A great start to the year
It's only been 1/2 a month into 2008, but so much has already happened...

We rang in the new year with a bunch of friends. Just drinks and some snacks, then a walk out to the pier to see fireworks. We were a bit late, so we didn't quite make it and watched the fireworks on top of the Santa Monica Bluffs.

Next big event was my birthday. Mary and I got some USDA Prime cut steaks from Costco. We broiled the steaks and made some asparagus, broccoli, and crescent rolls. A great birthday dinner! USDA Prime cut meat is definitely a cut above what you can normally get. It's so juicy and tender. At Costco, it was only $14 a pound. Typically, it's $40+ a pound, if you can find it.

This past weekend, we went on our first Aerospace Ski Club trip to Mammoth. We both had a pretty rough first day snowboarding, but the second day was much, much better. I'm ready to sink some money into getting gear. First, I'll get some more clothing, then work on getting boots, bindings, and a board.

I had my physical on Monday and the blood tests have come back normal.
GLUC FAST 84
CHOL 189
TRIG 82
HDL 46
LDL CALC 127
CHOL/HDL 4.1

Blood pressure was 145/89 when the nurse took it outside in the nurse's station while a code red was going on, but 114/80 when the doctor did it.

All is well for me in SoCal.

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Monthly update
What's happened since last month... hrm. Went surfing a few times and had a pretty bad session where I cut open my lip and landed on my head. Took 2 weeks off and had a good session this past Sunday. Rode to work a few times, and rode back with Mary once. It's a nice ride from El Segundo to Playa del Rey.

This past Sunday, I made dinner... won ton noodles and mu shu pork. Apparently, I can cook pretty well. It just took a while. Three hours of prep and cooking. Ended up feeding me, Mary, and Nathan, with enough leftovers for dinner Monday and Tuesday. So the secret is out and I'm supposed to cook more now.

Headed up to Portland this weekend to hang out with Geo while Mary sees her friend Jenny.

Did a week of jury duty where I never got called in.

Seen a lot of movies this summer... Bourne Ultimatum, Superbad, Simpsons, Ratatouille, Transformers, Ocean's Thirteen, Spiderman 3, Pirates, Knocked Up. Still want to see Live Free or Die Hard and Paprika.

Started a new tradition of going to On the Border on Friday night. Ends up being a lot cheaper than previous Friday night outings at Cheesecake Factory or Macaroni Grill.

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Greetings from Aerospace
So I started a new job at The Aerospace Corporation at the beginning of July.  It's quite similar to the job I had at Arete in the fact that I'm in front of a computer more or less all day.  I do modeling, simulations, and coding the tools to do such things.  Since I'm pretty well versed in IDL, Matlab, C, C++, and a little bit of Fortran, my toolbox is well suited to the stuff I'll be doing.

I've signed up for a 9/80 schedule, so I'll get every other Friday off while working 9 hours on Monday thru Thursday and 8 hours on the Friday I'm not off.  It saves a day of commuting and lets me have a long weekend every other week.  Good stuff!  It was one of the major selling points of Aerospace.  Arete is about to move to Northridge, which would have increased my commute by at least 15 minutes.  A 12% raise helps too.

Using Santa Monica as a starting point, Arete is north and moving further north.  Mary is south.  Aerospace is further south than Mary... and as a bonus, she works 2 blocks away from me, as the crow flies.  So instead of extending the distance between Mary's place, my place, and work, I've now shrunk it down to about a 30 minute area.

All in all, my new job at Aerospace is A-OK.

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What an excellent show!
We went to see Roger Waters yesterday at the Hollywood Bowl. All I can say is WOW! It was a great audio and visual experience. The music was top notch. What put it over the top was his hi-def screen behind him. It looked like an IMAX screen, or something like it. Pyrotechnics, laser light show, and good use of it all made for a show to remember. Ah yes, a flying pig too.

He played for about 2:30 plus a 15 minute break between sets. The lines were slow getting into the Bowl, so he didn't start playing until 8:00 (7:30 posted start time).

I found this cell phone video on a website: http://www.laist.com/2007/06/13/dear_laist_why.php

There's a bunch more on youtube, of course. His most moving song was "Leaving Beirut"... talking about a family in Beirut that took him in when his car broke down there while vacationing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwDzATryei8

All in all, Roger Waters puts on an awesome show!!!!

