the animals shall mingle

Well, unfortunately, I only have a few words to update my blog with. I have been focused on myspace lately, and have neglected my blog. ok, enough about that.
our cats and dogs are starting to mingle a bit more now. Since I have taken the baby gate off of the cats room and really forced them to interact with the dogs, things have been going better then planned. Kaycee is weary of the cats and Gabby respects them, so she could care less. Turlow is the chicken shit of the bunch, but he will hold his ground if food is involed. Sydney makes slight squeaky meows, but she doesnt seem to stop her movement in order to pass the dogs.
In other news, I totally wasted 40 bucks on a game. I went to Fry's the other night, (never get out of there without spending something) to look at what games they might have for gamecube. Since we have gotten the 50" hi def tv, my computer games have taken a backseat. I mean, how can it compete?
So, I go to the gamecube section, and I find two games for 9 bucks each. They both look slightly cheesy, but they involve guns, killing bad guys and hey....it's only 9 bucks! Then my eyes are attracted to a cute little character, that looks like a mini robot. "he cooks, he cleans, he annihilates" it reads on the back. this looks tooo cute to pass up. I have lego Star Wars and this looks just as cute. So, I throw caution to the wind, and get the game, brand new and all.
I get it home, excited to play, and pop it in. The music starts and already I am feeling pangs of regret. It is really cheesy, like 7 year old cheesy. I think, just give it a minute, so I do. It only gets worse from there. I start to play and within 4 minutes, take the game out and think, well, i'll be cutting my losses on this one and selling it back to EB in a few days.
so my advice to myself...... dont buy games full price on sight alone and my advice to you..... dont buy Chibi-Robo

unsettled

Strange bit of weather were having here, some might call it earthquake weather, but I say there are some strange things happening with mother nature.
Rewind to yesterday. It rained, beautiful and menacing clouds decorated the sky and then about 4pm, when I looked outside my office window, blue sky was all I could see, minus the clouds off in the far distance. 5:00 rolls around and I leave to go home. I am driving under a sunny sky, and when I hit about 6-7 blocks from the office, I notice that the ground is wet as if a downpour had just left. I think, well, thats weird, because when I look up, theres still that sunny sky and clouds way way off in the distance. I look to the side of the road and I see white, as if it were melting snow. My light turns red and I look to my right to see a car with white on top of it's roof. Is that hail? so, I go to roll down my window to investigate further, this white stuff on the ground, and sure enough, its clusters of hail. I think to myself, when the hell did that happen? Oh well, light turns green I go to roll up my window and it sounds sick as it trys to roll up. Then it just stops halfway as if something is obstructing it. Great, my window just died, and it might hail, or rain, or be sunny, I just cant tell. About 6 blocks later, the ground is dry as if it had not rained in over 4 hours. I am perplexed, and weaving into the other lane trying to futz with my window to get it to roll up. To no avail, it was stuck and somehow had managed to come out of the track. Not sure how that happened, but it was out of it's track. Looks like its time for me to take apart my door tomorrow.
Fast forward to today. Laura is taking a friend up to S.F. to retrive a Tin Tin statue, so I decide to go for a hike (its still sorta sunny) before I start to tear my car apart. The hike was good, because I went all the way to the top of the PGE trail, which is sorta steep. Round trip took me about 3 hours, and it was muddy in spots...
but that made it even more fun.
Ok, now time to fix this window of mine. I take the panel off, and all the trimmings, and I see this.........

This is something that you dont want to see. I had to take the window completely off it's holders, and lift it freely to guide it into both tracks.
I get it into the track after about 15 minutes of swearing and jimmying. ahhhh, sigh of relief, I test it out before I put on the panel, and it works. GREAT.
not so..... The door panel doesnt go on as easily as it came off, and did I mention that I was listening to the radio the whole time I was doing this whole chore? Yeah, well I was, and apparently that was a bad idea, because when it was all said and done, I wanted to get some coffee to salute my troubles of the day. I went to wash my hands and came back out with my wallet to go to Starbucks. I turn the key and all I hear is rrrrrr.....rrrrrr click click click click. Great, my battery is dead now. I cant go anywhere until Laura gets home and I can jump start it. I do have the motorcycle, but i cant carry the coffee home on the bike. Perhaps I will just play some video games and kill some bad guys now.

