Just blathering

I got a replacement cell phone. No more chew marks on my little Cingular Samsung phone.

I weighed myself and I'm nearly as heavy as I have ever been at 183 lbs. I think I got up to 186 five years ago. This is motivating me a little to be healthier. I had a healthy salad for lunch yesterday and a veggie sub for dinner with fizzy water. However I lacked getting exercise yesterday. Today I had a good lunch and breakfast but gave into a yummy mocha on the way to work. I did take the dogs on a 30 minute walk so got a little bit of exercise.

Job searching carries on. I had a phone interview yesterday with Apple that I believe will lead to a face-to-face interview. I have another phone interview today at 4 p.m. with Mellanox Technologies. And I have a third phone interview on Monday at 8:30 a.m. with another group at Apple. A SWE friend of mine is pushing my resume to hiring managers at Loral in Palo Alto.

At work I am having to work the 2nd shift which I just don't like very much. I am working from noon to 10 p.m. M-F. I miss my evenings with C. We do get mornings now but it just doesn't feel the same as the evenings. Two people at work have recently found jobs. I'm so envious!

One Year Gap

Oh my ... it has been over a year since I got to my poor blog, Cathy's LOGS.

Updates ...

• The household has grown from 2 to 4 as of Feb 2006. 2 furry friends have joined us, Astro and Cosmo, extraordinary basenji dogs! Astro and Cosmo are nearly 1 year and 4 months old now.
• Work is closing down the SJ facility and moving the work to Illinois. As a result, I'm out of a job as of June 29th. If you ask me how I am, I'm likely to bore you with intense details of how much I hate job searching.
• Consumer Report -- We got a brand new 2007 sage (green) colored Toyota Prius in October and a big old King Sized bed in February. Both items are quite luxerious. I am enjoying being able to drive in the car pool lane.
• I have cut down my hiking from once a week to maybe once a month. Instead I do more dog walking, working, or movie watching. I want to get back to hiking but need to decide what to do with the dogs (take them with us on the hike, put them in the pet hotel, find a pet sitter, etc. etc.).
• C. has added another volunteer job to her list. She now volunteers at Sally Leibers office once a week for an hour or two. She also spends lots of time at the dog park with Astro and Cosmo much to their delight.
• My weight is 178 lbs. I want to get back in better physical condition and lose 30+ lbs at a nice slow rate. However ... I seem to be having difficulty find the motivation to do this. I continue to hover around the high 170s. Oh well.

I just put money in the soda machine looking forward to a Mountain Dew and instead a diet iced green tea came out. This is a decided dissappointment when you are looking for a Mtn. Dew.

Cosmo chewed up my cell phone last night. It fell out of my pocket on the couch unbeknownst to me and he found it later and had a chewfest. The front little screen with a nice clock time was punctured but the inside screen still works and the phone works. It just has loads of teeth marks on it. We got insurance on our phones with just this kind of event in mind. Perhaps I swing by the cell phone store after work and see if they can replace it with a new one.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday dear meeeeeeeee!

Happy Birthday to me!

I'm 45 years old. For more info than you ever wanted to know about your birth date.
You entered: 3/24/1961

• Your date of conception was on or about 1 July 1960 which was a Friday.
  
• You were born on a Friday under the astrological sign Aries.
  
• The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2437382.5.
  
• The golden number for 1961 is 5.
  
• The epact number for 1961 is 13.
  
• The year 1961 was not a leap year
  
• Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 2/15/1961 and ending 2/4/1962. You were born in the Chinese year of the Ox.
  
• As of 3/24/2006 1:23:57 PM EST
  
  
  
  • You are 45 years old.
    
  • You are 540 months old.
    
  • You are 2,348 weeks old.
    
  • You are 16,436 days old.
    
  • You are 394,477 hours old.
    
  • You are 23,668,643 minutes old
    
  • You are 1,420,118,637 seconds old
    
  
  
• Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 6.43287671232877 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)
  
• There are 365 days till your next birthday on which your cake will have 46 candles. Those 46 candles produce 46 BTUs,or 11,592 calories of heat (that's only 11.5920 food Calories!). You can boil 5.26 US ounces of water with that many candles.
  
• In 1961 there were approximately 4.2 million births in the US.
  
• In 1961 the US population was approximately 179,323,175 people, 50.6 persons per square mile.
  
• In 1961 in the US there were approximately 1,523,000 marriages (8.5%) and 393,000 divorces (2.2%)
  
• In 1961 in the US there were approximately 1,712,000 deaths (9.5 per 1000)
  
• 
  Your birthstone is Aquamarine
  
• Your birth tree is Hazelnut Tree, the Extraordinary
  
  
  Charming, undemanding, very understanding, knows how to make an impression, active fighter for social cause, popular, moody and capricious lover, honest and tolerant partner, precise sense of judgement.
  
  
  
  
• The moon's phase on the day you wereborn was in its first quarter.
  

You Should Weigh 171

If you weigh less than this, you either have a fast metabolism or are about to gain weight. If you weigh more than this, you may be losing a few pounds soon!

How Much Do You Weigh?

Pretty spooky ... I weighed 170 lbs yesterday and 171 only a couple days ago.

You Are Sunshine

Soothing and calm You are often held up by others as the ideal But too much of you, and they'll get burned You are best known for: your warmth Your dominant state: connecting

What Type of Weather Are You?

170 lbs

171.0 lbs

Despite not working out much, I am losing weight. I think it is because I haven't been eating big meals.

173.0 lbs

Finally got to the gym! Had a decent workout.

Work is still busy but I have a couple days vacation tomorrow and Monday. Phew. I'm here at work late trying to finish up my latest assignment before I take off for vacation. I haven't been able to fit in work outs. Phooey.

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Work is incredibly busy so I sacraficed the work out yesterday but managed to squeeze it in today.

