I think I'll have been gone 9 straight weekends by the time I'm done, whew, poor kittys, I better start giving them more treats during the weekdays.

  Tech News: got my personal VPN firewall box to access work, but I'm gonna have to finish my taxes before I tear my mac apart to reconfigure with multiple network connections.

• 3/16/00
  Been moderatly busy at work, but still managed to make time to see a scifi horror flick yesterday (Pitch Black, scary). Tonight I was going to see Drowning Mona with Yvonne (the hobbled one from the NSC race weekend trip) while I was picking her up David (Dan ?? I'm so bad with names) also from NSC was dropping some stuff off so we dragged him along with us, as well as out to eat afterwards.

  Been doing the email tag thing with Bar, kinda fun actually, we'll see how it goes, but she sure is competative, even in email ;). I still haven't gotten a hold of The Lush One to see if she'll escort Scot, Candice & I to Napa. Also I just noticed that Teantro Ta Zini (that tent dinner/show place) is now opening on the Embarcadero. Since I missed it in Seattle I think I'm gonna have to make sure to catch it here.

  I managed to book a good flight using my bonus travel coupon, so it looks like I'll make the bday dinner, I'm taking my skis too since there'll be an opportunity to ski with Angel on Sunday (if I can wake up early enough). "What da Pho?" (Candice/Caroline/Karen's womens team) was going to have a bbq this weekend, which I was going to miss but they moved it to April 8th, so I could miss it by being in Minnesota instead. It's a shame really cuz most of the guys there are going to be either attached or gay.

  Tech News: one of the hubs had a dead power supply, going to do the buy/swap/return at Fry's. Got my new IP addresses today, redirected DNS hopefully it'll work (and hopefully mail will still work too) but won't know till tomorrow, since I have to complete the switch over with a guy on the phone. Also scored 4 9Gb & 2 4Gb SCSI drives, unfortunately they have SCA (80 pin) connectors, so I'm going to have go buy some adapters so that they'll fit in one of the drive casings I have lying around. That should be plenty for a while (or so I hope). At this rate I could become a mini-isp.

• 3/14/00
  Hey everything worked today, tape, play, just minor soreness on the injured ankle, and some soreness on the same knee and the other ankle, nothing some ice and ibuprofen won't fix. But I probably should start (re-start) my proprioception excercises anyway.

  Still looking for a cheap flight, though my bonus voucher kicks in tomorrow so I should be able to get back to Seattle this weekend, however I better finish my taxes this week before the big rush starts.

  Tech News: my hubs appeared to have been delivered today, I'll probably do a bit of rewiring tomorrow night so there may be some spot outages on the web site. The major outtage will probably be thursday night or friday day, as I swing over to the new ip number and the mapping has to be propagated throughout the internet.

• 3/13/00
  Ankle got a reprieve, went to my basketball league tonight and it was cancelled since the gym was closed, oh well I'll test it out tomorrow. In the mean time I guess I can fill out my Census form that came today, gee I wonder what would happen if I listed the kittys?

  Tech News: got my PCI Ethernet board for my Mac, and ordered my hubs today. Expect the new ip's later this week and then the VPN box next week some time -- then I'll be good to go for working at home.

• 3/12/00
  Hectic weekend, friday was tight, made it to the game (Sonics won) but had to skip lunch to finish up before I left. Managed to wolf down a few Dick's Deluxes (and fries !) with Ken before heading out to the game. Afterwards we managed to talk Miyo into (attempting to) make us dessert. The flat brownies were, interesting, so we headed out to Suni's for pizza and shakes (*yum*) and the requisite hour (or was it 2?) of gossip and/or relationship discussions ;)

  Saturday was easier, just a haircut and Dim Sum Yum with Juliet, then I kicked back for a few hours before visiting Scot & Cindy to show them my digital camera. I had appeared to have plenty of plans for the evening but they kept seeming to fall through, first Barri & Tira cancelled, then Felly stood me up, and supposidly there was a poker party that I wasn't invited to. I still managed to make my Mom's birthday dinner though, and since I did have an open invite out with Angel & Ken, later that night it was "Instinct", strawberry ice creme, wine gums & Tango in front of a fire, very cosy, pretty fun, even if Angel was conking out on the sofa ;)

  Sunday was volleyball at SM&B, the ankle held up well, but its still a bit sore, should be fine by tourny time, we'll see how it works out at the bball league when it gets a little more stressful pounding. Then it was off to the Sonics game where they lost a close one, but it was very entertaining. I had an early flight out that was overbooked, so I managed to swap a bus ride from SFO to SJC for a free roundtrip ticket on Alaska.

