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August 25, 2006 11:36 PM Whine  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
RIP: Bathroom TV

Menlo Park, CA (August 20, 2006) - Born sometime in the late 1980s T.V. was mounted in the master bathroom of ML & J's house. This past week T.V. met it's untimely demise when somehow its circuits got fried. Fortunately the surge tripped the breaker no big harm to the house however it did cause some lights to go out while nobody was home.

T.V. had a very productive career entertaining house guests, surprising visitors when taking house tours, and keeping the owners well informed of worldly events. T.V. graduated from Hitachi University in Japan where it garnered many awards for price and quality assurance.

No funeral arrangements have been made since it will have to take a couple of strong people to dismount it from the ceiling and wall.

T.V. is survived by its two owners ML & J and remote. They officially have no T.V. in the house now. T.V. will be sorely missed. If you would like to contribute to the T.V. Memorial Fund, please contact me.



Whine  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
The People are Everywhere

SU students are probably starting to return...even though classes probably don't start until the end of September. I wonder why so many kids around? Earlier this week we dined off Uni and had a pleasant evening strolling the avenue. Today we went back for dessert, but got mobbed by a few hundred college students celebrating their "reunion" with friends who went away for the summer. Parking was hellish and just when we were about to head somewhere else a free spot appeared within a couple storefronts of where we were headed.

With the nice cool summer evening we decided to have dessert and just chill outside of the cafe. It was quite noisy with Nola & Old Pro having their loud and obnoxiously fun clientele. Funny thing I could watch Old Pro's flat panel screen from where I was sitting. If someone saw me from the sidewalk they would have thought I was just staring blankly at nothing. But the scene turned quite exciting when some girl with a cowboy hat jumped on a table at Old Pro and started shaking her groove to the people around. I was starting to get sick of the music though, I coulnd't handle 2 Michael Jackson songs in 30 minutes. Also "Thriller" in August is not as fun as in October. People watching wasn't as exciting with my accounting textbook being such a distraction. However there was the usual spectrum of people, double dates where one person obviously was dragged out including the "emergency save me from this date from hell" cell phone call, a couple of people having a heated argument (at one point I was waiting for the water over the head scene), a younge couple very much in love just staring at each other and holding hands exchanging kisses and not even caring about anything around (nope it wasn't me and J), we were people watching or aimlessly studying accounting or sheet music( J's actively involved with a garage band...I'll be joining shortly after my voice returns from a trip to bronchitis).

Overall a nice time out and I'm definitely feeling much better. I had my spicey cocoa again, which I think I can drink all by itself...I hate to see the summer slip away but I'm glad to see my project ending soon. I can't wait to start hanging out with friends for lunch and delving into more books, starting submitting my children's book manuscripts and catching up on my knitting and starting up painting...and of course the garage band. Now I need to get some freshly sharpened pencils, a notebook, and maybe some peechee folders to feel like I'm "back to school."



August 24, 2006 11:30 PM Whine  |   Comments (1)  |   Link
Sure does bring back memories...

Beloite College produces this list of cultural trends that incoming freshman are familiar with...this one definitely brought back some interesting memories.

Up late as usual, the past week have been horrible with bronchitis and more in recovery mode. The coughing keeps me from having a restful sleep. What's frustrating is that I have another week coming up of long days...both for work and for BSF...and then a mini-vacation near Pebble Beach...and then full on with BSF as the new year begins. I'm on Unit 8 of 10 and so accounting is almost over! I'm planning to do the final at the end of September and then hopefully get some weekend travels in October and another mission trip during Thanksgiving. I miss the mission field. I feel more at peace doing community and spiritual service. Just a few more days of work and hopfully I will find that peace again.



Information Architecture  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
IDEA Conference October 2006, Seattle, WA

Peter Merholz(and some of his peeps) are organizing the IDEA Conference (IDEA stands for Information: Design, Experience, Access). It takes place October 23-24 in Seattle, WA.

It's a conference about the design of complex information spaces of all kinds, be they physical, virtual, or both.

This event is sponsored by the IA Institute.

Peter and crew are trying something different here. The conference features working designers (with a couple exceptions) working with a variety of media, environments, and tools, across a diverse range of disciplines, talking about their design work and processes.


Program Details

(most of the above directly from PeterMe email)
I'll probably be at the first day of the conference since I was already in town for another event.



August 22, 2006 10:25 AM Food & Wine  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
Elu Party at St. Supery

We enjoy this winery so much. We were Divine Club Members for a while and remained on their mailing list. We went to their Spring Fling last year and had such a wonderful time meeting new people who enjoy good food and great wine. We've always enjoyed their Elu whenever we got one in the shipment. It's a meritage with a nice balance of all of the St. Supery flavors and body.

