Blah. I have the shakes. Every once in a while I feel shakey like this. It feels like someone pumped me full of too much coffee only I'm also sleepy to boot! I think its a lack of food problem and so I just ate a granola bar. It hasn't kicked in yet. Knock on wood that it will soon and up my energy a bit. I never can predict when I'll feel this way. Maybe its related to Aunt Flo arriving yesterday. What I would dearly love to do right now is lie down on the floor under my cube desk and take a cat nap. Somehow I don't think this would go over well with the boss.

I didn't get my dryer vent cleaned out yesterday. I couldn't find an appropriate tool to use. So I fired an email off to my neighbor asking to borrow his shop vac to clean out the vent. I haven't heard back from him yet. I'm assuming a shop vac is a very strong vacuum cleaner that I can poke into the vent and suck up all the accumulated lint. If this doesn't work then its off to the yellow pages to find a dryer vent cleaner. I did do a wash this weekend and I carried my clean wet cloths in my red wagon to the complex public dryer in the club house, deposited $0.75 in the machine and dried my cloths. At least I don't have to put the wet cloths in my car and find a laundramat for a dryer.

I emptied my chest drawers and fix the drawer bottoms this weekend. All of them had come out of their slots and were sagging into the drawers below so when I would pull out one drawer the sag would catch on the one below and open it up too. I got the drawers back into the slots and then used some duct tape to hopefully secure the drawer bottoms in the slots so they won't come out again and resag.

My hike Sunday had a low turn out. Just one person showed up and that person met me at the trail head. It turned out to be a fortuitous as I woefully underestimated the mileage and the one person who did show up, Pam, is a leader herself and took the change in plans while hiking in stride. We never did make it down to the beach as it was more like a 5 mile hike to the beach than a 5 mile hike to the beach and back like I advertised. I really don't know where I managed to come up with that mileage estimate. It must have been bad map reading day when I wrote that description. The weather wasn't too bad. I think that is what scared away most people. We had a little bit of rain when we reached the ridge top but as we sat down to eat some lunch, the rain stopped and the sun came out. We got a nice view of Brooks falls with water in it! The woods in the area were a very lush green due to all the rain. It felt vaguely Hawaii like Pam said. I couldn't confirm that since I haven't been to Hawaii. We had fun talking and probably did about 6 or 7 miles in the end. We were out hiking from 11:15 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

I skipped the Nisene Marks hike on Saturday. I was intending on going on the hike on Friday but I woke up so danged tired Saturday that I turned off the alarm, rolled over, and went back to sleep. I slept till noon. I needed that but I'm sorry to have missed the hike. I had a very lazy Saturday of hanging out on the couch watching TV and playing on the internet most of the day.

I got my tax refunds last week! I had them deposited right into my bank account.

My GPS is still in the mail. It got to Ames on Thursday according to the UPS tracking web page. I called the dude who signed for it this morning asking what happened to it. The package came to Shipping and Receiving and they sent it on to the mail room. It got stuck in the mail room. I called the mail room and they said last week they were short of two staff members and fell behind on delivering mail. They told me it should arrive today and if it doesn't to give them another call. Shucks. I want my new toy!

Grrrrrr. The dryer repair guy showed up and determined that there was nothing wrong with my dryer and it was that my vent was blocked somehow. I worked so hard on cleaning that vent. I had to pay the guy $69.00 for the visit. He was nice enough not to charge me for anything else. I have a tenative plan to try to unblock the vent on Monday (a holiday for me) . If I can't do it, I'll have to reach in my wallet again and pay for a professional to fix the vent.

I did get my front door rekeyed and the fellow also made some repairs to the lock mechanism so it works much better now too. It was good to get this done finally. I have been procrastinating about it since November of 1998. That may be my record for procrastination!

I read in the paper this morning: "Central Valley Congressman Richard Pombo introduced a bill to study constructing a six-lane freeway across the Mount Hamilton Range and into East San Jose. " I say booooo hisssss! Its a marvelous area and I don't want to see a big freeway built in the middle of it. Add this to the proposal of SCV Water District to build a dam that will flood parts of Henry Coe and it makes me steam. Geez. Not a good year for the local parks. I hope both plans fizzle and the wilderness stay pristine and not flooded!

I have started to walk to work on MWF. Its about an hours walk each way (roughly 3 miles). Its a nice way to get exercise and not use my car so much. We'll see if I can keep it up.

I saw my psychiatrist this week and after some discussion decided to stop taking Wellbutrin. It wasn't helping all that much and it frequently made my stomach upset. It was also hard to remember to take the second pill at around 3:30 p.m. each day. We'll see if the tiredness comes back or not that originally got me to start taking the Wellbutrin. I am working hard at trying to get enough sleep each night, at least 8 hours. I'm still taking the prozac.

I ordered a GPS (Global Positioning System), a Garmin Venture Etrex, on Monday. It should arrive today or tomorrow. Oh boy. A new toy!

Today I am leaving work at 11:30 a.m. I worked 9 hour days the past three days so I could leave early today. I'm leaving early so the dryer repair person can hopefully come fix my dryer and so the lock person can rekey my door. I didn't know you could have a door rekeyed and leave the current lock/door knob system in place. Rekeying is a lot cheaper than getting a new lock/door knob. I'll probably do some work at home while I wait around for those two folks.

Last night I watched the Stanford women's basketball team trounce the Oregon Ducks. It was a fun game to watch. Stanford made many really clean beautiful plays that were a joy to watch. One of my favorite players, Krista Rappahahn, got to play more than usual and she did great. She scored 10 points for the game and played awesome defense. Nicole Powell played well but got two fouls right away in the first half so spent more time on the bench than usual. Krista was filling in for her.

I did my taxes a couple nights ago. I filed electronically and my refund will be deposited into my bank. I still manage to get refunds because of the fact that I am paying so much interest on my mortgage and because I put a lot of money in the tax free health care spending plan in 2002. I think within a couple of years I'll probably be owing taxes but I'll enjoy the refunds while I can!

BTW, Wen and I are 85% compatible according to the Rum and Monkey quiz.

Lets copy Wen's idea of posting horoscopes. What my horoscope says today ...


Don't hesitate when it comes to taking on a project or making plans today, dear Aries. Your organizational skills will be complimented with extra energy making a perfect recipe to handle most anything. Be sure to write your goals and plans out on paper or in the computer to help keep you focused. If you decide to tackle any cleaning today, get rid of the things you never use. Consider donating such items as there's no doubt someone out there that could benefit. (from Astrocenter.com).

Hmmm. Not sure I have any big project to make plans for today. Yesterday I thought about getting rid of cloths I don't use and donating them to the Good Will. This one sorta fits what my day might be like. OK this is silly, here is my Chocolate Preference according to my sign (Aries): Eats all of the chocolates in one sitting. Wen's (Gemini) Chocolate Preference: Makes their chocolate choice by sticking their finger in each piece. So if Wen puts her finger in each piece does that mean I eat them all after she has touched them? LOL.

I'm 57% compatible with treegrrrl

I'm an apparently intelligent, liberal, not-too-generous, not-too-selfish, relatively well adjusted human being!
See how compatible you are with me!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

I got on the road to Death Valley at 5:30 a.m. to avoid rush hour traffic in the bay area and to get to Death Valley before dark. I was way sleepy on the drive. I had to stop numerous times to drink coffee! The worst part was driving while tired on I5 when it was socked in with fog. By the time I got to the mojave desert area, I was finally pretty much awake. I got to Death Valley at 3 p.m. We had some snafu about where our group campsite was. It wasn't in the same place as it had been the year before but that is where the leaders of the trip had directed us to go. I volunteered to hang out there for a while and direct people to the right place. I had a nice nap in the back of my car as I hung out there. It was very toasty but not too hot.

Friday night was a night of meeting all the folks who were on the camping trip. There were some very colorful characters on the trip that had great stories to tell. One lady was a 76 year old lesbian who knew all about Nevada and Death Valley and had great stories to tell of what it was like to be a lesbian back in the 40s and 50s. The other woman told lots of stories about her rather unpleasant childhood of running away lots and being in foster homes. She seemed pretty upbeat about it though and was able to laugh about it now.

Saturday a.m. we woke up to flags at half staff at Death Valley national park and the news of the space shuttle Columbia accident. We were all depressed for a bit but carried on with our plans for the day.

Nine of us went to hike up Corkscrew peak. It was a beautiful hike. I was a coleader and was the sweep. John was the other leader and was out in front. I hung out with the slow pokes (I'm naturally a slow poke anyways LOL). One woman (poor Jamerson) was having trouble with cramping in her calves. She almost turned back about three times but each time decided to keep going. She finally made it to the top of Corkscrew peak and got to see the wonderful views and get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment when you bag a peak. On the way down that woman's calves did not bother her at all. Instead another woman was dealing with the more common knee problems going downhill. This was very steep and steady down hill too. She made it down OK but her knees were sore.

That night we had a pot luck dinner at camp. It was a pretty good pot luck with stir fried vegetables, a wonderful pork dish for the meat eaters, some pasta with sun dried tomatos and chocolate mints and cake for desert. We all turned in pretty early that night especially those of us that tackled Corkscrew peak. During the night a wind storm blew up. The winds were really strong and it blew sand dust everywhere. Fortunately for me I had decided to sleep in my car for this camping trip so I was snug as a bug in my car and dust free and my "tent" did not collapse on me. The folks in tents had a mostly miserable night with the big wind blowing their tents around and making lots of noise. It was a pretty bleary eyed bunch the next morning.

