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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. It's so definitive


2. It's a sordid fairy tale


3. It's a sorta fantasy


4. It's a sorta fairy tale

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to look at two new Big Sur pictures

Got this off of my depression support list

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

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

Big Sur Pictures, November 25,26, 2002

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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