Seven

Just for fun, here's Seven, basking in the sun. It's kind of funny how you can see me taking a picture with my phone in the shadow.

Friends, A Day Off, and Too Much Internet

It turns out that Alan's new apartment is only a couple blocks from a lighted disc golf course. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of us out throwing discs around an eerily foggy course at 2:00am last Saturday, but I do remember having a lot of fun. We even went on the playground. :)

But here are some pictures of the day after. We ended up at a really good mexican restaurant that morning.


This coming weekend should have been a three day weekend for me, but it turns out that we have a special event on Saturday. But I'm very excited to have tomorrow off. I hope to have time to sleep in, hem two pairs of pants that have been waiting (probably won't happen), and try to relax a bit.

This week has been especially stressful with student registration taking place, but today is the last day. Thank goodness! I haven't felt like I've had time to do anything - like blogging. Of course, I suppose I shouldn't be using work time to write on my blog. :)

One problem that I've had lately is that I get caught up reading internet articles any time I need to look something up on line. I can easily spend 30 or more minutes clicking on link after link reading interesting stories, but it's a total waste of time. I'm trying to catch myself and not read too much. I've developed about 5 stacks of stuff around my office that need to be sorted, and I'm contributing to my stress by not getting more important things done. That's defintely an area that has room for improvement, but I'll continue to work on it.

Seven's New House

When I came out of the house this morning, I found Seven sleeping in her bed which is inside of her new house that we bought her. I was excited because now she has her bed and her food in an area protected from the weather.

My Weekend

Last Thursday I woke up and one of my eyes was stuck shut. Just as I was starting to feel better, that happens. So I went to the doctor that morning and found out that I had given myself pink eye. So I worked only half a day and stayed home on Friday also. I'm still just slightly sick and continuing to get better. I'm hoping that I'll be back at the gym by the end of the week. It would be nice if that was my main sickness for this year. Yuck.

We had fun this weekend, but it was WAY too busy. We had Cameron and Karen stay over on Friday night then went to Knott's Berry Farm on Saturday with JR and Kim. I have a few pictures from the trip. They don't look that great since I used my phone, but they're still funny.


Afterward, we went to a BBQ with Xavier and Ted who were down south this weekend. It's been ages since I saw them. I even met Xavier's sister for the first time ever. I was disappointed that I couldn't hold her new daughter since I'm still a bit sick. :(

After that we went back to Pasadena and hung out downtown with Cameron, Karen, and Emelio. We actually ended up at a restaurant that we've been to a few times. They have a bar on the side and had a guy mixing music till about 1am. Originally, we were going to have a drink there while we waited for another restaurant to open at 10:30 for dancing, but ended up staying till they closed, which was a fun and strange surprise since I wasn't expecting that restaurant to be a good place to stay the whole evening.

On Sunday, we played disc golf and then went over to see someone Jake knows. We're helping her to list her house on the MLS. After that I went home and pretty much went straight to bed. I slept for about 11 hours and I'll still tired. Being sick sucks.

So that was my weekend. I've got to start taking more pictures to go along with these things.

Wendy Came To Visit

Below are a few pictures from Wendy's visit this weekend. We had a great time. Wendy and Melissa also spent some time with me on Saturday helping me pick out a new wedding ring. I know it sounds kind of strange, but my ring band broke and instead of having it repaired, Jake and I decided that it was time for me to get a new ring.


Wendy and Micah



Dad and Caiden


David and Melissa


Alex and Micah

Below is a picture of the new ring. I had a really hard time figuring out what I wanted. Here's the story. Jake and I picked out a ring from Robbins Brothers and they told us we had 30 days to return the ring if we decided against it. The next day I returned the ring and got another. The day after that I decided I didn't like the new ring and put it away to wait for Wendy to come down from San Jose to help me out. After all, I can't keep taking my ring back; I have to finally just make a decision. So Saturday, Wendy, Micah, Melissa, and Caiden all came with me to ring shop. Now, I'm pretty sure I like my new ring, but there is still a nagging in the back of my head that says maybe there is something better out there. I think I have issues.

I'm Sick

I hate being sick. This one took me totally by surprise. I've got a sore throat that feels like it's moving into my ears and I've been achy and tired. I took today off from both jobs and I'm hoping that's going to help, but tomorrow I've got a presentation so I can't really call in sick. I'm also going out to dinner with family and then Wendy, Jeff, and Micah are staying the night here. On Saturday I'll be hanging out with everybody and then we're going out dancing that night. I'm probably just going to get even more sick. This really stinks.

Ok, enough about that. I finally found my camera which had worked its way down into my bag where a binder fit perfectly over it and hid it very well. So now Jake and I have two cameras, which works out well for me, since now we don't have to share. :)

Wendy, Jeff, and Micah stopped by on their way out to see Melissa, David, and Caiden. Here's a picture of me and Micah.

Alan's New Place and Organization

I know it's been awhile, but I haven't found much to talk about. I'll try to keep up a bit more.