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Worked out at the very end of the day today. It felt good to get right back in the gym after missing day.

I was too busy at work today to fit in a work out. Sigh.

178.0 lbs

Bad day yesterday at work. Today was OK but I'm still recovering from yesterday. It wasn't a very good Valentine's day although dinner out after work was nice. Poor sweetie of mine got an earful on the bad day at work though.

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I led a hike for GLS on Sunday. It went well. The weather was awesome and the scenery was nice. It was a mostly woodsy hike with some exposed parts with nice views of the woodsy valleys. We saw some nice big redwoods in the valley on the Pomponio trail.

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Ah shot ... puppy class is cancelled tomorrow. The instructor has a back injury and has been forbidden to go back to work this weekend. So the lessons will start hopefully next Saturday (if her back is well).

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Don't you just hate it when the sunny days fall during the week when you are stuck indoors. Grrrr! I hope the sunny weather holds out for my hike on Sunday and for puppy training class on Saturday.

Its my night to cook. I would like cooking better if I could walk in the kitchen and the menu is all planned out with instructions on how to cook it. It is the deciding what to cook that I don't like so much. The actual cooking isn't so bad once I get started. I much prefer washing dishes. I wonder what the ratio would be of folks who woud rather cook than do the dishes vs those who would rather do the dishes than cook.

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Astro and Cosmo

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Here is a picture of the new puppies on my lap. Astro is the reddish brown and white puppy while Cosmo is the black and white puppy.

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The puppies are here. They are small and cute cute cute. They wiggle. They bite. They chew. They whine. They sleep. They cuddle. They play. They pee and poo -- the usual puppy stuff.

Cosmo is a bit of a bully while Astro is sweeter. But Astro will let Cosmo know when he is too rough. Astro lay on my lap and slept yesterday while Cosmo found Charlotte's lap. It was amazing how wiggly they were one minute and how still the next when they fell asleep.

I'm a bit overwhelmed by the puppies. I worry that I am doing things wrong in terms of training them. I'll hang in there and follow Charlotte's lead on training until we start puppy kindergarten on Feb 11th.

179 lbs

The puppies are coming! The puppies are coming! Cosmo and Astro are on their way. In about 35 minutes they will be getting off the jet and be picked up by Charlotte! When I get home I'll meet them.

180.0 lbs

181.5 lbs

Got myself to the gym today after a lazy weekend. I was going to go geocaching Saturday but it was cancelled and all I ended up doing was running errands with Charlotte and not getting any exercise on Saturday. Sunday was spent getting to Berkeley and watching nieces Eva and Marlena in a gymnastics meet: an afternoon with my butt on a chair. Oh well. I'm back on track today.

Another day of not working out. Uh Oh.

I didn't work out today or weigh in. It has been such a roller coaster week that I decided to just rest today and not push myself to do anything in paritcular.

178.5 lbs

179.5 lbs

Forgot my shorts today so no playing hamster on the treadmill. Running in jeans just doesn't work for me. Instead I took a forty minute walk along the Coyote Creek trail of which part borders my work parking lot. I decided not to weigh myself today after the walk. So tune in tomorrow for the latest weight.

Is TV bad for your mental health? Charlotte thinks so and a book I'm reading thinks so. The book is "Beating the Blues : New Approaches to Overcoming Dysthymia and Chronic Mild Depression" by Michael E. Thase, Susan S. Lang. But I love to watch TV. Is my love of TV making my mental health worse? Charlotte had me tipping towards trying to wean myself off TV yesterday but I'm not quite convinced yet. I keep remembering how much I enjoyed my TV before Charlotte came into my life and how it didn't feel like it was detrimental to my mental health. I find myself imagining ways to watch TV secretly so Charlotte doesn't know I'm doing it. Why do I feel a need to hide it from Charlotte? Maybe because I'm ashamed of my TV watching. I might wander around the internet and see what other opinions I can find on the affect of TV on mental health.

181.0 lbs

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Name That Puppy!

We haven't picked out names yet for our puppies. Any suggestions? We have some in mind but could use more suggestions.

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CCC and I have purchased two male Basenji Puppies due to arrive on Feb 1, 2006. Here they are as of January 8, 2006.

We ended up picking this breed based on

• desire for a dog that doesn't bark a lot - Basenjis don't bark (although they do yodel and whine)
• desire for a clean dog - Basenjis clean themselves a bit like cats do
• desire for a short haired dog
• desire for a unique dog
• desire for an intelligent dog
• desire for a dog that isn't too large
• we liked the pictures of the Basenjis in the books we poured through and on the internet

We got two dogs because there will be times we will be leaving the dogs at home (going to work, hiking at parks that don't allow dogs, etc.) and we didn't want to leave one dog all by his/her lonesome. We picked males because that was what was available from the breeder we choose to purchase them from. The dogs will keep each other company when we have to leave them home alone.

CCC will be roughly 75% reponsible for the dog care and I'm roughly 25% responsible for it -- mostly because I'm off at work 8 hours a day and CCC is home most days and she is the one who really really wanted to have pet dogs and she is more experienced with animal care. She has had many other pets in her life but never a dog.

We have stacks of books from the library about dog care sitting in the living room. CCC is busily reading them and figuring out how to prepare for the arrival of our new family members. I haven't started reading any yet but will soon. We also intend on signing up for puppy training classes.

For those who want to know even more about Basenji's check out the comments on this post with a link to a blog by two Basenjis: Scootis & Squish.

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184 lbs

The holiday damage is ... drum roll please ... 6 pounds. So it is off to the races yet again to shed those unwanted pounds.

It was worth it. The food was delicious on the holidays and I got to sleep in every single day and I didn't feel guilty for indulging. If I am going to indulge, I might as well enjoy it and this holiday I actually did enjoy it for once.

