Double Dose of Hiking

I did a double dose of hiking this weekend: Windy Hill on Saturday and Garin/Dry Creek park on Sunday.  Both hikes were about 8 miles long with blue skies, sun, and temperatures in the low 70Fs just about perfect hiking weather.

I was nervous about Saturday's hike.  I was a first time leader for the San Francisco Hiking Club and due to park rules about group hiking, I had to limit the hike to 20 people.  I spent last week fielding RSVPs and hoping that I did not get more than 20 people wanting to come on the hike.    I was also fretting about the fact that the parking lot at the Portola entrance fills up by mid morning and the hike was due to start at 10 am and I wasn't sure if people would find parking on the street if the lot was full.  In the end 15 people RSVPed and the parking lot did fill up but we all found parking either in the lot or on the street outside the lot.

Three cars (myself included) took a gamble and parked on the street despite a sign that said that overflow parking was .4 miles down the road and to not park on the street.  I decided that the place I parked was off the street enough to not count as parking on the street.  It was a little sketchy to assume that but in the end I did not get a parking ticket and neither did any of the other participants.  Its a fact of life you get used to in California that parking lots will fill up and you'll have to scramble for finding alternate places to park.  I do prefer to lead hikes to places where parking is not a problem so I may put this park on my list of parks where I will not lead big hikes.

Windy Hill

Once all 15 of us got to the park successfully and were safely parked my nerves calmed down considerably and we were off on our 8 mile hike.  We started the hike on a flat bit of trail through the meadow and past Sausal pond and then started our ascent in the warm sun on the Spring Ridge trail.  The further up the trail we hiked, the more views: Stanford University tower and dish, Mission Peak, Moffett Field, Mt Diablo, San Francisco, Oakland, and the San Francisco bay.   When we reached the top of Windy Hill we could see both San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean on the other side of Skyline ridge.  We had lunch up on top.

On the way down after lunch we saw some daffodils on the hill side.  One of our party told us that a gardening group got permission a couple of years ago to plant the flowers and he was the one who spotted the flowers.  Later on Hamms Gulch trail we saw trilliums and hounds tongue wild flowers and enjoyed the cool of the forest out of the bright sun light.

Trillium

Hounds Tongue

We finished our loop at 1:50 pm and I basked in the glow of lots of compliments about the hike from the participants.   Its always nice to get thank you's from the participants after a hike is done especially for a hike that I was nervous about leading!

Sunday's hike with Loma Prieta Gay and Lesbian Sierrans at Garin/Dry Creek park was more mellow for me.  I was just a participant on this hike so did not have to worry about logistics or who would show up.  I just had to get myself to the car pool location and then head to the park and enjoy the hike!

Vulture in a tree at Garin Park

The hike started with a sighting of vultures circling in the air and then a vulture sitting in a tree with wings spread.  I have seen cormorants do this but never a vulture.   It was rather exciting and a little menacing!   After the vulture sightings we had a nice hike through a meadow on a few narrow bridges to cross creeks.  We stopped at Jordan pond for a snack break.  Then we headed up hill for nice views and some good

Jordan Pond

exercise.  At the top we saw piles of rocks scattered about and expounded upon theories as to why the rocks were so organized into piles.  We could not figure it out.  The best guess was farmers had moved the rocks to clumps to clear fields of the cows to graze in.

Piles of rocks at Garin park

We enjoyed hiking along the ridge to Gossip rock where we had lunch.   Its called Gossip rock as there are holes in the rock where Indians used to grind stuff and they would also gossip as they ground items!

Cathy at Gossip Rock

After lunch we descended down back to the parking lot through a more shaded part of the park.  We saw some wild turkeys and perhaps a red winged hawk and lots of poison oak!

Lots of poison oak growing off the trail!

We finished up the hike at about 2 pm and had hoped to walk through the gardens near the parking lot but discovered the garden was not open on Sundays.  Bummer!  So we made our way to our cars and said our good byes.  It was a wonderful mellow hike with lots of unique things to see and good conversation with the other participants.

March Exercise Goal

I have made a goal to exercise for 52 hours in March.   Why 52 you ask?  Because I'm going to be turning 52 on March 24 and because it was close to exercising 1 hour a day on week days and 3 hours a day on weekend days.  I have not been exercising enough lately and I'm hoping this will motivate me to do it.  I have only been exercising on weekends and saw the need to get exercise on week days.

