So we're trying to clear out the garage before the storage organizer folks come in to put cabinets in next week...it took an exhausting day to put stuff together to be disposed of when I figured heck why not do a garage sale and then if it doesn't sell just give away or donate...so here I am siting outside with my wireless laptop and waiting for someone to come and just buy up everything including the car for maybe $6600. Oh well I know I can dream. However there have been 2 people who have already stopped, someone picked up a free "Club" security lock for your car and someone bought one of my desk lamps for $1. The biggest selection is of my IA books.

While I was drinking my green tea this morning, I had a flashback of my various experiences with green tea flavored products...

green tea hot... yummy
green tea ice cream... wow
green tea moshi ice cream... awesome
green tea tempura ice cream...really good
green tea toothpaste...argh!!!!

While in Hong Kong, the local Wellcome grocery store stuffs your bag with promotional items. Sometimes these items are just little toy trinkets, seasonal holiday tokens, and in our last days they stuffed our bag with Crest Toothpaste. Fairly innocent looking package, thought it was very useful and stuffed my travel bag one weekend to San Diego. Boy was I in for a rude awakening..green tea flavored toothpaste. I grew up with the minty after aste and still not used to citrus flavored toothpaste but green tea. It was so gross and was too embarrassed to make a run to the liquor store for minty flavored gel toothpaste. Oh well it was definitely a flavor that would require acquired taste and for 2 days I dreaded brushing my teeth.

I couldn't pass this one up. I found this from KeptUpLibrarian.com

The Next Hit Reality Show by Donald Heller, Inside Higher Ed

I think folks who have pursued/completed graduate level(PHD) programs would appreciate this.

I can't believe we've painted our dramatic new living room in new bright bold colors. I'm wondering if we should do the hallway in green and blue just so that we have some fun crayola colors. It's quite exciting. The colors are all from our Peter Max serigraph so I can't wait to put the painting up to see how it brings everything together.

Virtual visit of our new living room

So I finished the office painting today. It turned out really nice! I was totally not sure while I was painting the stripes, but of course I trusted the designer, Re:Modern. How could I break my own values from my IA days of watching implementation of my wireframes into websites...no way. If I could do it I would, but I can't so I hire someone who can. Next project, living room and kitchen. Bedroom furniture comes in next week. I'm getting pretty excited.

Visit Remodel 2005.

Tom Read is the worship director at our church in Hong Kong, The Vine. He has a great collection of music downloads and chord sheets at his site. His recent one This Is Love is really good and his wife Jacinta cowrote and harmonizes with him on it.

One of his other songs I really like is Desperation Song. Very humbling and very hopeful. It's also listed on the music downloads page.

Saw several signs posted around the gym today on how you can prevent pool closures:

1. Don't swim after eating, at least 60 minutes.
2. Please ensure your toddler and babies are wearing the appropriate swimming diapers.

The trials of sharing a community pool at the gym. I just can't imagine being the lifeguard on duty there. It's summer and the gym and pool are packed. I usually go around 9 or 10...packed parking lot and packed locker room. I tried 5pm and same. Good to know folks really use the gym.

Of course I knew this one already ever since I had my chance to wander on some in Hong Kong. A couple large parks I visited while there had these long paths with cobblestone. I would see old and young alike do their qi gong while walking on the cobblestone. Good to see medical field validating it.

Cobbleston'es benefits startle researchers

Ever since Jeff got his black suped up miata, he hasn't really taken an interest in doing any more mods on mine. Also with me running around doing errands the 2 seater wasn't practical so I was using the Civic more often. I figured in the end we really didn't need 3 cars. So I've decided to sell the miata and at some point we'll sell the Civic as well so that I can have a more family friendly wagon.

Details on the Sunburst Miata

My project start date has been delayed by 3 weeks....a couple of side trips perhaps to San Antonio and DC...as much as I'd like to start working again I'm still enjoying taking care of home and traveling with Jeff to his companies many offices. I guess working with big corporations always has delays, lots of layers of paperwork and signoffs. I'm not too worried. It's totally not in my control...maybe I should just concentrate my stock portfolio. It's alot easier to manage and learn.

Be there or be square...ok I'm going to be square...just so much traveling recently and actually still recovering from Hong Kong and starting work next Wednesday with a longish commute!

WebVisions 2005
July 15, 2005
Portland, OR

Looks like lots of great speakers: Stewart Butterfield from Flickr.com, Molly Holzschlag, Cameron Moll, Eric Rice, Matt May, D. Keith Robinson, Thomas Vander Wal, BJ Fogg, Peter Merholz from Adaptive Path, and many more.

Go check it out!

She's only 4 weeks away from having a baby and she's still tough as ever. We did a bunch of squats and if our butts didn't touch the bench she was on us hard core! I took one moment of a breather sitting on the bench and she scolded me and boy did that get me going on the rest of the workout. I'm going to miss her when she goes on maternity leave. Of course my body aches, but not as bad as right after the jumprope class I took again on Monday.

I start my new project next Wednesday officially! That means next Tuesday is the last time I can work out during the day. Argh I hate working out at 6am.

While we were dating, Jeff and I frequented many of the Wahoo's Fish Taco joints at Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa...and we totally missed them when we moved to the Bay Area. While I was walking around Santana Row with my friend M I spotted one and a flood of memories eating bonsai burritos blurred why I was there.

Wahoo's Fish Tacos

Update: Earlier when I first saw Wahoo's I was tempted to go in and order something for myself. I decided to head back to SR with Jeff that same day. I could hardly wait for my Bonsai Burrito. It was absolutely wonderful. We had a side of nachos with the works and the true taste test of nostalgia was the salsa. Oh my gawd, felt like we were back in Costa Mesa again. Punk music blaring throughout, surfer videos playing, stickers all over the place (not as disorderly as HB or CM), and that same Wahoo's look and feel. Next time I'll wear my worn out Wahoo's t-shirt.