Old Journal Entries

• 4/28/00
  Wed it was dinner & hanging out in the city with Daryl & Candice, cuz Candice is still a bit injured. We ate at Pier 23, none of us were very impressed, it looks like it'll be a better lunch place than dinner. Daryl is working like a dog, so he bailed early, then Candice and I went to have tea and desserts at a small Turkish (??) place somewhere "over there", kind of a seedy part of town, with street vendors (at 10pm !!) selling used flea market types of things.

  Tonight it's off to Seattle for the Sonics game !!

• 4/25/00
  Volleyball, again finally, this time Caroline has found a new gym Kezar, and new pub across the street with a pretty good shepards pie, I was still full from Easter dinner though so it was a good thing the portions were small.

  Shot some stick, but the best was the challange match between Caroline and Chris (the new beau) Chris' friends are very adept trash talkers (and pretty good vball players too boot) but even with that, Caroline lost (again!)

  Got home late, still need to clean up some this week since I'll be gone again for the weekend but boy what fun it's been, now if the Sonics would only start playing better than a high school team.

• 4/23/00
  Happy Easter!! Since we'd been out with Rod at Calistoga, he invited us to Easter dinner, Scot declined and continued his vacation hiking over by Sacramento somewhere I think. But I caught up with Caroline and Candice, to go food shopping for the dinner (desserts !!), and to buy supplies for egg decorating.

  Not being the most artistic of the group some of the things I did were pretty bad, but you know, it doesn't quite matter when they crack them open to eat them ;).

  Dinner was simply amazing, home style food, and lots of it, there were 10 people there, and still plenty of food left. Some of folks were even from Seattle so there was lots of home stuff to talk about.

  I can't even begin to describe dinner hopefully I'll snag a copy of the picture that Caroline took and post it. The menu was:

  • Lamb (whole leg!!) & fresh mint sauce
  • Sea Bass (12" steak, steamed)
  • Scalloped Potatoes (big suckas, 6-8" long 4" wide)
  • Fresh steamed veggies (broccoli & bok choy)
  • Salad (no room on the table and nobody got to it ;)
  • Ahi (of course, seemed like about 5lbs of it, huge dish very yummy if you weren't eating stew)
  • Ox Tail stew with mushrooms & 5 spice (all *mine* stay away !!! great with rice)

  So much food, and plenty of wine to drink, they made the mistake of putting the stew in front of me, and boy was it hard to share, I hadn't had ox tails in ages, and was actually thinking a few weeks ago that I should figure out how to make it, this is even better. Next time I'm bringing lotus root for soup too!

  Then there was dessert, ice cream from Mitchell's (Thai Iced Tea & Buko), a Coconut cream pie, chocolate mousse pie, and a lemon tart. And to top it off, champagne.

  After we finished up some of the un-decorated eggs, and then it was Sixth Sense before I rolled on home. Rod and Caroline are great hosts, and boy, is she lucky that he absolutely loves to cook, and all of his friends are amazed at how much nicer the apartment is since she moved in, it was quite the running joke.

• 4/22/00
  What at day, off early in the morning to pick up Caroline (the Lush One only to have her accidentally sleep in, and, to top it off, she left her car in the Mission because she managed to party way too hard the night before, what a surprise ;) We had to go get the car since 5 won't fit in my M (it was me, Scott, Caroline, Candice & Tommy)

  It was raining on the way out, but by the time we got to Sonoma it was sunny and dry again, love this CA weather ;) Hit a few wineries, learned to read a map, and then had a very good lunch that was provided by Candice *yum*. Then it was more winerys on the way to Calistoga. I think Scot managed to get most of his shopping done, and I even tried a few sips of the different wines, though I think they were mostly wasted on me.

  In Calistoga, Carolines roommate (Rod, ex Chef at the Magic Flute, now an Ahi tuna importer for resturants) and his friend (Anna?) joined us for dinner at Brannen's Grill, which, where by no mere coincidence, their friend (Rob Lam?) is the Executive Chef. We had just about one of every appetizer and then some excellent entrees, since we brought our own wines, it was a tasting session for all, including the staff. I think all of the entrees were great, but the display award is going to have to go to the whole fried fish, which was deep fried in a circular, free standing (and fins out) form -- very cool. I had the filet minon, and tried the pork chops which were very, very, tasty.

  Being friends with Chefs appears to be a very good thing, especially when you get the inside scoop on things like how the pictures for the recipe books are made (crisco for ice cream?? yuck). Also that means you get great service too -- Rob came out to visit a few times (even though they were really, really busy) and then ordered dessert for us, one of everything on the menu. Sorbets, warm chocolate cake, bread pudding, creme brulle, we were packed full, and still managed to finish off all of the desserts (which Rob comp'ed, and we'll have to make up to him some day)

  The drive home was pretty quiet since everyone (but the driver, me) was trying to sleep off all of the food -- smiling faces everywhere.

• 4/21/00
  What a long week, ran usability tests for most of it, got to catch up with Shannon for dinner and an outing to see 28 Days (pretty funny, even if it is a sad subject), friday and Scot made it in early so we caught dinner and saw U-571 (love those WWII depth charges).