softball and skinned knees

This year I have decided to get into the spirit of womens softball, and join a team. Yesterday were tryouts/practice to see what team would be best suited for all of the nubees. Me, being a semi active girl on the mountain bike and hiking trails, had not actually played softball in about 10+ years. Needless to say I was a bit rusty.
It started out ok, until I was going for a ground ball (for those of you interested, I HATE the infield) while playing shortstop. Well, I stopped short instead and decided to kinda trip and land on my knee, skidding into the sandy dirt. I felt more embarrased for falling, and my ego was bruised, but I wasnt about to stop now. My knee burned, and I could see the skin was a bit shaggy around the wound, but blood or no blood I was going to carry on. Honestly, it just felt like having my eyebrows waxed. Again, i was more embarrased of falling then feeling any type of pain.
This all came to a halt though, once I got home and had the task of cleaning out my skinned knee and pouring the peroxide over it. Lets just say I swore a lot and the dogs looked at me with concern. But, once it was somewhat clean, it was off to Santa Cruz for a little bike riding to finish the beautiful day.

and for those of you interested in my little scrape, go here:

skinned knee

Brrrrrr....rrrrrr!

So there it was, 25 degrees and we are walking around the Portland Zoo. We had a lot of fun despite the cold. The polar bears were the only ones that seemed to be out and about.
It had been a while since I had actually been out and about during the cold weather. I survived, but it was sooooo dry, and I really had forgotten how cold the twenties really are.
You can go to my flickr page to see some more shots of the trip. (I could add a link, but I'm lazy, so just click on Spyder's photo's)
Saturday we had a really tasty breakfast out in Troutdale at the Black Rabbit Inn, then we drove around to these frozen falls which were absolutely beautiful. Sunday we spent the day downtown Portland, did some shopping and had lunch at the tasty Broadway Bistro. I had a GREAT turkey reuben sandwich which hit the spot of my frozen hungry belly. If I wasnt so lazy, I would include a whole batch of pictures and have witty sayings next to them, but I will refrain. Laura has some excellent photo's, so also stay tuned for hers to go up on Flickr too.

Happy Valentines Day

So for those who thought I might actually post a real entry, ....... you are mistaken.
This is my general shout out to everyone who reads this today,
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!
Love the one your with, and if your not with anyone, love yourself, and if you are trying to get with someone, happy hunting and good luck!

Oh yeah, for anyone interested in seeing the Pink Panther, GO SEE IT! Great laughs, and if you grew up with the Pink Panther as I did, it is even that much better. Steve Martin is perfect for the role.

Quick coffee update....
I dont have headaches anymore, and my starbucks card still has 30$ bucks on it from Christmas. I drink mostly black coffee and only "cheat" on the weekends. I still need to up the water intake, Laura is way ahead of me on that one.

the party is at San Tomas and Payne

So every day I go to work, I see these pigeons lined up on the power lines, just sitting there. It's like a big morning meet and greet, and only on this corner along San Tomas expressway. I am not sure what they are plotting, but apparently this is the conrner to do it.

withdrawl time

I am on a quest to limit my starbucks intake, and the signs are developing.
headache........I have a light one. (I do drink black coffee at work, but 1 cup of coffee does not equal the usual 3 shots I would get at starbucks with the white chocolate in the morning and night.)
yawning.......check. I am doing it all the time.
grouchy.......ehhh, not really. just bitter that I dont have the metabolism to support my habit.
I do suspect that after a while, I will get used to it and my body will calm down.

sleepy eye

So over the weekend, netflix gave us "Red Eye", which we both thought would be a great thriller.
WRONG
this was more like sleepy eye. Took a very long time to get going and only the last 15 minutes was worth watching. They should have just made this a 15 minute short, and it would be decent.

Now that I have that off my chest, my random chatter of the day:
This morning my breakfast consisted of a bowl of raisin bran, 2 shots of espresso and water.
Lunch will probably be a taco bell chicken burrito supreme, minus the tomatoes. NO NACHOS!! they are a killer to the calorie counting that I am trying to do. (I think I will keep an online diary of my food, since I keep losing my notebook)
If you havent guessed, I am trying to actually see what I eat, since I inhale it so quickly, and dont even realize the stuff I eat.
So here I am, now deciding on the spot to proclaim to blogland, my daily eats and that I will drink more water, even if I have to force it down.
Of course the week I decide to start this, I have 2 supplier lunches (one of them at my favorite mexican restaurant), and we are going out with some friends to Thai tomorrow. My "included in package" gym trainer is going to look at me like I am crazy. When I joined the gym by our house, they give you 2 free sessions with a personal trainer to get evaluated and develop a routine for your goals. Part of this is that I have to write down everything I eat for the next week before the next session.
Stay tuned for dinner.