This weekend Jake and I spent some time with Alan, who just moved into his own apartment in Anaheim. I think Jake has found his new favorite place to hang out. Alan his computers, internet, video games, robots, and other electric gadgets and gizmos that really don't excite me like it does for them. Today they spent two hours at Fry's Electronics, so I spent that time at Target.

My main goal today was to find some organization for my many, many, almost embarrassingly many shoes. I currently have an enormous mound on the floor of my closet. I figured that five minutes trying to find both shoes probably meant it was time to get organized. My solution based on careful analysis of space, sizing, whether hanger space would be needed and how many shoes could fit in each option, led me to the final solution of three clear, shallow, tubs that are currently in my car. I kind of wish we could go home so that I can organize! But Jake and Alan are currently in heaven with food, alcohol, tv, downloading stuff off the internet, and playing with all the new cables and hookups required in Alan's new place from the Fry's trip today.

We also bought Seven a new dog house/cat house. I woke up this morning and found her food dishes full of rain water. I'm also realizing that she doesn't have anywhere to go at night since we took off her cat door for the garage. It's also getting colder and I want her to have her cat bed again. So we have a nice new house for her that will fit her bed and food dish. I'm kind of excited to see if she'll like it.

Fishing

On Sunday, Jake and I got up at 4:15am to go fishing - it was horrible. I feel like I have jet lag today.

I almost threw up on the boat going out to sea, even though I took a pill to help with sea sickness an hour before that. I felt a bit miserable for a good part of the trip. To top it all off, I ruined my favorite pair of pants. They are black and I didn't think I'd be able to stain them. It turned out that they swabbed the deck with bleach water at the end and my pants were touching the floor. About an inch of my hem is now pink. I was pretty sad last night, but I'm going to see if I can find another pair on e-bay since that's where I found them before. I'm also going to try coloring the pants with permanant marker since they're black to see if maybe it won't be possible to tell from a distance. It might sound silly, but they fit perfectly and matched a lot of shirts that I have.

Jake and I bought a new digital Panasonic camera for $99 at Frys. We figure it'll be good to have until we find our other. The reasons for getting it was that it was cheap, uses an SD card, and has image stabilizer (it's also 5 mega pixels). It didn't work too bad; you can see the pictures below.


I was recovering from being sick in the cabin and came out to find fish everywhere. Jake caught four big ones and there were lots of fish being caught all over the place. I asked to hold the pole and suddenly the fish were gone. I did catch two later in the day, but it was almost like I was the bad luck token at that point. Oh well. Below is Jake's biggest fish.

Wow

On Saturday we saw this beauty parked at the YMCA.

Friday With Alex

Alex and I were going to go on a short hike Friday afternoon, but the road was closed until October 30th. That kind of stunk. When we turned around to leave we saw this deer and fawn crossing the road. Kind of neat.

This is Alex back at home later. Now he's playing video games and loving it. Of course, that was after we stopped at the grocery store to make sure we had ice cream for later that night. And can you believe that Alex forgot to have any.... kids these days, give them a video game and they forget about all the important things in life. :)

The Results Are In

Wendy and I are identical! It's official. After 30 years, we've found that we are not fraternal, but identical twins. I'm kind of excited to finally have my suspicions confirmed. Interesting stuff.

Below I've listed the statistical results from their analysis:

Overall odds in favor of monozygosity is: 25380223 to 1

Note: Monozygosity refers to identical siblings, as opposed to dyzogosity, which refers to fraternal siblings.

Percent Probability of Monozygosity is: 99.9999960599%

Based upon the analyses conducted, the siblings are identical with the probability listed above.

Colleagues

These are two interesting people who I work with.


Gaby works at the front desk in the Computer Science department office at Cal Poly. She's always making jokes and having fun. If I need to unwind and listen to some witty comebacks and crazy stories, all I have to do is go over for a visit.

Gaby also attends my pilates and yoga classes with me on Tuesday and Thursday. She's usually on the verge of falling over and can't seem to do half the poses, but goes anyway on the days that I do - now that's friendship.


Keith works as a part-time counselor with me at West Los Angeles College. My days are definitely brighter if I walk in and find that we are working at the same time. His sense of humor is absolutely hysterical and I love slow days when we have time to talk/gossip. In a perfect world, I'd have more time to hang out with people outside of work and we'd be closer friends.

One really neat thing about Keith is that I can tell he cares about students. He was a History teacher for years and then moved into a counseling position. He's always been a student advocate and speaks his mind when he sees things going on that aren't right.

Definitely two very awesome people.

Out On the Town - San Francisco

We went out Saturday night in San Francisco. We started at a nice French restaurant and then went to the Bubble Lounge which you can see in the pictures below. We even danced for a couple of songs to the eighties music playing downstairs.

Afterward, we stayed at the Omni Hotel which is where Xavier and Ted work. It was a beautiful room, which Xavi reserved special for us since it's bit larger than some of the other rooms. What a fun time!

Pam, Ted, Jake, Cameron, and Debbie

Cameron and Jake


Matt, Debbie, and Jake


Cameron, me, Jake, and Xavier


Cameron and Karen

The Twin Test

Wendy and I had fun swabbing for the the twin test.