I have been extraordinarily busy at work. I haven't had time to work out or blog until now. I got a bit of a reprieve on having to work so hard yesterday. I was told that my due date for one task was not this Thursday but could extend into after the holidays are over. Phew. That gives me some breathing space.

We went out to dinner last night at an Indian restaurant called Shiva. I enjoyed my dish of butter chicken although it was a bit spicy for me. I'm very sensitive to spicy foods. I ate lots of bread and rice to ease the pain from the spicy food.

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178.5 lbs

Here is my weight record from 11/3/05 to today, 12/14/05. Went up and down the 5 lb roller coaster.

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You taste like tofu. You are a bit tasteless, but
you feel as smooth as silk. You're good for
the body and are preferred in the company of
hippies and health enthusiasts.


How do you taste?
brought to you by Quizilla

182.0 lbs

Having fun today mucking about with my Blog template. I added links to other blogs I read every so often. I want to figure out how to put my flickr photos on my blog page. I'll go have a read on flickr's pages to search for the answer.

Saturday, C. and I did a movie marathon. We watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, followed by Shopgirl, followed by Walk The Line. I enjoyed all three movies but I was mightly restless by the third movie.

Sunday we went to the Gay and Lesbian Sierra Club holiday party. There was a great turn out of 20+ people. A lot of very good cooks attended the party and brought great dishes. It was exceedingly difficult to not pig out on all the wonderful dishes. As a matter of fact, I did pig out. The white elephant gift exchange was a hoot. The gifts were outlandish and we all had fun trading the gifts and laughing at the particularly weird ones. C. proclaimed that the fuzzy "It" was the best one. We ended up with a castenet and gave away a couple of banana split glass bowls.

We got all our presents wrapped last night and put in boxes to be sent to Philadelphia and Cleveland. C. will be taking the boxes to the post office today.

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Sending Packages at Christmas

Here are results of my research on sending packages from Mountain View CA to Philadelphia PA of size 10 x 10 x 10 inches and weight from 1 to 5 pounds with a sending date of Dec. 6th. Fed-Ex ground turned out to be the best for packages weighing over 2 pounds while the USPS was the best for packages under 2 pounds. DHL and UPS were both more expensive. In terms of time of delivery, the USPS parcel post was the slowest at 8 days while Fed-Ex ground was the fastest at 5 days and DHL and UPS both came in at 7 days.

182.0 lbs

I gave a pint of blood this morning. The cookies and juice after giving blood were good. I had about four cookies and two cups of OJ. No strenuous exercising for 24 hours. That's cool as I got in my exercise at 7:30 a.m. this morning before I gave blood. Tomorrow I'll hold off on exercising till after 11 a.m.

Not sure if I am going to get a work out in today at work. So I might not have a weigh in today. Probably a good thing since I ate like a piggy yesterday -- the See's candy and M&M's we got for early Christmas presents were hard to resist. Also I was eating to feel better -- I have to come up with a better way to feel better that doesn't pack on the pounds.

Had a nice hike at Coyote Hills on Saturday. It was a very crisp sunny day. Sunday was a lazy day at home spent reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of something or other, watching Tennessee beat Stanford in women's basketball on TV, and doing a jig saw puzzle.

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It was a fun long weekend. Thursday and Saturday were full of family visiting and Thanksgiving feasts (one feast at my brother's house in San Francisco and one feast at Charlotte's parent's house in Carmel). I'm emotionally drained from all the socializing and pining for a day or two all to myself!

Friday we were going to go hiking but it was rainy out so instead we went to see the movie The Whale and the Squid. The movie was good. After the movie we hit the crowded stores to buy some Christmas stuff. Yesterday we went on a long hilly hike. We climbed 2500 feet and hiked roughly 8 or 9 miles. I'm really wiped out physically today from that hike. The long steep hills were what really wore me out. We hiked for 6 hours and 20 minutes. Phew. I loved it but it was tiring.

I now need another vacation to recover from my vacation. Instead, here I am at work. At least my next vacation is only 4 weeks away. I get Dec 23 '05 to Jan 2, '06 off from work.

181.5 lbs

Two thanksgiving dinners coming tomorrow and Saturday nights. Hopefully the big hikes we have planned will help us burn off the calories we eat at the feasts: 8 to 13 miles at Calero County park on Friday and 18 miles on Sunday (Santa Cruz mountains to the beach).

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Another lame excuse for the weight gain ... I gained muscle not fat!

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Eee Gad ... 5 pounds gained in one weekend! :-( :-( :-(

Possible explanations:

• I ate a lot this past weekend -- more than four mile hikes on Saturday and Sunday could burn.
• The time of the month has me gaining water weight -- seems a bit early though at 10 days till my period and 5 pounds seems a bit excessive for a little water weight gain.
• The weight machine was recalibrated over the weekend -- my favorite explanation but I doubt its true.
• I weighed myself after lunch in the afternoon rather than in the morning before lunch -- but I don't think that could account for 5 pounds.

Needless to say ... I'm quite disappointed in this weight gain. Now I weigh more than when I started to try and lose weight ... Grrrrr. I'm exercising regularly. I just have to stop eating so much calorie filled junk food.

179 lbs

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181 lbs

Time to rethink the weight goal. Its Nov 15 and I'm 181. That means to get down to 160 by Christmas I have to lose (181-160)/(Dec 25-Nov15) = 0.52 lb per day or 3.64 lb per week. I think losing 2 lbs a week is more reasonable. So my new goal is going to be 170 lbs by Christmas.

This test result feels like a good fit to me -- especially the bit about my first date being "walking around aimlessly and talking." I really like that first date. I definitely have a laid back flirting style.

Your Heart Is Green

Love completes you, but that doesn't mean you seek it out. When love comes your way, you integrate it peacefully into the rest of you life.

