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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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


cathy is perpetually single

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OK lets check out astrology.com's horoscope:

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

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

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

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

A cute joke:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congrats to Dr. Wen or should we say Professor Minkoff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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