So ... the tally so far

March 1:   0.000 hours
March 2:   4.000 hours hiking at Pinnacles National Park.  8.5 miles!
March 3:   2.000 hours walking at Fremont parks looking for geocaches!  5.5 miles!
March 4:   1.083 hours on elliptical, 375 calories, 3.5 miles.
March 5:   1.033 hours on treadmill, 3.6 miles, 791 feet.
March 6:   1.180 hours hiking at Shoreline, 4 miles.
March 7:   1.620 hours on treadmill and elliptical, 5.8 miles
March 8:   1.080 hours on elliptical
March 9:   3.000 hours hiking at Windy Hill
March 10: 3.400 hours hiking at Garin/Dry Creek
March 11: 2.000 hours walking to work and on elliptical
March 12: 1.000 hours walking to work

TOTAL:   21.480 hours

So I'm 41.3 percent to my goal.  I'll be reporting my progress on my blog as the month continues by editing this entry over and over!

Book vs e-book

I have owned a Kindle since July 24, 2012.   What motivated me to buy an electronic book reader was my desire to be able to travel with lots of reading material that didn't take up large parts of my luggage space.  I picked the Kindle brand because I shop mostly at Amazon.com and since Amazon makes the Kindle its nicely set up for me to buy e-books through them.   I also hoped that since it was also one of the first electronic readers to come out that they have smoothed out all the kinks.  The Kindle brand has been a good choice for me.  I'm happy with how it operates, how it looks, the ease at getting electronic books on it, and purchasing books for it.

The big question for me though was how it would compare to regular books.  Here is what I have found out so far since I started using the Kindle and continued to read regular books.

Book advantages:

1. I can leave a regular book sitting on a chair or table or beach blanket in public and not be terribly worried about whether its going to be stolen while I'm away unlike leaving my Kindle in these spaces. 
2. I can pick up a regular book and quickly envision my progress based on where the book mark is located.  I don't get that same kind satisfaction from looking at a bar chart on the bottom of the Kindle as to what percent progress I have made.  
3. With a book, I can give it or loan it to a friend quite easily or I can trade it in to a used bookstore for credit.  I'm not sure I can do that as easily with an e-book.
4. Not all books are in e-book format yet.  An example is I wanted to read Roger Zelazny's Dream Master book (published in 1966) but it was not available on Amazon.com in e-book format.  
5. There is a short time period on airplanes where you can't read e-books but you can read regular books.
6. My library does have e-books available but often the book I want is not in e-book format while it is on the shelf!
7. A book can sometimes serve as conversation starter and I have had fun discussions in waiting rooms or airport gates with someone about how they are enjoying their book or how I like my book.  This has not happened to me with an e-book.
8. I still prefer the touch and feel of a real book to the touch and feel of my Kindle.

E-book advantages:

1. I can buy new e-books just about anytime I want.  I don't have to wait for a bookstore to open or wait for the book to come in the mail after ordering it online. Its really fun to want to read a book and be able to buy it and start reading it in literally minutes!
2. It is handy to be able to set the text size for an e-book.  I can't change a book's text size.
3. An e-book is great for reading hefty sized books (think War and Peace).  The Kindle is small and light like a paper back book but you still have the entire hefty book inside it!
4. Its much easier to carry around lots of e-books than books!

I don't think I'm going to give up regular books any time soon.  I'll keep my Kindle and use it in the situations where its handy like while traveling or when I want to get and start reading a book right away, but for most of my reading I will probably continue to stick with regular books.  

Henry Coe Geocaching Adventure

I had a fabulous long day of geocaching and hiking at Henry Coe State park in the Hunting Hollow area yesterday, April 28, 2012, with my good friend, Sharon, otherwise know as Bykenut in the geocaching world.  I'm Hykenut.   So we're a nutty team!

We arrived at the Hunting Hollow entrance to Henry Coe at about 11 a.m.  The parking lot was unusually full and we saw four tall odd looking tents near the porta potties, lots of regular tents set up next to the creek, an outdoor kitchen, and folks hanging out near the sign up table.  We were musing what the tall tents were for when a lady near the table spoke up and told us they were shower tents and that the V.O. Cal (Volunteers for Outdoor CALifornia) was camping here and working on trail maintenance for the weekend.  She told us all about V.O. Cal.  It sounds like a really cool organization to volunteer for.  Maybe in my retirement years, I'll consider it.  After our talk with her and taking a bathroom break, Bykenut and I head off on the Steer Ridge trail.

Our first cache was about .1 mile from the start of the Steer Ridge trail.  The first cache we searched for took us the longest time to find.  This was a good thing as we had plenty of energy at the beginning of the day.  We spent 10 to 15 minutes searching all around this big old fallen tree trying to avoid the prickly sow-thistles  and not get close to the clumps of poison oak.  We had just about given up when we stepped back for one last look and I spotted a suspicious looking rock in a place we hadn't looked.  Bykenut was closer to it than I so she trundled over there and although it wasn't near the rock, she saw the cache on the ground near by.  Success at last!   We recorded our first find of the day and set off up the Steer Ridge trail.

