I had a nice time at Lassen. I was camping with Gay and Lesbian Sierrans and had signed up to lead a couple of hikes: one on Friday and one on Saturday. I did not have a nice time on the drive to Lassen: the traffic was awful despite leaving the SF bay area at noon. I got stuck on highway 680 and highway 80 for an hour. When I finally reached highway 5, the traffic was normal and I sped along at 70 mph. When I got close to Lassen I had troubles finding the Butte Lake road. The directions were not accurate and said to look for the road 44 miles from Redding on highway 44. So at 44 miles I started looking and slowing down at every dirt road I saw. It turns out the road was 70+ miles away not 44. After turning onto the Butte lake road, it turned out to be a dirt road and much of it was wash board. I finally arrived at the campground at 7:30 p.m. I found a nice spot for my tent and unpacked my stuff and sat and talked with C. and C. and then heading to bed around 9:30 p.m. Friday I led a hike to Prospect Peak. It was a 6.6 mile hike with 2300 feet of elevation. It started on the Cinder Cone nature trail. I only got 2 folks signed up (A. and C.) for the hike but that was cool as it is much easier to lead smaller groups than large ones. C. grabbed a nature trail description brochure as we started the trail. Fortunately she noticed that the Prospect Peak trail took off at stop number 9. If I hadn't know that I would have walked right by the trail. Fallen trees blocked the trail and the trail was not very obvious, but after wandering about a bit, C. saw a reflector on a tree and we figured that was a trail marker. We started the long uphill slog to Propsect Peak. It was a very steady uphill with no real steep parts. We took our time going up. It took a while to get to the top. We stopped for lunch just before the top as C. and A. needed to refuel. Both were quite tired. Lunch perked them up and we hiked the last little bit to the top of Prospect Peak. We found the peak marker and a peak log in a metal can. We got out the log and signed it. The views from the top were awesome. We could see Mount Shasta, Mount Lassen, Snag Lake, and the Cinder Cone. There was a snow melt lake at the top too (Prospect Peak is an old volcano so actually has a depression on the top which is where the lake was located). We took photos of each other standing in front of the lake and next to a patch of snow that was still not melted. Then we headed back down the trail and back to camp. It was much easier going down and we just flew down. We got into camp at 4 p.m. and had a nice time talking about the hike and all sorts of other stuff.

Friday night was potluck night. It took a while to get the potluck started. The food was good though and worth the wait. I went to my tent around 9 to do some reading before going to sleep. It was nice to sit in my cozy tent and read a good book while listening to the happy sounds of folks enjoying a camp fire after the potluck. I stopped reading at 10:30 p.m. and roused myself to make a visit to the bathroom. I returned to my tent and snuggled into my sleeping bag and fell asleep.

Saturday I led a hike to the Cinder Cone. The trail was easy to find for this hike. It is an extremely popular hike in the Butte Lake area of Lassen Volcanic National Park. This time I was leading a group of 4 and I had a coleader. We hiked to the cone and hiked around the back of the cone to come up the steep path in the back. We didn't know it was steep till we got there though. It was a beautiful hike going around to the back of the cone. You could see the beautiful brown orangy dunes up close. We all made it up to the top of the cone OK. It was quite a haul but worth it. The top of the cone is cool (another depression inside). This cone has very little vegetation on it and the hike up it is mostly on gravel that slips as you hike up it. At the top you could see Mt. Lassen, Mt. Shasta, Prospect Peak, Butte Lake and Snag Lake. We had lunch on top and got to witness a ranger at work. He came up to us and asked us to move to another area for lunch as he was about to site a group of people making their way up the trail for having gone off trail on the dunes below. We saw him give the tickets at a distance and the folks getting the tickets didn't make a ruckus or anything. They just took their tickets after, I imagine, a scolding from the ranger. We saw them later on the way down. They seemed to have managed to not let the ticket spoil their fun. I had a ball going down the Cinder Cone trail. We went down the front trail. It was wider and less steep than the back trail. I found it easy to bound down the trail as the gravel softened the landing on my legs and feet. I ran down the last of the trail. While waiting for the rest of the folks to descend three of us were standing under a tree for shade when we were suddenly enveloped by a dust devil (a little dust tornado). It was wild. It really blew hard. The sand hitting my legs felt like lots of little needle pricks. I put my back to the wind but the direction of it changed as it blew past and I had to quickly cover my face with my hat. The other two managed to get some shelter from the tree trunk. It was over pretty quick. The other folks said it was wild seeing the dust devil go over us. I thought it was a cool if slightly painful experience. The rest of the hike was uneventful. When we got back to the campground, I said goodbye to everyone and started the drive home.

The drive home was better than the drive there, but I was still frustrated to run into some traffic on highway 80. However, I made it home in 6 hours instead of 7.5 hours. I got home at 8 p.m. and took a hot shower. After the shower, there was a little pile of sand in the bathrub. That dust devil got sand all over me, especially in my hair. I had to wash my hair twice to get it all out. It was a very pleasurable camping trip at Lassen with two interesting and fun hikes and good company.

Ah. Donuts make me happy. I got myself a couple of them on the way home and now I'm munching them down.

Soon I need to get laundry started and pack up the rest of my stuff for the Lassen camping trip. I have a feeling its going to be a zoo at Lassen -- lots of crowds there for the holiday weekend.

I put some pictures from Trinity on my webshots page. I like the one where I'm standing on the snow. I also like the tall cedar tree and Eleonor lake.

My Trinity Alps camping trip was great. We left the SF bay area at 10 a.m. and made the 6 hour drive to Trinity Alps. It was a hot drive but not as bad as we expected with the weather forecast for a heat wave. It was good to get to our campsite where it was cooler. We camped in a tent only site on Lewiston Lake. From our tents we could see the lake. That was cool however it did mean we also had mosquitos to deal with in the evenings at dusk. The bugs were not too bad but we did have to fish out mosquito repellent and we both were scratching at several bites at the end of the trip. We had a couple of deer who would visit us by the lake each night. We also saw a little frog under our picnic table and a squirrel ran around with a great big bushy tail. On Wednesday and Thursday nights we did not have any neighbors in the campsite so it was wonderfully quiet and beautiful. Friday night a big group of folks arrived with tons of coolers, fancy camp chairs, big tents, hammocks, boats, and fishing gear. They arrived around 10 p.m. and made quite a lot of noise which was annoying. Oh well, we had two nice quiet evenings.

On Thursday we went on an awesome day hiking to Canyon Creek. We hiked next to the creek and gradually ascended to see some wonderful waterfalls. We had a nice lunch just past a small water fall. After lunch we carried on and saw the middle falls which were awesome. We hiked along the creek some more and found a wonderful swimming hole and decided to take a dip. It was very cold but refreshing. As we were finishing up a woman stopped by and told us that the upper falls were very impressive so we decided to go take a look. They were indeed awesome but hard to see through the woods and hard to get close to to get a better look. We turned around at 7 miles up the creek to return back to the car. The hike down seemed much longer. That seems to happen often on there and back hikes. On the hike out you are all excited and energetic and time and distance flies. On the way back sometimes the energy is gone. We finished up our hike at 6:30 p.m. We drove back to the campground. On the way back, L. suddenly stopped the car. She then pointed out a family of skunks on the side of the road. It was a Mom with her three kids. It was a very cute sight. The little skunks waddled along sticking to Mom's side. We were jazzed to have seen the skunks.

