Friday, April 25, 2003


Oooo ... I like this Arie's horoscope for today:

Life is an adventure; at least, that's the attitude you're likely to take today, Cathy. Flush with past successes and basking in the affection of your friends, you're feeling especially confident and enthusiastic, and likely to consider, if not totally adopt, any possible option for your future - even if it involves taking off to an exotic land! More likely, however, it'll involve learning, and meeting new people who share your interests. Enjoy!


Found some cool web sites while surfing today:



I am beginning to wonder if I will ever find a bookcrossing book. I hurried over to the Safeway on Shoreline to see if the book dropped there the day before yesterday was still there. It wasn't. I have wandered over to downtown to check a phone booth and had no luck. One was dropped at the Mtn. View library the day before yesterday but its a romance novel and I'm not interested in reading romance. Some day I'm going to find a book! In the meantime, I'll keep releasing the occassional book to the wild.


iVillage gave me a $15.00 Amazon.com gift certificate as thanks for my volunteer work and because I showed up at the community leader chat. Cool huh? I ordered the book "Best in Tent Camping: Northern California: A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate Rvs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos." What a good idea for a book! I can't wait till it arrives so I can check out what campsites they recommend.


OK ... now it really is Friday and I am not having problems thinking it is Saturday. If it were Saturday I would be at Point Lobos right now not in my cube.


I finished cleaning the refrigerator (empty the drain pan and mop up the water and wash the outside a little bit), let it dry out, plugged it in, and then shoved it back in its cubbyhole yesterday. When I opened it this morning to check it out it was looking good. No frost was building up in the freezer like before and in general it felt colder inside than before. We'll see how it is doing when I get home after work. I also managed to fix my broken space heater yesterday. All I did was unscrew the front cover, look around inside for anything unusual, didn't find anything unusual, put the front cover back on, plugged it in and voila it worked. Go figure.


At 11:30 a.m. Monday, the house appraiser comes over to appraise my house. It was very nice of him to pick my lunch hour. I'll just drive home at lunch to let him in and hang out till he is done. A new appraisal is needed for refinancing my mortgage. I'm looking forward to finding out how much my little townhouse is worth.


Thursday, April 24, 2003


I think the fates decided that this year was my year to always have something broken: my car, my dryer, or my achilles tendon to be specific. Now my refrigerator is malfunctioning. It stopped defrosting itself and this messed up the temperature sensing so it was too warm and my milk kept spoiling in about 2 days. I had a neighbor about 3 doors down help me haul the refrigerator out of its kitchen cubbyhole on Tuesday. Yesterday I cleaned most of the fridge and left the doors open over night to let it dry out. Tonight I'll finish up the cleaning, plug it in, and shove it back in its cubbyhole. I'm hoping that being clean and dry it will start functioning properly again (no big blobs of ice over the temperature sensors). If it doesn't I'll call a refrigerator repair person. I bought myself a small refrigerator to use in the meantime from Office Depot. I got it at Office Depot because its the closest store to me that sells little fridges!


My tendon is slowly healing. I led a 4 mile flat walk for OAW last night and it felt fine all during the walk: not one little twinge of pain. However when I got up this morning it was ever so slightly stiff and painful. Now it feels fine again. I plan on going to the GLS hike at Point Lobos on Saturday. Its a pretty mellow hike and won't damage my tendon. I'm going to drive right to the park and meet the Santa Cruz bunch there. I don't feel like car pooling with anyone. I want the freedom to hang out in Santa Cruz after the hike and visit with Wen and Ki If they are free.


I keep thinking today is Friday. I'm not sure why.


Linda invited me to go exploring at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve the first weekend of May. Its hit or miss whether the Poppies will be good that weekend. Its south of Bakersfield. I'm not sure where Linda plans on staying. We were discussing camping somewhere but have not made any reservations. I'll have to nudge Linda this weekend about it. We'll also explore the territory around the Reserve. If it turns out to be a dud we can always head back early. Maybe we'll sneak over to Kings Canyon if its a disappointment.



Thursday, April 10, 2003


I have my car back and I'm $400.00 poorer, but the car is running great. It is so nice to be able to drive normally again. They were not able to figure out exactly why my oil went low but they did note that the oil was really dirty and told me to check my oil every 400 miles or so and be sure to change the oil every 3000 miles. They changed the oil for me so I do have clean oil now. I just want my car to last another year or two and then I'll get a new car.


