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

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


8. Dont use any punctuation marks


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


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


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


12. Sing along at the opera.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gay Bear


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Found some cool web sites while surfing today:

• Elder Wisdom Circle


• Volunteer Match


• Webby Awards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Skating in San Jose

At the Stanford vs UCLA basketball game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Cathy, you're a Type 1 - The Idealist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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