Sunday I was all set to lead a hike at Keane Wonder mine, but no one else wanted to go on the hike so I cancelled it and headed off with 4 other women to see Darwin Falls. I decided to drive home after seeing the falls. I was pretty tired out and wanted to have Monday to unpack and recover from the trip instead of spending it driving. Darwin Falls was wonderful. It was a very mellow 0.8 mile hike into the falls (after a bumpy dirt road drive of 2.5 miles to the trail head from highway 190). This is one of the few spots in Death Valley where there is a stream and water in a canyon year round. So we got to see some green plants in the canyon as we hiked to the falls. We had snacks at the falls and then headed back. I said my goodbyes after the hike and headed home. The drive back was uneventful and I made good time. I got home by 9 p.m.

Monday I slept in till noon after having gone to bed at 11:30 p.m. I sure was tired! I feel good now though after getting 12+ hours of sleep yesterday. It was a fun trip despite the sad news of the Columbia shuttle accident.

Here are some pictures I took on the camping trip: http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&uid=792531&gid=1664683&;;

I had a nice afternoon Monday. I arranged for someone to come fix my dryer this Friday afternoon and I called the Raytheon Life resources number to get referals for someone to put a new lock on my door. I did remember Monday that my condo complex has a laundry room next to the pool so I did a wash and put my wet cloths in the dryer there. It only cost $0.75 to dry them. So I am not in dire need of getting my dryer fixed. I even came up with a new chore to start working on soon. I'm going to thin out my cloths. I have so many cloths that I never wear. I'm going to pack them up and give them to the goodwill. I also need to figure out just how many socks I have left that don't have holes in the toes. It may be time to buy some new socks. Oh and I want to fix the bottoms of my chest drawers. They are sagging and interferring with opening the drawer underneath them. I don't think it will be too hard to rig something to stop the sagging.

The chore saga continues. Alas, the dryer still doesn't work right. My cloths came out warm but very damp. I got out my dryer manual and it suggested cleaning the lint screen with soap and water. I did that and then threw the slightly damp cloths that had been air drying all night into the dryer and they did dry. However, I'm thinking that the dryer still might not dry cloths straight from the washer. If it still doesn't dry after the next laundry I do, I'll have to call in a service person. I did get my window screen installed OK. I'm a bit concerned that it will blow out with the next big wind storm. I wasn't able to wedge it in there very securely. A new chore raised its ugly head when my TV broke. I took it to a repair shop on Monday and they replaced the power supply in it for $110.00 and now it is working fine. So the dryer is still a problem and I still need to figure out who to call to help me get a new lock for my door and to check the way the door is hung (in the summer heat it gets really hard to shoot the bolt home).

I met a woman online who was going to do the Grand Canyon hike in mid May by herself because her girlfriend didn't want to do it and neither did other friends she asked . I piped right up and said I would love to come with her. Her name is Sadie. We still need to work out the details. We would hike down the canyon one day. Stay the night in the canyon (camping) and then hike back up it the next day. I have wanted to do this hike for a long time. I really hope we can pull it off. I'll have to get started on rereading my Grand Canyon guide book. I also need to work on my conditioning more now so I can handle the long up hill hike on day 2.

I haven't been getting enough sleep again. I'm just a yawning fool this week. Although on Tuesday it was because I forgot to take my afternoon Wellbutrin. I keep staying up too late watching TV or, last night, getting the OAW paper newsletter in the snail mail to the 10 subscribers.

Linda gets back from Singapore today. It will be good to have my hiking buddy back although since she is going back to school her time may be more limited now. She has to go to her first class tomorrow. She is going to be so jet lagged I wonder if she will get anything out of the class!

I got two projects going at work now that are keeping me busy and happier. One is testing the geometry programs and fixing problems I find. The other is working on packing objects inside an object container. I managed to use the OpenCascade intersect, common, and fuse routines to determine if one shape was completely inside the other, one shape was completely outside the other, or the shapes overlapped. I was pleasantly surprised when it worked on a simple test case!

I'm on a roll with these chores. Bob came over this morning for a hike but before we left he helped me get my laundry room folding door back in the frame. I had figured out what was wrong and how to fix it but the door was on the floor and was too heavy for me to put up myself. So I directed the door onto the right joint thingy as Bob lifted the door up. He popped in the second joint and then the last joint popped right in too. So finally I can open the door like a regular person and not have to lift it up as I shut it.

I'm doing laundry right now and this is the first test of the dryer since I replaced the vent duct and cleaned out the dryer vent. The last time I dried something it was still slightly damp when it finished because of the hole in the vent duct and the amount of lint that had built up in the vent -- or so I surmise. I also gave in to temptation when I was at OSH and bought myself one of those folding laundry racks. So now instead of having all my fleece and poly pro cloths hanging on my chairs they are on a real laundry rack and there is lots of room for everything. YAY.

The next chore is to fetch the window screen from my storage shed and see if I can put it in my bedroom window that is missing a screen. The screen is really wedged up in the top of the shed so it will take lots of shifting things around (ski racks, skis, ect.) to get the screen out. What fun. I need to go fetch my ladder to get at the stuff at the top of the shed. I might just leave my ladder in the shed instead of storing it in my bedroom closet.

The hike with Bob was nice. We went over to Coyote Hills and walked through the marsh on the board walk, checked out the indian ruins, and then took the paved path around the hills. We had a good talk about how Bob is doing with his depression. Poor Bob is going through something that I too go through at times but not nearly as much as I used to since having therapy and taking anti-depressants. We both sorta go through life thinking there is a right way to do things and stress out over figuring out what is the right thing and doing it. Just that concept of "doing the right thing" has been a nemisis of mine and it looks like Bob got it too. My guess is it came from environment and watching our Father be like that. Bob was also happy to hear from me that I supported his decision to not take anti-depressants. His wife has been pressuring him to take anti-depressants. I told him I thought he could do just fine without them as long as he felt he was making progress in therapy.

I'm listening to the football game between the Titans and the Raiders. The Raiders are ahead but not by very much. Its almost half time. The Raiders are trying to score in the last minute.

I am now the proud owner of a pipe wrench and a sink with a working pop-up stopper! It was much easier than I anticipated getting the trap off and the old plug popped right out when I emptied the water out of the trap pipe. Putting the trap back on was a breeze. Installing the new stopper was pretty easy too.

Now I just have to find someone to help me put up my darn folding door in the laundry room door frame. Then its on to the next two chores I want to get done and have been procastinating about: replacing my door lock and fishing the screen out of my storage shed and seeing if it will go in my bedroom window (perhaps there is a reason this screen was stored in the shed by the previous owners).

I have to get my self evaluation done in a week for work: not one of my favorite jobs. Work is so fluid around here that it is hard to make specific goals and then evaluate them a year later. Often the goals have been side tracked to concentrate on new more important work that came up in the middle of the year. My manager also wants me to come up with goals to make my task more productive. Dang there are only two of us and we do the work we are asked to do quite well. Nothing pops in my mind of ways to be more productive. I'll think of something.

I had a good giggle yesterday reading the Lord of the Rings parody that Erin posted to Sappho.

Tra La La La La! Mom's lymph node test for cancer was negative. Mom is cancer free now!! Whew! She and Dad are driving back to Houghton today and tomorrow. I'm so relieved.

Still struggling with my pop up stopper problem. I have determined I'm going to have to take apart the pipes to get the old stopper out of the trap. I got myself a plumbers wrench last night. If I mess up this job, I'll just call in a plumber to fix things up. I don't use the sink much in the half bath downstairs so I'm in no rush to get it working. For the door problem I still have to chase someone down to help me get it set up.

Its a Stanford women's basketball week. Tomorrow night there is a game and on Saturday there is a game. Its the Washington schools. I haven't checked to see which school is on which day yet. I also need to check the time of the game on Saturday.

My connection is not being very cooperative tonight. It has taken me forever to get to my blog. We'll see if I can get it to publish.

I got two chores done this weekend: I put my under cabinent flourescent light on my desk and I relaced the dryer vent hose and cleaned out the vent. Hopefully now my dryer will dry better. I'm already enjoying the desk light. I started two other chores and have run into problems. I tried to replace my broken sink stopper and it fell down the drain below the rod used to move it up. So now I need to find the right tool to snag the old stopper out of the pipe. The other chore was to fix my folding door on my laundry room. I think I figured out how it operates but in the process I took it all apart and the door is so heavy that I am going to need help to get it back in position. Blah.

I had a nice hike at Purisma yesterday with the Black Mountain section. The weather was cloudy but not too cold and we got to see lots of cool clouds floating in the valleys. This group set a very fast pace. I managed to keep up on the downhill and flat but on the uphill me and one other dude fell behind but not too far. It was nice to have company in the rear.

Oops ... I messed up my customized template for this blog so I replaced it with a new one.

I heard from Cecily last night that the melanoma on my Mom's calf was around 0.5 mm deep and that there is a 95% recovery rate for those with melanomas less than 0.76 mm deep. Sounds good! Today she is getting some spots on her nose checked out and I think will be arranging or having surgery on her calf to be sure all the melanoma was removed. I tried to call her this morning and got the hotel voice mail for their room and left a message. I wonder if my parents know how to check voice mail or if they will even notice that the light on the phone means they have a message. I figured it couldn't hurt to leave a message even if they don't ever get it. All I said was I called and hoped everything was going well.

I went on a walk at Shoreline park yesterday after work. I saw a weirdly dressed woman. She had on a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood up and she had this dark but see through visor that extended all the from the top of the hood to way down to below her nose. She also was wearing black tights. I dubbed her the Darth Vador lady. With skin cancer on my mind I did wonder if perhaps she had some skin problem that requires her to protect herself that way. I also saw lots of geese on this walk. They were munching away on something in the tall grass. I also saw lots of litter. It was low tide and I decided to explore the lower trail. I was amazed by the number of plastic bottles sitting on the shore. I'm sure the bottles got in streams all over the place and made their way down to Shoreline park where at low tide they wash up on shore. Maybe on my next walk I'll bring a trash bag and pick some of them up.

