Live With The Nerds
Don't Be One
October 2000
Saturday I went to play indoor vball in SF with Candice, it was reverse 4's and 6's, but
everything was tight, and never really loosened up -- and the weather was cold -- so we
went to have beef at Rocco's on Van Ness, nothing like a good piece of meat. When I got home
I checked my bp and it was 133/88 not bad, couple of days of exercised does wonders.
Sunday was Aloha Sunday (I have pictures, but they'll be up later) as always the food was
excellent, I think I ate my weight in Ahi. The cute girl in the cap (Suzie) was there again
but she spent all her time gossiping with her friends, oh well had many other things on my
mind anyway. With the time and weather change, I was pretty beat so I got home early and
even went to bed before midnight for once.
My major project for the weekend was figuring out whether or not I can afford to bid on
the Cupertino townhouse. After talking to Virginia, I was more explict when talking with
my other mortgage broker, and he was then much more responsive, we ran through sets of
numbers and mortgage options. I think I'm going to opt for a full ARM, with negative amoritization
potential -- it appears to give me the most flexibility, and allows me to put 20% down instead
of 30+, then I can keep my ESPP deductions going to make up the difference.
Speaking of stock, mine has been bouncing madly, but I've been managing to exercise on
some of the dips -- might as well now, cuz I don't know how long it'll stay down, that
and I've already created such a huge tax burden for this year I need to start the clock
ticking on the stock to get to capital gains rates instead.
Today was a busy day, we had a halloween party, however I missed most of it, since I
wanted to go see the Cupertino place again, and then had to take off early for a massage.
Tomorrow may be just as busy, since the bids are due 11/1 I need to have everything settled
before then -- unfortunately that may mean I'll have to skip the Castro Street Party oh
well it's been raining and cold anyway.
Site news: I finally finished Cheryl & Kent's wedding pictures, you can
take a look at them here, next
up are the latest Aloha Sunday pictures, as well as pictures of our halloween work
decorations.
Travel news: Last week I lucked out and noticed cheap fares from Alaska, so I booked
another set of flights for sonic weekend games, now all I have to do is to take care
of the normal holiday travel.
Wed I was talking with Virgina (from Ski ASIA) who also happens to do mortgages, she
at least would run hypothetical numbers over the phone, the guy I've been working with
lately is less than forthcoming with numbers, I kinda have to nag him, at first I thought
it was because I was pre-qualing so far in advance that it wasn't too important, but
now that I may need numbers by next week it kinda disturbs me. I may switch, but have
Virginia recommend someone else since she seems to be semi-retired.
I also, finally, got to play some bball yesterday, the back was pretty good for 2 games
or so, but then it got tired and a bit sore between games -- was back to the no pop
on the break and lots of sliding around. Today it's pretty tired and sore, but no where
near what it was last week so I'll probably try and play again.
Today Fila went in for another set of tests, his blood sugar came out about 151 (down from
600+) which is great, we're upping his dosage to see if we can get it down a bit further
and maybe encourage it into going away. I even arranged for him to be boarded at the
vet's when I'm in seattle, not sure how he'll like it, but its the only way I can make
sure he gets his shots.
At work tonight I executed my anonymous decoration plans -- I collected lots of
water bottles, stripped them, filled them full of orange kool-aid and drew faces
and things on them. Then with help from some of the guys from my group, we proceeded
to put them on all of those strange 'creatively stimulating' architectual ledges
that are all over our side of the building. The other Steve made some cool shadow
transparencies that we put in the lights, we'll have to see what everyone thinks
about them tomorrow.
Its been raining the last few days, and I swear nobody down here knows what to do, just
a shower and they drop from 45 to 10 to make a turn, strange, its nice though cuz
its cleaning everything up, and its still pretty warm (60s)
Gossip time: I hear through the grapevine that Barb and Ken finally got engaged, though
she hasn't dropped me a line yet to let me know. And through sheer luck, I found out
that Mary (who moved to Portland) got married in July, and didn't even let me know, cuz
it was an 'interesting' story. Also a couple of my co-workers have decided that I should
be meeting some of their friends, but we'll see, talk is cheap.