jobs vs. gates

If asked, I would say I am a PC person. Though I have used a MAC at work for over 5 years and become quite fond of it, I have always had PC's for my home use. I like the game selection better, I like the hardware options better, and having built many PC's, I am familiar with the guts of the PC. But recently, I have really been bothered by explorer in particular. It has crashed my computer 2 times, and the software problems I have are annoying.
Last year I cleaned up my drive and didnt really use my computer at home except for music recording and the occasional visit to the internet for some much needed game cheats when I would get stuck. I started getting mysterious runDLL. errors, or just missing DLL files which made me very annoyed. I am starting to feel my patience running very thin with the PC, and in particular, explorer. I dont use it anymore, and have disabled it from my window's components, but every once in a while, I know it is still doing damage to my computer, secretly stalking me, waiting for that moment to just piss me off.
I am thinking of moving to the mac, (dare I say thine enemy's name) because the PC just sucks! In my 5 years on my MAC at work, I have NEVER encountered as many software issues as I have with the PC. Now granted there have been some hardware oopsies, and user oopsies, but over the 5 years I have spent with the mac at work, I never encountered anything I couldnt fix with a little power down and a rest, or cashe dump. I cant say the same for the PC.
So, after my little rant, those of you who read this thing.....whats your opinion?
gates or jobs?

favorite foods of 2005

These are in no specific order, and are all foods that make my mouth water at the thought of them.

1: Indian Food, specifically vegetable korma, chana masala, naan, onion/spinach pakora, spicy sweet chutney and papadam.
2: Pizza, NY style either from Escape from New York Pizza in S.F. or Pizza my Heart in the South Bay.
3: Fish Tacos, best place is in Half Moon Bay
4: Chicken Fajitas from Maria Elena's in Alviso. They also have the best salsa that I have ever tasted.
5: Carmelized Brussel Sprouts, this is Laura's recipe and they are the best brussel sprouts I have ever tasted.

Honorable Mention......
Favorite coffee drink: From Starbucks, 2 pumps of white chocolate in a tall cup with 3 shots of espresso and the rest filled with ice. cold, concentrated and caffienated.

Expanding on Laura's idea

I felt like updating my blog, but no good ideas of my own came to mind, so I am going to build on Laura's idea of Top songs for 2005. These are actually my top 10 albums of 2005. They are in no particular order, but they all have significance and have gotten the most rotation in my cd player, mostly because I like every single song on the album.

1: Avril Lavigne - Under my Skin (usually I dont pay attention to the words of a song, but this is the exception)
2: P.O.D. - Satellite
3: Third Eye Blind - Out of View
4: Coldplay - Speed of Sound (I want to play guitar to just about every song on this album)
5: Armin Van Buuren - A State of Trance 2004
6: Travis - Invisible
7: James Lauer - Winter Mix 2004
8: Markus Schultz - Cold Harbour Sessions 2004
9: Paul Oakenfold - Bunkka
10: Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies & Punisher Sountrack (this is a tie for the last spot, because I play them equally in my player, but I only like about half of each album)

I didn't list a lot of my Trance albums on here because I listen to them all day at work, and listen to

Digitally Imported

all the time which cover a lot of my Trance favorites, plus there are too many to classify.
Maybe tomorrow I will list my favorite 5 meals of 2005.

The porcelain puzzle

What this puzzle involves is a bathtub, a human on the toilet, and 1 very curious dog. There is this ritual that has formed in our household, that whenever myself or Laura has to use the bathroom, no matter where Kaycee is in the house, she will gun for the bathroom, awaiting the inspection.
What she does is after you have sat down to take care of business, Kaycee will walk right on past you with purpose in her step, and proceed to stick her head in the bathtub and look around. Sometimes this is a quick check, and out she'll go, or sometimes it is a painstaking look around, surveying every inch of the tub.
This doesn't seem to happen when you are brushing your teeth, or in the bathroom for some other reason, it only occurs once you have sat down on the toilet. Without fail, she is there, looking around that tub.
I don't know what it is she expects to find or what she is looking for, but it has become quite the joke in our household.