Your flirting style: Laid back

Your lucky first date: Walking around aimlessly and talking

Your dream lover: Is both enthusiastic and calm

What you bring to relationships: Balance

What Color Heart Do You Have?

180 lbs

I have been trying to lose weight and get in better shape lately with a dim goal of getting down to 160 lbs by Christmas and continuing on to an eventual goal of 140 lbs by whenever. Last week I weighed in at 183 lbs, perhaps the heaviest I have ever been. Ug. I can feel the extra weight when I go hiking and hit those steep hills. It pains me to have regained all the weight I lost several years ago. I guess I'm just your typical yo yo type. I haven't figured out how to get myself to maintain the weight when I reach my weight goal.

This week I have gone to the gym at work every day so far and worked out on the treadmill for 40 minutes. I spend 5 minutes at a walking pace to warm up, run at 5.2 mph for 30 minutes, and spend 5 minutes at a walking pace cooling down. I do a wee bit of stretching afterwards. I probably should do more stretching but I don't. The treadmill machine reports to me that for my efforts I have burned 360 calories and walked/run 3 miles.

I have had a good week at work. I am at the coding stage of my current project and really my favorite thing to do at work is write code. I thought my favorite part would be designing the code but after one experience of that, I prefer writing the code from an exisiting design to doing the design. I think if I wasn't so new at this work, I might prefer the design work. Its just hard to design something when you don't know much about how things work.

This weekend I plan on going geocaching by bike on Sunday in Half Moon bay with my geocaching buddies. Before we start we are having a pancake breakfast at V's house. Yummmm! ccc is joining us for the breakfast but has to work Sunday at noon so will pass on the geocaching. I'm not sure what ccc and I will be up to tomorrow -- Frontrunners, hiking, and/or doing chores are possible things we might do.

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Inverness Inn was beautiful and Point Reyes and Tomales bay were great.

We got checked in early on Friday and then took a nap. That night we drove at dusk to the Point Reyes light house. It was foggy and the sun was setting. The crowds were gone and we mostly had the place to ourselves. The path to the light house was closed though so we had to hang out on the beautiful platform above the light house rather than see it up close and personal. We saw lots of nature out at dusk: deer, mice, and a hare. We heard lots of sea lions but couldn't see them because of the fog.

Saturday we slept in. We did a little hiking at Tomales bay state park and hung out on a little beach there for a while. We had dinner out at Barnabys: decent food, slow service -- but we were forewarned about the slow service by a staff member at the Inn.

Sunday we slept in again. We had breakfast in the room and then packed up to check out by 11 a.m. We then headed to Drakes beach and sat on a log watching the waves and people and surfers. We also grabbed some fish and chips at the Drakes beach cafe. It was a nice lazy late morning and early afternoon. We left for home at 3ish.

Inverness Inn is a very nice place to stay. My only regret was we never got around to checking out the hot tub or the swimming pool (our room was right near the pool so at one point we did over hear that the pool was freezing). I would love to stay there for another weekend some day.

you are mediumauqamarine #66CDAA

Your dominant hues are cyan and green. Although you definately strive to be logical you care about people and know there's a time and place for thinking emotionally. Your head rules most things but your heart rules others, and getting them to meet in the middle takes a lot of your energy some days. Your saturation level is medium - You're not the most decisive go-getter, but you can get a job done when it's required of you. You probably don't think the world can change for you and don't want to spend too much effort trying to force it. Your outlook on life is brighter than most people's. You like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. You're not exactly a bouncy sunshine but things in your world generally look up.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Weekend Escape!

Charlotte and I are going to Point Reyes this weekend to the Inverness Inn. We leave tomorrow morning and come back Sunday night. I have tomorrow off from work. I'm looking forward to a somewhat computer free weekend with hiking, swimming, geocaching, reading, and relaxing among the activities of choice. Charlotte might do some painting or drawing while I'm geocaching.

My case of poison oak is slowly healing. I did put some Aveeno cream on my arm this morning as the little spot there was itching awfully. The cream helped.

I did a lot of hiking this past weekend. On Friday I did a little geocaching after work and walked 2 miles to find Sharon's geocaches in Hellyer park. On Saturday I led a 8.3 mile hike for GLS at Joe Grant County Park. On Sunday I went off with geocaching buddies to find caches at Skyline and Long Ridge. I think we hiked at least 8 miles yesterday. My feet are sore today. I had planned to go the gym but I might skip it today to give my body a chance to recover a little more.

The poison oak has gotten worse. Check out the pictures:

http://people.delphiforums.com/CDRDASH/images/cathyspoisonoak.jpg

http://people.delphiforums.com/CDRDASH/images/charlottespoisonoak.jpg

Charlotte and I went to visit her friend, S, this weekend. S lives in the Santa Cruz mountains in a small cottage with a marvelous deck and an awesome view of the Pacific ocean in the distance. We went hiking on the property first. At one point we were bushwacking and went through some poison oak. I tried to avoid it but failed. Alas both Charlotte and I got poison oak. Charlotte seems to have a bit more than I. I have small patches on my hip, elbow, and calf. They don't itch too much so far. Knock on wood.

Charlotte's car is in the shop. Her ignition switch was burned out. Who knew that ignition switches run around $300.00. And who knows what damage was done elsewhere by the switch burning out. Hopefully today the part will arrive and they can install it and do the tests to see what else might be damaged. I really hope nothing more is damaged and the labor costs don't get too steep.

They are building a new office here at work in my part of cube city. I just heard a power drill making noise. I'll be glad when its done and the noise stops. The office is for a new executive. They pulled apart two cubes in the area and are now putting up walls (floor to ceiling) and a door and fixing up the air conditioning etc.