On Friday we went hiking on Blue creek. It was a long drive there and we got lost so added in a few extra miles. BUT, as we turned around to head back to the right road we got to see a bear lumber on to the road. It stopped when it saw our car and headed back to the woods but we got a great view of it. L. was really excited as she is a native Californian and had not yet managed to see a bear in the wild. After losing sight of the bear we headed back to the right road to the trailhead. It was a very small bumpy dirt road. The trail head was about 4 miles in at the end of the dirt road. We got started on the hike to go to Tangle Blue lake. It was 11 a.m. and the first couple of miles of trail were on fire roads being baked by the sun. We were in grumpy moods about that. We finally left the fire road and came to a wonderful meadow with Blue creek running through it. There were wonderful tall Cedar trees and very green swampy areas. We had lunch in the meadow. After lunch we discovered we had to make a stream crossing. I delicately wandered out on a log and lept the last 2 feet to the bank. L. was not up to that so took off her shoes and waded across. We continued on and ran into another possible stream crossing. I shed my day pack and wandered around trying to find the trail to be sure that we did have to go across the stream. I shimmied across a big log over the creek and wandered around and found the trail. But when I came back to fetch L. we both decided we wanted to go back to the meadow and not bother with the stream crossing and seeing Tangle Blue lake. When we got back to the meadow, L. left the trail to check out a yellow flower she saw in the swampy area. She was very excited to discover it was a Pitcher Plant. She had never seen them in the wild before. It was fun to share her excitement over them. We took lots of pictures of them and then continued on through the meadow and back on the fire roads to the car. L. declared the hike on the fire roads worth it to see the Pitcher plants. L. does not stand up well to very exposed hot uphill hikes. That describes the hike on the fire roads! After the hike we stopped at the Country Store and I got some ice cream and L. got orange juice poured over a tall glass of ice. It was great to sip on cold drinks after a hike. We had another nice evening in camp.

Saturday, we went hiking to Eleonor Lake and Shimmy Lake. We had another long windy drive on dirt roads to get to the trail head. It was a hot day. The first part of the hike was nice. We got to Eleonor Lake soon. It was a delightful little lake half covered with Lily Pads with marvelous white pinkish bushes of flowers bordering the lake. It was so very green. At the end of the lake we saw more Pitcher Plants. Then we continued on to Shimmy Lake. It was not a very nice hike. It was often exposed, there were quite a few uphill slogs, and it was hard to find the trail route. It was marked with red flags and cairns (piles of rocks). At times we had to wander all over to find the next cairn or ribbon. The last bit of the hike before Shimmy Lake was shadier and much nicer to hike on. We finally reached Shimmy Lake and renamed it Shimmy swamp. There was hardly any water in the lake. It was still beautiful but I didn't get the swim I was rather looking forward to. We dawdled around at Lake Shimmy for a bit and then headed back. On the way back we got lost because we followed the wrong flags. We found a fire road and wandered around on it and to our relief found a cairn. We followed the cairns and soon discovered that we were heading back to the lake so we turned around and continued on the trail being real careful to follow the right flags and the cairns. We got back just fine but were pretty tired and hot. It was a very hot day. Phew. We had another stop at a store for cold drinks on the way home. About half way home, L. suggested we drive home that night instead of on Sunday to avoid the 100+ temperatures in the Sacramento valley and to get away from our noisy neighbors. We mulled it over and discussed it and saw our last wild life of the trip. We saw a fox run across the road. We were amused that most of our wildlife spotting happened in the car. Any how, we did decide to leave that night. It was a good decision. We avoided the 100+ degree temperatures the next day. I also was tickled to get to sleep in Sunday and have the day to get some stuff done.

The tummy virus seems to be gone today. Thank goodness. I did feel OK enough on the weekend to have fun hiking on both Saturday and Sunday. Both days I just had a faintly quesy stomach after eating.

Saturday I did a 7 mile hike at Calero County Park with OAW. It was a fun group. Everyone was being very goofy and cheerful. The weather was great and we ate lunch while being serenaded by bull frogs. Towards the end of the hike we saw a young coyote ambling down the hillside. After the hike we had an early dinner at a Sweet Tomatos restaurant (salad bar place like Fresh Choice).

Sunday I scouted a hike at the Coal Mine Ridge area of the Portola Town Trails system with L. We had only one map and it was way out of date so we spent a lot of time exploring trails looking for the route I had picked out. We didn't succeed in doing the planned route but I do have a new route planned for the actual OAW hike. When I got home from the hike, I finally managed to find a good map on the web and figured out where we had gone.

For a good laugh, check out http://objective.jesussave.us/propaganda.html.

I'm slowly recovering from this awful stomach virus. I have been back at work for 2 days now. My stomach still feels ever so slightly quesy and on occassion hurts a little. I do feel well enough to be working though. I hope I feel better tomorrow for the Calero hike.

Sunday I'll probably go hiking with L. but also get ready for our camping trip to Trinity Alps. I need to stop by REI and get some fuel cannisters for my stove. While I'm at L.'s I need to find out if she wants her tent back or not. If she doesn't, I'll use it. If she does, I'll ferret out my old stand by dome tent I use for car camping. I'm taking off WThF next week so I will only have a 2 day work week. Hurray!

Oh my goodness did I get sick when I got home on Monday. I had no more "choice" about whether I would throw up or not. I threw up right when I got home (thank God I didn't have to jump off my bike and throw up on the way home from work). Then I was trying to sip water most of the night so I wouldn't get too dehydrated but unfortunately I just about threw up all the water later in the night. I have been home the past two days. I haven't thrown up (YAY) since Monday but I have been feeling quite quesy. If I move around a lot it gets worse. I am just not in shape to be at work. It bites that I am having to use up Paid Time Off on being sick. Oh well.

I'm not feeling well at all today. I am having a really hard time staying awake and I feel like I could throw up if I let myself. Put it this way ... eating is not appealing to me right now. I was feeling OK this morning at breakfast, but then I rode my bike to work and when I got here started feeling wretched. I am not looking forward to having to ride home feeling like this. I'm hoping by 4 p.m. I'll feel better. I have gotten some work done this morning but its slow going when my eyes keep drooping shut. My mind is not sharp when I'm this tired.

I did have a nice weekend. Wen's graduation was hot but fun to watch. We sat out in the sun for quite a while listening to speeches and watching professors hood all the graduate students. Wen had to kneel because her advisor is so short. I hung around a little at the reception following but passed on the department party. Saturday I led my hike to Montara Mtn. There were four of us in all so it was a very easy trip to lead. L. showed up and two new folks, K. and Y. I think they had a good time on the hike. The views on the way up were awesome. On top we had fog so there wasn't much of a view. It was blowing in and out so we did manage to see the San Mateo Bridge once while we were on top. We moved down lower than the peak for lunch. We found some sunshine and investigated this rusted out old truck. The hike down was nice too. It was a good trip. Sunday I slept in and then at noon headed over to L.'s house. We went hiking at El Sereno Open Space Preserve. Its up above Los Gatos. We saw nice views of the Lexington reservoir. The trails were pretty much all fire roads and it was quite an exposed hike. We only did about 4 miles or so. It was pretty and about the length we wanted. L. was checking out the new light weight boots she bought at REI the day before. This park wouldn't be very good for a group hike though as the parking was quite limited.

Oh geez ... I need to lean back and catch a cat nap in my chair. Adios.

I'm at home right now. Pretty soon I will be driving to Santa Cruz to attend Wen's graduation ceremony. I put on my Columbus, Ohio sweatshirt in honor of her parents who are from Ohio. I got my padded portable seat thingy for sitting on the hard bench to watch the ceremony. And I threw in some water, a book, and sun screen in my fanny pack. So I'm well prepared for graduation watching and amusing myself if I get there early (which is highly likely). I wonder if I still have my graduation cap. Might be funny to show up in it with my tassle hanging on the already graduated side.