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Greetings from Seattle!
Friday was my last day at Arete. It was filled with debriefings and free meals. Thus started my month break between jobs. Mary rode up to join me for dinner and a movie. Knocked Up is pretty hilarious! Definitely worth watching, and the 2 hours running time seemed pretty short.

Early Saturday morning, we were off to Seattle to visit my friend Yolanda and my cousins Ronnie and Vicki. Yolanda just got a condo, so we stayed at her place. Good times. Saturday afternoon, we ate at Salty's... a seafood brunch buffet. After a nice gorge-fest, we took a nice 3 hour nap. We met up with Ronnie, Allen, and the kids at their house. This was the first time I've seen their house and their youngest son. The three of us still weren't hungry after 8 hours. We then went over to Bellevue to a birthday party at a nice pool place, The Parlor. Finally succumbed to eating some nachos and fries along with beer. Yumyum.

On Sunday, we stopped by some local stores then headed to Pike's Place. We sampled a lot of food at Pike's and eventually ate at Ivar's. Fried seafood! Woohoo! Mary also bought me a nice pen that I picked out. My new job gift. After leaving Pike's Place, we headed over to get a ghetto quick tour of Boeing then headed to wine tasting at Columbia Valley, then the Red Hook Brewery tour. Ronnie, Allen, Vickie, Christian (Vickie's boyfriend), and Christina (Christian's sister) joined us at Red Hook. Between sampling wines and lots of beer, I got pretty toasted. Good times!

Today, Mary left on the earliest flight out... so I went adventuring on my own. After seeing that it'd take me 2 hours to get to the Museum of Flight by public transportation, I decided to go to the zoo instead, which only took me 45 minutes. I wandered around the zoo checking out the animals and taking some pics. After a few hours of the zoo, I met up with Yolanda and we headed over to the Space Needle area. Walked around for about an hour then headed to another gorgefest. We had some clam chowder at Duke's then headed over to a sushi place for some omakase. We ate a lot, yet the bill only came to $98 including tax and tip... for the both of us!!! The chef must have liked us, since he gave us huge pieces of fish. He made some nigiri for a table order and the fish was about 1/2 as big as the ones he was giving us. Yumyum.

Tomorrow, I'm going to drive down to the Museum of Flight, then drive over to Boeing for their factory tour, and finally, head over to Happy Hour somewhere.

So far, I'm enjoying this extended weekend. My first day of work is July 2nd... seems so far away... for now.

Current Mood: full

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Picture from a while ago
Yolanda, me, Mary, and Yolanda's friends at a Thai restaurant.

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And another chapter is coming to an end...
I submitted my resignation from Arete' Associates today, effective June 1, 2007. I will be getting gym membership and health insurance until the end of June though, which is key, since I don't start at my new job at the Aerospace Corporation on July 2nd.

It was a hard experience leaving a company I liked so much, but the fact is that I will be saving about 150 hours a year in commute time. Who knows, if things change enough at Arete, I might be back in a few years. Time will tell.

Current Mood: calm

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Car Dealer Servicing scam?
We all know that car dealer service areas run some sort of scam to try and get you to spend more money. They sometimes throw out some legit-sounding service and hope that the customer bites. Mine played out over a couple of oil changes.

40000 mile oil change: Your rear brakes are at 2mm, you should change them
45000 mile service: Your rear brakes are at 2mm, you should really change them
50000 mile oil change: Your brakes check out, there's 6mm left

Being a cyclist, I know that most of the stopping force is provided by the front brakes, so my front brake pads should wear out waaaaay before my rear brake pads. So unless brake pads are known to get thicker as time goes on, my dealer tried to pull a fast one.

On the inspection this time, they note that my drive belt is cracked. That one, I can believe... and it's only $135 for parts and labor.

Oh yeah, they're recommending the 3000 mile oil change now, even though the owner's manual has it at 5k. Gotta love those dealers.

My Subaru has been flawless (knock on wood). 50k and all I've done is get oil changes and some ordinary servicing at 15k (medium), 30k (big), 45k (medium). 60k is the next big one.

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Blood tests
I went in for a battery of blood tests today. The vampires were out in full force. I think I filled up 10 tubes or so. Anyway, here's the first result:

Fasting Glucose: 79 (normal: 70-99 mg/dL)

My BP this morning was 106/63, pulse 56.