Understanding- Your inner power is Understanding! Lifes many mysteries have become your ultimate goal to work out. You are neither a good or bad person, just very neutral, very stable. You look down on nothing or anyone, merely observe their point of view and make no judgments. You can be seen as very shadowy and uncertain in what you believe in to an outsider, but this isnt always true. You simply dont flaunt your views around. You have a few, close friends who rely on you, and love you for the way your never scorn for the way they live their lives. You are very caring and would make a great mother, seeing you always try to help those who come to you for your aid. You are extremely hard to anger, and yet when you are, your forgiveness is hard to gain. You are loyal, secretive, very quiet and often impassive, with few able to break around the wall that you built to protect yourself. Not everyone acknowledges you even exist, but you dont really care. As long as you have your close friends by your side, you are right to go. Although they might not voice it, many people long to have your ability to accept change as well as what cant be changed. Dont ever let others bring you down, because you are truly special, and those who have the courage to venture passed your walls of silence will only regret not having tried to befriend you sooner.

Boy/Girl who will sweep you off your feet:
The mysterious boy/girl. The one who no one knows much about. You are attracted to him/her by the secrecy around him/her, and he/she loves how stable and unjudging you are.
Your stone/jewel: Sapphire
Your power: Life. The ability to bring those who have died back to life, as well as bring life back into those who have lost all hope.
Your element: Lunar
A quote that applies to you: "Do not be 'against' anything. Being 'against' weakens you. Be 'for' what you want. Being 'for' empowers you."

What's your inner power? (Girls only sorry. Beautiful anime pictures, lengthy results)
brought to you by Quizilla

Another weekend gone.

Saturday Charlotte and I joined a friend for a 3 mile walk at the Baylands before the Bayland's Frontrunner's walk. We walked on the usual path which was marked as closed by the time we finished our loop. So for the second loop, we had to go on the Front Runner's "rain route." On the second walk, Charlotte and I walked very fast. We got challenged by some dudes to catch them if we could so (they were on their way back from the turn around point and we were on our way there) we did. We booked and managed to pass them. We really got some good exercise! After the walk (almost run) we went to the Baylands Brunch. We snarfed down donuts, bagels, coffee, peanuts, and fruit and basically replaced all those calories we just burned. We met some lesbians new to Front Runners and had a nice chat with them. We also got to know some Front Runners that we just never had managed to meet much before: a lesbian couple who brings their little kids with them on most Saturday walk/runs.

Sunday, we slept in. We had some brunch and then went to see the movie Lord of War: a good but disturbing movie about a gun runner. After the movie we did some chores and then headed out for a hike at Rancho San Antonio. We hiked 8 miles. We hiked up to the top of the PG&E trail. Its about 4 miles up 1000 feet of elevation and we hiked fast. We hiked from 2:45 p.m. to around 6:00 p.m. It felt good to get in some more vigorous exercise. That night we had a light dinner at home and watched TV. It was a pretty good weekend.

This past Saturday Charlotte and I walked downtown to get some exercise and check out the Mountain View Art and Wine festival. We walked around for a couple hours looking at booths and munching on various junk food (pastries from the Hong Kong bakery, garlic fries, ice cream, a slice of pizza, and a coke). I got a new hat. Its a white hat with a big brim made to help protect the face and head from the sun. It works well and looks nice. I wore it on the walk home with my old hat lanyard around my neck and the hat hanging down my back. Charlotte found the hat and it was marked as costing $10.00. It turns out it was actually an $18.00 hat that someone labeled incorrectly. They sold it to us for $10.00 since the tag was their mistake.

Sunday, I went off to San Bruno County park to lead a hike for OAW while Charlotte went off to walk in the "Run for the Community" event put on by Front Runners. I headed to a park-n-ride to meet folks for the OAW hike. Alas, not a soul showed up so I was on my own. I had suspected this might happen as no one had inquired about the hike at all. My back up plan in this event was to go geocaching at San Bruno County park on my own. I found four caches: two up on the mountain and two below the mountain. It was a foggy windy day. It was cool sitting at the top of the peak, eating lunch, and watching the fog blow around the peak.

When I got home Charlotte was home. She had a good time at the race and managed to get a T-shirt for me at no extra cost as a friend of ours didn't want her t-shirt so Charlotte snagged it for me. I took a long shower when I got home as while hiking around I brushed up against some poison oak. I carefully took off all my cloths and put them in the washing machine and then cleaned my self up with Tecnu soap followed by a shower. Cross your fingers that I got all the poison oak oil off of me!

After my shower, Charlotte and I watched the movie Cold Mountain on DVD. It was good although a little violent and bloody (its about the civil war). I enjoyed the second movie we watched in the evening more. It was called "Door to Door". It was made in 2002. Charlotte found it at the Mountain View library. I recommend seeing it if you haven't done so already.

The work week is almost over. I'm quite busy at work on my newest assignment. Did I mention that I have been having to work overtime?

This weekend I lead an OAW hike on Sunday to San Bruno County Park. I should probably post a reminder to the list. Charlotte is opting out as she is going to participate in Front Runner's Run For the Community race on Sunday. She should get a nice T-shirt with her friend's Terri's art work on it in addition to the satisfaction that she contributed towards supporting good causes in the GLBT community (I think I missing some letters in there).

Last night I attended the Loma Prieta GLS board meeting. We discussed what we might do if we can't find anyone to be on the board next year. I'm not going to serve again. I'm over extended with volunteer work right now and I need to let something go and GLS is the unlucky candidate. We think that if no one comes forward we will have to let LP GLS go dormant. We'll discuss what that means if we hear from the nominating committee that they had no luck getting volunteers.

Labor day weekend is over. Charlotte and I stayed home most of the weekend.