They seem to have updated Blogger Basic although it works much the same as before. It looks cleaner in the journal entry portion and they put a Blogger help screen to the right in its own frame.

I'm leading a Loma Prieta GLS hike tomorrow to Montara Mountain. I'm competing with P.L. who is leading a hike the same day for Ventana GLS. Oh well. I have gotten two inquiries so far for my hike but not one "I'm coming for sure" commitments. I hope at least one person shows up so I can do the hike again. I scouted it with L. and its a fun hike.

This googlism page is fun. I plugged in Kieren, Wen, and Cathy. Here are some of the results that made me laugh for some reason:


kieren is the miner for the wob guild and she lives in the town of delucia where she mines the mountain range


wen is the glue that keeps the word "consistent" in our drunken vocabulary


cathy is perpetually single

A fun web site to play with Googlism that I saw on E's live journal. Here are the results on my name:

cathy roberts is an environmental scientist working within sulfide solutions business unit
cathy roberts is a 7th grade
cathy roberts is in her fourth year as associate athletic director for facilities and operations
cathy roberts is with them
cathy roberts is a cinematographer/operator with experience in the camera department on over 250 dramatic tv episodes and numerous documentaries
cathy roberts is a cinematographer/operator with experience in over 250 dramatic tv episodes and numerous documentaries

I like "cathy roberts is with them". Rather mysterious don't ya think? The typo on the 7th grade one makes me giggle. I am a 7th grade. That's one tiny school.

I have to head over to the library after work today and select books for Rhoda. The selection deadline date is tomorrow. I'll probably get myself some books from the library while I'm there. I'm reading the novel "Tipping the Velvet" right now. I bought it for myself with an Amazon gift certificate I got recently.

It was a tiring weekend for me -- emotionally tiring that is. Parties wear me out and I went to both of Wen's graduation parties. The small one didn't tire me out too much but the big one definitely filled my "being around lots of people" quota for the month. I also sat in the GLS booth at SJ pride for 2 hours on Saturday afternoon being social and talking up GLS. That was tiring. Sunday was not so tiring. I went on a small hike with Bob that was very relaxing and enjoyable. Then I had the whole afternoon and evening to myself. I napped. I watched Annika Sorenstam win the LPGA championship in a playoff against Grace Park on TV. She did a lovely little hoppy dance when she won the playoff! I also spent some more time fiddling around with the OAW web pages.

For Dr. Wen -- more horoscope like predictions to look at. *wink*: Angel Voice

Mine today ---> FIRE ELEMENT: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius

Your Guiding Angel today is: The Angel of Balance. Angelic Advice: It is time to allow - and enjoy - the natural inner balance of the personality and the soul. When you allow these energies to flow naturally, you can expect positive changes to happen. Picture your essence as a clear running stream - and follow the flow today. You will seek the right level. Your angels wish you joy in: Allowing yourself just to BE

Wen's today --> AIR ELEMENT: Aquarius, Gemini, Libra

Your Guiding Angel today is: The Angel of R.O.I. Angelic Advice: R.O.I. means Return on Investment. How are you investing the moments of your days and nights? Are you creating a return of great value? To have wealth that you value, you must first know what you value. Your angels wish you joy in: Value Clarification

The Angel of ROI???? Now thats a weird angel. Angel of Balance sounds more normal. I like the thought of "allowing myself to just BE"

My cold is almost gone. Instead of coughing, I keep clearing my throat to get the last little bits of guck out of my respiratory system. My nose isn't stuffed anymore, HURRAY. I am finally getting back to walking to work MWF and lifting weights on TTh now that the cold is almost gone and my achilles tendons are pretty much healed.

I wonder what my horoscope says today ... get ready ... here it comes, the Yahoo horoscope.

Communication with those closest to you might prove difficult today, dear Aries. You might end up playing endless games of phone tag. This can be a bit distressing, because you're feeling especially warm and loving toward them right now. You might even worry that perhaps they're angry and don't want to talk to you. This isn't the case. Keep trying, and you'll eventually reach them and receive the response you want.

Hummm. I hadn't planned on making any phone calls today so I seriously doubt I'll play phone tag. I am going over the hill to see Wen, Ki, and the rest of the usual gang. I hope everything goes smoothly for that trip over the hill. I'm glad to know that those closest to me are not angry at me and want to talk to me. Phew. OK, well really, that sort of hits home for me. I'm forever worrying that folks are mad at me and don't like me much. I know its my mental illness talking but it is nice to get reminders every once in a while that this is rarely the case.

OK lets check out astrology.com's horoscope:

Wait for someone's response to your moves. What you're about to learn could be revolutionary. A sudden change will probably shake things up for those who are happy with the present situation.

Well that's pretty vague. It is intriguing to think I might learn something revolutionary.

Caffeine, Sugar, Caffeine ... Zoom Zoom Zoom! I seem to have a sweet tooth and coffee addiction this morning.

I had fun yesterday playing around with redesigning the OAW web pages. I still have work to do on them. I want to throw in some cool backgrounds and see how it looks. I also need to understand why it doesn't look so good with Netscape on the SGI work station running IRIX. I found a web site where you can register for free and make yourself forms, formsite.com. I made one for OAW leaders to submit trips. I must confess I got so into the technical things that I didn't make a lot of progress on improving content or the visual appearance of the web pages -- just a nerdy techy dyke at heart.

A cute joke:

"An old cowboy sat down at the bar and ordered a drink. As he sat sipping his whiskey, a hot young woman sat down next to him. She turned to the cowboy and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?" He replied, "Well, I've spent my whole life on the ranch, herding horses, mending fences and branding cattle, so I guess I am." She said, "I'm a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women; when I shower I think about women. When I watch TV I think about women. I even think about women when I eat. It seems that everything makes me think of women." The two sat sipping in silence. A little while later, a man sat down on the other side of the old cowboy and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?" He replied, "I always thought I was, but I just found out I'm a lesbian."

My Lost Coast backpack trip was awesome. We had great weather, great wild flowers, great conversations, and interesting things to look at.

We had a nice lunch at the Mateel Cafe before we started our trip. After lunch we drove to Shelter Cove to the Black Sands beach parking lot and the start of the Lost Coast trail. The sun was shining and we were all in good spirits. That day's hike was over mostly sand. It was tough hiking through sand with a heavy backpack. We also had to do a couple of challenging stream crossings that challenged our rock hopping skill or challenged the water proofness of our boots! We saw a beached boat on the way to our first campsite. A woman informed us that her boy friend had to beach it due to bad weather and she was there to keep an eye on it. They hoped at high tide to get it off the beach. It was pretty darn full of sand though so it looked like it wouldn't budge even with high tide. After leaving the boat we saw a sad site. A little baby sea lion was sitting on a rock looking sick. It did not move when we edged forward to look at it. There wasn't much we could do so we just continued on. We arrived at Buck Creek at 6:30 p.m. and decided to camp there rather than try to get to Shipman Creek as planned. The tide was getting high and the next section of trail was impassable at high tide. Also we were all pretty tired. We had to share the site with four teenagers who decided to skip their prom and camp out at Lost Coast instead. We all thought that was way cool! We got camp set up and dinners cooked before dark. While we were cooking we were visited by a couple of deers. They were about 30 yards away from us. They were getting their dinner too! We all headed to our separate tents as it got dark. I slept like a rock that night.