Here's some more:

Cholesterol: 184
Triglyceride: 133
LDL/HDL: 110/47
Ratio (Chol/HDL): 3.9

So far so good.

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A great weekend in Vegas!
A bunch of us went to Vegas for a weekend. We stayed at Mary's sister-in-law's condo which let us avoid the dreaded hotel search. She went to Prince on Friday night while Nathan and I played poker. The others trickled in during the wee hours of the night. We saw Mystere on Saturday night and it was as good as the first time we saw it. Had dinner at Simon's in the Hard Rock Casino. A nice place that's not too loud (since we got the back room) and very tasty food. Very reasonably priced too! Me and the three ladies went clubbing while the other two guys went to play some more poker. All in all, a good weekend... everybody got to do what they wanted to, whether it was clubbing, seeing a show, poker, lounging around the condo, eating good food, eating cheap food, eating lots of food. Ended up $41 from about 8 hours of poker. (-$8 at Venetian 4/8; +$32 at Treasure Island 2/4; -$20 at Orleans 2/4; +$37 at Orleans 4/8)

I had my MRI followup and the good news is that my back looks good and the blip they saw 6 months ago was just a blip. It's not there any more. The bad news is that my blood pressure is 138/93. I don't know if it was the weekend of fun/travel, lack of sleep, or what... but I have to watch it more carefully now and definitely get back on an exercise regimen. Oh yeah, gotta remember to get a physical with full blood panel too.

I was also able to get 6 tickets for The Police at Dodger Stadium. Woohoo! They sold out in less than 20 minutes since I couldn't find any when I checked again for kicks at 10:20am.

Current Mood: happy

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Long time!
Between work, sleep, eating, Mary, Thursday poker, and Friday dinner/movie, there's not much time to do much else, like exercise, WoW, etc. Things are going really well with Mary! My poker buddies make fun of the fact that I don't play as well when she's playing too. Distracted? Of course! We've only been dating for 3 months, but everybody thinks we've known each other a lot longer.

All in all, life is good. And it shows in the size of my gut.

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It was just a matter of time...
It was one of those days where I should have stayed in bed.

Right lane is a turn right only, middle lane is turn right or go straight. I was in the middle lane about to turn right onto the freeway, but cars in front of me were going straight and I was stopped. By the time I got to the intersection, I see this SUV in the right lane coming and at the speed it was going, it would have an interesting time making the turn. I stop and not make the turn and he rumbles straight through. I was _that_ close to getting T-boned.

Later on my commute, I get nailed for speeding. Fun, fun, fun. Written up for 75 in a 65.

What a way to start the week.

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Happy December!
My car is going in for a 45k tuneup tomorrow. It's been almost 3.5 years! Many trips to Vegas, a few to Berkeley, a few to San Diego, and all around LA. Good times.

Headed to watch the Big Game on Saturday then to a friend's party. Typical dinner and movie later today.

All in all, life is good.

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What's new with me?
Mary

Current Mood: happy

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A week of travel
Last Saturday evening, Ali had birthday drinks at Renee's on Wilshire. I'm glad that it's walking distance as a few of us got pretty hammered. Good times. Sunday, we continued the party at Eric and Ali's place for football, pizza, and non-alcoholic drinks as we were all needing of some detox. We watched the worst pro game ever... Raiders and Browns. Later, we saw a much better game as the Bears dominated Seattle. Then it was time to come home and pack for a few days in DC.

Monday saw me leaving for LAX at 7am for a 9:30 flight. Landed in DC at 5:30, and poof, there goes a day. Settled down at the hotel and grabbed some food. Watched Heroes and relaxed before heading to bed. Around midnight, an alarm goes off. It lasted for only a second, so I didn't think too much of it. Soon, there was commotion out in the hall, so I get out of bed and *squish*, the carpet is drenched. I make my way to the door and see that part of the hallway is flooded. Thankfully, the route from my door to the elevator is still dry. Anyway, the sprinkler pipe in the room next to mine burst, so there was flooding, flashing alarms, and an occassional screaming siren. I eventually got another room and got back to bed at 1:30... so much for getting a lot of sleep. Meetings started at 8:30. Tuesday was a long day... 8:30-7:30, Wednesday was 8:30 to 5. Those are east coast times, so waking up at 4am PT was quite the adventure. I flew back on Thursday and came into work for a few hours, as I have a deadline looming.