Elu Release Party September 30 at Rutherford



August 20, 2006 01:12 PM Information Architecture  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
Handmade Products

I have to say I really liked surfing this site...not only are the products handmade...but the metadata(taxonomy) is pretty cool. I can't remember where I found this site.

Etsy



August 17, 2006 08:04 AM Information Architecture  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
No This is not about IA

Frustrating but it's definitely funny.



August 10, 2006 09:13 AM Whine  |   Link
First Coffee, Now Alcohol

I can't believe it...it's coming to a reality. I have to face the truth, alcohol makes me sick now. First it was coffee, now it's alcohol. I remember when I first started my summer project I was drinking lattes and coffee but always had a stomachache and hated the after taste, now I'm starting to feel the same with wine. What is this world coming to.



August 06, 2006 08:38 PM Health & Fitness  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
How to make your workouts more interesting...

J shared this video with me...you can only imagine all the blog titles I thought of...

what not to do while working out
beware of hot pants at the gym
who said treadmills aren't the rage anymore
next step...DDR on the treadmill

The list can go on and on...I love youtube.

In case it doesn't come up...YouTube



August 04, 2006 10:07 AM Just Because  |   Link
The Joys of 2 Screens

I can't say enough how excited I was yesterday when the UPS guy came up to the door to deliver my new 24" flat panel monitor. We don't have a TV(except for the one mounted in the bathroom) so we usually watch movies on our laptops, which isn't that fun when you are watching an exciting adventure movie or a beautiful scenary. The beauty of this setup is that I use 2 screens for work now. I have my main tasks on the monitor which of course tilts and turns and my laptop screen that has the utitilies like email and calendar. It's just awesome. Now I wish I got two monitors and to have those side by side would have been awesome!



Books I've Read  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
Save November 8 2006 for Children's Authors & Illustrators

For all parents and children's authors out there, fundraiser event for Family Connections (the pre-school I volunteer for). Last year was really fun, lots of books to buy, authors/illustrators to sign books and talk about their writing process, and of course the wonderful tearful stories of how parents' lives have changed because of Family Connections.

Children's Authors Event, November 8, 2006
The eighth annual event will be held on Wednesday, November 8, 2006 at the Hiller Aviation Museum from 6 to 9 pm. Three award-winning authors/illustrators will give presentations about their work and will sign their books afterwards.

Family Connections is a nonprofit preschool serving the EPA/EMP area. They are tuition free and rely solely on donations and foundation grants from corporations in the area. From what I remember they do not get any city/county/state/federal funding so all their income is purely from people/corporations giving generously to sustain their operations.



What I heard  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
Before the 405...

Recently I was having brunch with some out of town guests, we were having a great time talking about growing up in CA. One woman grew up in LA, and started to talk about a neighborhood park that was demolished to make room for the 405. It was quite interesting to hear how the kids tried to improvise their idea of play. They took their bikes on the recently constructed 405 Freeway where the park used to be. I'm imagining 10 year old girls & boys on bikes riding on the shoulder of the 405. I guess these days the kids would be faster on their bikes than they would be trying to drive on it. Amazing, I actually know someone who is older than the 405.



Whine  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
Tweeny Concert

So we arrived a little late, not too interested in the opening act...and then when we tried to scope out some place to park our buns all we saw was a sea of tweeners...bubbles floating above, perhaps the occassional puff of smoke, and tweeners holding up banners, placards and posters proclaiming their devotion to Kelly Kelly Kelly. It was quite a fun concert, definitely a 180 from the D Mode concert a few months ago. I think her pop songs are pretty fun, learned that Break Away was written by Avril L. I like her music as well, but what I really enjoyed was Kelly's bluesy type songs. Somehow her voice was more comfortable with that genre of music. Last row in lawn was ehh...lots of families around and easy access to drinks and exit. Overall definitely a party concert but with lots of 12 year olds :)



August 03, 2006 08:09 AM Whine  |   Comments (0)  |   Link
Echo Earthquakes

I don't know what it is but sometimes I feel like I'm going nuts. Last night I was sitting at my computer doing some work(yup it's back to the old grind of ol') around 8 last night. In one moment, I get these feelings that my desk shook. I turned to J and he didn't feel anything. He said he was just bouncing his leg to the tune of a song. So I look at other signs if there was just an earthquake, you know swaying lights any echoes of swaying. So this morning I checked my local news, part of my daily ritual, and found a quick blurb about an earthquake in Santa Rosa.