We did go hiking on Sunday to Wunderlich after a nice brunch at Denny's. We hiked to the meadow and then hiked to the Salamander pond where we stopped to see if we could find some newts. We did. There were lots of them floating on the surface of the pond. We spotted them at first by seeing the algae on the pond move. Then we could peer in the water and see the newt under the motion!

Yesterday we had a dinner party at our place. Four friends came over for dinner at 6ish. We served a very simple dinner of pastrami sandwiches with lots of good fixings (romaine lettuce, onions, tomatos, mayo, horseradish sauce, and several types of mustard). We had some cut up apple too. We served Charlotte's sister's husband's excellent wine. For desert we had ice cream. We had purchased coffee to serve which was my responsibility to make but no one wanted coffee. Oh well.

Saturday we spent almost all day watching movies on DVD or on TV. Sometimes a day of couch potato'ing is fun.

I'm free now! The fire deparment gave the all clear for the chemical spill and we are free to go outside if we want now. That's cool. I can go home on time. I hope the traffic is normal on the drive home and not messed up by some traffic residue from the accident.

I'm trapped at work! There has been a chemical spill at Bernal and 85. Its sulfuric acid I believe that leaked out of tanker truck. We have been advised to stay inside the building until they get the spill cleaned up since breathing acid fumes is not a good thing. They don't know how long we'll be stuck in here.

Ten hour days at work are not my cup of tea. I decided to work 10 hour days the weeks of July 25-29 and August 1-5 so I could take July 29 and Aug 1 off for a camping trip and still get my 40 hour week in. I have determined after today (my last 10 hour day) I am not going to try this again. 10 hour days are just too much for me. It doesn't leave much down time at the end of the day. Next time I need a day off I'll use some vacation instead.

The GLS camping trip in the Eastern Sierra's was awesome. Check out my pictures. Charlotte and I had a great hike from Lake Sabrina to Blue Lake!

Wen asks ...
So, RQOTD: How much PTO/Vacation/Sick leave do you get?

I get ...

Vacation: 10 days/year
Sick: 6.5 days/year
Holidays: 11 days/year

Four of my holidays are for a year end company shutdown for the last week of December.

If there were a competition for weird sounds your digestion system makes, I think I would be winning now. I'm wondering just what folks around me are thinking of these sounds. Fortunately there are not that many folks around me at the moment. Oh well.

C and I went to Santa Cruz pride yesterday. It was mostly fun but my legs had a reaction to the sun screen lotion and itched like crazy for a while. What finally calmed them down was baking them in the sun. What a relief that was. We watched the parade first. The radical fairies had the best float with a down in the sea theme. There were brightly colored sea horses being carried around by mostly naked men painted various colors (blue, gold, black), a truck with mermaids on it, and a couple of guys running around with umbrellas decorated to look like jelly fish when the umbrella was opened. The SF cheerleaders were fun as usual. I didn't know anyone in the parade but C did. She ran over to say hello. Its always sort of fun to have a parade participant wave at your and run over and say hi.

After the parade we checked out the festival. I only saw one famaliar face at first at the Triangle speakers booth. C and I checked out all the booths and snagged candy from some booths and entered some raffles. We found a spot on the lawn in front of the stage and ate lunch. We watched the cheerleaders on the stage and listened to some proclamations (YAWN!). After getting bored of proclamations we left to head to the movie theatre to see crash. On our way out we ran into R and had a nice chat and then we ran into T and L and walked with them to downtown SC. They were off to eat.

We saw the movie Crash at 2:15 p.m. Its a good movie but a little disturbing. Its sort of about racism. After the movie we went to Saturn Cafe for chocolate madness. We were a bit mad to be thinking we could each eat one. Neither of us finished our madnesses. After our indulgence we headed to Natural Bridges State Park to hang out on the beach. That was nice. We had a very relaxing time just doing the tiny walk from rock to rock on the little beach, playing in the water, digging holes in the sand for our feet so we had a nice chair of sorts, and just watching the boogie boaders, little kids playing in the sand, the kite flyers, and the pelicans. We left at 7 p.m. and had an uneventful drive home.

At home we watched a DVD. We just got netflicks and are having fun watching all sorts of movies. Last night we watched part of a French movie called "Amour de Femme." Tonight we may finish watching it or maybe tomorrow. We got about 2/3 of the way through it before it was time for bed.

What a long hard week it was last week. I can't go into the details in this public forum though. Sorry to entice you so. Please send relaxing vibes my way. I'm still coming off all the stress and angst I went through last week.

The visit with my folks went well.

• Thursday: after a day of work drove to SF, greeting my parents, watched my nieces practice gymnastics followed by dinner at my brother's, drove back to Mtn. View
• Friday: after a day of work, drove to SF, watched two of my nieces do a dance performance (they were great) followed by dinner out, drove back to Mtn. View
• Saturday: drove to Carmel, had lunch with Charlotte's parents, hiked at Pt. Lobos, ate dinner out with Charlotte's parents, drove back to Mtn. View with my parents, got them settled in our room, and got some shut eye
• Sunday: slept in a little, hung out in the a.m. with Mom and Dad, had lunch, drove to SF, visited the gross anatomy lab where A works (yes, I saw some cadavars a.k.a dead people), went on a walk at Golden Gate Park, ate dinner at my brother's, drove back to Mtn. View
• Monday: got up at 5:45 a.m., took Mom and Dad to the airport, returned home, showered, ate breakfast, and went to work.

Phew! It was fun but exhausting. We did lots of talking and lots of driving and lots of watching. My parents looked pretty tired when I dropped them at the airport on Monday. Now they are happily settling in at Dyers Bay for the summer. They arrived there last Friday.