Site news: delinquent on Cheryl's wedding pictures still, good thing they're gone
till halloween, and then only in town for a couple of days before they head off
to a wedding in hawaii.
Health news: Wed BP: 130/90, after bball, and extended mortgage discussions
Thursday BP: 160/96 weather changing, not sleeping well.
I also wandered over to an open house, 1900 sq ft, 4+ bedroom townhouse, but it felt
really cramped, with small bedrooms and common areas strange that layout would make
that much of a difference. My broker has another for me to look at tomorrow, but it
sounds a bit on the small side (3 bdr, 1200sq ft) in Cupertino.
Otherwise it was mostly home catching up on my magazines and dvd's (Nightmare Before
Christmas and The Rocky Horror Picture Show) while I was at it I ordered a few more DVDs
for my off days ;)
Today I woke up kinda queasy, I'm not sure if I caught a cold, or had a bad reaction
to the milk in the scrambled eggs I made for breakfast yesterday. Needless to say I'll
be going back to "over easy" just to make sure. In any case my back is feeling better
and barring a cold I'll be playing some ball this week, finally.
Site News: still working on Cheryl's wedding pictures, finished the master index but
I need to make my overview page. Still haven't gotten pages from Mona yet, so her
site (www.LastOfSeven.com) is still under
construction.
Tech News: got my camera back, it seems to work pretty well, got a picture of
fila's bare shot spot, but I'll probably put it up after I finish the wedding pictures.
Still to come, my kitty web cam.
Health News: bp 155/90, pretty good for a full days work, shopping
at costco, and steak for dinner (and no nap to boot)
It was kinda funny, went to the
pharmacy to pick up the insulin (and needles) and they wanted my medical history.
I told them I would give it for my cat .. and they got confused. They finally
gave me the perscription (in Fila's name no less) and looked at me oddly when
I declined the pharmacist consultation.
So far Fila's been really good about the shots, barely twitches, but I have a
good place to aim since they shaved a 4-5 inch square off his neck so I could
tell what I was poking. As soon as I get my camera back from repair I'll take
a picture and post it on his page. The hardest part is going to be trying to
make sure I give the shots in 12 hr intervals. And this also means I'll probably
have to start boarding Fila when I travel, since bouncing his blood sugar level
over a weekend would be pretty stressful to his body.
I did notice that Fila perked up quite a bit around 8 hrs after the first shot, and
this morning he was layed out kinda sluggish until I carried him downstairs for the
morning shot. Cameo has been pretty good, although her thyroid level is a bit up
from the last check, so she'll be back in for more tests in a few months or so.
Tonight I went to a different massuse, he specializes in sports atheletes and
did some pretty good stretching work on my back -- its calming down but I probably
won't be playing much of anything till next week. Oh well that means I can work
on Cheryl's wedding pictures (finally) this weekend while they're on their honeymoon.
Yesterday I thought about bidding on that townhouse I saw, but it turns out it was
already sold, oh well, saw another one on the web that is lots bigger for
only $6K more in close to the same area so I'm going to have Ron check it out
for me.
Site News: I've been adding trinkets around on the site, so if you haven't browsed
in a while, you might want to take a look, you may be surprised by what you see
(and will be seeing in the near future) No I'm not going to link every new
thing in the journal, TANSTAAFL.
Tech News: may actually try and get the web cam up permenently after I get all of
Cheryl's wedding pictures up.
This afternoon I went house hunting again, saw 4 places and skipped the one that had an
offer pending. One was pretty nice, right in Sunnyvale, kinda between me and Miki's place,
in fact it had a similar layout, with a huge master loft above the living room, although
it was bigger (3 bdr, 1660 sq ft) and more expensive (well, I guess $50K more
isn't so bad, but jeeze the prices in Sunnyvale proper ...) I think I'll check out
the neighborhood in the evening tomorrow and see what its like during traffic time.