First we laid out all the materials, then we rinsed our mouths out with warm water, then we swabbed our cheeks. I should have the results back in a week or two.

Me and Micah

Me and Micah got to hang out a bit, but I wish we'd had more time. At least I get to see him again in a few weeks.

Fall Quarter and a Short Vacation

Yesterday was our first day of classes for the Fall quarter. I'm exhausted from the constant stream of students.

On Saturday we are flying North where we will see friends and family. We're then coming back on Monday morning and driving straight to work. It's too bad that I can't find my camera. :( I'll have to see if I get any good pics with my phone.

I'm also going to bring my twin test with me, so I'll have Wendy photograph the process for fun.

I saw my step mother (Susan) yesterday and she is taking a college course that she was talking about. They said that being able to roll your tongue is a dominant gene that you get from one of your parents. Now here's what I'm wondering... Wendy can roll her tongue and I can't. Does this answer the question for us? Or maybe I'm just slow?

Oh well. Although I thought it would be fun if we turned out to be identical, at least if we aren't I'll have an excused for weighing 10 pounds more than Wendy - I'll say it's genetic. :)

I'll keep everyone posted. It should take 1-2 weeks to get the results.

The Final Straw For the Mail Box

On Friday night we were sitting in the living room and heard a crunching noise, which turned out to be splintering wood and a falling mailbox.

The young son of our neighbor from across the street was being pulled over by the cops and was so nervous that he hit our mailbox with his car mirror as he pulled to the side of the road. The poor kid looked scared to death.

Jake and I went out to look and the cops were checking him out and told him that he had cut them off.

Now I have multiple feelings about this. On the one hand, with the "Backus Street Gang" and other problems we have on the street we live, I'm glad that the police are patroling the area and trying to keep us safe.

On the other hand, I think they pulled him over because he's a young hispanic kid. If it had been me, I doubt I would have been harrassed.

That night however, I felt protective of Andy and went outside to boldly stand next to his older brother who had also come out of their house to see what was going on. We stood watching them to make sure they didn't harrass him too badly.

They even got him out of the car and put his hands behind him at one point. I loudly asked his brother what was going on and admit that I probably oozed irritation, but I couldn't help being a bit upset that they were treating him so badly. I know his family, mother, and father and they are really good people.

Anyway, the mailbox was already falling off, so it's not such a big deal, but we'll need to put it back up soon so that we get our mail. :)

Tagging/Graffiti

On Saturday I saw that the "Backus Street Gang" had once again decided to write an enormous "BST" down the side of our beautiful old tree on the side of our house. And of course they used dark blue to make sure it was quite visible to all who might be driving by to view the house we are trying to sell.

Last time this happened, I bought a solution called Graffiti Off or something like that. It didn't work very well and took a long time to get off. This time Jake bought a different brand and it worked really well. The paint is completely gone which we were both quite happy about.

I absolutely HATE it when people tag or destroy other people's property. Actually, I'm so mad that if I knew who they were I'd probably go over a spray paint "BST" on the side of their house and see how they like having graffiti all over their things. OK, OK, maybe I wouldn't go that far, but I am pretty upset about these idiot little wanna be gangsters.

While we were working on the graffiti removal we also saw a Praying Mantis at our house. This is the second one I've seen at home, which is really strange since I'd never seen them before in California. Has anyone else noticed the increase in bugs, grasshoppers, spiders? It's kind of strange.


This reminds me. My camera seems to be missing. I'm hoping it will turn up soon since I haven't seen it in about a month. I really hope I don't end up having to buy a new one. Luckily I've got my camera phone as a back up for now.

Bike Riding Adventures #1

Yesterday we went on a bike ride in Fullerton. There's a really fun 12 mile loop that's pretty easy, but challenging enough to make it fun. It's been about 5 years since I've ridden there so I only remembered the trail vaguely.

About 5-10 minutes into our two hour ride, I went down what looked to be a small hill (and turned out to be a three foot verticle drop) and ate it. What I mean is, I fell REALLY hard. My tire hit the ground, bounced up, and my body kept going even though the bike had stopped.

Normally, this wouldn't have been a big deal. I could have put my foot out to catch myself. But I was wearing clip in shoes and my leg got tangled into my bike... and it hurt! My bike ended up with the chain off, the brakes bent out of whack, my wheel slightly bent, and one of my spokes was broken off. I'm definitely going to need a tune up now.

The picture of my leg is rather disappointing. It's not as impressive as I thought it might be, but pictures are usually more fun and add to the story so here it is.


Not to worry, we finished the ride and had a good time. :)

DVD Player at the Gym

I recently came across a fantastic discovery. If I take my DVD player to the gym, exercise is not nearly as horrible as it has been in the past. I can spend an hour on the elliptical machine and not even notice the time go by. I'm in the process of acquiring more movies since I've almost exhausted my current supply.

If anyone often goes to the machines at the gym, bringing a DVD player would be a definite recommendation.