It’s too nice outside to be in here working

Last week was a busy one for me, namely because the majority of the week was spent setting up, supporting, and then breaking down computers for UCSD’s Sharecase event. Basically the purpose of the event is to highlight and show off various technologies used on campus and how they may be integrated into other departments. My job was to configure about a dozen computers to be used for the exhibition, cart them over to campus and set them up, make myself available during the show in case there were any problems, and finally, disassemble everything and cart it all back over to the office.

Wednesday was fairly busy, but everything went smoothly. I spent the majority of the day on campus walking through the event. As a token of gratitude, we were served a free lunch (nothing exciting, but a nice gesture, none-the-less). At the end of the day, there was a big raffle with a lot of nice prizes. Unfortunately, I was scheduled to take down all of the computers during that time. Since I never win anything, I wasn’t too concerned. Just in case, I gave my ticket to my friend Angela to watch my numbers for me. We almost had everything put away and there were still a few items left in the raffle, so I wandered over to watch them finish up. I got outside (where the drawing was being held) and started to look for Angela. I didn’t see her anywhere, so I started to worry, thinking that she had left with my ticket. Finally, I spotted her and walked over to where she was standing. As I approached her, she handed me my ticket. Before I could say anything, the announcer called out the numbers on my ticket. Shocked, I walked over to the prize table. Since I hadn’t been paying attention, I had no idea what I had won. When I got there, a woman took my ticket from me and, in exchange, handed me a new Palm Pilot.

Naturally, I already own a Palm Pilot, so if anybody is interested in this one, let me know. If there is no interest, I will probably e-bay it.

I didn’t get too much work done on Thursday either, because there was a big pizza party in the middle of the day to wrap up Sharecase. Friday was a holiday (Caesar Chavez day, for those of you who aren’t up on your lesser known holidays), so I had the day off. I spent the morning running errands and then met up with my mother and grandmother in Escondido for lunch and to do some shopping. One thing I did end up buying on our outing was a new bed to replace my current, taco shaped, offering. I think the highlight of that adventure was when the saleswoman looked at me and asked if I would be the only one sleeping on the bed or if I shared my bed with someone. Speechless, I turned to look at my mother, whose complexion was now rapidly turning to shades of red, and then back to the saleswoman and managed to eek out some sort of “only me” response.

After the shopping trip, I headed back home to meet up with Alexis and her friends who were in town for the night. We (+ Angelo and Michelle) all went downtown for dinner and ended up eating at Sushi Deli. Although we had a bit of a wait to get a table, the food more than made up for it. To say that the restaurant is a diamond in the rough is a bit of an understatement, as it lies just on the outskirts of the seedy portion of downtown. After dinner, we went back to Pacific Beach to Typhoon Saloon. It was a pretty decent crowd and we all got to do some dancing. Michelle and I ended up ducking out a little early because we were both on the tired side. We had all come in Alexis’ car, so Michelle and I decided to walk over to her place and then take her car back to my place (since everyone was crashing there). Well, evidently fatigue got the best of me, because it wasn’t until we were at Michelle’s, getting ready to leave, that I remembered that my keys and cel phone were still in Alexis’ car. To top things off, because I have always called Alexis from my phone, I had no idea what her phone number was. Thinking quickly, I figured that there was a chance that her number was buried somewhere in my email. Sure enough, after about 20 minutes of digging, I finally found it. Figuring that they wouldn’t be at the house for at least another hour or two, and as tired as I was, I decided that meeting them was out of the question. Instead I just had Alexis let herself in with my keys and met them in the morning.

The weekend was absolutely gorgeous, which worked out perfectly for the planned activities. Saturday was a big sports day for me. Around noon, Michelle and I headed over to a park in Sorrento Valley for an organized game of sloshball, put on by the floor hockey guys. We had a little Bar-B-Que and then took to the field. For those of you who don’t know, sloshball is essentially softball pared with alcohol. There is a keg on first (or in our case, a cooler full of beer) and in order to round first base, you must consume a beer. I guess we were getting through our line-up very quickly, because I failed to get sloshed. Still had a great time, however, and it was probably just as well since I had a hockey game later that night.

The hockey game went well as we had a competent goalie back in net and we ended up winning. Totally exhausted, I just went home and went to bed after the game.

Sunday, Bill and I took to the links and played 18 holes out at one of the Sycuan golf courses. Having not played on a course for over 8 years (save for the pitch ‘n putt a couple weeks ago), I ended up doing ok. I hope to get out more in the future as it’s just a nice relaxing way to spend the day. After golf, I had a floor hockey game in the evening (another win, plus a couple goals) and that did it for my weekend.

What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?