We climbed up and up the Steer Ridge trail and stopped about every tenth of a mile to find another cache.  In the caching world there are rules about where caches can be located.  They must be at least a tenth of a mile apart.  Several geocacher hiders had worked hard hiding caches on the Steer Ridge trail and had put a cache just about every .1 mile!   At about the third or fourth cache, we failed to find the cache.  The clue for this particular cache was to use the step.  Bykenut is not much of a climber and is shorter than I so I was elected to use the step and climb into the tree.  I climbed up about three feet and could not spot any cache.  I then got nervous about being able to climb back down so gave up on going higher.  I looked and looked but did not see any cache within reach.  So we reluctantly agreed to call this one a DNF.  DNF is "Did Not Find."

The worst of the steep climb up Steer Ridge was over at the intersection of Jim Donnelly trail with Steer Ridge.  We stopped here under a wonderful shady tree (that also had a cache hidden near it!) for lunch and spotted the V.O.Cal volunteers working away on the Jim Donnelly trail.  They were digging on the trail and wheel barrows were being filled with dirt and the dirt offloaded elsewhere.  I could not see where they were going to offload the dirt.  It was a marvelous lunch stop.  I had a gaterade to restore my electrolytes lost on the hot sweaty climb up the steep bit of Steer Ridge and enjoyed my tuna sandwich.  Sharon had her cheese sandwich and her Cito Max drink.  We had to put on a layer as a breeze blew in and chilled us in our sweat soaked t-shirts.

After lunch the steep climbing was pretty much over.  We hiked on the rolling hills of Steer Ridge trail.  We found about 5 or 6 caches as we hiked along Steer Ridge and enjoyed the stunning views of the spring time green hills of Henry Coe.  Many fields were full of bright orange poppies.  We also saw fiddleheads and blue eyed grass along the trail.  We soon reached Wilson Peak where we had agreed to decide on the rest of the route.  We examined our maps and determined to continue on Steer Ridge trail  to Wilson Camp and pick up the Bowl Trail there and take it to Middle Steer Ridge trail back down to the Hunting Hollow trail and then to the parking lot.

It was two more miles on Steer Ridge trail to Wilson Camp.  Much of it was mild downhill and we saw more and more poppy fields and found 2 caches along the way.  When we got to Wilson Camp we took a break.  Its a real camp for backpackers and so had an outhouse.  Its always rather nice to be on a hike where you can use an outhouse rather than have to pee in the woods!   We had a snack at the picnic table there, found yet another geocache, and headed off on the Bowl trail.

The Bowl trail was just awesome.   We found oodles of caches on it and it hugged the hillside with mild ups and downs (nothing really steep) and great views.  I love being on trails that are new to me and turn out to be fantastic!   Towards the end of the trail, the plant environment suddenly changed for a small bit to sage and sticky monkey flowers.  I love sticky monkey flowers so was excited to see them and the sage smelled nice.  As we finished up the Bowl trail it was nearly 6 pm.  The late afternoon early evening light was very cool.

At 6ish, we started our descent to Hunting Hollow trail on the Middle Steer Ridge trail.   It was a nice trail with short steep sections mixed in with flatter sections.  They were nicely timed so that you could rest the sore weary feet or knees from the last steep section!  I made lots of use of my walking stick to ease the battering on my knees and keep from slipping down the steep bits.  We continued to find oodles of caches on this downhill but had to DNF another cache.  The clue for this cache was "a fallen log".  However all the fallen logs near the coordinates had lots of poison oak around them and I easily get poison oak so try to keep it at arms length distance.  We peered at the logs from a distance but could not spot the cache.  We finally gave up as we were tired and did not want to risk getting poison oak.   We continued our descent and found our last cache of the day at the bottom of the hill along side a creek.  It was my 31st find of the day.  I didn't know that at the time.  I had simply lost count of the caches we had found (I logged them all this morning and came up with the final count of 31)!

The last bit of our trip on Hunting Hollow trail was flat but required three creek crossings.  Fortunately the water was pretty low and there were always rocks to hop on to get across without plunging our boots into the water.  Well at least I didn't plunge my boots in.  I think Sharon lost her balance once and the toe of her boot went in the water.  She finished the hike with a wet sock but it was less than 1/2 a mile so didn't bother her.  We reached the cars at 7:30 p.m.  It was fun to arrive to a jolly group of V.O. Cal volunteers talking about their day of volunteering and finishing up their dinner.  Bykenut and I packed my car with our hiking gear, extracted our wallets and other civilization gear and headed to Gilroy where we had dinner at Applebys.  It was a nice ending to our grand geocaching adventure.