I have been in a particularly geeky mood this week. I have really gotten into setting up a web page on my attbi site (no ads!) that is password protected and basically puts my bookmarks/favorites in a nice table format so I can quickly go to the places I like on the internet. I got tired of the set up I had at MyYahoo where bookmarks can only go in one column. I now want to figure out how to do a pop up menu that I can add to the page that has my less used links on it. I also found answers to a couple of nagging computer issues I had. First I finally figured out that the reason I can't access my web site at work is Attbi only lets you upload files if you are on their network and I'm not on their network when I'm at work. Second I finally figured out how to put files on a RW CD with my new external CD RW drive. I was using the wrong software to try and make the CD and finally figured that out. So after finding the right software I now have a nice CD with all my digital photos stored on it. I love it when I solve problems like this. Makes me feel good.

Bored? Go to this link, Eye Chart, and stare for a while. I found it helpful to remove my glasses.

I led a nice hike today for OAW. Four of us went to Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wild Life Refuge and did what turned out to be the 5 mile Newark Slough trail. I thought it was four miles. Oops. It was a nice group. I talked a lot with Jo and Sandy but didn't get to talk to Anne much. The hike was a challenge for Sandy. She didn't quite have an idea of just how long the hike was going to be. I think she was expecting more like a 3 mile hike than a 5 mile hike. It was a party sunny day. We started the hike in the bright sun shine and while on the hike the sun would go in and out of the clouds. We saw many geese on this hike and we saw someone walking her cat. We had lunch at an old dock like structure. We finished up the hike at around 1:30 p.m. and so I was home by 2:30 p.m.

I took a nice shower when I got back and then headed off to Office Max to get a printer cartridge, a shredder, and some hanging folders. I parked the car and was just about to walk in when I realized my wallet was on the table at home. I had to drive back home and get it and then go back. I found all my items easily. That was a new one for me. Usually my errands to Office Max involve going up and down the aisles trying to find the item I want or at least trying to decide what brand to get. The shredder was quite a bit cheaper than I expected. It was only aorund 15 dollars. Of course the printer cartridge was the most expensive. The hanging folders cost about as much as I expected. I had fun with the shredder when I got home. I had some documents from work that I needed to shred and it was nice to not have to sit here and rip up the pages. It was fun to feed the machine and see the paper get sucked up and cut up into 1/4 inche strips.

I'm doing better than I thought with my worries about Mom. I seem to be able to not dwell on it and be able to enjoy my activities. I'll probably dwell on it more as the test result date comes up.

Tomorrow I'm going to the Pepperdine vs Stanford womens basketball game. I'm looking forward to getting to see Nicole Powell play some more. She is just returning from an injury: a bulging disk in her back. She was a little rusty but still looked really good. She is so incredibly smooth and yet fast. It is a joy to watch her play basketball.

Aack. Mom has to have lymph node tests to check if the melanoma has metastasized. She and my Dad will be driving to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN on Jan 7th and the lymph node test is on Jan 8th. I am fervently hoping that the melanoma has not metastasized. Its going to be hard having to wait till the results are back. I will try and email her everyday before she leaves as she says hearing from all of us kids really makes her feel better. She feels pretty good physically but is very nervous and panicky. She had a panic attack last night but was able to use relaxation techniques to overcome it and calm down. Wish I were there to give her a big hug. I'm glad Dad is there to talk with her and hold her.

The silly ants at work have found my cube. I spent an hour this morning washing ants off the surface of the shelf where I keep my coffee pot. I also pulled the plastic trash bag out of the trash bin as there was a big ant rave going on in there. A fellow around the office kindly offered to take the trash bag to the outdoor garbage bin and he gave me what he called an ant farm. Its a flat rectangle you put on the floor and it attracts the ants and I assume kills them: something similar to a roach motel. I have a paper towel next to me so when I see the stray ant I can smoosh it. Before I leave tonight I will be sure all my food is sealed up tight, that the coffee pot shelf is clean and dry, and that the old filter with coffee grounds in it is removed from the coffee pot. I don't want the ants to have another rave in my cube while I'm gone for the weekend!!

Check out my Yahoo Aries' horoscope for today: ARIES. Wild huh? Hope it comes true for me. I am going to a Stanford women's basketball game tonight and there are lots of lesbians there. Who knows?

Hurray. The December monthly is done. I wrote the first draft of Lily's evaluation and will have to wait on my supervisor to OK what I wrote before I show it to Lily. I probably should start working on my self evaluation which is called the performance screen, but I'm all out of evaluation energy for this week.

I started Jan 1, 2003 feeling icky. I woke up feeling way tired and soon after breakfast felt diarrhea coming on (is there any more delicate word for diarrhea?). I ditched the idea of going on the Mission Peak hike at that point. I didn't relish the thought of stomping off trail in the mud to find a private spot to go to the bathroom every hour or so. Staying at home worked out much better. I snoozed, watched TV, and visited the bathroom for most of the morning. The diarrhea finally went away around noonish.

I spent the afternoon cleaning up my files. I really got into it. I now have very clean organized Visa files, health files, insurance files, and auto repair files. Mostly the hanging files were just too stuffed with paper and filing new stuff was becoming a pain. I transferred lots of stuff into notebooks and put them in my guest room closet. So now the hanging files are nice and thin and it will be easy to file the new stuff in them. There are still some fat files to be attacked though: my tax file needs to be emptied a bit by putting tax return info for 2001 and before into a notebook to go in the guest room closet. Hmmm. What does it say about me that I can write such a long enthusiastic paragraph about cleaning out my files?

Tonight I'm going to San Francisco for gift exchanging with the Donjacours. This visit does feel like a chore and not a pleasure. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised when I get there and have a good time. I would guess if I'm going with the attitude that it won't be fun, it probably won't be fun so I'll try and think more positive about the visit for the rest of the day.

Lots of basketball this weekend. On Friday Stanford plays Oklahoma then on Sunday they play Pepperdine.

I'm worried about Mom. The mole they removed from her calf before Christmas turned out to be a melanoma. She has to go to a surgeon to have more skin removed to be sure they get all the cancer. I hope things move fast and she can get this done sooner rather than later. Send positive healing vibes my Mom's way if you're reading this!

Back at work. Lots of annoying paper work to take care of today. I have to fill out correction time sheets, help Lily with her current time sheet, start Lily's performance evaluation, and write the December monthly. Ug. I was happy to discover when I got in today that even though I was on vacation on Dec. 24th I still get to charge four hours to my task instead of PTO because President Bush gave the word that folks were to be let out early. He is doing the same for tomorrow so I only have to come in for half a day. That's nice. It means I get to carry over 11 hours instead of 7 hours to next year's PTO pot. I'm debating whether to sleep in tomorrow and work from 10 to 2 or work from 7:30 to 11:30 and have the whole afternoon free. Hmmmmmmm.

Like to read about stupid people? See The Darwin Awards web page. I especially like the "Rock Climbing Priorities" story.

Saw an awesome Stanford women's basketball game yesterday. Stanford was playing Arizona. Arizona was ahead the whole first half and about half of the second half until Stanford started its come back late in the game. Maples Pavilon was rocking! It was very exciting and fun that Stanford came out the winner! I also got to visit with Wen, Ki, and Kim before the game.

I didn't get bumped or anything on my plane ride home. I did get a voucher for $5.00 worth of long distance calls, $35.00 off a Northwest flight that costs more than $200.00 and is taken before June 30, 2003, and 250 addition miles for the Northwest flying club thingy. I got all this because my first flight was an hour late. This caused me absolutely no concern as my connecting flight didn't leave till 8:53 p.m. I had scads of hours to kill: so might as well kill one at the Houghton airport instead of the MSP airport. I don't think I'll be using the $35 off coupon. I don't have any great plans to fly before June 30th. Hey wait a minute, I wonder if Northwest goes to Philadelphia. Maybe I could fly out for Sarah Kate's graduation from Swarthmore in May. I'll have to look into that.

Happy Boxing day. I have been having a ball in Houghton, Michigan. We have been cross country skiing everyday. I think Wen and Ki would really like it as its been very easy cross country skiing and then you get to come home to a nice warm comfortable house, a hot shower, and have Mom and Dad Roberts take care of you :-) I have also enjoyed getting 10 hours of sleep a night for 6 days in a row. I think I can finally say definitively that I'm not tired. We took a long slow drive out on the Keneewaa peninsula and I got to see Lake Superior. There were really cool ice formations on the rocks close to shore but the water has not frozen over yet so we saw waves lapping over the rocks adding more layers of ice probably. We thought the roads would be clear of snow but they were not so we had to crawl along at 30 mph. What we thought would take an hour took about 2 hours. Oh well. We were in no rush and we saw some beautiful views of the Michigan woods with tree branches covered in snow and Lake Superior harbors.

We had a tradition turkey dinner yesterday on Christmas day. I enjoyed the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. Although my favorite food of Christmas day was the chocolate chip muffins we had a breakfast! After breakfast we opened presents. I got lots of nice gifts and I enjoyed watching my folks open their presents. After lunch my Dad and I went cross country skiing. We went on an intermediate trail which my Dad said was at the top of his skill limits. I felt bad for leading him on the harder route. I thought he could handle it and he could but only just barely. Oh well. I enjoyed it. There were about 2 very steep scary hills that I enjoyed zooming down but my Father did not. Today we went back to the same ski area but did only green easy trails and Mom came with us this time. She passed on Christmas day as she was busy cooking turkey and the rest of Christmas dinner.

My Mom's Christmas present never arrived. Grrrr! I ordered her Nevada Barr's Superior Death since its set on Isle Royale and Anna Pidgeon even comes to Houhgton, MI once in the story. I got on the internet and printed out a picture of the cover of the book and told her I hoped it would come soon and to look for a book from The Book Garden. I also got my Mom some software for her Mac called Ortograf which basically is Scrabble. I still haven't got the registration for the game though so at this point she can only play the demo version which takes away 20 letters so the games are pretty short. I'm crossing my fingers that the registration info arrives soon so I can get her set up before I leave.