This weekend was much more relaxing. Charlotte and I went hiking at Point Reyes. We hiked out to Arch Rock. It hike started off in the clouds but it was sunny with blue sky at Arch Rock. We ate lunch on the rock. We saw a couple of gray whales from the rock. It was very exciting. It was a Mom and her baby as best we could tell. Sunday I slept in a bit. Charlotte went off to be with her Mother in Carmel for Mother's day. I called my Mom and had a nice talk with her. Then I spent the day just puttering around and doing chores (laundry, balancing my check book, and backing up my computer files) and enjoying the time by myself to regroup and think about the tough week I had last week.

Its early morning at work. I'm drinking my ritual cup of decaf coffee with cream and sugar. It is Peet's coffee but I'm thinking that the generic brands suit me just as well so I'll probably save some money and get a generic brand when the current bag of Peets runs out. I'm not much of a coffee connoisseur.

Mom and Dad arrive today. Bob is picking them up at the airport around 11 a.m. Tonight we drive to SF to see them. We are going to watch Eva and Marlena practice their gymnastics for a little bit and then go back to Bob and Anne's for dinner. After dinner is over we'll probably head home so I can get to bed. I'm off for another day at work tomorrow at 7 a.m.

Charlotte sent me this chocolate math thing. However it could also be called your age by asparagus math or by whipped cream math or etc. etc.

Your age by Chocolate Math

1. Pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50 -- I'll wait while you get the calculator .
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1755 .... If you haven't, add 1754.
   Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number . The first digit of this was your original number (i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week). The next two numbers are your age! (Oh yes it is!!!!!) This is the only year (2005) it will ever work.

My result was 744. Yup ... I would like to have chocolate every day of the week and I am 44. I'm too lazy to figure out why this works but I'm sure I could.

Mmmmm ... organic Gorgonzola tomato soup with a nice slice of sour dough bread to sop it up with -- lunch at work this fine Tuesday at 11:40 ish.

I find myself squeezing into my trousers and lagging on hikes. I think its time to lose some weight and get back in good hiking condition. Charlotte may join me in this quest. The party this weekend didn't help much. We both downed lots of delicious pot luck food -- squash soup, a tasty salad (asparagus, mango, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and shrimp), brownies laced with espresso, maple/chocolate squares, a decadent chocolate cake, quiche, and cheese and crackers. All the leftovers are gone now.

This weekend Mom and Dad visit us. It will be a short visit packed full of driving and visiting. Thursday and Friday Mom and Dad will be in SF and we'll drive up after my work to join in the fun. Saturday we take Mom and Dad to Monterey and Carmel to visit with Charlotte's folks and have dinner at their house. Mom and Dad will spend the night with us. Sunday its back to SF for a day of visiting Anne's lab among other activities and then back to Mtn. View. Charlotte will probably take Mom and Dad to the airport Monday morning unless their flight is very early in which case I'll take them before I head to work.

The GLS newsletter is just about done. Being newsletter chair is one week of intense business followed by being mellow the weeks until the next newsletter. I do have to go to board meetings once a month. The next newsletter will be July/August so I'll be busy again at the end of June. Actually I'm volunteering at the gay pride booth and will be helping Tina get it nicely decorated. Come to think of it ... we are supposed to be meeting soon to talk about the ideas we have for the booth.

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday dear Cathy

Happy Birthday to me!

I'm 44 today. I like being 44 so far. I'm actually roughly 44 years and 12 hours old right now. I was born in the wee hours of the morning ... 12:30 a.m. EDT March 24, 1961 in Columbus, Ohio at University hospital.

I opened some nifty presents this morning. Lets just say I'm all set to go shopping at REI and do a jigsaw puzzle. I got some cool birthday cards too. Charlotte found one that says "Happy Birthday, girlfriend." One had a cute picture of a little girl with a puppy. The third had a wonderful nature scene on it. Tonight Charlotte and I are off to the Fish Market for a birthday celebration dinner.

We were going to go backpacking for my birthday but I decided I didn't really want to go backpacking. It just seemed like too much work and I was worried we would get rained on and be wet and cold and uncomfortable. So I called off the trip. Maybe we'll go in April or May when the weather is a bit more reliable but still cool enough for Henry Coe where we planned on going.

Work is going well. I like the project I am assigned to.

I'm testing out the comments with this post.

Things have changed a bit since my last post. I have a job at Northrop Grumman. I have a domestic partner duly registered with the state of California, Charlotte, and we are living together. I have a gold ring on my left hand (ack ... me ... who never wears jewelry ... now wears a ring) signifying my committment to Charlotte. I have bifocals (the kind without the telling little line -- progressives) and new glass' frames which makes me look a bit more feminine so Charlotte says. I have a PDA now which I won in a raffle and I am having a grand time using it. I didn't get season tickets to Stanford women's basketball (Pac 10 champs again!!) this year but had fun at two games thanks to Moonshadow's generosity. I have gained weight yet again and am trying to lose it yet again. I am no longer at Kaiser after 17 years of giving them my business. I have been venturing out with my new insurance and seeing new docters this winter. The only constant in my life seems to be change.

Ack ... major non-blogging time since January. I would have thought being unemployed would leave me with lots of time to blog but ... no ... it doesn't. Job hunting is keeping me busy as is my new relationship that is almost one years old now (May 17 I'll have known Charlotte for a year).

Charlotte and I went on a backpack trip a couple weekends ago. We drove to the Henry Coe Hunting Hollow entrance on Wednesday morning and hiked 6.3 miles and 1500+ feet up to Kelly Lake. We set up camp there and did day hikes or hanging out for the next 3 days.

On day one we had a challenging hike to Pacheco Falls. It was a steep up followed by a long gradual down to the Falls. Then we had to retrace our steps to return. We climbed 2000 feet and hiked 9 miles. We got to see a nice garter snake on the way up the hill near the Falls. On the way we searched for two geocaches and found neither one of them. That was annoying. The falls did not have much water in them but were still beautiful to look at. The place where you could view the falls was riddled with poison oak so we didn't get to sit and eat lunch while admiring the view. I took a couple of nice pictures. Charlotte did a sketch but not of the falls.