Day two we got up around 7 a.m. We ate breakfast and broke camp and were on our way by 9 a.m. J. and I (co-leaders) were a bit concerned that we hadn't left early enough to hike on the trail as the tide was rising. It turned out we were fine but we did have a few cases where we had to scurry around a big rock as the waves receded. The rising tide did give us incentive to set a fast pace. At around 10:30 a.m. we reached the part of the beach where the trail climbed up a hill to weave along a bluff looking over the beach -- no more tide worries! It was also nice to be hiking on solid ground for a while. We did have to start watching for poison oak at this point. It had smaller leaves than I'm used to and blended in with other plants rather well. You had to keep a sharp eye out to stay out of it. So far it looks like I avoided getting it. P. did end up with some poison oak (on her ankles and, shudder, on her left eyelid). We reached Big Flat at noon and J. suggested that we camp at Big Flat rather than Big Creek (another 3 miles north up the beach). This was so we wouldn't have to get up super early to beat the tide the next day. We set up our tents. Mine was quite exposed but on nice soft sand. I was careful to put rocks inside my tent and to put heavy rocks over the tent stakes also. This worked out great and my tent stayed in place even when the late afternoon winds blew up. After we set up camp and had some lunch we day hiked to Big Creek. It was a pleasure to get rid of the packs. Big Creek was beautiful. I was curious to see if the camp site I camped in with W. and K. last summer. I was amazed to discover that the site had been totally filled with big bits of drift wood and essentially no longer existed. I took a picture of it so I can compare it to last year's picture of the camp. We had a nice rest break at Big Creek. J. went off to explore Big Creek while the rest of us headed back to camp. We reached camp around 5 p.m. and started our dinners. It was a bit tricky getting the stoves to light because of the wind. I finally gave up on my blue tip matches and used one of my wind proof matches to get my stove lit. Everyone else got their stoves lit one way or another. While P. and I were starting to cook we saw C.P.'s tent be picked up and flipped over by the wind. We ran over to it to make sure it didn't blow away. C.P. saw the ruckus and ran over to restake the tent and put rocks inside of it. Then a half hour later, C.S.'s tent blew over. She decided to just put the tent away and sleep out in the open. After the excitement of the tents we settled down to enjoy dinner and good conversation. I got in my tent at 8 p.m. as I was getting chilly. I got in my warm sleeping bag and pulled out my book "Daughters of the Amber Noon" by Katherine Forest. I had a wonderful half hour of reading. Then I looked up and saw the sun setting. It was a great sun set. The sun was a big red ball in the sky and sunk down below the ocean. It was awesome.

Day three we got up around 7 a.m. again. This time we were ready by 8:30ish. Worries about the tide made us keep a fast pace again. We were now retracing our steps from the day before. We reached our last campsite, Shipman Creek, at 10 a.m. We got the site to ourselves. That was cool. We took the site with the driftwood shelter. We made it our commisary. It also turned out to be a great place to hang out in and read or talk as it created a nice bit of shade and Sunday was a hot day on the Lost Coast. We set up camp real slow and then ate lunch. Everyone but me then went to explore upstream on Shipman Creek. I was feeling tired from still fighting off my cold. I took a nice nap while they explored. They returned by 3:30 p.m. Then we had a very mellow late afternoon of conversations, reading, meditating (just C.P.), and ambling down the beach to look at the sea lions on Sea Lion rock. We all cooked dinner together around 6 p.m. Then more relaxing into the evening. We didn't get an awesome sunset this time as we were in a canyon and the sun popped under the canyon wall before we knew it. I think J. might have hiked down the beach a bit to see if he could see the sun set over the ocean. The chill in the air after the sun set again seemed to drive us to our warm sleeping bags. I had another wonderful night's sleep. I loved hearing the waves crash all night and looking at the stars when I stirred a few times during the night.

Day four was our hike back to the cars. We were all up by 6:30 a.m. and we headed south towards Black Sands Beach by 8:30 a.m. We had a very pleasant walk on the wet sand as the tide was low and there was lots of firmer wet sand to hike on. We passed by the sick sea lion cub again and were saddened that it hadn't moved since we last saw it. We also passed by the beached boat again. It was even fuller of sand and no one was around watching it. It looked like the couple gave up on trying to extract it at high tide. The stream crossings on the last day were easier because of low tide giving us a shorter crossing option and not a lot of rock hopping. We got to Black Sands beach at Shelter Cove at noon. We hiked up to the trail head parking lot and happily used the restrooms there and changed into clean cloths we had left in the cars. Then we finished off our trip by having lunch at the Mateel Cafe again. The hamburger I had tasted so good after three days of backpack food! It was a great trip.

Check out pictures from the trip at my webshots page in the lostcost2003 album.

Took 5 pictures of my garden this afternoon. Check them out at my webshots page in the "My Garden" album.

I made it to Trader Joes on Monday. I got 8 cliff bars. They have a new one called Black Cherry almond that I had on the Fall Creek hike a couple weekends ago. It was good enough to get myself two of them for this trip. I also got these deadly good dark chocolate covered caramels for desert. I'll get two after each dinner. I got some granola, non-fat organic milk, wheat crackers, and peanut butter while I was there. Lest you are worried -- the milk is not for the backpack trip.

A random thought "just because I'm not at my desk doesn't mean I'm not at my computer"

Congrats to Dr. Wen or should we say Professor Minkoff

The big pile of equipment on the floor is now in my pack. I just need to get my camp shoes and attach them to the outside of the pack with a carbiner and find a light paperback book to squeeze in there somewhere.

My cold is STILL clinging. I am so water logged because of drinking lots and lots of flluids. I have spent the weekend resting and doing chores. I passed on the Henry Coe hike which was probably a good thing. I think the cold would have made me really tired and grumpy on the hike.

I have watched lots of women's softball on TV. It is the college softball world series time. I watched about 4 different games. Today is the championship game: Cal vs UCLA. It starts in about 10 minutes.

I created and finished a new chore on Saturday. I was getting tired of sifting through maps in a box to find the one I wanted. I decided to move the supplies in the desk top file cabinent drawer to the left hand drawer and then file the maps in hanging folders. It worked out pretty well in the end. We'll see how it goes next time I need a map!

I got the usual clear the paper work off my desk chore done yesterday and I did laundry.

Bad news ... the refrigerator is acting up again. I put it on the highest cold setting and it still is only about 50 degree F in there. That's too warm for milk etc. Arg. I transfered my milk, juice, etc. to the little refrigerator I bought. I need to finish emptying the big fridge so I can drag it out of its cubby hole and unplug it. I'm thinking I'll buy a new refrigerator eventually. In the meantime, the tiny fridge will do.

I went to REI on Saturday. It was crowded since there is a sale going on this weekend. I was hoping I could buy a part for my backpack stove to fix the electric ignition, but they didn't sell the part. So I am going to have to light the stove with a match on the Lost Coast backpack trip. I bought a new filter for my water filter. And I bought a book on hiking in the Trinity Alps and a couple of maps of Trinity Alps and the vicinity. I hadn't planned to buy backpack food but it was on sale for 20% off and the kind I like was there: single serving Mountain House meals. I bought two: chicken and rice and pasta primavera.

Today I need to get myself over to Trader Joes to buy some Cliff Bars for the backpack trip and some crackers and peanut butter for lunches. I have a big pile of equipment sitting on my living room floor ready to be put in my backpack.

