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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

I'm 57% compatible with treegrrrl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. It's so definitive


2. It's a sordid fairy tale


3. It's a sorta fantasy


4. It's a sorta fairy tale

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

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

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

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