When the Blog Bug Bites

Phew.  This is the last day of NaBloPoMo.  I have come to the easy conclusion that I'm not a regular blogger and I prefer to blog whenever the blog bug bites me rather than do it regularly everyday.   Its more fun to write when the spirit moves me than at a designated time.  I suspect I will continue to blog at my usual snails pace of one or two blogs a month.    NaBloPoMo has not inspired me to blog more or to become more excited about blogging.  I'm not sure what I got out of it.  Perhaps the satisfaction that I made a promise to myself to do it and I succeeded.  Now that I know what it is like I probably won't participate again.  It was an interesting experiment and I'm still digesting what it told me about myself and my urge or not urge to write.

I'm off to watch a Stanford Women's basketball game tonight.  I nearly forgot about it until I got an email from the Stanford Women's Basketball publicity person reminding me of the game.  It was on my calendar also but I hadn't check the calendar out yet before that email.  I hate to miss a game as I paid good money for the tickets and the games are fun.  I do wish all the games were on weekends but alas about half of them are on work day evenings.   The PAC-12 games generally fall on Thursday and Saturday evenings every other week or starting in January till the beginning of March.  Tonights game is against an out of conference foe, UC Davis.

I got a new computer at work today and spent lots of time getting all the software upgraded that I need to do my job.   I didn't get much new work done but in the long run the new more powerful computer will help me do my job more efficiently.

Boring

Spent today figuring out sequence commands at work.  It sounds sort of boring but the main thing was I think I finally understand how the commands work.  Its fun to figure out something although a bit frustrating when the figuring out hasn't really resulted in any specific work getting done.  I have to think of the future when I'll be able to solve and fix the problems more quickly because of the time I spent to understand the commands.  Tomorrow I'll start using my new knowledge to debug the actual problem!!

After work, I went shopping at the drug store to get dental supplies. I have been approaching the end of the plaque rinse, the fluoride rinse, my dental floss, and my toothpaste.  Usually these items run out at different times.  I got two of everything at the drug store.  The grocery store doesn't carry the fluoride rinse my dentist recommends so I visited the neighborhood Walgreen's drug store.  As I was buying the stuff I remarked to the clerk that my teeth would be very clean.  I was hoping she would crack a smile but she didn't.

Head in the Sand

There is a part of me that just wants to stick my head in the sand when it comes to the Occupy movement and I'm feeling really guilty about that.  I have friends and family who are passionate supporters of the Occupy movement.  Perhaps I envy them their sureness that this is the right way to start fixing the unequal distribution of wealth in this country.    I am not as sure because I don't understand what is accomplished by camping for a long time in front of public places and I wonder what needs to happen before the occupiers will stop occupying public places.  I should probably get my head out of the sand and go read the Occupy movements web sites to further educate myself, eh?   My family has even admonished me to do so :-)   I should go search out that email and check out the web sites and put my head in the cloud rather than the sand!!

Restful Day

I was going to go on a long hike today but I woke up feeling so tired that I decided to just spend the day at home.   I watched the Jets vs Bills game in between falling asleep on the couch!   I managed to be awake for all but one touch down.  I'm presently listening to the Raiders play the Bears.  If I hear excited announcer voices, I turn around and watch the replay!  I'm not usually a big football fan but today I'm enjoying it.

I spent part of the afternoon transforming my dining room table from "where my lap top sits and mail piles up" to a clean table top with a jig saw puzzle spread out on it!   I had to sort through tons of junk mail.  Then I spent some time shredding this junk mail.  I had to take a break to clear jams from my shredder.  I guess I was working it too hard!  With the jam fixed, I shredded the rest of the junk mail and carted the shreds to the recycling bin in my condo complex.  Then I moved my lap top to a small dinner tray right next to the soon to be puzzle table.

I got out my hardest jigsaw puzzle and have spread all the pieces out on the table and I'm in the process of putting together the edges.  I find that doing jigsaw puzzles is very much a solitary pleasure for me.  When I do it with other people I have control issues.  I want them to do the puzzle exactly how I do it.  All the pieces must be spread out before you start putting any together.  Then you do the edges.  Then the middle.  I get frustrated when these procedures are not followed.

I also got the dishes done this afternoon and made myself a nice turkey sandwich with the left over turkey S. so kindly let me take home with me after the dinner last night.  The dinner at S's house was great.  She is an excellent cook and made many delicious dishes.  We also had some high quality wines with dinner and port to finish off the meal!  