I probably only have a couple of days to make an offer, since it's been on the market
for a week or so, and its actually empty right now. May have to run some numbers
and see if I can really make it work.
Tonight there was an impromptu dinner/pumpkin carving at Francisco's in Redwood City.
Fun time, Caroline, James, Mary and Rod were there, and we had hamburgers (monster patties
by Caroline), steak and rice (ala Rod), asperagus (yum), plenty of wine and Krispy
Kremes for appetizers. There was an
ongoing pool challenge, and almost, but not quite, drunken pumpkin carving -- Cisco had
some manderin oranges soaked in Absolut Manderin, that were very entertaining. I also got
a quick look at Francisco's cute neighbor/roommate but unfortunately she didn't join
us (even though she promised) I suspect its just his way of hiding her from the
rest of us ;)
Anyway it was a pretty painful weekend, I figured I better do some kind of therapy on
my low back, so friday night I skipped the Volleyball Sluts Inc gathering at Dave &
Busters (it's kinda a cross between the metreon and gameworks) to soak in the spa and
stretch. It was the first time since I moved here that I've actually used either the jacuzzi
or the pool.
On Saturday the back was still stiff, and to make matters worse they put us in the A pool
instead of B where we registered. (The pools in this tourny are A-F, A == AA/A, B,C == A/BB)
so in the first match we faced Brown's team, who proceeded to toast us badly while we
tried to figure out what to do for a 3-3 woman touch rotation. Although my back was stiff
oddly, it didn't hurt to jump or run, just to bend or twist -- so I ended up playing
front row for Kerry, mostly trying to block.
This should've been a pretty decent team, Kerry and Duane were down from Seattle, and Tina
and Daren were playing (alabit for the first time in a long while) and I managed to talk
Caroline, and Michele (from my work) into playing with us too.
In general we were pretty disorganized, mostly we had Caroline setting, but she wasn't
feeling that well, so then we tried a disasterous, "front woman set", followed by trying
to have the women pass and Kerry set. If I hadn't been doing so much "pain management"
I probably could've organized a bit better, and maybe even helped offensively. We ended
up going 1-7 and -50+ in point differential (in games to 12 !!) As it was
it was pretty amazing that we were all in decent moods at the end of the day, probably
because we were pretty exhausted. It was especially amazing that Michele (who had played
college ball) commuted from Sacramento to San Jose both days to play with us (2 hours each
way) and was easily the most positive and outgoing person on the court -- I finally managed
to talk her into jump-serving on sunday, she's quite the banger, and I think we'll try
and get her to play some reverse coed with us some time.
Saturday night we all had dinner at Gordon Birsch in Palo Alto, it was pretty fun catching
up, but we were pretty beat, so it was an early night, although I did manage to get another
spa soak in that evening. My back didn't loosen up as well as it had the night before,
probably because I had played with out my brace on -- I had worn it for a few games, but
after my back warmed up a bit, it was too constricting so I removed it for games so I
could at least jump and block.
I had initially registered us in the B pool, under the assumption that if we played poorly
we would drop to C for Sunday, however since they split and mixed A and B, the furthest
we could drop was back into B, which after a day of play was a bit too much for us. We
were a bit off all day long, we passed worse, hit worse and in general were pretty ineffective.
Spirits were good though, and nobody got too mad or frustrated. My back, in general was
much worse, I was going to not play altogether, but someone gave me a muscle relaxent, it
didn't appear to work but by the last game everything felt fine (after an hour and a half)
so I managed to actually hit a few balls. All in all a very tiring time.