I leave this Saturday at 2 p.m. If all goes well I get to San Jose near midnight. Since I'm just taking a taxi home I'm rather hoping all does not go well and I can volunteer to be bumped and get a free airplane ticket. I don't have any plans for Sunday so I'll have time to recover from a late arrival before I have to go back to work on Monday. I will really miss having Mom cook for me, skiing every day, and sleeping in everyday!

I went hiking at Windy Hill yesterday with Bob. We started on top and hiked down Hamm's Gulch trail. It was all downhill on switch backs in the woods. We saw lots of debris on the trail that the huge winds of yesterday blew down. We saw a California newt. We were surprised that we didn't see any Banana slugs. We descended about 1000 feet. At the bottom of the hill we did a short flat hike to Spring Ridge trail. Then we hiked back up the 1000 feet on Spring Ridge. It was a fire road trail and was quite exposed. The higher we got the harder the wind blew and the rain came down heavily. We were both glad we brought warm cloths and rain gear. Another hiker said she saw a Coyote but we were never able to spot it. When we got to the top of Spring Ridge we took a nice short trail that wound around the hills back to the cars. The wind was blowing hard and it was cold but we knew we would be back soon so we just hiked faster instead of stopping to put on another layer.

My brother took a picture of me on the trip. Click here to take a look at it.

I skipped the GLS holiday party yesterday. I was cold and wet from the hike and sleepy from getting up at 7:00 a.m., and I didn't have anything to contribute for the potluck, so I made a last minute decision to bag it. Instead I stayed home and took a nap, watched some TV, played on my computer, and listened to the rain. I hope the party was a success. I'm afraid the stormy weather may have kept other folks from going to the party too.

I told a friend (perhaps ex-friend) I wasn't interested in having coffee with her before Christmas. She sent me an email asking me out for coffee. I just didn't want to go have coffee with her and I was tired of responding to her invites with sorry I can't make it because I'm too busy when that's not the real reason. I'm glad I was honest and listened to my own needs, but I feel like a cad for turning her down. Her response was "fine, whatever." I hope she doesn't feel too hurt. Its hard to tell from her response. From my point of view the big problem with our friendship is I felt more like a therapist to her than a friend and that wore me out. We'll see whether or not she asks me to do anything again. I will not ask her. Oh man ... I feel like such a meanie. Geez. I'll have to talk about this with my therapist at tomorrow weekly appointment.

Evolution of Cathy's understanding of the main chorus in Tori Amos's song, "A Sorta Fairy Tale"

1. It's so definitive


2. It's a sordid fairy tale


3. It's a sorta fantasy


4. It's a sorta fairy tale

FYI: I can't even figure out the rest of the song. I'll have to pull the lyrics off the internet to see what she is saying for the whole song. But the crazy thing is, I do like the song. When I sing along I tend to put in nonsense words but I like the tune and the emotion in the song. Sometimes I like going back to what I first heard ... it's so definitive. If you ever catch me asking you over and over again what you are saying its because I have something like this going on. I'm hearing one thing and can't get torn away from it enough to understand what you are really saying.

I almost finished cleaning the living room on Sunday. I got the forest of paper off of the dining room table and took all the sweatshirts and coats I had thrown willy nilly all over the living room furniture up to my room and hung them up. Now the living room is neat if not clean. Dusting and vacuuming is still left to be done.

I released three books into the wilderness last night (see bookcrossing.com). For some reason I felt very furtive leaving the books in the locations I chose as if I was doing something wrong. I left one in the post office lobby, one in the Red Rock Coffee shop, and one on top of the phone at the bus stop near the Caltrain station. I tried to find some books at the Safeway but someone else must have already picked them up as I couldn't find any there. I don't know that I am going to find any books as so far the ones released near me are not ones I want to read. Just for grins I would like to find one book I want to read, read it on the airplane on the way to Houghton, MI, and then release it in Houghton! I'll have to see if anyone has released a book in Houghton yet. This is all still new and exciting to me. I wonder if I will tire of it eventually.

I had to sit through a four hour presentation for managers on how to give feedback and receive feedback this morning. It was mostly free form lecturing where you had the freedom to interupt whenever you wanted to ask questions or make comments. I enjoyed the first couple of hours but grew restless and bored the last two hours. I'm not sure if I know how to give or receive feedback any better than I did before but I do have interesting ideas percolating in my head. The lecturer talked a bunch about filters people have when they listen to you and that 80% of the time they don't really hear you the first time so you need to repeat it more than once before the feedback will sink in. The main gist of the lecture was giving feedback is hard and makes people uncomfortable in the short run but in the long run it helps people grow.

OK, Sunday is almost over and I still haven't cleaned the living room like I thought I would this weekend. I got up at 9:30 a.m. today. I ate some breakfast and then sat down at the computer to do my Christmas shopping. Before I knew it, it was 3:30 p.m. I didn't think Christmas shopping on line would take that much time. I guess I spent a bit of time surfing for just the right present. It was easier than facing the malls. Yesterday I did my library book selecting, went to OSH and bought a extension chord rated for 1875 watts so I can move my space heater around the room when I move around the room, watched TV, and went to the Stanford Volleyball's team second round NCAA tournament match. It was a great game and Stanford won. That means I get to see more volleyball as Stanford is hosting the next two rounds. Stanford will be playing Ohio State. I'm thinking of buying a Stanford sweatshirt and wearing my OSU cap just to confuse people. Its going to be a very red night that night with Stanford cardinal (bright red) and Ohio State's scarlet and gray. With all these activities and a bit of couch potato'ing on my part I never got around to cleaning the living room. I have about 5 hours left today to get it done.

What is truly amazing about this weekend is I haven't gone hiking. That feels wierd. Both hikes I considered started too early in the morning and were not at my favorite parks. I'm still feeling really tired in the mornings and I feel better if I get tons of sleep so I chose that route this weekend. I got 10 and 9 hours of sleep. Ah! Next Saturday I have to be up early to get to Woodside park-n-ride at 8:30 a.m. to lead my GLS hike at Marin Headlands.

I swapped my Macintosh computer at work for a Compaq PC running Windows 2000 last Friday. I finally got tired of not having the proper equipment to run the software we are using in my office. I had to trot to the computer lab to use the graphics viewing program to look at my aircraft models. That was getting old. Now I can both develop software, view it, and test it all on the PC. And I'll be able to more easily use the Model Center program on the PC. I'll miss my Mac but I happen to know that it just went to an empty office and if I really miss it, I can go visit! I had fun all day getting the Compaq set up just the way I wanted. I still haven't figured out how to transfer my Eudora Mac mail to the PC. The PC doesn't seem to like the format of the Mac Eudora mailboxes. I may just not transfer the mail. I burned a CD of all my files on the Mac before it got swapped so my old mail is sitting there for me to look at if I need to. I believe I can look at it by just opening the mailbox with the Notepad program. Tomorrow I will start learning how to set up C++ programs on the computer and start transfering my linux C++ code to the PC. I feel a bit like a kid in the candy store about this new computer.

I feel a lack of knowledge about what's up with Wen. I'm still dying of curiosity as to what the complicated reasons were for cancelling the Fall Creek hike last Sunday. And I would like to hear all the nittty gritty details about the Nebraska situation.

Click here to look at two new Big Sur pictures

Got this off of my depression support list

Here are some unhelpful Microsoft error messages replaced with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku poetry has strict construction rules - each poem has only 17 syllables; 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second, 5 in the third. They are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity. Aren't these better than "your computer has performed an illegal operation?

The Web site you seek Cannot be located, but Countless more exist.	Chaos reigns within. Reflect, repent, and reboot.. Order shall return.	Windows NT crashed. I am the Blue Screen of Death. No one hears your screams.
Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that.	Your file was so big. It might be very useful. But now it is gone.	Stay the patient course. Of little worth is your ire. The network is down.
Three things are certain Death, taxes and lost data. Guess which has occurred.	You step in the stream, But the water has moved on. This page is not here.	Out of memory. We wish to hold the whole sky, But we never will.
Having been erased, The document you're seeking Must now be retyped.	Serious error. All shortcuts have disappeared. Screen. Mind. Both are blank	Program Aborting. Close all that you have worked on. You ask far too much.
A crash reduces Your expensive computer To a simple stone.	I ate your Web page. Forgive me; it was tasty And tart on my tongue

Big Sur Pictures, November 25,26, 2002

Linda and I left for our backpack trip to Sykes hot springs in Big Sur on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. The drive to Pfeifer Big Sur state park was very pleasant. When we got to Pfeifer we found out that we needed to pop down the road about 1/4 mile to obtain a campfire permit at Big Sur station before it closed. We got there in plenty of time and got our permit and checked out the parking lot where we would leave our car the next day and head to Sykes. Then we headed to our campsite at Pfeifer. We got a site that was near the restrooms. This was cushy camping. There were hot showers in the restroom. We got our tents set up and cooked some dinner and by the time we finished dinner it was dark and it was only 6 p.m. It was also a bit on the cold side so we turned in early to warm up and get lots of sleep. I ended up getting up 3 different times for a trip to the restroom because I had kept myself a bit too well hydrated on Sunday! On one trip to the loo, I saw a coyote trot by.