Hiking and Thanksgiving Two

Busy day today so I better get my NaBloPoMo post done early this morning.  I'm going hiking with the Loma Prieta Gay and Lesbian Sierra Club at Alum Rock park.  The park is in southeast San Jose.  We are going to do the Boccardo loop trail and hike on the south and north rim trails.  I believe we are pretty much going to hit most of the trails in the park.  In all its supposed to be an 8 mile hike with roughly 1500 feet of elevation gain.  It will be good to get some exercise and burn of a small portion of my second Thanksgiving dinner after the hike is over.  When the hike is over, I'll scurry home for a hot shower and then drive to south San Jose to a friend's house for a second Thanksgiving dinner.   Hopefully the hike will end as advertised at around 4 p.m.  That gives me just enough time to drive home, shower, and drive to south San Jose.  Dinner is set to start at 6 p.m.

I have a hiked planned tomorrow but so far no one has RSVPed so I may bag it and sleep in and go on a less rigorous solo hike and perhaps go Christmas shopping.  Hopefully the black Friday crowds will have dissipated a bit.  I'm not real keen on shopping but I would like to get it done early this year and have packages in the mail by around Dec 10th.   I thought I might drive to downtown Mountain View and walk up and down Castro street stopping in shops there.  It might be nice to give business to the smaller shops rather than the big mall shops!  I suspect I'll end up in book stores buying books as presents.  Its hard to go wrong with books in my family and we are nearly all avid readers!

Launches and Losses

Nearly forgot about my post for today but its 9:53 pm and its still Nov 25 so on with NaBloPoMo.  I went to the satellite launch today at Space Systems Loral.  It was fun but I have to admit I was disappointed that they did not have a t-shirt in my size.  After most launches, SSL and the customer who ordered the satellite usually make a t-shirt and give it away to those that attend the launch.    Today there were no t-shirts in my size.  Instead I ended up picking up an Asiasat7/SSL coffee mug.  It has a picture of Hong Kong (where the Asiasat company is located) on the mug with SSL and Asiasat logos in the corners of the picture.  I guess you can tell one of the things I like about launches is the free gifts!

The launch itself went well but as usual it was standing room only in the cafeteria and I was shifting about to try and get a view of the screen.  I managed to get on my toes and see the liftoff pretty clearly.   As it lifted off we all cheered and then watched for maybe a minute and then many of us rushed for the swag line so we could get good stuff.  I'll have to check the web site tomorrow a.m. to see if the satellite has started its maneuvers to get in the proper orbit and get all set up.   Its probably a week or so till you know the satellite is set up how it should be and working properly.

I got in some exercise today by walking to and from work for the launch.  Its 1.6 miles to the cafeteria at work from my condo door.   It took me about 35 minutes to make the walk.  I was most surprised with how sweaty I got.  I wore a sweatshirt and a heavy rain jacket.  About half way there I removed the rain jacket.  I never needed it.  I would have been fine with just the sweatshirt.  Oh well.  Does being sweaty burn more calories?  On the way home I carried the coffee mug and poster and jacket all the way home.  I should have brought my backpack with me so I could put everything inside it and not have to have everything in my arms!  It was a pleasant walk home.  I spend the afternoon relaxing and in the late afternoon decided to bake some more chocolate chip cookies.

I took a small bag of the freshly baked cookies with me to eat while I watched the Stanford vs Cal women's volleyball match.  The first three sets were really tight.  Stanford took the first one.  Then Cal won the second.  There was a half time break.  Then Cal came out and squeaked out the third set.  Then the wind fell out of Stanford's sails and they just couldn't get it together for the fourth set and Cal won it easily.  So the final score was 3 sets to 1 with Cal winning.  This was the last regular season game of the season.  The first week of December the volleyball national championship tournament starts.  Stanford has a very good chance of making it into the tournament.  This Sunday, the brackets for the tournament will be announced.  Stanford will probably host a first and second round at their home court and I plan to buy tickets to see the games.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has gotten off to a wonderful start with being able to sleep in.  I stirred at 6:20 a.m. and had the wonderful realization that I did not have to get up for work but could keep sleeping.  I ended up sleeping till 8:05 a.m.  Now I'm eating breakfast and writing this post.  I figure once I jump in my car and drive to SF for Thanksgiving with my brother's family, I won't have time to get on the internet and write something.  I probably won't get home till around 11 pm I'm guessing.

Here are some things I'm thankful for ...

(1) My parents are still alive and healthy at 83 and 88.
(2) I have a good job that pays well and I like the work
(3) My health.  Except for being a tad bit overweight, I'm feeling healthy.
(4) The asexual community I have found on line
(5) The Loma Prieta Gay and Lesbian Sierra Club section
(6) Good friends
(7) Books and the authors who write them!

No Traveling!