The Robaxin was working pretty well, I was actually in better shape at dinner
(Hong Kong Flower Lounge at Palo Alto) than when I woke up in the morning. Just to make
sure that I was going to start healing better, I scored some Vicodin so I could
sleep -- boy that stuff really works, when I woke up on monday, I felt the most rested
in more than a week, and in the least amount of pain. So to continue I scheduled a
massage for this week with the new sports medicine guy so that I can have him stretch
me out. Should probably skip playing this week though just to make sure ;(
It's been raining the past couple of days, and its really nice, its cleaning things up
and its still warm enough to wear shorts to work. My back has still been pretty
stiff, went to the chiropractor today and now its looser, but more sore, more ice
more drugs, lots of stretching, its gonna be a long weekend.
The last couple of days my bp has been around 150/93 not bad since I've been working
late and doing pain maintenance on my back.
Tech News: Mona was asking about my server, since she does graphics work and
only wanted to put some small stuff up, I
offered to host her site, look for it soon at
www.LastOfSeven.com
Finally finished Julies wedding pictures, you can take a look at them
here next up is Cheryl and
Kent's wedding, hopefully I'll have them done before they get back from their
honeymoon.
Well today my bp was 157/107 (and 150/103) pretty high, not surprising considering
that I'm in pain-maintenance mode, hopefully I'll get a better nights sleep tonight.
Saturday I watched DVDs for most of the day (Godzilla, Men In Black -- special edition,
and part of the Nightmare Before Christmas Special Edition) then I had a sudden shopping
urge, so I wandered down to Gilroy to get in a good 3 hours or so of shopping in before
the outlet malls closed. It was a very successfull foray. Most of the damage was done
at the Nike outlet store -- 2 pairs of shoes (xtrainers), a pair of sunglasses (to
replace the ones I broke playing volleyball) and a pair of dri-fit leggings (normally for
running, but I'm going to use them for skiing). There was also the obligitory knick-nacks
at the kitchen stores, but I at least managed to resist buying any more corning ware.
Sunday I vegged a bit before heading out to the NAGVA gym to play some indoor volleyball
I really need to tune up a bit before the tourny next weekend.
This past week was the start of the new TV season, so now I'll be up late watching
all of my time shifted shows on tape. I'm thinking that "That's Life" may be the
"Once and Again" sleeper of the year, too bad its stuck on Saturday night, it has
Paul Sorvino who I think is an excellent actor, but it doesn't hurt at all that it
stars Heather Page Kent ;).
I also watched CSI before Nash Bridges, its a Quincy/NYPD Blue composite, but the acting/plot
was very uneven. The "Dark Angel" premire, on the other hand was excellently done, almost
like a mini-movie, not a typical series -- probably because James Cameron is producing it.
Today my bp was 132/88 after vball, eating KFC and napping -- not too bad, as it really
wasn't that hard of a work out at the NAGVA gym, the team I was on wasn't very good.
Tonight was bball, and again there were barely enough folks there to play, probably
because of all of the baseball playoff games going on. Wasn't too exhausted this time and
even had some pop to my play -- funny, I think I'm actually kinda balanced now because
when we were racing cars at Malibu Grand Prix, I kept using my left knee to brace, and it
caused me a knee bruise and a sore left butt -- that and my right hip probably makes
me hobble evenly on the court. Still need to get some indoor vball in though, otherwise
it'll be a sorry sight at next weekends tourny.
My bp is 143/92 not as much running as normal, but could still be up since
I ate like a pig today, dim sum for lunch, bagel, then the beer bust had a new caterer
and we got sushi rolls along with 2 kinds of beer, but I didn't see the wine this time.
oh well any change is a good change.
Today was our offsite at Malibu Grand Prix, pretty fun, wasn't really turning
fast laps until I had someone to chase but then I got told to maintain a 5 car length
buffer, and that took all the fun out of it. Then there was a short session of putt-putt
golf and video games before I headed off to bball. Bad luck at bball though only
5 people showed up, and then I had a killer headache (probably the grand prix helmet)
so I bagged and when home for a 2 hour nap. Still kinda groggy, but maybe the
new medicine will work. In any case my bp was 152/92 which isn't too bad considering
I still have a headache.