We got up at 6 a.m. and it was still dark. Ug. We had breakfast, packed up, and headed to the trail head. We got started on the trail at 8 a.m. The sky was blue and the sun was out. We had great weather the whole trip. The 10 mile trek started by winding through Pfeifer park. We got to spy on campers from up on a hill as we hiked along. Soon the trail started to climb. We switchbacked up and up until we reached Pine Ridge I assume since we were on the Pine Ridge trail. We climbed up 1220 feet in 3.9 miles. Phew! We passed Ventana Camp on our way up. After 3.9 miles we finally started some downhill. We passed a family of Mom, Dad, Daughter and Son and were envious of Mom giving Daughter a massage while she lay on a log! We did some more up and down hiking and stopped for lunch at a second creek crossing. While we were eating the family passed us. After lunch we passed Barlowe Flat campground and started another longish climb. We reached our highest elevation of 1640 feet at the top of this climb. Then we had a long downhill portion to Sykes camp and the Big Sur river. As we reached the river we saw the family wading across the river. We soon followed suit. Luckily we had brought wet shoes or sandles to wear for wading across the river. We had to wade across the river to get to the campsite. The water was very cold. Burrrrr! We put our boots back on and made our way to camp just yards away. We found a nice site that was last in a line of sites so had some privacy.

After setting up camp, we set off to find the hot springs. We hiked about 1/4 mile and discovered that we had to ford the river again. Ug. This time we had forgotten our wet shoes. We grumbled and whined our way across the river in bare feet. It was so cold and with bare feet we had to take it slower. After the crossing we hiked along and the trail got steeper and more narrow as we went along. We had to climb up steep muddy/dirty use trails and climb down a steep rock face right near the springs. It was a dicey little climb down but we made it. The hot springs were around the corner but alas our family beat us there and so did several other campers so we had to sit down and wait for a turn to soak in the hot springs. We waited about 20 minutes and then 3 folks left so we got to squeeze into the hot springs. It was very nice. There was a little water fall that filled the pool with hot water from the springs. Soaking felt very nice on the sore muscles. It was about 100 degree F which wasn't very hot but still enjoyable. We soaked for about 30 minutes till 4:35 p.m. when we reluctantly got out so we would have daylight left for the hike back to camp. Linda decided she didn't want to experience the dicey climb again so she waded across the river and made her way along the other side for a bit while I popped up the dicey climb and made my way along the use trail. We finally met up when Linda found a place to get back to the use trail. Then we had to wade the river again. More Burrrr! By the time we got back to camp it was very much dusk. By the time we cooked up our dinners it was dark. The dark and cold drove us to bed early yet again. I think we were in our tents by 6:30 p.m. It was a cold night but my winter bag worked well. I just didn't want to poke my nose out of it all night!

We were up at 7 a.m. and took an hour to eat breakfast and pack up for the trip back to the car. We had one last cold river crossing only this time we had our wet shoes with us. Linda got a great picture of me contemplating the wade across the river! That water made my feet ache so much. The trip back was beautiful and now we knew what to expect more. We stopped at Logwood Creek I believe for a snack break. Then we pretty much hiked the rest of the way back with some water stops and boot readjusting stops. By the time we reached the car we were both very sore and tired but felt good about having been able to hike 21 miles in two days: 20 of those miles with our backpacks on! At the car we sat on Linda's tail gate to get our packs off and then changed into clean cloths and started to head home. We stopped at a Bakers Square in Carmel for a late lunch. I had a delicious cheddar bacon grilled chicken sandwich and we shared a hot fudge sundae. We got back to the bay area around 5ish. The traffic wasn't too bad. It was a great trip but left both of us with sore tired muscles to nurse the next few days!

I spent a lot of time today working on the OAW newsletter and getting ready for the backpacking trip. The newsletter is done and ready to be snail mailed. I did take a couple hours off to watch "Boys Don't Cry." It was a well done movie but so foreign to me. Its a world so far from my own in so many ways. I also rented Star Wars The Phantom Menace and a performance by Sarah Mchlaughlin. I don't have to return any of the three till next Saturday. That's cool because it would be hard to watch them all in one night!

I'm having that pre-backpacking feeling I usually get of wondering why on earth I want to walk lots of miles with 35-40 pounds on my back. I know these feelings will pass once I get going on the trip on Monday. I really do want to see Sykes Hot Springs. We leave for Pfeifer Big Sur at 1 p.m. We have a campsite there for the night so we can get an early start on the hike on Monday.

I took a walk at Shoreline last night after work. I started at 4:15 and hiked out the trail on the levy to where the Charleston Project sign is and then turned around and realized that I was going to get to watch the sun set and it was a gorgeous sky for a sunset. Nice little puffy clouds that turned a wonderful reddish golden color after the sun sank behind the mountains. The water was also very still last night and the sun sparkled on it as it sank. It was also a bit misty and the mist hid the valley view so I felt like I was somewhere less civilized. Too bad I didn't have my camera with me. I finished up the walk at 5 p.m. and headed home for a night of fooling around on the internet and then watching TV.

I made reservations at Pfeifer Big Sur campground so Linda and I can spend Sunday night there and get an early start on our backpack to Sykes Hot Springs. It looks like we are going to get decent weather for the trip. I expect we will be hiking at a snails pace on Monday due to the long uphill hike to get to the hot springs. At least its just a one nighter so the packs won't be too heavy. I hope the springs are sufficiently hot for soaking. I have heard mixed reviews about whether they are hot or luke warm. Sounds wonderful to shed your pack, set up camp, and then go have a hot soak in the middle of the woods!

The past two days at work I attended presentations all morning. The AEE team (Advanced Engineering Environment) made presentations: each member for their discipline. I lucked out and didn't have to present anything as P. presented the geometry progress and K. presented the Thermal Protection System progress. I work on both of those disciplines. I was surprised to pretty much enjoy the presentations and not get bored. I really liked the feeling of team work in the room. I get isolated all day sitting in my cube. It was good to interact with some people for once at work.

Not sure what I am going to do tomorrow. If I go hiking I'll probably head over to the Nisene Marks hike. I do want to sleep in tomorrow though and I need time to put together the OAW newsletter and pop it in the mail and email. I'll have to reread the Nisene Marks description and see how time consuming it will be.

I had a nice weekend. I got to sleep in on Saturday. Saturday night I went to see Attack of the Clones at the San Jose IMAX theatre. The battle scenes and car chases were fun but conversations between people and intimate scenes were just a bit much on the huge screen and there were quite a lot of these scenes in the movie. My neck was really sore after the movie but I got a nice little massage from K.

Sunday I led a hike for OAW. We did a 7.8 miler at Calero County park. The weather was gorgeous: bright sun and a blue sky. Five women went on the hike (including me). It was a nice mellow hike. We had a great lunch stop at a conveniently located picnic table over looking a pond. As we ate lunch some folks on horses came up and they were interesting horses. It turns out they are an Icelandic breed of horse. They were short horses but sturdy looking and can have a big man ride on them just fine. In this case they were carrying ordinary sized women. It was odd to see the top of the women's head over the horses head. They also have a really good temperment because there are no horse predaters on Iceland. The women said they are often used to teach children how to ride because of their smallness and good mood. We also saw a lot of orienteerers at the park. There happened to be a meet at the park. We saw the flags on the courses and saw lots of folks wandering around with maps in their hands. The terrain of the hike is the kind I like. It was very roller coaster like. Up a short hill, down a short hill, up again, down again. It made for a good workout. I think everyone enjoyed the hike.

An aside ... you can (at least I can) reload the blogger page without losing what you have already written. Cool!

Lots of action on our family email list this week. My big bro started it off by posting a long letter about how he is feeling and about his struggle with wether or not he should take anti-depressants. Mom responded first with a "I need to print this out and give it a good read" answer. Younger bro, Dave, just wrote a nice reply to Bob today. I'm always tickled to hear from Dave no matter what the reason he sends an email. I'll have to pen a response myself soon.

Someone actually called little old me a "sick sick woman" today because I made a post pointing out to folks that the 69th board was about to archive. She was of course joking but it made me laugh. I have never been accused of being "dirty" so to speak before.

Gotta sign off for today to go help my staff member make some presentation slides!

I'm in an odd mood right now ... some things popping into my head

• Blog Blog Blog, Blog Blog Blog to the tune of the spam song.
  
• Are bullgirls the opposite of cowboys?
  
• How did an ant make it all the way up to my glasses to crawl on the lenses?
  
• Spam song is gone but now its been replaced with the "Getting to Know You" song from the King and I
  
  
• 
  Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
  
  Optimus Prime --> Vast, red and ready to turn into a lorry at the slightest provocation, you are a robot to be reckoned with. Although sickeningly noble, you just can't resist a good interplanetary war, especially when Orson Welles is involved. You have friends who can shoot tapes from their chests. Tapes that turn into panthers. And other friends who are dinosaurs. Dinosaurs who jump out of planes. Will you have my children?
  
  
• Check out my emode.com
  ink blot test result
  
  Cathy, your unconscious mind is driven most by Kindness
  This means you have a deep desire to be kind and fair to others. You may even be preoccupied with finding kindness in the world around you, far more than you realize on a conscious level.

  
  It is possible that the underlying reason you seek kindness in the world around you, is that you fear cruelty, the opposite of kindness. That could drive you to unconsciously project kindness wherever possible into your world. Regardless of its origin, your steadfast adherence to being kind to others is felt by people you are close to.

  
  You are probably more susceptible than others to being overwhelmed by emotions Ñ both yours and others'. It is possible that your unusually empathic nature is a result of your natural sensitivity to others' pain, and your desire to help them avoid it. For this reason, things might affect you more than they affect your friends and family. To protect yourself from too much emotional intensity, you might want to keep an eye out so you can recognize it when it starts. That will allow you to slow things down until you feel grounded again.

  
  Overall, your strong orientation towards kindness gives you an optimistic nature, which translates into you seeing the best in the people around you. Because you're not one to be overly judgmental, others may seek out your company when they need a friend to talk to. People close to you likely know that you care deeply about the inner lives of others and can listen to what they have to say without imposing your views on them.

  
  Though your unconscious mind is driven most strongly by Kindness, there is much more to who you are at your core.
  