My cold is still clinging on. Its moved down into my chest. I have a cloggy chest but not a very useful cough. It did help when I took some cough medicine this morning. I'll redose later on today.

I got my Montara Mountain Hike pictures up on my webshots page.

I had a fun weekend but was slammed with a cold yesterday. I woke up with an ultra sore throat and a bad sinus headache. I stayed home from work all day and took aspirin, decongestion medicine, drank oodles of fluids, and took many cat naps. Today, thank goodness, the sore throat is gone and the sinus headache is gone. I feel much better. I have a mild cough and a mildly stuffy nose today but felt well enough to make it in to work.

I went on a couple of hikes on the weekend. On Saturday I was at Fall Creek where I did a 10 mile hike. We took a wrong turn at a trail junction and ended up having to bushwack through the woods and cross a stream to find an official trail. It was fun once we assured ourselves we knew where we were and how to get out of this mess! The one thing we wanted to avoid was backtracking to that junction as it would have been 1.5 miles up a steep trail. No one wanted to go up the hill we just came down!

Saturday night I went to a Gay and Lesbian Sierra club hike leader party in Santa Cruz. It was a good party. Many silly pictures were taken with Wen's digital camera. If any turn out good hopefully Wen will send them to me.

Sunday I scouted a hike with Linda. We hiked from San Pedro County Park to Montara mountain. It was a gorgeous day. I have pictures which I'll post later today. The wild flowers are still impressive and it was so clear. The sunshine sparkled off of the Pacific ocean. We had many wonderful views of the ocean. We also saw many rabbits. They were very cute little bunnies too not the bigger hares I have seen elsewhere in the bay area. Linda found one wild strawberry to eat, but there were no more so I didn't get a wild strawberry.

After the hike we stopped at Baskin Robbins. I got a chocolate milk shake while Linda got a Peach smoothie. I loved my shake while Linda was disappointed in the smoothie. She wanted a smoothie with chunks of peach in it and this one was mostly artificial peach taste -- no real peaches to be found. I had a taste of her smoothie and I liked it but I hope she hasn't caught my cold now. She is off to Greece today. I'm taking her to the airport in about one and a half hours. She'll be gone for 10 day or so. I'll miss my last minute hiking friend. Linda is great about be willing to go hiking at a moment's notice. Oh well. While she is gone I'm leading a four day backpack trip so I'll get plenty of hiking in!!

Here is a picture of Wendy Waters, a Rescue Hero toy I got myself because I grew fond of her when visiting my cute little 4 year old nephew. ;-)

I'm in a bad mood today. I woke up with a headache, ug. I just plain feel out of sorts. At least Aunt Flo is only here for a little bit longer. She is not nearly as annoying at the finish of her visits than at the start.

I think I have hit another wall in therapy and that is what is getting me down. I have this hopeless feeling that I am never going to have a significant other or learn how to just be really intimate with someone. I feel so much resistance to my therapist's suggestions lately. Something is bugging me and I think I'm afraid to look it in the face. Sigh. I'm hoping the GLS hike and GLS leader party will perk me up a bit tomorrow.

Linda and I have changed plans and decided not to go to Colorado but to go to the Trinity Alps. Linda decided not to take the industrial hygiene profressional test in Denver and that was really the motivating factor for going to Colorado. She didn't want to drive to Colorado and didn't want to pay for an airplane ticket when we would only be staying a couple days. So I suggested the Trinity Alps in Northern California. Linda liked that suggestion. We can drive there and not have to pay air fare. I thought about backpacking but suggested camping and day hiking instead. We can explore around the Trinity Alps and plan a future backpack trip.

I saw the Moon eclipse last night. I tried to take a picture of it but the digital camera just wasn't powerful enough and my view of it was right above all these field flood lights so the lighting was abismal. The picture looked like just a blob of light not the cool red colored moon it was. I could see it while lying on my couch so I was watching the TV and admiring the eclipse alternately.

My Seattle friends A. and E. were in town Wednesday and we went out to dinner at Frankie Johnnie and Luigi's. Its an Italian restaurant. A. and E. liked it. I had been there before and I have always liked it. I had a nice dish of Lasagne. A. and E. had calzones. They were huge so we ended up taking the left overs to my home and so I got a free dinner for last night. It was a veggie calzone and was quite good. I was a bit worried it had mushrooms in it but I think it was eggplant not mushroom. It didn't have that rubbery consistency mushrooms have that make me dislike them. We had a nice talk at dinner and caught up with our respective news. I was pleased to hear that A.'s cancer treatments seem to be working. She had radiation therapy and that seemed to really help. She looked fine and seemed happy that she was feeling well again. The cancer had been giving her back pain and that was pretty much all gone after the radiation. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she continues to get better. I talked about all my hiking and about my latests bouts of therapy and taking anti-depressants. It was a nice cozy visit. They headed back to Seattle yesterday and said it was about time for me to come north and visit them. Maybe I will but not any time soon. My summer is rapidly filling up with outdoor trips. I need some weekends to just hang out at home!

Its graduation time. I have been invited to two graduation celebrations: W's and my niece's, SK. I won't be attending my nieces graduation from Swarthmore in Pennyslvania. Its just too far away. I will give her a graduation present though. SK's official graduation day is June 1. I will be going to W's celebration.

My eyes have been dry and itchy the past several days. I would hazard a guess that is it a mild allergic reaction to all the new green stuff growing around because of all the rain. I might bring some eye drops to work tomorrow.

Last week my therapist, C., told me she has been treating me for avoidant personaility disorder. I went web surfing to check out APD. Here is the official DSM description.

A pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy & hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood & present ín a variety of contexts, as indicated by 4 (or more) of the following:

1. avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact because of fears of criticism, disapproval or rejection
   
2. ís unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked
   
3. shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed
   
4. ís preoccupied with being criticized or rejected ín social situations
   
5. ís inhibited ín new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy
   
6. views self as socially inept, personally unappealing or inferior to others
   
7. ís unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage ín any new activities because they may prove embarrassing
   

Well I must say that over my life time all of these have been true at various times but not all of them at the same time. And C.'s treatment has been working on me. So maybe I do or did have APD.

Yay. Mom got her computer set up in Canada. So I can send my Mom's day letter via email and it will get there in time!

I found out yesterday (after spending a half hour signing soooo many papers for the loan) that my townhouse was appraised at $328,000. Holy Cow! I bought it for $212,500. Its location scored me some big points. Its near a major freeway. Its near downtown Mountain View. Its near shopping. The home owners association board members would be pleased to hear that the appraiser felt the common grounds were well taken care of. He also measured the square feet of my abode. I knew it was somewhere less than 1000 square feet. He measured it as being 972 square feet.

My loan is due to close next Wednesday. My first payment will be in July. June's was covered in the initial loan set up and charges. As soon as I know what company has my loan I'll arrange for my mortgage to be withdrawn automatically from my bank account.

I'm leading a hike tomorrow for OAW to Sunol. I'm experimenting with a new car pool meeting location. Its the Moffett Park Light Rail station park-n-ride. Yesterday afternoon I drove over to find it and look at it. Its a nice place to meet except for the fact that the directions are a little tricky. We'll see how people do tomorrow in finding it. It is really convenient for me and for the particular park we are car pooling to this week. Its just down 101 about 7.5 miles from my town house.

Anatomy of Cathy's May 8th Aries horoscope

Though your mind may have felt a bit clouded over the past few days, today the fog might clear, and you might be feeling more focused.
This one doesn't really ring true. I'm not really feeling more focused.