Alright, I’m reaching out to the ladies to answer this one for me. What the hell is up with putting black eyeliner all over your eyes? First off, what is it supposed to accomplish and secondly, do you actually look in the mirror to verify that it’s working? All I see is that it hides your eyes and makes them appear beady and sunk in. Case in point, I was watching American Idol last night and Kimberly Caldwell’s eyes are surrounded with so much eyeliner that you can’t even see her eyes any more. In general, I’m seeing a lot more women trying to achieve this look, and frankly, I don’t get it. Are we supposed to be attracted to the drugged-out heroin look? Please, fill me in.

Also, speaking of American Idol, why don’t they just call it what it is: a one-hour ad for Coca-Cola and AT&T Wireless. Anybody else notice that the second one of the judges picks up their big, red Coke glass, the camera instantly pans to them? Or, the Coke ‘n cake birthday party? Or any of the hundreds of product placements per show? I guess it’s just to get the ready for the transition to the more expensive version when they get famous.

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I hate my Pen Pals

There is no site on the internet that I loathe quite as much as Pens.com. That’s right, a stupid site that sells pens. What could I possibly have against this site, you ask? An innocent give-away on their website has turned me into a helpless victim of the internet.

It all began innocently enough. I was surfing the web when I found an offer for a free personalized pen from Pens.com. All that was required was my mailing address, email address and a willingness to be put on a “special offers” mailing list. What harm could there be in requesting a free pen, I thought to myself. As soon as I received my goodies, I’d simply remove myself from the mailing list.

Weeks went by with no sign of my soft rubber, ergo grip, laser-etched, refillable (and thus, reusable), retractable, personalized ball point pen. All the while, however, the advertising and promotions department was hard at work filling my mailbox with unwanted spam. I couldn’t consider the thought of removing my name from the list for fear of losing out on my internet freebie.

A few more weeks of endless emails from “friends@pens.com” (obviously, the folks at pens.com had an entirely different view of our relationship), and the burden became more than I could bear. No freebie was worth the price my bloated mailbox and I were paying. I logged into their website and unchecked the little box, which now seemed linked to my sanity, labeled, “Please send me exciting news and offers from Pens.com.” A sigh of relief exited my body. While I wasn’t going to get to reap the rewards of my prior web surfing, at least my mailbox was back under my control. Or, so I thought.

For some reason, the emails never stopped. I continued to find myself drowning in a sea of personalized pen spam courtesy of my friends at pens.com. I duplicated my previous visit to the website, wondering if there had been a problem with my first opt-out request. Clearly that wasn’t the problem as the unrelenting barrage of messages failed to stop filling my inbox each morning, afternoon, and evening.

My next line of defense was to beg for mercy in the hopes that professional courtesy would prevail. I emailed the helpdesk at pens.com, asking to be removed from their mailing list, all the while making not-so-subtle references to my job title. I actually received a response a couple days later; it assured me that I had been taken off the list, but I that I may receive one or two additional pieces of mail that had been sent out in the mean time. It was also during this period that the dark clouds of dismay brought forth their silver lining in the form of a personalized pen delivered directly to my mailbox. At least I got something out of the [or]deal, I mused to myself.

Sure enough, there were a couple stray emails that found their way to my inbox and, subsequently, trash. And then, nothing. My pen pals had been silenced.

Weeks passed with nary a peep from the National Pen Corporation. And then it happened. A lone email, touting the effectiveness of pens engraved with my personalized message, slipped, virtually unnoticed, into my mailbox. Somehow, all that I had achieved was lost and, like a cruel joke, I was back in the system. That first email was joined days later by a second, and then a third, a fourth, and so on, much like a dripping faucet whose minute leak was suddenly overrun with water pressure. Suddenly, my email was flooded with Pens.com spam again.

Another visit to the web site did nothing to relieve my predicament. Angry and fed up, I sent yet another email to the customer support department, this time putting more emphasis on 3rd party interest than my job title. Days later, I received this response:
Travis,
I have resubmitted requests to have you taken off our mailing list based on the information that you have given me. It can take up to one year for all of our offers to go out. I do apologize for the inconvenience. But, one year from your original request, you shouldn't receive anything else from us. Thank you for your interest in National Pen.
Are you kidding me?! Since when does it take an entire year to be removed from a mailing list?! They honestly have these stupid advertisements queued up for a year in advance? Whatever.

In closing, I would like to offer up a big F-U to National Pen and their website, pens.com.

My nose has been running a marathon all day

Well, no updates for a while as I’ve been sick and haven’t felt like writing (not too much has been going on anyway).

I guess war is starting to look eminent. I find it mildly amusing that there have been two wars in my lifetime (not counting the Cold War) and both of them have happened with members of the Bush family in charge of our country. Hopefully, Jeb doesn’t plan on making a run for the presidency any time soon.

Strategery

I’ve been on a bit of a health food kick lately. I’m trying to eat more organic foods and less processed and refined foods. Trying to find anything remotely healthy at the supermarket is a chore in itself. Things that should naturally be healthy are totally loaded with sugar. On an aisle stocked from top to bottom with cereals, maybe 2% are actually good for you. Even the granolas and bran cereals are wrought with sugar and corn syrup. I did the majority of my shopping at Whole Foods this past weekend and I was able to find more things that fit my criteria. As an added bonus, I always find that the fruit and vegetables from there always taste much better.