  
  

• Figured out my rising and moon signs today. Rising is Sagittarius and Moon is Cancer.
  

So my mind is all over the map. It really should be thinking about how to model a fuel tank with Open Cascade. I did make some progress today but probably should have made more progress. Time to go home. YAY.

Headline in the Astrogram (NASA Ames little newspaper) "F2M Town Hall Meeting set." I can't help wondering why they are having a Female 2 Male town hall meeting?? OK ... that's not what it is. To NASA F2M means Freedom 2 Manage. It makes me giggle though whenever I see that acronym bandied about.

My week so far: sleeping in on Monday, car trouble, ant attacks at work, and a break through at work. I had Monday off for veterans day so got to sleep in finally. On both Saturday and Sunday I was up at 8ish to go on hikes starting at 9:30 a.m. It was great to sleep in. I went to bed around midnight and slept till 10:30 a.m.

After lunch on Monday I drove my car to the auto repair specialist shop to have them try and fix my stalling, bucking problems. They kept the car over night so they could test it when the engine was cold. That's when I have the most problems with it stalling. I road my bike to work on Tuesday. The car was ready for me to pick up Tuesday after work but alas, nothing was fixed. They did readjust the clutch and accelerator and cleaned the throttle but they were not able to get the car to stall with any regularity so they could diagnose the problem. They told me to keep driving it till it stalls more regularly. It did drive a little bit better with the readjustments but this morning it almost stalled again in the grocery store parking lot. Thankfully, they felt bad about not being able to fix my car so they charged me $0.0 for the adjustments and clean throttle. There is an auto repair shop that knows how to keep their customers coming back!

There is an ant invasion in our building here at work. Luckily I am in a cube in the middle of the building not near windows so the ants don't really get back to my office. But the ants get inside the fridge in the common kitchen area. Ug. Last week I found an ant floating in my milk carton. I found a strainer in the utensil drawer and strained the milk through it to get rid of the ant. I wonder if ants are nutritious. This week they are worse and no one has taken the plunge yet to empty the fridge and clean out all the dead ants. They are wee little ants. I am bringing in air tight food for the fridge (no more milk cartons that the ants manage to crawl into) this week. I have a nice thermos container I can put my milk in with a screw on tight lid. Its amazing how many ants there are in this building. I guess the bugs are running out of food outdoors or are cold or something. They never showed up during the summer months inside the building like they are now. I know, I'll send the ants to Nebraska.

Yesterday I finally got my fuselage geometry to model correctly using Open Cascade software. Its been a long 5 months of struggle to get it to work. I celebrated by having a 20 fl. oz. bottle of Mountain Dew. I'm busy getting all the latest software checked into our control version system now so I can tell my superiors that the deliverable is finally there!! I'm also cleaning up the software and getting rid of all the debugging statements I put in while trying to solve all the problems that arose. I can't believe the number of problems I ran into and that I managed to solve most of them. I almost hope they do decide to use Open Cascade because I feel like I really am beginning to understand the package now!

Stanford basketball has started. I went to a game on Sunday and have another one to go to on Thursday night. Its another exhibition type game that doesn't count in their record. I wonder if I'll have the whole row to myself again on Thursday. On Sunday I was the only person in my row in the loge seats that came to the game.

I finally got my latest health care reimbursement to go through. Silly me ... I forgot to sign the reimbursement form and got a letter from Ceredian to that effect. I had to fill out another form, sign it, and fax it to them before they would make the reimbursement. I sent out another reimbursement form yesterday for my psychiatrist and medication bills (not too expensive since both were just Kaiser co-payments). I was careful to sign the form this time!

I voted in the Ventana GLS election. My envelope is on its way. I voted no for one person and yes for all the rest. I think folks reading this blog know who I voted no for!! Someone we tend to refer to as Nebraska these days.

Its a lazy Wednesday: no meetings at work, no Stanford volleyball or basketball games to go to tonight, its not therapy night, and I don't have to vote today. I'm looking forward to a quiet evening at home after work. I will stop at the grocery store on the way home from work since I ran out of shampoo and will soon run out of orange juice. I might peruse the paper to find out all the election results (or watch the news on TV). I think I'll do some mellow stretching too.

Well, I do have to write stuff for the contract proposal but Nancy called and said to put it aside for a while because she didn't have the resources she needed to give us so we can get started. So I have a reprieve. I was right about having to work on it at home and not during regular work hours. Sigh.

Starting tomorrow its going to be a busy week. Thursday after work I'll be going to the Stanford vs. Arizona volleyball match. Friday after work I'll be going to the Stanford vs. Arizona St. volleyball match. Saturday I'm off geocaching with Sharon (if its not raining hard). If it is raining, Linda and I might go for a wet hike somewhere. Sunday I'm hiking with Bob in the morning and then watching the first Stanford Women's basketball match of the season. Its just an exhibition but it will be fun to see the new freshman players. Monday I am driving to San Francisco to pick up Cynthia and we are going hiking in Marin county somewhere. I have Monday off for Veterans day. Phew. I think I overbooked but we'll see how it goes. Don't be surprised if I am pining for vedging time after this full schedule!

I had a great relaxing time this past Sunday soaking with Wen and Ki at Kiva. We hung out till women's hours were over. Three hours of lolling about, soaking, and chatting -- very nice! After Kiva I drove off to Long's Drug Store where Wen said I could find a UCSC banana slug sweatshirt. I bought a cute gray hooded sweatshirt with a picture of a banana slug on it for Maria. I also got her a bean bag banana slug toy just in case the sweatshirt is too small. Unfortunately my only 2 choices for sizes were adult small or kid small. There was no kid medium or large. After much debating I got the kid small as I think Maria would be swimming in the adult small size and it looked like she might fit in the kid small. She is only 6. If it doesn't fit her she can learn about charity and give it to a homeless shelter or the good will and enjoy the bean bag toy for herself.

A broken toe or not a broken toe that is the question! Its not until someone asked me if my toe looked deformed that I realized I did not really know what my toe looked like before. I don't think its broken though because it is getting better real fast. Its not as swollen and the bruise has toned down to yellow instead of black and blue. Oh well. I'll keep watching it and if it stops getting better, I'll have a docter look at it.

Ug. I have to go to a meeting tomorrow at work about the contract proposal writing. That means I'm probably going to be stuck writing parts of the proposal. Oh fooey. I try to keep my manager part of the job as small as I can but this adds to it. And to make matters worse we can't work on the proposal within contract hours which means they expect me to work extra hours for nothing.

Today is Halloween. I'm being a Halloween scrooge today. Bah humbug. I'm going to turn out all my lights and hide upstairs in my bedroom during trick or treat hours because I don't want to get candy to give out. I only average about 4 visits each year so I hardly get rid of the candy I buy. Then I end up eating the rest of it. Since I'm trying to shed pounds right now that wouldn't be good. So I'm hiding from Halloween!

Linda stopped by yesterday and gave me her old digital camera she earned by listening to one of those time share presentations. She bought herself a fancy one. Tonight I'll play with it. I'll take my lap top upstairs where I'll be hiding. It only has a 10 picture capacity but that's OK by me since I don't like to take too many pictures. I'm curious about the quality of the pictures. I'll take a picture of my garden and see how it comes out. Aren't you lucky that I didn't get this camera on Saturday because for sure I would have taken a picture of the hurt toe to add it to my gallery of injuries on my web page (well just one picture of my big leg bruise now so not quite a gallery).

I finally figure out how to play DVDs on my lap top yesterday so now I can finally watch "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Cats and Dogs". Part of my Dell computer purchase deal was I got my choice of 3 items: DVD movies or computer software. I chose those two movies and Scrabble game software. I need to reinstall the Scrabble software because the program won't run without the CD being in the drive. Aren't computers fun?

Oooo, I would really like a second cup of coffee right now, but I'm saving cup number 2 for after lunch. I'll make do with water till then. I got some extra sleep Saturday/Sunday because of the time change. That was nice but it still didn't keep me from falling asleep on the couch in the afternoon after hiking with Bob (older brother) at Wunderlich. Poor Bob is very depressed and upset. I gave him great big hugs before and after the hike. During the hike we talked about what was bugging him and how I handled/handle my own depression struggles.

I had a good time hiking on Saturday. I went on the OAW Castle Rock 19th anniversary hike. Only five people showed up for the hike but we all had fun. I was tickled to see Sharon and Gloria. I hadn't seen either of them in a long time. Sharon brought her GPS (Global Positioning System) and information about locations of two caches in the park. There is a fairly new outdoor acitivity called geo-caching. Folks hide a tupperware or metal box in the woods and write down the coordinates of it. They then post the cache coordinates on the internet. Other folks use this info to go find the cache. When you find the cache, you open it up and exchange trinkits (like match box cars, or key chain compasses, etc.). It is sort of fun although the environmentalist in me didn't know if it was OK to bush whack through the woods. Caches are also hidden in cities (Sharon says usually in woodsy areas like parks or creek beds). At lunch Sharon and I took off to find one of the caches. We bush whacked through the woods going up and down hills. The downhills were more like leaf skiing! I saw the cache first and Sharon made her exchange and will note on the internet that she found a this cache. We saw a trail from the cache site and went down to the trail and discovered we didn't have to bushwhack back to the lunch spot. We stayed on the trails. After the OAW hike was officially over, Sharon asked if I wanted to go find another cache just across the street. I said sure. Our just across the street turned into another three miles of hiking with some significant uphill and downhill portions. We finally found the cache. Sharon spotted it this time. I was pooped when we got back to the cars. Sharon is a fast hiker and I was doing my best to keep her pace instead of my own. Phew. That hot shower when I got home felt really good.