Money matters might need to be handled, dear Aries, and you're in just the right space to dig in and take care of them.
This one is eerily smack on today. How did they know that today I sign my loan papers. Te. He. And that I got my cost of living raise today too!

Once practical matters are settled, however, this is a great day for spiritual studies or meditation.
Seems to me every day is a great day for spiritual studies or meditation. I don't plan on doing any spritual studies or meditation after I sign my loan papers.

Creative projects can also benefit from your increased concentration
Hmmm. Perhaps tonight is the time to write my Mom's day letter (it won't get there in time, but she'll still enjoy it).

Funny List that e-friend Vicki. sent me
How To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.


2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.


3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.


4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "in"


5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has Gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.


6. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors".


7. Finish all your sentences with "in accordance with the prophecy."


8. Dont use any punctuation marks


9. As often as possible, skip rather than walk.


10. Ask people what they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.


11. Specify that your drive-through order is "to go".


12. Sing along at the opera.


13. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.


14. Put mosquito netting around your work area. Play a tape of jungle sounds all day.


15. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.


16. Have your coworkers address you by your wrestling name, Rock Hard Kim.


17. When the money comes out the ATM, scream "I won!", "I won!" "3rd time this week!!!!!"


18. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling "run for your lives, they're loose!!"


19. Tell your children over dinner. "due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."

And the final way to keep a healthy level of insanity.......

20. Send this e-mail to everyone in your address book, even if they sent it to you or asked you not to send them stuff like this

Ah ... that helps! I just took a nice long sniff of the coffee in my coffee jar. The icky smell is also fading away finally.

Yuk. Someone brought in a dish whose smell I find vile. It smells like a dish with way too much soya sauce. It almost makes me gag. Bleck!! This is the second time whoever it is has brought it to the our little cube pod. I'm doing my best to breath through my mouth so I don't have to smell it. Send good smells my way: roasting coffee, cooking brownies, etc. Oh geez ... please eat it fast whoever you are!!

Linda and I went on a nice hike yesterday. We hiked a 6 mile route at Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve. The hike started at the base of the Santa Cruz mountain range (or maybe I should say the foothills). It followed a fire road and the entire hike was all uphill. It was very green all over because of all the rain we have had recently. There were many sticky monkey flowers and lots of healthy poison oak growing next to the road. It was a very drizzly misty day for the hike. We got sprinkled on several times but no heavy rain. It was very cool to see the clouds wandering in among the moutain tops and across the Silicon Valley. We saw a few patches of blue sky but they flew by quickly. We had one section of mud to skirt our way around. This fire road as very popular with mountain bikers. The muddy section was made worse by all the bikes making their way through the mud. We were amused with a group of bikers who got off their bikes and pushed them around the mud. We were inclined to think that part of mountain biking is getting muddy and the challenge of riding through the mud. We over heard them saying that they wanted to stay clean as they were heading to a coffee shop (Peets) after the ride. I guess that excuse will do.

Saturday was a very stormy rainy day around most of the bay area, but my little corner of the world in Mtn. View didn't get much rain. I spent a couple of hours outside weeding my garden and got rained on once just a little bit -- not enough to get me very wet. I went out on some errands and did not get rained on. However there were very impressive dark clouds over the mountains and down towards San Francisco. The rain clouds seemed to have skirted around Mtn. View all day long but down poured on other places. Linda told me it poured in San Jose. And the report from Wen was it was very rainy and windy in Santa Cruz. On the news they had pictures of funnel clouds in the sky seen from the East Bay.

I spent most of Saturday doing chores. I got out my home repair handbook to figure out how to repair the leak in my pop up stopper mechanism on the sink in my half bath. The book advised to put in a new washer and gasket. So off I went to the hardware store and I bought a washer and a gasket. I got home and popped the new stuff on and hurray, no more leaky sink! I spent a couple hours weeding my garden that afternoon. And finally I drove to the grocery store to get some milk and pick up a pizza I ordered from Round Table. I spent the rest of the day sleeping (I slept till 11ish) and watching TV. It was a very relaxing day.

Purring contentedly because I finally finshed off the icky Kona coffee yesterday and have my favorite Espresso Roast coffee back this morning!

Passing along the buck ... from Cynthia's live journal -->

Gay Bear


Which Dysfunctional Care Bear Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Sending healing vibes Cynthia's way and sending genius vibes to Dr. Wen. Degree or no degree, you will be Dr. Wen to me from now on!!!

Alas no Poppy Reserve or camping this weekend. Linda and I decided to bag it because we didn't want to camp in the rain and wind. Rain is predicted for the area on Saturday and wind on Sunday. Instead we are going to go on an 8 mile hike on Sunday if its nice out. I suggested going to Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve. I have never been there before and the description in my South Bay Trails book sounds good. I might subject Linda to geocaching on the hike!

I'm wishy washy about the Garapatta hike on Saturday that Tina and Celeste are leading. I loved the hike when I did it with Wen and Tina leading, but it does mean getting up early on Saturday and a long drive. I'll check the weather report Friday night and then decide. If it looks rainy I'll probably sleep in. Or if I feel particularly exhausted tomorrow night I'll sleep in!! Its good to not be the leader and be able to decide whether to hike or not at the last minute.

I got my best tent camping in Northern California book this week. I poured over it the other night and ended up staying up too late. There are lots of enticing sites listed that I would like to visit. Grover Hot Springs State Park in particular caught my attention. It sounded like there was decent hiking nearby and of course the hot springs are nearby. It would be nice to take a long day hike and then go soak at the hot springs. It is a very child friendly camp ground according to the book (and hot springs) but I could deal with kids being around. The hot springs require a bathing suit. I would have to drag mine from the depths of my exercise cloths drawer.

I managed to do some lifting at the fitness center on Tuesday and today of this week. I did the crunch machine and had sore ab muscles on Wednesday. They will probably be a little sore tomorrow too since I did the crunch machine again this morning. I also have been stretching my lower legs well to help prevent achilles tendonitis and doing weight lifting that will make my calf muscles stronger. Pretty soon I'll start walking to work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays again.

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

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

Found some cool web sites while surfing today:

• Elder Wisdom Circle


• Volunteer Match


• Webby Awards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Skating in San Jose

At the Stanford vs UCLA basketball game

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

I had a blast on my Ohlone Wilderness backpack trip despite the fact that I had an extremely sore left Achilles tendon on day two. It is still sore today so it is going to be a week of resting to give it time to heal.

There were four of us on the trip: J., D., R., and I. We met at 9 a.m. at the Del Valle park trail head. We left two cars there and jumped in the other two cars and drove to Sunol. We were on the Ohlone trail leaving from Sunol park by 10 a.m. We had a steep but beautiful ascent for most of the day. The hills of Sunol were still very green from the rainy winter season. The wild flowers were out in force. The weather was awesome: a blue sky, a cool breeze, and a warm sun. We took lots of breaks to admire the views and the wild flowers and rest. We stopped for lunch at the Sunol backpack area. We had another nice stop with a view of Goat rock. R. was having problems with a sore leg and we had to take a break to rest her up about 5 minutes from camp. She was very glad to see camp. Her sore leg was annoying but it didn’t dampen her spirits. She loved everything about the trip except her sore leg. We hiked into our campsite at Maggie’s Half Acre around 5 p.m. in time to set up camp and hike up to the top of Rose Peak to catch the sunset. My sore tendon kicked in on the hike to Rose Peak, but the sunset was great. We hiked back to camp and had dinner as the light faded and the stars started to come out. The stars were beautiful. I collapsed in my tent by 8:30 p.m. and was asleep by 9 p.m. I slept fairly well.