On day two we just stayed at the lake all day. We did attempt to walk around the lake but found the route had too much poison oak on it so instead we found a nice shady spot in the trees with a view of the lake. I read allowed to Charlotte while she did a sketch. One fellow showed up on Friday so we no longer had the lake to ourselves. He was real quiet and unobtrusive though so it still felt like we were sorta alone. We got in a skinny dip!

On day three, Saturday, we went off on a day hike on an unmaintained trail. We failed to stay by the creek and lost the little indication of trail that was there. We ended up having to bushwack up hill through very thick dense bushes. We were both a little worried but after looking at the maps we realized if we just kept at it we would eventually find one of the three trails that surrounded the area we were in. We finally did break out of the bushes on to a delightful grassy hillside. We had lunch and revelled in the lack of bushes. After lunch we hiked up the grassy hills and found one of the trails and got back on course. Both of us had many wonderful scratches to show off our adventure on our arms and legs. We also tempted the poison oak goddess many times. After the hike we tecnu'ed ourselves and went swimming in the lake. That felt good. In the end Charlotte got a bit of poison oak and I managed to avoid it altogether. I'm not quite sure how I did that!! That night we gave each other massages while listening to the big group of 10 people camped on the other side of a hill from us. We missed our privacy of the previous nights.

We saw and heard lots of animals. Here is the list I made: garter snake, wild turkey, horned toad, mystery red bug, toad, mouse, turtle, coots, ruddy ducks, bats, swallows, red wing blackbirds, fish, bumble bees, ants, locust with orange wings, deer, hawk, turkey vulture, lizard, squirrel, frog, quail, dove, owl, malards, malard ducklings, orange red dragon fly, and a gopher. The gopher let us use his home for our kitchen ;-) It was cute to see his little head poke out of a hole nearby as we cooked dinner.

On this trip Charlotte and I got to know our camping routine together better. We figured out how we like to cook dinners (who does what and how we do it), ways to be more comfortable in the tent, etc. I got upset about some stuff and it all came out the day we were hiking out. I can say now that one unique way to get up a steep hill with a backpack on is to cry about stuff and discuss it with your girlfriend and use that to distract you from the discomfort of the uphill! The hill seemed to be over very quickly because we were so busy discussing things and working things out. Phew. We did a decent job of communicating and I felt better on the long downhill slog to the cars. It was a good trip. We look forward to doing more backpacking trips together.

I'm at a low point right now in my job search. That's because I got another rejection today. Those always hit me hard and it takes me a while to get my confidence back. This time I didn't get another interview because I didn't answer the "C" programming question with enough depth. Sigh. At least I did have a phone interview. I had a couple of real interviews in April but did not get the jobs. At least it was good to know that I could at least get job interviews. I need to keep plugging away. I have joined a group called
ProMatch. Its a nice networking, informational, and support group for finding a job. I highly recommend it to others searching for a job.

Oh ... pictures from backpacking will soon be up at my Webshots site. Look for the obvious folder which I will label something like Henry Coe Backpack May 2004. Feel free to check out other albums too.

OK .. so what has happened to me since Oct 15. I was indeed laid off at the end of October. My last day at work was October 31st. I have been searching for a job ever since.

I did most of my searching via web sites and some networking in November and December. With the coming of the new year I have been buckling down and really working on the job search. I went to an ASME meeting called "Building a Whole Career." At this presentation I heard about ProMatch and decided to look into what it was. I went to a ProMatch foundation workshop meeting the first Friday of January at a place called the Connect Center in Sunnyvale. It is a great resource center for job searching. They do workshops on resume writing, interviewing, networking, and career exploration. Last Friday I went to the ProMatch orientation meeting and filled out lots of forms and got on the ProMatch waiting list. The group is very popular and very effective in helping folks to find work. They estimated that it will be 5 weeks before we are contacted and asked if we want to join the group. While I wait, I'll be taking the free workshops at Connect center. I'll keep going until I have done all of them or found a job

I have been doing pretty well with networking. I sent an email to everyone I could think of in October telling them I was job searching. I also went to 3 holiday parties and mentioned to folks at these parties that I was looking for a job. I also networked at a FrontRunner's coffee after the Saturday morning run. I'm trying to get more involved with SWE again. I volunteered to be the SCV web master. I have been watching the meetings to try and attend them and also the monthly lunch get togethers. I'm slowly getting better at networking and understanding how to use it to my advantage in a job search.

CCC and I have had lots more time together since I was laid off. The honeymoon is over and we are both working hard at improving our communication and getting used to each other's foibles. This has taken up much of the time I am not job searching. I have little time left for blogging. CCC and I have gone on many wonderful hikes this fall and winter: Santa Teresa county park, Briones regional park, Diablo foothill regional park, Uvas Canyon, Point Lobos, Nisene Marks, Fall Creek, Skyline Open Space Preserve, Castle Rock, and Henry Coe are the ones that come to mind.

CCC and I went to Philadelphia for Christmas to my sister's house. My parents were there too. CCC got to meet half my family. Now the only person she hasn't met is my younger brother, David. I have met all of her siblings and her parents. We had a nice visit to her parent's in Carmel about a week ago. We hiked at Pt. Lobos and had a wonderful Thai dinner afterwards.

CCC is quite the movie buff so I have seen lots of movies on the big screen and on DVD or VCR. We have found the video section at the Mtn. View library and have taken out many movies to watch. Its free of charge although there is a steep late fee. We watched the Shipping News and Two Week's Notice recently. I liked the Shipping News. The scenery of Nova Scotia was marvelous and I liked the story. Two Week's Notice was funny and a good movie to cheer us up after watching Tuesdays with Morie earlier in the day.