Elmo and the potty

So for those of you who havent heard the scoop, let me sum it up for you.
A mom in Dallas decides to get her toddler a teaching book put out by Elmo/Sesame street for potty training. Her book ends up saying something very different then what it's supposed to say, and has the potential of really scaring the little children. Me, I think it's kinda funny, but I can see how a youngster might be traumatized by this event, and maybe even withhold going to the bathroom.
for the full story.............

Who wants to die?

weekend recap

So since this weekend was full of rain, I thought i would recap on the weekend's events. Saturday was productive, even though the day started off without power. We woke up and didnt know what time it was, because the power was out. Not sure when it went out, and when I found my watch, it was 8:30 am. we called PGE and they said power should be restored by 4ish. We contemplated a movie, but any of the ones we were going to watch didnt start until noon. It was 10am and with no power, and nothing to do, we decided to be productive and take the tree down.
So the lights went down, (except for the ones on the roof I couldnt get too because of the crazy rain and wind), the tree went to the streets and christmas went into the garage for hibernation. About 1 hour into the dis-assembly of christmas, the lights came on. Yippee, we have power, which also meant, the portable heater could go on and Kaycee could lie down next to it again. She loves to lay right next to the heater, (sometimes we have to fight for it)
New Years Eve was mello, because of the weather and our friend Lisa was moving up to Portland the very next day. We had planned a party, but with Farkle in Hawaii, and Lisa moving, we cancelled it and decided to just have it be a regular evening with a movie.
New Years Day was productive as well, ran a lot of errands, and had fun hanging around the house playing games.
The next day an indoor day, but by then I was bored with it, and restless. Everything I wanted to do involved being outside, and it just rained non-stop all day.
I thought I would schedule a tattoo appt. but I didnt like the attitude of the chic working the counter, so i didnt schedule anything. Then moved on to play my guitar, but writers block ensued and I got frustrated, so I decided to continue my game Indigo Prophecy, and the stupid cop kept getting anxiety attacks and quit the force, causing my game to end, all because I didnt control her breathing. This irritated me, so then I thought I might try my luck at lemon bars again, but this time they tasted spectacular, but the consistency was nothing short of gooey. I have officially declared myself the worst baker I know. I can cook the salty stuff fine, and have been dubbed a great short order cook, but when it comes to the sweets, that's where it all goes wrong.
The evening ended with NEW episodes of Surface and Medium, which was exciting.

Happy New Year everyone!

I really dont have anything to say. It's january 2nd, and I am waiting for this tattoo place to open up so I can get an estimate on a tattoo I want to get. But, it's raining and I just dont want to go out into the rain.
The weather here has been crap, and my hiking plans have been replaced by playing computer games and watching the news about all the fallen trees and power outages.
I have to say though, even with all the bad flooding and rain we have had here in California, people take it with stride. Watching the news, there was a mother of 2 children who got evacuated and had to go to the red cross shelters that were set up for new years eve, and she had a smile on her face and an "oh well attitude" . Then there was this guy who lived along the Russian River who just lost his home to a flood, and he was like: well, I've lived here 6 years and every year it's a threat, but it never flooded, but this year, I didnt take it seriously, and it destroyed my home. you just have to carry on with life.
The mentality is so different here, I still get sidetracked by it from time to time.
well, it's now time for me to venture out to peirce ink to see about pricing that tattoo.

Lets hear it for Aly and Fila!

Listening to DI this morning, and there was a featured set by 2 DJ's out of Egypt: Aly and Fila. Very good talent coming from these guys. They have that Euro happy get up and go style trance, but with more of an ambient mix to it, which makes for very full sounding "fat" mixes. You can buy them on iTunes, but I havent found much on Amazon.

a "ah ha" moment

So I had one of those this moring while commuting to work. It seems that most of my "ah ha" moments come while either travelling to/from work, or while in the shower.
Anyhow, my ah ha moment came in the form of the looking at the glass half full/half empty theory.
Without all the boring details, I have been having a struggle with a situation in my life, and today, after some random thinking, I decided to look at it with the glass half full theory. This actually worked and had me looking at the same situation with a much brighter view. I dont know how I was allowed to see it with a different view, but I have, and now I feel much better about the whole thing, because that same view that I saw, snowballed into other areas of my own persona to give me insight into those as well and make sense of some old baggage I carried but could now drop.
My long story short is that sayings like "the glass half full/half empty" that have been around for a long time carry weight with the words, and they carry that weight because they work. I mean really, if you are happier because of seeing the same "glass of water with the same volume" differently, and are happier because of it, then who the fuck really cares how much water is in the damn glass anyway? I say, be happy, its much easier on the heart.