  Turns out that the Sonics, even though the playoffs start this weekend, get a weekend game next Sat, so I used my American Airlines credit to book a flight. Good timing too, since Angel's having surgery on Friday, I'll be able to pick on her and stay out of arms reach ;). While I was at it I noticed that there was a fare war going on so I also booked my Labor Day travel -- that'll be hectic, I was planning to take the whole weekend to visit Seattle, and go to Julie's wedding on that Sunday, however Cheryl and Kent are now getting married on that Saturday so now it's a Sunday/Monday trip.

  Got a new pager, they wanted to switch me to the new frequencies so Metrocell sent me a replacement, the new display sucks and I had a hard time figuring out how to set everything (they went from 2 buttons to 3, go figure) but it's smaller and lighter so we'll see how it goes.

• 4/16/00
  First weekend home in ages, managed to go shopping with Bar & Jen, we (Jen and I) pretty much wore Bar out at IKEA -- the new store is *HUGE* it's 2 floors, about twice the size of the one in Seattle. Down side was that there was very little parking, it took us an hour or so to get in from the freeway, and then another 20 minutes waiting in line outside. Was pretty rewarding though, managed to buy some new end tables, nightstand lights, rolling stool for the computer, new wok, knife block and assorted other trinkets -- it all totalled about $200, but the couple in front of me gave me one of their spare internet coupoons and saved me $25.

  Afterwards we ate a a pretty good Vietnamese restuarant in Oakland named LeCheval (10th & Clay) where Bar proceeded to experiment with Lemon Drops and Martinis (Vodka, 3 olives, from General Hospital ??!!) the bartenders were pretty hilarious, and they had some pretty interesting jars of alcohol (lychee, and rattlesnakes ;) that we opted not to try.

  I had washed my car on Saturday, but it rained on the way to the city, and then it rained almost all day Sunday too, but at least it was fairly warm (50's)

• 4/13/00
  Forgot to mention some of the more interesting things I learned/saw while in Minnesota. First of all, it's cold, sunny but cold, and everyone appears to be a Vikings fan. When we went out to eat in downtown Minneapolis, we parked in a parking garage, and walked about 3 blocks to the resturant, all indoors, all above ground -- seems that all of their skybridges connect into one huge system, you can go a long way up there, they even use it to hold fundraising walks. And the people are especially nice, very very friendly.

  Also forgot to mention that I learned a new term this past weekend, faghag, seems like there are enough female gay groupies that they get their own term, wonder what they call the straight guys that hang out? (Daryl? ;)

  Went to see Ready To Rummble tonight, it was pretty entertaining, no Hulk Hogan though, gee what a surprise.

  Tech News: still no progress

• 4/12/00
  Been recovering most of this week from the past weekends tourny, good thing I had the forsight to schedule a massage for today. It was a great tourny, I took the title of "team bitch" from Ross, must've worked though, cuz we won the BB mens division -- a great showing, espceially since it was in Ross' home town and he was the tourny director (no, it wasn't fixed ;). And, of course, at all the NAGVA tournys that we do well at, Daryl was named All-Star again !! (and he's still straight, even though they all wanted him to "back that ass up" ;).

  It's been pretty warm lately, was going to setup and play some outdoor with Miki & Jack this coming weekend, but it appears to be raining now (midnight) it's still warm, maybe it'll be dry by Sat.

  I guess IKEA opened today, can't wait to go shopping, however it'll probably be a zoo, maybe this weekend some time might be good for a drive by to see how bad a crowd it really is.

  Tech News: not much to speak of, have to rebuild my Mac IIsi so I can clean off the original disks before re-using the case for the new disks.

• 4/6/00
  I think I'm freezing my elbow off with all the ice I've been using, but therapy it is (for both shoulders and the calf too ;) so that I can play at the tourny this weekend. Managed to see Mission To Mars last night, it was very 60's in style, but 90's in effect, better on the big screen but probably not worth the money unless you're a hardcore sf fan.

  Tech News: got my routing software to configure both interfaces on the Mac, now I just have to coordinate the dhcp & dns parts so routing will go the correct direction.

• 4/3/00
  I'm sooo sore, managed to get sunburned (70 degrees at tahoe), the demo skis (Volkl Vertigo G30's with Solomon 850 bindings) were pretty good, very stiff though, they didn't work very well in the mogul fields but they just cruised through everything else. Spent most of Sat morning (Squaw) skiing alone, just checking out the skis. Most of the day the upper lifts were closed due to wind, but just after lunch they opened a few top lifts, there were some good runs, but the top got windy again -- you could point straight down the hill and move about as fast as a bunny run. Later I hooked up with the top group to try and pound my body again on the diamond runs. Needless to say I was bringing up the rear again.

  Sunday was at Northstar, skied mostly the backside (diamonds) the runs were really cool, but extremely long, and it was really warm again, really wasn't ready for all this spring/summer skiing and I forgot my sunglasses to boot. Good thing the skis just plowed right through all of the mush. Last run of the day I was cruising fast, and thought I'd plow thorough a small jump, didn't notice the second one till I was in the air, got thrown pretty good, suffered calf & shin bruise though when my right tip dug in -- and I still had to ski down. Spent the whole bus trip icing my leg. Now it just feels sore but managable, should be fine for the tourny.

  I can't believe how warm it was when I got back, guess it was in the 80's the whole weekend. It definitely time to start setting up outdoors.

  Tech News: upgraded my Palm V, still can't get my mac routing software to work, so I have to manually switch between configs to get to work. Next up are the new disk drives for the server.

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Old Journal Entries

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