Yolanda and I headed out to Berkeley after work on Friday. We eventually got on the road at 7pm and got into Berkeley a bit after midnight. James, Matt, Yolanda, and I hit up Daimyo for some late night eats. A reminder of the good ol' days! Saturday, I went over to join Paul for his "bachelor" ride. Nine of us rode up Mt. Tam. It was my first time there. Seeing as I'm not in good shape, it was quite the adventure. It ended up being a 3 hour ride... I think they could have done it in two. Came back over to Berkeley, showered up, and headed out to Bear's Lair to watch the Cal-Oregon game. Stopped by to get a slice of Blondie's. Had a great time, about 4 beers, and garlic fries at Bear's Lair. Met up with James, Matt, and Yolanda after the game and headed out for food at T-Rex... and more food at Fonda.

On Sunday, I crawled to a 3 hour Redwood-Wildcat. This ride would usually take me 2:15 to 2:30 when I was in any kind of shape, but after riding Mt. Tam and not really riding much these days, it was a sufferfest where the insides and outsides of my hips were hurting, and I had no legs left. My heart rate was fine though... just no legs to support it. Cleaned up, ate, napped, and packed up for the main event. We headed out to Emily and Paul's wedding. It was a very nice wedding, and they had a lot of friends and family help put it together. Low budget, but very well run. And it looked like everybody had a good time too!

On the way back to LA, we stopped at Harris Ranch for a late lunch. Great corned beef hash, hash browns, eggs, and biscuit. Didn't have much of a food coma after that meal, which was quite surprising. Pulled into work around 5 to get a couple hours in before heading home to unpack.

It was great catching up with all the cycling people I hadn't seen in years. Everybody's all grown up now. It was a pretty big realization that I probably don't want to move back to NorCal anytime soon though. A lot of people have moved within NorCal, but sufficiently far away and spread out. Other than a few friends that have stayed in Berkeley, not much is the same. Geo's moving to Oregon, Jeff's married with a kid and living in Piedmont, Ken's married with a kid in the South Bay, Phil's married in the South Bay, Chris is living in the South Bay, Audrey's getting married next week and moving to Fairfield, Emily/Paul are married and graduating soon, etc. etc. All that's left are the memories of the good ol' days. It's definitely a great place to visit now, as there are still tons of people I know up there, but to move back... it's less appealing than a year ago.

So here I am, back in SoCal. It was good to sleep in my own bed again.

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Go figure
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Gnome Mage

Gnomes are strange little things. Fascinated with gadgets and shiny things, gnomes are often plotting and planning - but are pretty smart, despite all the explosions. As a mage, you like blowing things up. Your favorite bit of technology is anything that goes, 'boom'. You live for that huge front-end KAPOW - but, after the dust has settled, you'll find yourself searching for something else to explode.

Find out your real-life WoW race and class at QuizGalaxy.com

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Weekend update
Another nice weekend. Busy, but still relaxing. Saturday, Catherine and I went down to Yolanda's Beach Party for her division. The drive wasn't too bad... about an hour down and 45 min back. Ate too much, but had a good time hanging out at the beach and around the bonfire. It was a bit windy though. On Sunday, I set my alarm for 8am to go surfing, but wasn't feeling it... if I went surfing from 9-11, I'd get back at 11:30 and have to get ready for a 12:30 ride. I went back to sleep until about noon to get ready. I went out for a ride with Julie, who I hadn't seen for 6 months. Good to see her again and we chatted it up just like old times. The ride was pretty chill so that we could talk while riding. Ended up riding about 20 miles or so. Sunday night was a ChimpinaChair special event... Stephane's fish night. He cooked up 3 striped bass in a sea salt crust, along with two salads, bread, veggies, and a chocolate cake for dessert. Of course, there was beer, scotch, rum, and wine. All three families of booze. After dinner, we hand washed dishes since they pulled out the good china and silverware, then we played our requisite round of poker. Came in second to Nathan since it was already midnight and I just wanted to get it over with. We had already been playing for 3 hours to whittle 5 players down to 2. Such is playing Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo.

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Ah well...
My scale was off... so I'm still at -6 for the year after re-calibration and a weekend in Vegas.