Lemon Quiche'

Well, it is Christmas past, and I have finished my baking for the holidays. As you all know, this baking thing is not one of my special talents. But, with motivation and appetite, I sometimes venture outside my realm to bake. This year was lemon bars. Now, truth be told, my mom was a crappy cook, but she did have a few good recipes where she shined. One of these were her lemon bars. So, I called her up and asked her for the recipe to the delicious treats. As she rattled off the ingredients, I really thought nothing of it. It was short, and to the point, and I thought..... this ought to be easy.
First I was to make the dough (crust) this consisted of powdered sugar, flour and butter. pretty much your basic shortbread. I cooked it for the 20 minutes, and let it cool, just as she had said. Now time for the topping, which was the best part. I was to mix in 3 tbsp of flour, a whole lot of lemon juice and 3 eggs. Somehow this seemed odd to me, but I didnt really know why. I mixed it up adn it looked weird, but i thought, "it needs to bake, maybe thats the problem" So into the oven it went for about 20 minutes longer. The buzzer rings, I take it out, and it looks very very wrong. it looks NOTHING like my moms lemon bars. It actually looks like a quiche, with stress cracks on the top and everything. But I thought, hmm, maybe appearance is overrated and it will taste ok. So, my spoon went down into the pan, and again, it really looked like quiche, but i took a bite and nearly spat it out with jet speed. *wow* I had made lemon quiche. it tasted just like lemon juice in a flan like form. I was now convinced that mom had left something out, so i decided to look into Betty Crocker and see what she puts in hers.
I flip to a page with a lemon bar recipe, and like big bold letters smacking me the face, I immediately knew what was srong. S U G A R, there was no sugar in her recipe and I knew that was the problem. I felt a weight lifted and a renewed sense of purpose, and made a second batch. They tasted good, but I think in all of the time spent on the first batch, i got too impatient to bake the dough on the second batch long enough, so the lemon mixture soaked the crust, and became a little to gooey to eat.
But, I know the error of my ways now, and the next time I make them, they will be great.

times are a changing

I was alerted by a friend of mine that there were new, more "adult" advertisments on the backs of busses these days, but I caught this one for myself a few days ago.
It's a bit dark, but I was in a hurry cause the light had just turned green.

seven seven's

Seven Things To Do Before I Die
1. Go to Austraila
2. Own a home
3. own a vehicle that is completely paid off and still running good
4. Have a solid savings account
5. Do something life changing that helps someone or a group of others in need
6. Own a coffee shop that host's local talent
7. Organize the worlds first Trance event with a live acoustical orchestra and DJ's

Seven Things I Cannot Do
1. Sing
2. Read directions (im a more hands on kinda girl)
3. Chin ups
4. Deliver a well prepared argument in the heat of the moment
5. Be a famed dessert chef
6. Ski
7. Trim down these hips and thighs!

Seven Things That I Admire In Others
1. Ability to laugh at most anything, and the ability to be serious when needed
2. Passion (not sexual, though thats cool too)
3. Strength through being humbled
3. Intelligence
4. Determination in the face of adversity
5. Sensitivity/compassion
6. Musically or Artistically Talented

Seven Things I Say Most Often
1. Like
2. awesome
3. AYE!
4. Scheiße (sh*t in German)
5. Uhmm
6. thats unfortunate
7. Kaycee!!

Seven Books (or Series) I Love
1. Gone with the Wind
2. The Vampire Series by Anne Rice
3. Harry Potter Series
4. Four Seasons by Stephen King
5. ?
6. ?
7. (can you tell reading is not my thing?)

Seven Movies I Have Watched Over and Over Again
1. Midnight Express
2. Gone with the Wind
3. Usual Suspects
4. Elf
5. Serpent and the Rainbow
6. Midnight Run
7. Finding Nemo

Seven people I would want to answer this
1. Marie-Helene
2. Kathy
3. Anyone who wants to
4. "
5. "
6. "
7. "