Enjoying the fact that I'm not traveling on this busiest travel day in the US.   I did brave going to a grocery store after work.  It was crowded but I managed to pick the right line and only had to wait for one person to be rung up before I was.  I purchased four bottles of Martinelli's as my contribution to tomorrows feast at my brother's house.  Nine people will be there: my brother, his wife, a neice, a niece and her  boyfriend, a sister-in-law and her boyfriend, me, and .... I don't know who the 9th person will be.  It should be a jolly group.   We plan on going walking rain or shine on the beach before dinner.  The dog, Faith, needs to get her energy used up before dinner!   The weather forecast is for rain.  Maybe we'll get out there in between showers.  I'll bring my raincoat and maybe some extra dry cloths.

The day after Thanksgiving I'm going to work to watch a satellite launch.  It will be televised on a big screen in the cafeteria.  The actual launch will happen in at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.  The launch is scheduled for 11:10 a.m. but there is a number to call to be sure the launch is on schedule.   The launch celebration includes some speeches by project managers and then watching the launch and after that its time to pick up the free goodies: usually t-shirts and posters.   Its the anticipation of the launch,  the holding of your breath that everything go well during launch and being around people who have worked on the satellite that really make it a fun event.  The actual launch footage is usually the same.  Often you view it in the dark.  So you see the big launch pad all lit up.  Then you see the rocket launch and watch a light go up in the dark sky.   You can't really see on the TV screen that its a rocket with a satellite in the nose.   At some point the camera's picture is just a small dot so they often shift to simulated pictures to show what is going on in the launch.

Books

I have been reading books that I own for the last three months but I finally finished reading the one's I wanted to read and now I'm looking forward to a visit to the library to pick new books out.  I think I will continue my reading of mysteries.  I'll have to log into my library record and see where I left on what authors.  I love to find an author and read all the books they have written. I'll be looking for books by Donna Andrews, Robin Paige, and Stieg Larsson to name a few.  And I'll just be browsing.

I love to be in libraries.  I like the quiet.  I like the huge amount of books on the shelves.  I like the smell of books and the feel of them in my hand.  I just get excited thinking about all the books I haven't read that are just waiting there on the shelves for me to check out.  I fell in love with libraries at first sight.  I remember going to the children's section at the Beechwold library in Columbus, Ohio and then later to the adult section.  I remember being excited to learn how to drive so I could drive myself to the library!  I also liked the library at school and it was my favorite place to go to study during my free periods.

When I got to college I discovered the joy of stacks.  The library was so big you could lose yourself in the many floors of books.  I liked to do my studying in the english literature section.  Although this often backfired on me as I would spend more time reading a British novel than doing my engineering problem sets.  But the stacks were quiet and you could really get away from other people if you went to the stacks.  Sometimes I miss having a huge library.

I love my current library.  I still think of it as the fancy new library but realized that it actually has been more than 10 years since it was redesigned and rebuilt.  I like how open it is to the sunlight in the reading areas and it does have more room than it used to.  It also has lots of computers I can use but I rarely do use them since I have a computer at home!   I volunteer at my library and now I'm signing off this post as I have to delivery books to a home bound patron.  I'll chat with her and then head back to the library to return the books she gives me and to select some books for myself!!

I'm stymied about what to write about today.  Every time I think of something and start composing it in my head it becomes too personal.   Perhaps today's post will just be very short and about not being able to figure out what to write.  I just keep running into stuff that is too personal.  Just wrote a sentence and erased it as it was too personal.  Arg.  Perhaps its a problem of dwelling on a personal problem and not being able to get away from it to write about something else.  I guess today this will be my post.  Kaboom.  Done.

Decade Memories

OK just for grins I'm going to write about the first memory that pops in my head for each decade since I was born.

In 1965 when I was four years old my family spent a year in England while my Dad did research for his book at the British Museum.  We rented a house and this house had a staircase that was covered in carpet.  This was a new experience in my short life as our staircase was hard wood.  I then discovered the joy of sliding down the carpeted staircase on my tummy.  It was incredibly fun and I sort of remember that stomach dropping feeling it gave me.

In 1974 we had a big old elm tree in the front yard that was afflicted with Dutch Elm disease.  To attempt to get rid of the disease my parents had half of the tree cut down.  There were two big branches coming out of the trunk and they had one lopped off.  Then my big brother threw a rope around the stump of the cut off branch and climbed up the tree to the stump.  I was 13 years old and he challenged me, my younger brother, and my neighbor friend to climb up the rope.  The first of us that could do it, he would give a quarter to.  We tried and tried and I was thrilled to be the first one to succeed and the proud recipient of a quarter!