We had a nice time in Vegas. Drove up Saturday morning/afternoon and stopped off at On the Border for lunch. Tasty chips and salsa. Good taco salad too! Rolled into Vegas around 4, got settled down in our rooms at the Orleans, then went down to gamble. I started off with some poker. Sat down at a new 4/8 Omaha Hi/Lo table but it broke up after a few hands, so I sat down at a 2/4 Hold 'em table for about 10 hands before that table broke. Walked away $2 up and joined my friends at the blackjack table. They were at a double deck $5 table which was full, so I played a round at a $10 table and went 4-0-1 for a $45 profit. A seat opened up at their $5 table so I played with them until dinner at 7ish. Won another $90 there.

Ate dinner at TGIF's in the Orleans then headed over to the Venetian. Our co-worker won a weekend in Vegas at the Venetian Presidential Suite... or so they thought. They actually got the preferential suite. No swimming pool or pool table, but it was still quite impressive. Great view of Vegas. They had a party up there and got a whole spread of food. Ended up staying there until about 11. Time for some more poker! Nathan and I headed down to the poker room at the Venetian. Best poker room, ever. Well lit, spacious, and friendly players. Lots of tourist players too! We both got in on a new table. Played until 4am or so and I was up $235. The most I was up was around $300, so not too bad on the post-peak slide.

I didn't gamble any on Sunday, though Nathan and Patrick did some. Had lunch at TGIF's again, since it was convenient and we rolled out soon thereafter. Overall, it was a great weekend. Short stay in Vegas, but well paced (relaxed) and did a lot. Always nice to win too. Up $250 after expenses.

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Monthly update
It seems that I only get around to updating this thing once a month or so. Anyway, since the company picnic, I've gone to Vegas where my bro and I saw Mamma Mia! We also ate out a bunch and also played WoW (World of Warcraft). Ever since Julie and I broke up at the end of March, I've become more and more entrenched in the game. For the most part, I was interested in the PvP (Player vs Player) aspect. I've always been a competitor, so I like playing against other people. Chess, volleyball, cycling, computer games... It's always more interesting and challenging. Anyway, I reached my ultimate goal in the PvP aspect of the game at the end of August. For people that know about the game, I made Rank 14, ie. Grand Marshal. I'd say less than two dozen people on our server have done that. It entails getting a group of people you play with a lot, and beating other people (who may or may not play a lot with each other). And a lot of this. By the end, I was putting about 50-60 hours a week into it (mostly on the weekends)... and this was on top of my 40 hour a week job. It was a relief to finish, what we affectionally call, the honor grind. What's amazing is that I did it alone, unlike other players. Here are a couple articles describing the grind... click here and here

Since then, I've been able to get back to a better balance of life. This past weekend, I went out surfing on Saturday and to a Cal alumni viewing of the football game. Of course, sushi later that night. Sunday was a 4 hour ride. Went out for dinner and movie on Monday. We saw The Illusionist... see it. It was good to get out and about. During the grind, it was 16-20 hours a day on the weekends, since I couldn't play as much as the other people during the week. It's good to be free and balanced again. No more leash to the game, per se. I still play, but in much more "bite-sized" pieces.

Also, Julie called me up at the end of August too. We had a good talk but haven't had a chance to see her or ride with her yet. My college buddy from Northwestern, Ron, is in town today and we might grab a bite to eat. I'm headed to Vegas again this weekend with some co-workers to party and gamble. Next month, I'm headed up to Berkeley for the wedding of two of my collegiate cycling friends.

Still dealing with the identity theft issues. It's always a shock to get a call or letter... but then after a few hours, I settle down and get grounded again.

Through all of this... I've lost another 6lbs. That's -11 pounds for the year. I'd say it's 1/2 fat, 1/2 muscle.

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Weddings and company picnic
Long time no post.

Went to Montreal last Saturday and got back Wednesday afternoon. Had a blast hanging out with my cousins and all their kids. It's been a long, long time since I saw all my cousins on my mom's side of the family all in one place.

Yesterday was our company's beach party. Had a good time. The food was good, but not great. I've been spoiled by good food as of late. Between Thursday night poker, Friday dinner/movie with co-workers, and the wedding banquet last Tuesday, I've had plenty to eat.

Next couple of big things planned are going to Vegas later this month and my friends getting married in October up in NorCal.

Why am I up so early? Well, things to do and didn't sleep all that well.

Current Mood: mellow

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