Unfortunately I ended my weekend by jamming my toe into the frame of the patio door on the way outside to turn on my sprinkler. It really hurt. I hopped around saying ouch for a few seconds. Then I continued to turn on the water and go back to watch TV thinking I just stubbed my toe and it would be better real soon. However, it started to swell and hurt more. Ick. I got out my Kaiser health guide book and followed its advice to ice the toe (its the toe next to my little toe on my left foot) and rest it and elevate it. I also taped it to the toe next door to stabilize it. What a pain. I can still walk around OK but I don't think I should go hiking till it gets better. I'm hoping it will be better by the weekend. Fortunately this weekend my calendar is bare so I can avoid hiking and give it some more rest if need be. Tonight I'll try bike riding to see if that impacts the toe or not. I hope not as biking will keep me exercising while I can't take long walks and hikes to get exercise.

I'm feeling good this week. I think my body has adjusted to the Wellbutrin and the side effects are wearing off. I'm not as stressed as I was for a while there. My jaw soreness is getting better. I'm not as tired either. I don't know if the itchy legs is gone or not. It hasn't been around for a couple days now. Knock on wood that itchy legs have gone away.

I cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed yesterday and cleaned the kitchen floor. So folks can now drop by unannounced and I won't be embarassed by all the dust and dirt. It was good to get it done as I had been putting it off. I also caught up on recording my grocery bills in my bank book (I use the bank card to pay for groceries) and added in my latest pay check. Yesterday was oh so productive.

Yesterday at work I did a major revamp of the type of code I use in my Open Cascade program to read in data from files. I changed about 4 or 5 different routines (well really classes) . Then miracle of miracles, in one afternoon I got all the errors worked out and the program compiled and ran!! No more memory leaks. Basically I replaced the old variables I was using where I was managing memory myself with Open Cascade variables that manage their own memory so I didn't have to worry about it. So now, I'm back to trying to model the fuselage. Ug! I have yet another idea how to fix it up that I wll start working on this afternoon.

My poor big brother, Bob, is feeling really down and lonely. Cecily told me that this morning. I sent him an email and asked if he wanted to go hiking with me on Sunday morning. I also let him know how much I care about him. He is trying to get the nerve to call up and make an appointment to see a therapist. I hope he does. He is really scared to make that call.

Oh I forgot, check out Clouds Rest and Pinnacles pictures at
http://home.attbi.com/~cdrdash/pinnandclrst.htm.
Cool, eh?

So I fixed the compile error in my program and then Eric swapped out the computers again and forgot to transfer the work I did to the new machine. I told him it was OK since I still remembered how I fixed the error before and it wasn't a big change (maybe three or four lines of change), but as a result I wasn't able to do the real debugging on the actual geometry design. Sigh. This program is settng my record for the program I have worked on the longest and not gotten it to work right!

I asked S. to scout a hike with me yesterday. We had a good time and boy did I get to hear a long story about her relationship with R. Then we got to talking about dating and it was very wierd to talk about it when it wasn't terribly clear if we were on a date. I thought about mentioning that but lost my nerve. It made me giggle inside though so it wasn't like I was stressing over it. I did get to know S. better though and I don't think I'll pursue her as more than a friend. She is older than I thought and a bit too fussy for me. I got the idea she was fussy from the long stories she told about R. and her. OK this may sound silly but she kept making a point of saying that there was a correct way to do laundry and you shouldn't just put your cloths in the dryer on high for 40 minutes. This was how R. did laundry. I sheepishly admitted that I did laundry that way too. Other things like that came up in the conversation where I just got the feeling she would be a bit too fussy for me about how things need to be done. Although I felt really bad for her from all she went through with R. R. sounds very unstable and self centered. I never liked R. when I met her in the first place but decided that's not something you tell someone who had a relationship with R. I probably will ask S. to scout more hikes with me as she is fun to talk to. I would like to be friends with her.

We scouted a hike at Pleasanton Ridge park near Pleasanton. Its a very long skinny park in the hills. You can see 680 from one side and nice hills on the other side. You could also see Sunol park in the distance. I'll probably lead this hike for GLS in January or February. It was about a 6 mile hike and started with a hill climb up to the ridge. Then we sort of circled around the ridge and the terrain was up and down and flat. It was a beautiful sunny day. We managed not to get lost. It wasn't too hard to follow the map as it had just about every junction labeled with a number on a post which corresponding to a number on the map. There was an excellent supply of maps at the trail head. We did get lost getting to the park though. I took the wrong exit and so the directions didn't make sense. We finally managed to see a road that the directions said we needed to be on and finally stumbled upon the 680 exit we should have used and from there got to the park easily.

Today I slept in till 10:30 a.m. Then I fell asleep on the couch at 3:00 p.m. I woke up when my watch alarm went off at 3:30 p.m. -- that's when I take the second Wellbutrin pill of the day. This tiredness is still dogging me. The Wellbutrin isn't helping much yet. At least I didn't feel tired on yesterdays hike. Although after the hike I lay in my hammock for an hour reading a book and it felt good to get rest like that. What finally drove me out of the hammock was the sun went away and it got cold!

I'm down to 165 lbs ... YAY. Only 15 more pounds to lose to reach my goal of 150 lbs.

I figured out how to fix up the compile error in my program but now I have a memory leak somewhere and it core dumps at the end of the program. The program actually runs and produces data before it barfs. I need to track down the memory error though as this program is possibly going to be linked to other programs which don't expect it to crash when its done.

I had a good time at Pinnacles on Saturday. I got to the park at 9 a.m. in plenty of time to meet up with my friends. We headed out on the Chalone creek trail heading towards the Balconies caves. It was a pleasant flat two miles or so. Then we hiked through the cave (well climbed a wee bit). I have been through the cave many times so wasn't freaked about it. Others were a little apprehensive but in the end everyone thought the cave was cool. At the end of the cave we found a place to eat lunch in the sun.
While eating lunch we saw a bizzare sight. A fellow hiked up and set his pack down and sat down. Then he pulled cramp-ons out of his pack and proceeded to put them on his boots. We were all amazed. It was 80 degrees out with no ice anywhere in sight! It was very odd. After getting the cramps-on on his boots he put on some old gloves and put on a desert like hat and tied it close around his face. Then he set off climbing up the climber's trail to go who knows where. We lost sight of him when he went around a corner. We decided he was a nut and we hoped he didn't hurt himself and got back safely from where ever he was going.

After lunch most of us headed off for the high peaks (about four turned around and hiked back to camp for a lazy afternoon at camp). We stopped at the ranger station to refill our water bottles before we headed up the Juniper trail. The Juniper was a long uphill trail full of switch backs. I had to set a pretty slow pace but happily had one other woman who also liked to go slow so we hung out in the back. It was a long hot slog. I sweated profusely but also made sure to drink profusely! We finally reached the top with marvelous views of the park. I had some more to eat and while we were up there another hiker pointed out brown smoke rising in the distance. There must have been a fire to the west somewhere. As we hiked over the high peaks ridge the smoke spread a little. We couldn't see the fire and when I got home I didn't hear any news that there was a fire. Hopefully it was a small fire easily controlled.

The last bit of the hike was the matching long downhill to the long uphill we did to get to the high peaks. I was much happier on the downhill portion. My knees held up well and I was glad to have gravity on my side this time! I took a bunch of pictures on this hike to use up the film on my camera so I can see the Clouds Rest pictures I took a couple weeks ago. I hope I got some good pictures. At the end of the hike, I drove back to camp with everyone and hung out around the fire ring (no fire though ... too hot) chatting with my friends. There is something wonderful about hanging out with your friends after a tough hike. At 5 p.m. I said my goodbyes and headed home. It was a good trip!

Sunday was couch potato day. I slept in till 10 a.m. Then I hauled myself out of bed, ate breakfast, and settled down on the couch for a hard day of napping and TV watching! I did have one interuption to this lazy day .... for some reason my lower legs started to itch like the dickens like they did when I was a teenager. I soaked them in lubriderm and that didn't help. So I got some cortison cream. That helped a bit but mostly what helped was climbing in my sleeping bag and getting my legs really really toasty. After an hour the itching finally went away. Thank goodness. It was driving me nuts. I was able to enjoy the rest of the day snoozing and watching TV.

Monday I got to sleep in again, but this time I only slept till 9 a.m. I wasn't quite so lazy on Monday. I emptied the dirt out of these old square wood boxes in my back yard that used to hold plants. The wood was pretty rotten so I threw out the boxes. Then I got my nerve up and raked up the old bee's nest. No bees in sight and I got the old ratty nest safely in a plastic trash bag inside the complex dumpster. So now I have a nice patch of dirt waiting for a plant (Hey Linda ... need more plants!). I finished by cleaning the dirt off of the patio with the hose and watering the plants. My yard looks really rather nice now except maybe for the barren spots of dirt. I also did some grocery shopping on Monday and dropped off my film to be developed. I'll scan in the pictures so folks can view them on the internet. I'll probably only scan the ones that come out nice.

My jaw is a little sore these days. I think I must be clenching my teeth at night when I dream. I have been having a lot of dreams since starting the Wellbutrin and they are often stressfull dreams. I clench my teeth when I'm really concentrating hard or under stress. I followed the advice on the Kaiser web site to get a towel wet with hot water and hold the towel on my jaw. It did feel nice. If the soreness turns to real ouchy pain, I'll talk to the docter about it, but it feels more like a soreness that will get better with time.

Only 20 minutes to my three day weekend!! Today was a bit frustrating at work because the computer I work on was upgraded and that meant the compiler I use was upgraded. My program did not compile with this new compiler. Before it gave me a warning about a line of code but now it gives me an error for that line of code. Boo Hoo. I'm not sure how to fix it yet. I made a few lack lustre attempts. Friday is a bad day to expect me to come up with brilliant solutions. My mind is firmly planted on the weekend. So I shifted to doing the more mundane task manager paper work -- a no brainer job.