I heard a fun acronym at work today: CAVE = Citizens Against Virtually Everything.


I wore my shoes with my normal socks today and my tendon hurts a bit when I walk. I have decided that I need to cancel the hike on Saturday or find a replacement for myself. I don't want to really wreck my tendon by subjecting it to fourteen miles of hiking. Sigh. I hate having to cancel hikes I lead. Oh well "Discretion is the better part of valour."


Once I get the hike logistics (cancel or replace) taken care of I'll probably take Linda up on her offer to go to this little park I read about on the internet:


"Welcome to Chitactac-Adams Heritage County Park. This beautiful and culturally significant four acre park site is located just minutes from the cities of Gilroy and Morgan Hill. The park features the beautiful Uvas Creek and a wealth of cultural artifacts including bedrock mortars and petroglyphs left by the Ohlone Indians. The park includes a self-guided interpretive walk and an interpretive shelter focusing on Ohlone Indian culture and the Adams schoolhouse which was sited on this property from the 1850s until 1956."


Its not very big so we will hardly hike at all and it sounds sort of interesting. If I can't do my Hollow Tree hike at least I can pal around with Linda and be outdoors.

My female Mormon name: Apathy Norberta, male Morman name: Cashley Calbert
What's yours?

Just call me Apathy for short: I don't care. What a weird first name. I think I like Cashley better.


Tuesday, April 08, 2003

I finally solved my geometry modeling problem at work! Woo Hoo. Now I can get on to the more meaty stuff I'm supposed to be working on. This problem has been plaguing me for weeks. Its so good to finally solve it.


My car is in the repair shop today. I keep stalling the car in the mornings when the engine is cold. I stop at a traffic light and the engine is idling away OK. But then I put on the gas like I always have and it stalls on me. Nothing quite like having your car stall on you right when a light turns green and everyone behind you wants to go. I was working around this problem by revving the engine while I sat at a traffic light and then really gunning it to start. I also checked the oil in my car recently and, gulp, the oil scale on my dip stick went from full to half full in the last 3 months. So I'm losing oil somehow. I splurged and decided to rent a car while my car is in the shop. I got a little Toyota Echo economy car from Enterprise. They tried so hard to get me to upgrade from economy to compact and of course tried to get me to sign up for all that insurance (I'm fairly certain I'm covered by my own auto insurance). I also found out I got a cheaper rate because I used the internet to make the reservation. I'm paying roughly $30.00 a day for the car and I rented it for three days.


My tendon is slowly getting better. It hardly hurts at all when I walk now. It still is tender to the touch so if my shoe rubs on the tender spot it hurts. I have been wearing just my thin liner socks all week as that gives me room in my shoes to avoid bumping my tendon. It also give more room for the heel lift. I'll decide on Thursday if I am up for doing the Big Basin hike on Saturday. That will give me a day to decide what to do about the hike if I decide I can't lead it: cancel it or find a replacement for myself who has a good sense of direction.


I called my younger brother this weekend to ask if he would be the executor of my will and the person who makes medical decisions for me if I am unable to make the decisions myself. He said "yes" to both and then he said "but you know, you are not permitted to die." That made me smile. I said the same rule applies to him also! I now need to sit down and start gathering the information needed for writing the will. I'll probably get a rough draft written and then go to a lawyer to help me have both documents drawn up. Not to worry folks, I'm not planning to die any time soon! I just wanted to get my will done to make things easier for folks if I do happen to die young for some freaky reason.


I think I have recovered from the time change today. It wasn't nearly so hard to get up this morning as it was yesterday.


Hey ... I'm a qbabe! Check it out --> [OK so Wen already knows all about it ... waving to Wen]


Skating in San Jose

At the Stanford vs UCLA basketball game


I have been reading this iVillage board called "Fit Over Forty" but I might stop reading it. There are some pro-war women on that list and it makes me squirm to hear them go on about not watching some celebrity because they are a half wit for being against the war. I posted my opinion but I seem to be the only peace proponent on the board willing to speak up at this point. It hasn't gotten into personal attacking yet but it just makes me uncomfortable to be around folks who are pro-war. I'm also tiring of it being such a straight environment. And thirdly, I just feel like they are more "looks" centered than "fitness" centered. So I may just post that I'm not going to read the board much anymore and if anyone misses me to come say hello on the Extreme Sports board or the Lesbian Issues board!