In 1983 I was a junior at Purdue.  I knew quite a few seniors and got invited to a graduation party.  I went to it with some trepidation as I was usually a wall flower at parties and felt very shy and awkward.  But somehow this party felt different.  I felt like I belonged and for the first time in my life I managed to shed some of my inhibitions and had a fabulous time dancing down a dance line.  Two lines of people lined up on either side of the living room and we took turns dancing down between the lines.  I don't know why this time was so different than any time before or any time since but I just let go of my worries and let my self go and danced and danced.  I often wish I could recapture that moment.

In 1991 I just turned 30 and had been doing a lot of thinking about who I was and what I wanted from my life.  And I made a decision on my 30th birthday to check out this group meeting I saw in the San Jose Mercury News about a Palo Alto Lesbian Rap group.  This was not a musical rap group but harkened back to the 60's meaning of rapping which was getting together and talking.   I went to the group and was amazed to find a group of women dressed like me in jeans and t-shirts and I immediately felt comfortable.  I also happened upon a night in this group where the discussion topic was being new in a group.  So I felt doubly welcomed as I could talk about being new to this group!  But the main memory is just that I felt that I had found my people and this was an amazing feeling.

At 12:01 a.m. on Jan 1, 2000 I was in London, England to greet the New Years with my parents.  We went to a party at a friend of theirs and at 39 years old I was the baby of the party.  It was a surreal but fun experience.  I remember eating a pasta that was just chock full of the most delicious shrimp.  At 12:00 we all spilled out doors to glimpse fire works going up around London.   Then my parents and I headed to my parent's flat in London and I remember staying up late watching TV as the New Year came to the U.S. cities.  And it was all very impressive since it was the millenium!

On June 26, 2011, I marched with the Asexual meetup group in the San Francisco Gay Pride parade.  A young woman in the group did a fantastic job of making the group look cohesive.  We all had similar t-shirts on and we had these great big silver ballons that spelled ASEXY if carried in the right order and we had a wonderful banner.  I really felt like part of group that was doing something important in raising awareness of asexuality by participating in the parade.

Garin and Dry Creek Hike

I went on a hike at Garin and Dry Creek parks today.  I thought it would be a small intimate group as only one person showed up at the car pool location.  She and I drove to the park to meet D the leader.  When we got there five more people showed up so we had a nice group of eight for the hike.  I volunteered to be D's co-leader and did the sweeping.  We headed off on the hike with blue sky scattered with fluffy white clouds.

The first part of the hike was fairly flat and we crossed creeks about four times on these narrow bridges.  I told D he should rename the hike the narrow bridges hike.  D showed us a place next to the creek sort of hidden behind thick bushes where he has visions of bringing a romantic date to make out.  I have no desire to make out there but it would be a nice private cool space for a nice long intimate conversation on a hot summer day.  After checking out this secret spot we headed off to Jordan pond where we stopped for a snack.  Lunch was planned at Gossip rock which was a ways off yet so this snack break was to fortify us for a late lunch.

After our snack we took advantage of the porta potty set up near the pond picnic area and then headed off up the hills.   There were wonderful views of green hillsides, blue sky, and white clouds as we made our way up the hill to Gossip rock.  We reached the ridge and walked along the ridge a bit.  You could see San Francisco bay and Silicon Valley from the ridge on one side and wilderness on the other side.  We soon reached Gossip rock where we saw small bowls carved into the rock where Indians used to grind grain.  We had lunch at Gossip rock but we did not gossip.  I got bonus lunch items offered by my fellow hikers: dried mango, licorice, and Dove chocolate.

After lunch we started heading downhill.  It was steep but the ground was fairly dry despite yesterday's rain so there was good footing as we made our way down.  The sky started to get a little more cloudy with more gray clouds rather than the fluffy white ones.  There was one more slight hill before we reached the bottom of the park near where our cars were parked.  We got to hike through some small canyons in the woods and that was a nice change from the open hill sides.  We finally reached the bottom and hiked to the trail head and had time left to check out the gardens right at the entrance to the park.

I'm not a gardener so I can't tell you all the names of the flowers that were there in the late fall but it was pretty and I took lots of pictures in the garden.  It was a nice way to finish off the hike with a small walk through the garden.  After seeing the place, we all said our goodbyes and S and I drove back to the park-n-ride lot where we said our goodbyes and I came home to a nice hot shower and good memories of the hike.

Cutting it Close

I'm cutting it closer and closer on getting my daily NaBloPoMo post done.  Only 2 hours to get this one done.  Although admittedly, its just because I had a busy day.  I had lots to do at work.  I had to run home for an hour  to meet my handyman and get the oven installed.  Then I had one hour after work before I had to head to Stanford to watch the women's volleyball game and I chose to play with my new oven for that hour.  Then Stanford ended up playing 5 sets in the volleyball game and losing in the end.  It was rather tortuous watching the match.  It wasn't that Oregon played super well but that Stanford did not play very well.  It is not as much fun watching a match full of errors as it is a match full of great rallies and shots. After the match I had to stop at a gas station to fill up the car for tomorrows drive to Garin park.  And then I walked in the door and realized the trousers I want to wear for tomorrows hike needed washing so I got a load of laundry together and its churning away right now.   By the time I got around to this post it was a bit before 10 p.m. !!