I'm trying to psych myself up to go walking after work and get in some exercise. The last two days I have had to overcome the whiner in me that says "I don't wanna go walking ... I wanna lay down and watch TV." I'm still waiting for the Wellbutrin to kick in and hopefully make me less tired but so far it hasn't done much. I was real yawny on my walk last night and I still wake up in the mornings after 8 hours of sleep and feel like I need more. Maybe its not the anti-depressants or some mysterious disease but that I just have a body that needs more than 8 hours of sleep. Maybe I'll go surfing on sleep sites and see what they say about how much sleep a body needs. I hope its not that I just need more than 8 hours of sleep. That means I'll have to go to sleep at 9 p.m. which is pretty early. Either that or get up at 7 a.m. and work from 8 to 5 instead of 7 to 4. I hate working after 4 though. Argh!

Today is national coming out day but so far I haven't come out to anyone. I did post a story of a previous year's coming out on lesbian issues at iVillage. So I recognized the day in some way.

I'm down to 170 lbs now. Maybe being over weight is what made me tired. Just last month I was 179 lbs. Takes a lot of energy to haul around that weight. I want to get back down to 150 lbs and then figure out how to maintain that weight. Emotional eating was my downfall in this last weight gain -- too many pringles potato chips, candy bars, ice cream, and Mountain Dew when I was feeling down. I shouldn't talk about this .... now my mouth is watering!

Dang it. My Open Cascade program is still not working! I'm taking a break from trying to figure out for the umpteenth time why it is not working. I decided to see if I could get Open Cascade installed on my IRIX machine. It would be nice to have a computer running Open Cascade right in my office instead of having to connect remotely to the other computer when I want to work on programs. I can hear the disk rattling away on my IRIX machine as it installs all the necessary files.

My hike to Monument Peak for GLS went well. Dave and I got a nice mix of men and women. Like on the Clouds Rest hike I was the slowest going up hill yet again. I really worked hard to keep my pace fast enough so I could at least see the folks in front of me. As a result I was pretty pooped when I made it to the top. I was not last going down. Dave was last because of his bum knees. It was a hard descent on the knees. My left knee started complaining after a particularly steep section. However it has recovered fast since then and hasn't been sore. I think everyone on the hike had a good time. I got lots of thank you's at the end of the hike. I was just glad to be done with my leading duties for a while. My next lead is on November 16th or November 17th. Don't worry I'll figure out which day before November 15th!

On Friday and Saturday nights I went to watch Stanford Women's volleyball matches. Stanford is ranked 4 in the nation. USC is ranked 1 and just barely beat Stanford on Friday night. It was a long exciting match. UCLA is ranked 13 in the nation I think and they lost to Stanford on Saturday night. This game was not as exciting but it was good to see Stanford win the match. Pac 10 women's volleyball is packed with ranked teams so all the matches are very high quality and fun to watch.

Sunday I finally got a day home to myself. I slept in and in and in and in .... OK, I actually got up at 9:30 a.m. but it felt like it must be noon for the amount of times I rolled over to go back to sleep. I did my laundry. I did my computer chores. I watched some sports on TV. I actually watched football for a little bit but mostly watched a women's golf tournament. I had fun working on the design of my garden some more. I made a curved path out of the blocks that had been used under the old deck. Then I planted the two plants Linda gave me on the borders of the path. The path leads to two bigger blocks that arrive at the hammock. I thought it was cool looking and it was fun to putter around the yard and enjoy the results. I stood there and watered the flowers while admiring my work :-)

I have a mystery in my yard now. I have been keeping an eye on the bee nest (not sure if they are bumble bees or carpenter bees) that was under the shed for when the bees leave it so I can dig it up and use that space. Yesterday I peered out and it looked like the nest had been dug out by someone else. A bee nest looking structure is just sitting on top of the soil. My prime suspect for digging up the nest is Mr. Squirrel. I found lots of nuts strewn about and I see the squirrels all the time. They like my yard. But it could be a neighborhood cat or some other critter. I don't think it was someone of the human species. Now I have to get my nerve up and get that old nest into a bag and dispose of it. I just want to be sure the bees are done with it so I don't get attacked by an angry bumble bees when I pluck it up and throw it in a trash bag.

I'm feelng good today.Ê I finally got up the nerve to talk to my supervisors at work yesterday about the fact that I didn't make the dilverables set out for me.Ê Turns out they understand why I didn't get them done and told me not to worry about it.Ê No more worry.Ê YAY.Ê I didn't really know how much I was worrying about it till the worry went away.Ê

I'm going hiking after work with Linda at Rancho San Antonio. We'll do the usual PG&E trail loop. I'm hoping we'll be back around 6:00 so I can get home and participate in a computer chat tonight for my depression support list. I'm not sure what attracts me to this chat. Often its pretty boring but I keep coming back so there must be something of value in it for me.

I got back from the annual Yosemite GLS trip yesterday. My body is thrashed but I had a fairly good time. The Clouds Rest hike was pretty tough for me this year. I really was sucking air on the uphills and slowed down to a snail's pace. I was hiking at my top pace most of the hike as I happened to get a speedy group of hikers to lead on this hike. The leader, me, was the slowest of the bunch. The altitude also got to me a little bit and I had a slight headache at the end of the hike.

The weather was fun this hike. We got some sunshine, some clouds, and were hailed upon by these little itty bitty dots, and we got some rain. It made for just awesome views on the top of Clouds Rest but it also caused us to get off the top quickly when we started to hear thunder. Being on the top of a barren piece of rock at 10,000 feet is not a good idea in a thunderstorm! However the storm never did come to Clouds Rest. We did get some awesome views of clouds swirling around Half Dome. I took a picture and I hope it comes out.

After the hike I socialized a bit with the group but by 9 p.m. I couldn't keep my eyes open so went to bed. I slept hard for a good 10 hours. I drove home shortly after I got up as I had lots of chores to get done.

I'm feeling very blah today and a wee bit depressed. I just want to hide out at home and watch TV and read for a few days, but I don't have the time with work and the GLS Yosemite trip this weekend. I'm way behind on paper work at home and need to buckle down and get it done tonight. Yesterday I finally cleaned the kitchen and the half bath that were pretty darn dirty. I also need to get packed for the Yosemite trip tonight. That shouldn't be too difficult but it will take some time. I need to haul my bag of wood out to the car for the campfires this weekend.

I saw Dr. Shin on Tuesday morning. We talked about the fact that since I started taking prozac I seem to be more tired more often and lately it seemed to be getting worse. On the Loon Lake camping trip hike I just could not stop yawning. He said that most likely the fatigue is a side effect of the prozac medication. He has prescribed me some Wellbutrin to add to the prozac. I take the Wellbutrin twice a day. If it does the trick, he'll reduce or eliminate the prozac. Dr. Shin also ordered blood work for me just to be sure the fatigue is not due to something else. I just want to not be so tired so often.

I lucked out today! I didn't end up preparing all that well for my presentation last night. I only spent about an hour on it and then an hour from 8 to 9 this morning. I would have muddled through more than likely, but the other fellow making a presentation, Russ, went over his time for his presentation and so we had to postpone my presentation till after lunch. But after lunch only Russ was available and not the conference room. So I got to give Russ a private informal presentation in my cube. That went very well and he encouraged me to communicate with Jim from the Open Cascade class who is hard at work doing Open Cascade stuff too and might be able to help me out with the things he is discovering as he works on it. I'm relieved I didn't have to give a more formal presentation. I have that "saved by the bell" feeling!

Sunday I went hiking with my friend Linda at Sanborn County Park. We got there at 10:30 a.m. and started out a day of not very well maintained trails, badly signed trails, and heart pounding hills. We had to do lots of map reading on this trip as there were hardly any signs indicated what trail we were on. We had to look at the map to figure out what junction we ran into and where we needed to go next. On the heart pounding up hill portion, we saw lots of extra trails that folks had made by trying to cut across the switch backs. Grrr, that is not good for the park environment. You should stay on the trails as they were built. There was also lots of poison oak on the sides of the trail. I managed to avoid most of it till we started to come downhill when I brushed a branch of it. Oops ... there came a Tecnu bath for me when I got home. Tecnu is a special soap that is able to wash off the poison oak oil before your skin starts reacting to it. Knock on wood that I got it all off and won't come down with a case of it in a few days! We got a good work out on the hike as it was all uphill then all downhill and it was a hot day so we sweated lots and drank lots of water. It was fun despite the orienteering challenges,the elevation gain, and the hot weather. We had the trail to ourselves most of the way up and saw some nice Redwood groves.

Its been a fairly good day and I'm not as tired as I thought I would be. I went to Wen and Ki's house for dinner last night. Then Wen, Laura, and I popped over to Marcia's house for a hot tub after dinner. I didn't get home till 11:30 p.m. and asleep at midnight and thought for sure I would be yawning my head off today, but I haven't. I have been a little sleepy but not so much that it has been affecting my work. Work seems to be going well today. I did a lot of little cleaning up things to my code and I got the report figures finished for the TPS analysis on an aircraft today. I have to cover for Lily while she is on vacation. I feel as if I really got stuff done today even though I didn't get a whole lot done on my code.

I got the sad news today that my Uncle Ed died yesterday. Only 2 weeks ago was the first we heard that he was sick. He got cancer and it took him fast. It was pretty far advanced when they discovered it. I did not know Uncle Ed very well. I met him about 3 times in my life. He was an odd bird but I will have good memories of him. He loved to ride on trains and go to restaurants and make friends with the waitresses. He spent most of his life working in a print shop. I hope my Mom is OK. It must be hard to have a brother die.

I'm going to my first Stanford Women's Volleyball game for the 2002 season tonight. They play Cal. Sorta weird to get the rival match in right at the start of the season. I'm looking forward to checking out the new freshman players. I am hoping to squeeze in a quick bike ride and shower before the game to get some exercise for today.