  I had been making plans for skiing next weekend only to find out that the trip was cancelled, so now it looks like I'll be able make it back for Aunty Ruth's birthday (along with the rest of the clan) the rates are high, but I should be able to at least use my new coupon if there aren't any cheap flights on wed.

• 3/9/00
  Managed to skip volleyball yesterday, the ankle's kinda stiff but doesn't hurt too much, so I'll test it out at Sound Mind & Body this coming Sunday (in Seattle !!). Tonight I had dinner with Daryl and Candice in SF. A little french place called Cafe Claude food was decent, the jazz group was pretty good but the service was just 'ok'. Later we went for drinks (23 oz classes of draft Guinness for $4) at a place called The Jet (Fulton & Divisdario) the crowd was what I call, wannabe yuppies, tried to act the style without the clothes. It was almost Seattle like in it's dress/atmosphere strange to see that in SF.

  Work's been mildly busy, I'm getting ready to coordinate a set of usability studies, and we're all waiting for the next release to pass QA. It's a good time to take off on the weekends, but now if I ski both trips it'll be 9/10 weeks away from home, I think my kittys are going to be very neurotic for a while.

  Tech News: re-ordered my DSL upgrade the ip switch should be taking place sometime next week, and my new ethernet card should be here monday. Now all I need to get is a couple of hubs and patch cables and I'll be good to go for the new hardware VPN solution.

• 3/7/00
  I now remember why I started playing volleyball instead of basketball. I played league yesterday and was still pretty sore, luckily it was a short court so the running wasn't too bad. But tonight my other "open play" group started again (and will be playing for the next 3 months or so) and it was on a full size court and I was puffing early. Then it was the 3rd game (they only play to 7 with one team waiting, go figure ;) and while trying for a rebound I landed on someones foot. I really hate hearing that crunch/pop sound, and I even had my active ankles (an athletic brace) on -- hopefully it isn't too bad. I hate to think what would've happened if I didn't have the brace on. The pain subsided after a bit and I taped up before heading home. I'm now working on the 2nd hour of ice -- it's sore under pressure but not swollen -- I think it'll be ok. Playing tomorrow with Daryl & Candice will be tough, but it's not an extremely competetive gym so it should be ok. Now in addition to wearing my active ankles I have to tape before I play what a pain. And to think, I was just telling Yvonne (from NSC) about how to treat her sprain so she could ski this coming weekend, karma? or just too much exercise? (4 straight days)

  Turns out there are 2 more Nisei ski trips that I could actually make if I really want, but that means 5 straight weekends away from the kittys, I'm not sure they'd be all that happy about it. And I still have to hear from Scot about whether or not he's visiting at the end of the month.

  Tech News: I ordered my upgrade to enhanced DSL, which means 5 new IP addresses to support VPN access to work. As part getting ready for VPN I also ordered another ethernet card for my mac, and I still have to go get some routing software to make sure it can get to both networks. Meanwhile my memory came -- it works perfectly, turns out my Mac (G3/300) can use the newer PC100 DIMMS so I added another 128Mb for a total of 192Mb *whee*

• 3/6/00
  Well the weekend started out slow, I wasn't in a particularly good mood, and not being able to find the bus pickup point (right around rush hour) didn't help. But, being the experienced traveller that I now am, my CD player came to the rescue. Dispite the excellent dinner (on the bus) and the massive rowdyness, I managed to sleep most of the way, good thing to cuz we got into Reno around midnight, and had to be back at the bus around 7am (Yes, I did manage to get up on time ;) Somewhere around 4am a freight train ran right by the casino, that wouldn't have been so bad except it decided that everyone had to know and it was blowing it's horn. I might have survived, execpt 2 more trains (almost hourly) went past.

  Since I was a late signup they roomed me with another spare, one of the guys from the Dragon Boat group (Aaron) who just happened to be from Hawaii. Strange seems like everytime I go solo skiing, they think I'm from HI and room me with someone from there. Very few people knew I was going, and so there were some suprised sitings. I ran into Barb, Ken & Paul so it was kinda a mini reunion.

  Saturday was skiing at Alpine Meadows, and look, all of the important people from the Sun Valley trip were there too. I was skiing with Jackson and his cousin Randy, and after they abused me on some moguls we caught up with SteveY, DianaL, Phyllis, and yet another Barbara (Bar). So we skied with them for awhile until we "lost" Jackson & Randy on the slope somewhere.

