Old Journal Entries

• 12/25/2003
  yeah, so I've been busy as always, this week we rented a place in Santa Monica and took Gilbert on a road trip, it even had high-speed internet connectivity so I could work and play while travelling .. its amazing what you can find on craigslist. So far we've gotten to see just about everyone except for Lori/Glen and new baby Tyler who's spending his first Christmas in Oregon. And no, we didn't feel the earthquake, and we're hoping that the coastal roads are clear on sunday when we head back.

  We only brought a few gifts down to open, but now I have a satellite radio for our travels (Sirius.com system by Audiovox if you care) and Elena is practicing with her new digital camera (Canon PowerShot Elph S230) so that she can take pictures of her baking classes and many more snaps and movies of Gilbert.

  Speaking of the little green one, we've been trying to locate a cherry-headed conure as a roommate with no luck, we even went so far as to call the 4 LA local breeders to see if there were any around but there weren't. Finally we called the Parrot Society of Los Angeles who had some rescue cherry-heads for adoption. Normally they wouldn't adopt out of driving distance but it turns out that they really need someone to work with the semi-wild cherry-heads that were rescued a few months ago. Luckily they're willing to consider accepting the Mickaboo (Bay area local rescue/adoption group) home visit so they let us go see the cherry-heads that they had on hand. They were only a couple of miles away from where we're staying .. so we've been there just about every day .. if approved we'll be driving back down to pick up the "third wheel" cherry head in Feb (the other two seem kind of bonded to each other). In any case its still pretty wild and hand shy, and to top it off it had a broken wing that was never set so it probably can't fly (or tuck its wing against its back) it'll take a bit of work, but that also means that Gilbert will have much more time to get used to the new pal before its out of the cage at the same time (current thinking is that it may be a year before they even meet outside of the cages) So that's his xmas present for this year.

  And in the "it rains, it pours" style to which we're accustomed, we've been looking for a cherry head locally (to us) for a few months, no luck, find the 3 in LA and then, right before christmas Mickaboo tells us that they need a foster family for a neglected cherry-head that they found ... well we're thinking that the LA bird is in more need (crippled and not handleable) so we're going to try that first...Then on to the weather, yes indeedy it was a Seattle style Xmas in LA .. overcast, cool, drizzling and then an outright downpour on Christmas day .. if my relatives didn't know I was in town before they sure do now ..

  Of course since its the holidays there's been lots of food but am still sticking to the diet pretty well, especially since I managed to get below 200lbs before we left ... getting kinda hard around the christmas cookies and candies though..

  Hope everyone had a happy (and relatively peaceful) holidays.

• 12/8/2003
  yeah, yeah, too busy for an update .. the quick synopsis is as follows:
  Spent my birthday shopping (of course) bought new bball shoes some kitchen ware and completed my Babylon-5 DVD set. Would've bought clothes but I want to wait till I'm done with Atkins.

  Then it was off to Seattle for a pretty good carnivore dinner (El Gaucho's) with Kat, unfortunately while I was there the Sonics lost 2 of 3 (both losses were blowouts too) Then it was a 6am flight back to the bay, just in time to jump into a car and drive to LA with Elena.

  Thanksgiving was pretty fun (after I got a good nights sleep), it was at Elena's brothers place .. they got a bit carried away .. a 22lb turkey, about a 15lb ham, and 6 (yes six) pies for 10 adults ... everyone had plenty to take home.

  Then it was dinner with Grandad and Mitzi, and a tour of Kathy and Charlie's awesome new house. Unfortunately Kathy had to work but Mason is growing like a weed I got a few pictures, but I'll get more when we're back down there over xmas.

  Finally back at work, and now we're investigating rentals so that we can spend the whole xmas week in LA, with Gilbert.

  On the health front, had to finally get a new scale, the other one appeared to be broken .. now I'm down to 207, which is about 23lbs down in 4 weeks or so.. next stop 180 *whee*. My ankle hasn't gotten any better, I'm pretty sure I'm going to schedule surgery next year, in the mean time I'm still going to PT for the right forefoot .. hopefully it gets better soon since I'll be hopping on it after surgery. Oh and I got another pair of reading glasses (slightly stronger prescription in one eye) so that I can leave a pair at work and not worry about having to go a whole day bleary-eyed.

  Lastly, because Elena is quitting work to go learn more baking, we filed for domestic partnership under my work benefits so she'll have better health care... now if I can just figure out what to get her for xmas ...

Who are these people?

Old Journal Entries