We were all up by 6:30 a.m. We had a nice quiet peaceful breakfast and got packed up and were on our way by 7:30 a.m. We hiked down to a valley first thing and then had to hike clear back up to another ridge top. At the top was a marvelous log to sit on for a rest break. D. gave out chocolate at that stop! Day two was fun if a bit painful for three of us. I was working hard to keep from stressing my left Achilles tendon as much as I could. R. was busy trying to not stress her leg. D. had chronic knee tendonitis to deal with on the down hills. J. was the only fully healthy one among us and he was the oldest! It was sort of nice to have others to share your complaints with though. We hiked along the ridge top for a bit and soon reached Murietta Falls at 10 a.m. We had a nice two hour break at the falls. We admired the view from the bottom for about 40 minutes and then moved up to the top and had a nice early lunch sitting next to the creek near the top of the falls. I soaked my left tendon in the nice cold creek water. We had some naps in the warm sun after lunch and around noon continued our trek to Del Valle. We had steep hill to trudge up after lunch, then a long descent to a creek, followed by another trudge up to another ridge top. Then we had the long long descent down to Del Valle. It’s a killer down hill hike of about 2000 feet over 3 miles. We were all glad to reach the bottom of that hill and shed our packs into the cars and drive back to Sunol to get the other cars we left there. It was a wonderful trip despite the aches and pains!

Pictures: http://community.webshots.com/user/cdrdash, Ohlone Wilderness album.

Over heard this just now in the building kitchen. Two folks were talking about attending meetings and one of them said in a sarcastic voice "you don't want to go listen to the cortical pathology of other people?" Folks at NASA have an interesting way of expressing themselves.

I decided to put off taking my car in to Mtn. View Foreign Car until after the Ohlone backpack trip. I need a car to help with the backpack shuttles this weekend and I think my car will hold up OK. Its just annoying to drive but it does work. It will spend most of its weekend parked where our hike ends.

Tonight I'll get out my equipment and start packing for the Ohlone trip. It shouldn't be too complicated since its just an overnighter.

Well ... this has not been one of my better birthdays. That slightly lonely feeling become a really lonely feeling and now I'm feeling sad and blinking back tears as I write this. My Hobees dinner was OK. It didn't help that Stanford lost to Minnesota in the NCAA tournament game tonight. I could have used a Stanford victory to perk me up. Oh well. Someone remind me next year to not spend my birthday alone. This sucks!

Well .. gotta blog on my birthday. I'm 42 years old today, a nice age. Monday is not my favorite day for a birthday. I do get to go see Stanford play Minnesota in the NCAA womens basketball tournament second round tonight. I'll have my favorite dinner at Hobees before the game. I am going to be way sleepy tomorrow since the game starts at 8:30 p.m. I probably won't get home till around 11:30 p.m. If I get up at 6 a.m. as usual that's only 6.5 hours of sleep about 1.5 short of what I need for a good nights sleep! I am already sleepy and I haven't even stayed up yet. LOL!

I'm feeling slightly lonely today so I spread the word about my birthday to just about everyone I know online so at least I won't be lonely in the virtual world. Kathy from work did say happy birthday this morning and I really appreciated that. I get to sit next to my basketball seat neighbor tonight, Ed. I'll probably let him in on the fact its my birthday. He'll make some joke about what a baby I am since he is almost old enough to be my Dad.

My Enneagram (from emode.com URL is http://www.emode.com/tests/enneagram/)


Cathy, you're a Type 1 - The Idealist

Friends, family, and colleagues probably appreciate you for both your high standards and commitment to excellence. They're also apt to know that when they come to you with a problem, they can trust you to be fair and objective. As an Idealist, you're likely to be seen as a wise and balanced person with strong integrity.

Being a member of this type puts you in good company. Jane Fonda with her knack for athletic ideals and commitment to standing up for just causes, and Ralph Nadar, with his idealistic determination as a consumer advocate, are also Type 1s.

This means that compared to the eight other Enneagram types, you have a strong sense of what's right and wrong. In fact, you're someone who is typically committed to doing the right thing and making sure you're as good a person as you can be — no matter what situation arises.

I went hiking on Saturday to Diablo State park with John and Dave. This was the day I expected to be donning my rain gear and hiking in the rain but the weather forecasters were wrong and it was mostly sunny all day. We began the hike strolling along a meadow but soon started a long up hill trek. We hiked up past some beautiful water falls to Mt. Olympia gaining about 3000 feet in elevation. Alas, no Greek Gods or Goddesses were on top of Mt. Olympia but there was an awesome view including a view of Mt. Diablo (which is taller than Olympia). We had our lunch on top. After lunch we did some more climbing to a ridge top where we hiked on the ridge a bit to the trail to Eagle Peak. Climbing up to the ridge top was a challenge with a full stomach and more of a desire to nap than hike more up hill. We soon reached Eagle Peak and took a snack break there while enjoying more wonderful views. The rest of the hike back to the cars was all down hill. It was quite a challenge to our knees. I did OK. Dave was suffering a bit and John was his usual fit 60+ year old self and charged down the mountain. The wild flowers are starting to bloom in California. We saw shooting stars, poppies, lupens, yellow wallflowers, blue dicks, and indian paintbrush and more whose names I have forgotten. John was really good at stopping and telling us flower names. It turned out to be a delightful day and a delightful hike. We ended up doing 4400 feet of elevation gain and 14 miles of hiking!

Linda and I headed over the hill on Sunday to hike at Wilder Ranch State park in the hopes of seeing the large surf caused by the rain storms. When we got to Wilder it was closed due to the storms so we headed to Natural Bridges State Park instead and took a walk along the path parallel to Cliff Drive. The surf was large but not as impressive as I had hoped. The weather was again a surprise with mostly blue skies except for a little rain and clouds at lunch time. We hiked to the light house about 2 miles away and saw tents and lots of people just down the coast. It turns out there was a kayak surfing contest going on. We leaned on the fence on the cliff top and watched 3 or 4 contestants surf the waves. It was fun to watch. They did a trick where they would do a 360 turn at the bottom of the wave as they were surfing it. We tore ourselves away from this cool entertainment to head back. We spent much of the hike catching up with each other on our lives since it had been a while since L. and I had been out hiking together. We also struggled to get her digital camera working with no success. Oh well. The cool trees and the neat water fall will just have to be a picture in my mind until I get to Santa Cruz again. It was a very mellow beautiful hike.

This week is busy with meetings. Yesterday I met with my mortgage broker at lunch to refinance my loan to get a 15 year fixed loan and a lower interest rate. The loan application is all filled out and we are waiting for after Greenspan speaks before locking in an interest rate. Today I have to deliver books to Rhoda and then go to therapy. Wednesday I have to be home in the afternoon for Comcast to install digital cable. Thursday is actually normal! Friday I'm off at 9ish for a physical at Kaiser to get my fitness center health form filled out so I can use the fitness center again. Phew. Next week I'll continue this madness and get my car to Mtn. View Foreign car to see if they can figure out why it stalls so much. Auto Repair Specialists had no clue.

Bummer. They are not televising the Pac 10 tournament games on Saturday. I might toddle to the arena to say high to Wen and Ki between games though. I'm sure there is some cool sport on TV this weekend that I can watch -- maybe even a women's basketball game. Maybe I'll go on the GLS hike at Santa Teresa and stop by downtown on my way home. Who knows. I'm just happy not to be leading any hikes this weekend so I can do whatever catches my fancy.

Funny quote for the day: "f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmmng."