Today I only had a mild headache that passed after I ate, but, I think it was mild cuz
I closed my bedroom window, I guess it's really fall now, might even be time to break
the blankets out.
Watched part of the presidental debate, but it the various (partisan) analyses were
way more interesting. In any case, my bp today was 148/91, maybe it's more related
to the amount of restful sleep?.
Tomorrow will be an easy day, its a group outing, first to eat at Max's Opera house
(local chain, good desserts) and then the afternoon at Malibu Gran Prix, and putt-putt
golf.
Tech News: well RedHat Linux 7.0 isn't released for SPARC yet, and I really still need
a separate Linux workstation -- and look, they have spare machines at work that are going
to the crusher, picked up 2, with monitors, no cdrom, no memory, no harddrive, but that
stuff is easy to find. One of them I'm going to turn into a filer (yes, kinda like what
we sell, but almost all software) pretty soon my room will be a real mini-isp.
Site News: haven't been feeling up to working on the wedding pictures, but I really should
get on it soon, its been a month after all.
Saturday I had dinner with Cheryl and Karen at La Scene, it was pretty good, a very
small place, with excellent service. It had a rather short menu but we really liked the
desserts.
Sunday I vegged around, finished up my Sonics schedule page for the ticket
distribution so I got some rounds Starcraft in, really, really liking those
little guys fighting on the screen -- its very entertaining.
This past weekend was also "reach out and be touched by the government" weekend. Saturday
I got a summons for jury duty. Its not till November, but it just happens to start
the day I get back from a sonics game -- hopefully when I call in (from Seattle) I won't
have been assigned a trial and won't have to rush from the airport. Then on the way home
from seeing a late movie on Sunday (Bait) I got tagged for going 70 in a 45. They have
these expressways that are 50+ but I guess it changes over to 45, that and it was 1am in
the morning I wouldn't have thought anyone would notice. Oh well, the officer said that
they have traffic school down here and that would wipe out the ticket if I get to go,
in the mean time I just have to wait for the paperwork to show up.
Site News: Kat complained that I was causing too much scrolling by my choice of font
size, and border layout, so I'm going to start playing with the size and then maybe
fix the layout after I finish all of the wedding pictures and Starcraft ;).
Politics: Don't do this much, but if you live in Oakland CA, you just might
want to consider voting for my
Uncle Henry
Had a busy day, and feeling slightly under the weather so I skipped the
Castro party and sat home vegging out. I think I'm tired and stressed cuz
today I finished all of the paperwork for the offer on the Cupertino townhouse.
The offers aren't actually due till tomorrow at 5pm, however it sounds like there
are going to be 6 different offers coming in, so I had to try and make a strong bid
for the place. Everyone (mortgage and real estate brokers) is crossing their fingers
that mine is accepted, which means I just have to write even bigger checks than
I did for the ernest money.
Long weekend, time change and everything. Managed to play bball friday, actually feel
like I'm rounding back into shape, even if my back was still tightening up. Afterwards
it was off to Francisco's for a halloween party -- pretty fun, lots of wild folk, and
playing pool in the dark was challenging.
Busy few days, Tuesday we went to look at a few more houses, the small one in
Cupertino, but another one in a complex that we'd seen before -- that one was
actually pretty good, 3bdr, 2.5 bath, 1600sq feet -- nice corner unit, the
only downsides were a detatched garage (opens to a mini private courtyard) with
lots of storage, and a roof-line view out of the master bedroom -- but it's in the
cupertino school district which is a real plus, and its priced appropriately. I've
been having numbers run both on the tax side and mortgage side to figure out what
I need to bid, luckily bids aren't due until 11/1, however at the rate things are going
I'll be needing to cash out another big chunk of stock to get to about 30% down to
ensure I can handle the payments on a 5-1 loan. Still toying with the idea of doing
a full ARM negative-amoratization loan, payments would be lots lower, but its kinda
risky, and the resulting rates are higher, although in this market, it may not matter.