I'm wondering just why I'm participating in this NaBloPoMo.  I'm not a professional writer.  Its not even a huge hobby.  I just like to prattle on about this and that and I don't always care how well its done.  I want to say that I don't care if anyone reads it but that is not entirely true.  I'm certainly not counting on anyone reading it but it is way fun when someone does read it and makes complimentary comments.   But I don't care enough about having readers that I feel a need to promote my blog or tell people to read it.  I also decided to do NaBloPoMo to be part of a group of people also doing it and sharing in the trials and tribulations of posting everyday for a month.  Its just fun to share the challenge of it and get "atta girls" when I succeed!

Keeping Appointments

Sigh.  My handyman forgot to come to our appointment.  He abjectly apologized but this is not the first time he has done this.  I'm beginning to think its time to find another handyman who is more reliable at keeping appointments.   You would think when you run your own business that keeping appointments with customers ranks way up there in important things to do to keep your business viable.  I might like to find a handyman that is more internet savy also and will communicate with me via email.

On the other hand my handyman is well handy.  He is very good at what he does when he shows up to do it.  Also I pay him in trade sometimes by working on his web site for him.  I haven't done anything to it in a long long time but it was sort of cool to trade skills with him and not have to deal in cash.  I created the web site and he fixed some plumbing for me!   All in all he is a great handyman but not a great business man.

He is supposed to come by tomorrow at 11 a.m. I think he will make it as he felt so bad about missing our 2:30 pm appointment that I believe the 11 am time is branded in his brain!

My new range arrived today but it doesn't quite fit in its slot and the plug doesn't quite reach the outlet.  So I need to have my handyman come in and fix things up.  I'm asking him to saw off a part of the ledge above the stove so it will fit and cut a whole in the cabinet so the plug can be pulled through it.  The plug right now has to be threaded under the cabinet and then up through a hole in the floor.  It probably could be done but it would have been very tedious and I decided I wanted to make it so it is easier to unplug in the future and bringing the plug directly into the cabinet will be much easier.  If I had appropriate tools I would be tempted to do it myself but I don't have the tools.

Albert, my handyman, will be here tomorrow at 2:30 pm.  So I have to take time off from work again.  Its annoying.  I wish the range had fit in the slot and was all set up.  But ... C'est la vie.  I also expect that Albert might not be able to do the actual work tomorrow.  This is more of a visit to find out what I need and give me an estimate for the work.  So I will have to make due with my toaster oven and my microwave oven for a few more days.  Ug.

New Range

My new range is supposed to be delivered tomorrow.  I hope the delivery goddesses are on my side and the range arrives when scheduled.  I'm always nervous about deliveries.  It seems like a fairly straight forward thing to do to deliver a range but then I don't know what the deliverer will be up to before my delivery time.  My delivery time is between 9:30 am and 12:30 pm.  I have brought home a pile of work so I can work at home while I wait for the range to arrive.  I really really hope it arrives at 9:30 am but I suspect it will arrive at 12:30 pm.  I have bad luck when it comes to deliveries being close to the beginning of a range of time.  What lucky soul gets that first delivery of the day!  I hope its me tomorrow.

I have purchased myself a GE 30" Free-Standing Electric Range.  I got myself a new range because I finally got tired of my old oven not working or rather only baking at 350 degrees F.  I broke my temperature setting knob in 2008 and have been stuck with only being able to have the oven at 350 for 3 years now.  My handy man Albert looked at it and the only way to fix it was to replace the entire thermal setting device (not just the knob) and that would have run me around $300.00.   I decided at that point that I might as well buy a new range.  It just took me 3 years to get the desire to purchase it and get it installed!!  I seemed to be happy with just using the stove, my toaster oven, and my microwave the past three years for my cooking needs.  Finally this fall the desire to bake combined with having saved up enough money for a range  conspired to push me to buy the range!

I think I shall go grocery shopping tonight and get chocolate chip cookie fixings so I can bake them in my new range tomorrow or the next day!   That will probably be the last baking for a bit.  I'm really not a cook.  It doesn't capture my imagination to dream about cooking stuff and come up with recipes.  I would rather dream up software or dream up new hikes or do a challenging jigsaw puzzle.  Cooking is just not high up there on things I like to do for fun.  If I cook, it is usually really simple easy stuff that doesn't require much planning or thought.