Must remember to select books for Rhoda at the library this weekend. Must remember to select books for Rhoda at the library this weekend. Must remember to select books for Rhoda at the library this weekend.

OK, I have made my big plan for tomorrow: sleeping real late and watching the Pac 10 basketball tournament on TV!!! On Sunday I'm hoping to go out and do some geocaching. Its great fun to wander around in the outdoors with a little computer!

My Yahoo horoscope is sort of cool this March 7th:

---

"Today should find you continuing to work towards cherished goals, career and otherwise. Love matters may come to the forefront today, dear Aries. If you are currently involved, unexpected events in your life could bring you that much closer to your partner. If you are not involved, you could meet someone exciting, perhaps through group activities of some kind. Also, a longtime friend could suddenly appear to you in a new light. Whichever it is, expect some interesting developments. "

---

I'm going to be an Aunt again. Dave and Lila are going to have another baby. The baby is due at the end of July and they already know its a boy. The name of the new baby will start with an "M" but they are not sure yet what it will be. They came up with "M" because they had picked out "Molly" for a girls name and decided they like the combination of an "M" name with the last name "Roberts." Sascha will be a big brother. He'll be 5 years old when "M" is born.

I have two well balanced nieces! On Saturday Marlena won the level 6 balance beam competition at a gymnastics meet. Then at the same meet Eva won the level 8 balance beam competition on Sunday. Eva also came in second in the all around. Woo hoo! YAY for my well balanced nieces!

Yay! I have been resolved of fault for the time sheet snafu of last month! My boss says ...

"Just for clarification, Cathy did post her hours on time as she does every week. The problem occurred when the Raytheon timekeeping system became unavailable while I was approving timesheets -- I was able to approve 3/4 of the timesheets, and I was not able to logon to approve the remainder although I stayed several hours that day attempting to logon. I notified HR so that the staff would be paid."

I am sorely tempted to stick my tongue out at the fellow who scolded me and say "nah nah nah ... you were wrong" but that wouldn't be very professional now would it? It would be appropriate if he would send me a little note of apology for jumping on me like that yesterday. Grrr. I think my bosses little note above is the most I will get in that respect.

I just finished writing the February monthly. Now I get the nice long month of March to relax and keep plugging away at my work before I have to do the next monthly.

I can't decide if I want to go to the rock climbing gym tonight for OAW's Pacific Edge climbing night. I want to climb and hang out with folks but I don't really want to drive to Santa Cruz. I'll probably pass on it unless I get a sudden burst of driving energy around 5:00 p.m. I'm going to try and make it to the GLS Castle Rock hike tomorrow that Wen and Andria are leading. I'm going to drive myself right to the park instead of car pooling so I have the freedom to go out with folks after the hike instead of having to return to the car pool lot. I was disappointed last Sunday that I was stuck in a car with a woman who wanted to leave right after the hike and that I missed hanging out at the park a little more and then joining folks for pizza and hot tubbing later. Shot!

I'm trying to arrange to go see my niece, Eva, in a gymnastics meet on Sunday. I still need directions to the gym in San Rafael and confirmation that the meet is really happening.

Mr. Rogers died today. It has been posted just about everywhere I look on the internet. I wonder if his show will continue on in some other form. My favorite part of the show was the Magic Kingdom. If Kermit can live on, King Friday should be able to carry on!

I'm annoyed sitting here at work. I was just scolded for not posting my time properly the week of Jan 18-24 by the deadline (they claim I didn't get my time in till 1-31) and frankly I think I did post my time correctly that week. I am so anal about those things that it annoys me when people immediately jump to the conclusion that it is my fault. OK. It could be my fault. I could just have a really bad memory of what I did that week, but it would be just so unlike me to forget to do my time sheet for an entire week. Think calm thoughts Cathy ... this isn't really a big deal in the long run of your life!! Even if it was your fault, it was just a simple mistake and not something you did maliciously or carelessly to make life miserable for Raytheon! OK. I feel better now.

And now I have added a link to a guest book for comments on my clogs. What a productive BLOG day it has been so far.

Ooooo ... LOOK ... I got my clog picture and links back. A small triumph!

Sad start to my Friday today. I was walking to work this morning (good way to get exercise) and two women approached me to ask where was a good place to get help as one of the women had just been beat up by a guy who got off his bike and hit her when she complained about him almost running her over as she was jogging on the bike path. The other woman was helping her out and comforting her and had arrived shortly after the guy took off. I figured the best place to go to report the assault was the security gate at work which was about a 1/2 mile away. The three of us walked to the gate and I left them with the security guard as he phoned the police for them to report it. The woman was not too badly hurt physically and turned down an offer for an ambulance but she was quite shaken up emotionally. I hope they catch the dude that assaulted her! This assault took place on one of my favorite play spots, the bike paths at Shoreline park. I'll have to keep a sharp eye out when I go there now but I'm not going to stop going there.

I finally solved the problem of my broken dryer. I had my neighbor, B, come over with his shop vac Wednesday after work to help me clean out the dryer vent yet another time after the dryer repair man said my dryer was fine and it was a vent problem. Our first attempt did not seem to help. We reversed the shop vac so it blew air and no air was getting through the vent. So B. suggested that we cut the vent cover off to have a look inside and see what the problem was. He popped down to his place to get some metal cutters and off came the vent cover. Peering inside we discovered that the vent had collapsed on itself some how. B. carefully stuck a crow bar in the pipe and uncollapsed it while being carefull not to put a hole in it. Then we got the vac out again and started vacuuming. The vacuum got plugged and we discovered that there were old nut casings behind the collapse. Some critter had been busy in my dryer vent! We pulled out all the nut casings and lint we could with the crow bar and then vacuumed again. Then I hooked up the dryer to the vent and finally a good strong swoosh of air came out of the vent from the dryer. Tonight I'll be attempting to install a new vent cover built to keep the critters out.

I'm feeling better today than I was Wednesday morning. I seem to have recovered my equilibrium and don't fee so bummed anymore. Phew!

The shakes happily went away fairly quickly yesterday after the granola bar and a cup of hot coffee.

I tracked down my new toy, the GPS, yesterday. Turns out the online company I bought the GPS from neglected to put my name on the package. So my GPS was sitting there last Friday in F's office as he pondered how to figure out who it was for. It was addressed to the general branch mail stop but there are about 20 people who use this mail stop and so a name is needed to get the mail in the right box. I had a feeling something weird like that had happened so I found F yesterday and asked him if a package had arrived for me with a GPS in it. He was relieved to have figured out who the package was for and I was happy to get my new toy. I might send an email to the online company telling them it is always helpful to include the person's name on the package.

I'm feeling grumpy and unlovable today. None of this PMS stuff for me. I suffer from CMS, current menstral syndrome! I have the usual very mild back cramps going on and I'm just feeling plain out of sorts. Mutter, mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble, grumble, etc. etc.

We have new mailboxes at our condo complex. The mail man hasn't started to use them yet so we have to make our way to the old mail boxes that are leaned up against the wall of the dumpster area. Yesterday they passed out the keys to the new box but said not to use them until instructed to do so. I like the new boxes as they are bigger and they have a community mail box where the mail carrier can put a big package for you and put the key to the community box in your box so you can fetch it. I wonder if UPS can use this box too. My box number has changed but my address will remain the same. The mailman will know which box corresponds to which unit.

Tonight I'm borrowing the shop vac from B. That is if the rain doesn't nix the plan. I'm hoping the rain goes away by the time I get home so I can try vacumming the dryer vent.

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!