Spent most of the weekend veggin'g at home again watching dvd's and seeing how
fila was responding to the insulin. I think he's kinda liking it. The day after
the first shot, he was wiped out beside my bed, but now right around shot time,
he's pretty active and wants attention, he doesn't even hide from the needle, and usually
doesn't squirm much when I'm giving him the shot (as long as I'm careful where I stick him).
Maybe it's his way of getting high, I dunno, but I'll be asking for sure at his next
appointment.
So Fila is diabetic, no bladder infection, and its unclear if it will go away.
My vet says that unlike dogs or people, cats actually can be schitzophrenic
diabetics, something pushes them over the edge, and then after its under control
they can go off of the insulin. Hopefully that will happen, I'm not sure how
long he'll tolerate getting 2 shots a day. Its possible that the Prednesone that
I was giving him for the weepy eyes may have kicked off the diabetes.
Well it wasn't quite that good of a day today, I took the kittys in to be checked
again. Cameo seems to be ok weight wise, but got a set of blood tests anyway. Fila
on the other hand seems to have some problems. He had been peeing and drinking water
way too frequently (he was leaking just about everywhere). The wierd part was that
his urine didn't smell, it was almost like regular water -- very strange and it worried
my vet so I took him in too with Cameo. Turns out that Fila has lost 2lbs in the past 2
months (way too much weight lost, especially when he only started at 12lbs). So they
took blood and urine (needle in the bladder ugh) the early result on the urine was that
it had sugar in it. My vet says that he may either have a bladder infection, diabetes or
kidney failure -- hopefully it's one of the first two. I'll probably know tomorrow when
the blood results are back.
Hey, it's my dad's birthday today,
Well John was in town this week from Utah so it was dinners all around and much
catching up -- I even got to see Miki and Jack's new place, pretty spiffy. Hopefully
I'll find something soon too. Oh and on the small world front, John was checking
out my posted bios and what does he
ask but ... "Is that Julie Perkins the one who went to work in Alaska?" I guess
he, Gary and Tony used to party pretty hard with her and her friends before she
was dating Scot.
Being old is quite a pain, yesterday when I was playing vball I took a slight
tumble (ring-around-the-rosie with the net pole) thought I was fine, and even
played on. Last night I was just a bit stiff, so I iced, and bio-freezed everything
to get ready for the tourny -- but today I could barely move, my back/hip was sore
and stiff, had to roll out of bed. Strange though, I worked it out during work and it feels
fine now, hopefully it was just from sleeping hard.
It was a sleeping weekend, but I'm losing my touch, I kept waking up before noon ;)
Spent most of the day watching the M's beat the White Sox to advance, its a tough life
when part of our job is to internally test our webcache streaming capability -- there's always
movies on demand, and then directTV -- hence the M's while I worked.
The weather is playing havoc with my health, my chiropractor says that there
is a non-benadryl "herbal" equivilent -- however I think it may have ephedrine
which means its a daytime cure -- don't know what it'll do to my bp though, will
probably pick some up tomorrow when I'm there again and see how it works.
Well today was marginally better than yesterday. Yesterday I had to skip a family
dinner at Rod's (and you all know how I rave about his cooking) cuz I had a headache
that lasted all day long (through asprin too) and just wouldn't quit. It was probably
the change in weather, but I went home and took a nap, good thing too, since I managed
not to see large portions of the Seahawks losing on MNF. I was better after the nap so I
figured a short Starcraft session, 2.5 hours later I figured out how to fly dropships
and win the scenerio. Not surprisingly my bp was up to 150/100. Then it was bedtime.
Weather has been odd, in transition, and its causing me some odd sleeping patterns.
Managed to sleep in both days till 12:30 but it was still a restless sleep, too
warm early and then too cool later -- I think I'll start closing my window before
I go to bed now.
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