  My dad used to tell me this axiom about horse racing "class will always tell" it should probably apply to skiing too. I've seen Steve & Diana ski before, but I never tried skiing with them. They're great fun, but continually left me in the dust especially in the flats. A bit later we were joined by Hank & Virginia, to complete the Sun Valley reunion ;) Side note, what is it about skiing Barbaras that they all just blitz past like I'm standing still? (that'd be 3 for 3 if you know them all).

  Anyway thanks to the "studette" Bar, we spent the rest of the day challenging the black & double black mogul fields -- Turns out as fast as she is on the flats, she wasn't quite the mogul queen yet. But boy was she a gamer, and still (while learning) much faster than me through the bumps. I think I was the entertainment for most of the day, mananging to be quite the snowball, and even getting knocked over by a tree (at very slow speed to boot) while trying to get out of the way of some better skiers. However the best fall has to go to Bar, on a double black (Palisades?) she made 2 turns, fell, slid 2 moguls down into Phyllis, who tried to save her with a bear hug, but then finally saved herself instead (or couldn't hold Bar any longer ;) Bar proceeded to slide head first (diving almost) about 6-8 more sets of moguls, (that'd be about 2/3 of the field) before stopping. She gets up, skis another long turn near the bottom while we all catch up. Now this field faces (and ends right next to) the Alpine Meadows lift, and sure enough there are people she knows riding past while we're waiting. I don't know her very well but somehow this seems very typical of her. Standing at the bottom, yelling up at her friends "See where I'm standing? I made it to here from the top in 3 turns, whadda ya think about that?"

  The potluck lunch (as always) was excellent, but we jetted back to the slopes pretty quickly since the snow was great, and it was sunny for most of the day.

  Dispite being in Reno, I managed to limit my gambling by icing the various injuries I accrued (aggrevated shoulder, and an elbow stinger that, by the end of the day didn't allow me to hold onto my pole very well) Strangely these injuries were from basketball, the skiing just made them worse.

  Sunday the weather was overcast and then it started snowing at Squaw, I skied with Jackson and Randy, didn't sign up for the race, and skied the backside. The snow was spotty, good at the top, kinda crunchy below. The flat lighting made it hard to figure out turns, but we did manange some of the more challenging sections.

  There were 2 notable events that day ... on a steep, flat glade section, Randy was going to show Jackson a new technique for handling steep terrain, I managed to bully my way down without too much trouble and was watching Randy demonstrate how to turn, plant both ski tips deep into the mountain and proceed to flip over and down about 8 feet. It was interesting that he managed to save his hat from rolling down the hill. I was pretty happy that I'd finally seen him fall, but no where near as happy as Jackson, who claims that he hasn't seen him fall in 25 years.

  On the way back, the races were still going, slowly because the timer on one of the courses were out. Since there was no times on that course they let people "run rabbit" for the racers. Unfortunately Barb was up, and challenged me to a run -- it was good race, slightly marred by the previous racer, who after falling decided to cut across the course, while we were racing -- didn't matter much, she yarded me big time, and I still had to dodge the snowballs from Jackson & Randy near the end of the course. Barb thinks she missed a gate while watching the racer cross, but it didn't matter much, her previous time was good enough to win the gold in the women's advanced division.

  The trip back was uneventful, but I did notice that the new IKEA in Emeryville is almost done .. I feel a shopping spree in the near future.

  Tech News: work has decided that they will pop for the VPN costs, so I'll be getting a new NIC for my mac, and upgrading my DSL for 5 static IP addresses, most of this will be transparent, *EXCEPT* for when they cut over to the new addresses, it may take up to 72 hours for all of the DNS servers to pick up the new addresses, I'll make sure to put a big note on the front page before the change over.

• 3/2/00
  Mostly busy getting ready for my ski trip (Tahoe with the Nisei Ski Club) but did have time to have dinner again with Jo & Cliff, this time we managed to eat at Frankie, Johnny & Luigi Too in Mountain View.

  Still no ants, and work is fine, except that we're hiring so many people that we may have to double up cubes before we move to the new buildings in June.

• 3/1/00
  Well the DNS is finally back up, turns out the DNS providers ISP dropped their route, so even though all of the servers were up no one could get to them. Hopefully it'll be stable for a while now.

  Well I was going to do my bios page, but I think that should wait some (while I gather the appropriate pictures ;) so instead I put up my ponderings page since I found some of my older materials while cleaning up. I think I'll put my dating page back together next.

  Almost forgot to mention that Jo & Cliff are down here for training (Legato) so we got together for dinner at Higashi West in Palo Alto and then went to go see the Rodin Sculpure garden at Stanford. It was fun to catch up, we're going to have dinner tomorrow too.

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Old Journal Entries

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