I’d hate for these people to break a sweat on the way to the gym.

All the hockey leagues have come to an end as the winter season ends and before the summer season begins. I guess it will be a nice change of pace to have a couple weeks with no nighttime commitments (other than bowling). Speaking of bowling, that too is ending in a couple weeks, but I think I’m going to continue throughout the summer, as it’s a nice social activity.

I’m entering the NCAA office pool, but I’m not really sure how to fill out my betting sheet. If anyone has any recommendations, please send them my way. ESPN has an article on the do’s and don’t’s when filling out the brackets.

In other news, the business school saga continues. Michelle heard back from Berkeley yesterday regarding her application. It seems that they put her on the wait list; kind of fitting that the torture of waiting should be extended another couple of months.

Smelling your sister’s panties may lead to the need for psychiatric help. Who knew?

Oh yeah, TravisLive should be working again, let me know if you're still having problems.

Back to Business

I think I got everything back in order after recoding the entire webpage (but, on the plus side, I did get rid of all the JavaScript errors). As for updates, not too much to speak about in the past week. Saturday, I got together with my parents for lunch up in Escondido. After lunch, I met up with Bill and one of his friends to play a very short 9 holes of golf at a pitch ‘n putt in University City. Having not stepped on a course in a very long time, I still managed to play a somewhat respectable game (I think I even had a par).

After golfing, Michelle came by and the two of us went to the mall to do a little shopping. Later in the evening, we attended a “Wig and Hat” party in La Jolla. It was thrown as a fundraiser for leukemia research. Without getting into too many details, I would suggest that the hosts look into the definition of “donation” before throwing their next party, or failing that, at least look into how to ask your guests for money in a polite manner.

Late Sunday morning, Michelle and I headed over to Old Town to grab some brunch. After driving around for 30 minutes trying to find a parking spot, we finally gave up and parked in a restaurant’s private lot. Fortunately, the restaurant was as crowded as the parking lot, which is to say, not at all. The food was pretty good, although I ate way too much heavy food. After lunch, we went back to my place so that I could help Kevin clean out the garage. He traded in his Mustang for a new truck, so we had to clean out some extra space so it would fit in the garage. After cleaning up, Michelle and I went over to Mira Mesa for my hockey game. Unfortunately, our usual goalie is stationed over in Iraq right now, so we’ve got a substitute. I say unfortunately, because this new guy seems to let in a few soft goals every game which doesn’t help us on the scoreboard. Sunday was no exception as we ended up losing by a pretty good margin.

Speaking of hockey, I’ve decided not to play with my old team at UTC next season. It was a hard decision for me to make, and I’m hoping it is the right one. With only one win to the team’s credit last season, it made for a very discouraging atmosphere. Add to that that the games were at 9:45 and 11:15 PM during the work week and you can see why I started to miss a lot of games toward the end of the season. The worst part is that I really enjoy playing with the people that are on that team. They are all really nice and we get along quite well. However, I don’t feel that I’m good enough to where I can just enjoy playing for the sake of playing and not worry about getting blown out every night. Rather, I would prefer to play on a team where the games are competitive and I’m forced to play hard to win. So, for the time being, I will not be playing at UTC this season.

After ice hockey, I had another floor hockey game over at UCSD. We ended up being very short players, but still managed to pull together and produce a win. Needless to say, I was completely exhausted by the end of the night. Monday, we had bowling, as usual. I ended up doing pretty well (which was a really welcome change from last week) and bowled a 219, 186 and a 165.

I’m also proud to say that I’ve been able to get back on schedule with my workouts. I’ve made it into the gym consistently in the last two weeks and I’m starting to feel better for it already.

Technical Difficulties

No updates lately because I'm having all sorts of problems trying to post (and I don't feel like losing a ton of work)...more to come when everything is back to normal.

You make a left, then another left, go left again, one last time...do it over and over again for a few hundred miles

Worked a full day on Thursday and then packed when I got home. Michelle took me to the airport around 6:30 and I was on my way. I don't know what it is about Vegas, but as soon as it hits me that I'm going, it puts me in the best of moods. When I find myself actually standing in Vegas, I can help but smile and look forward to a fantastic time. Naturally, this time around was no different. My flight touched down around 9:45 PM and I took a shuttle over to the Sahara to meet up with everyone else. Almost everyone else had arrived by that point so we all hung out for a bit and hit up a couple of the tables. I was pretty tired, so I didn't stick around very long and took off for bed around 1:30 in the morning.

For the first night, there were three of us in our hotel room, Lucas, Eric and myself. Lucas and I decided that we would share a bed for the first night. That was a mistake. I should've done the two of us a favor and just slept on the floor. For starters, the bed wasn't even queen-size (I'm not sure it was even a full-size, for that matter). Then, as I'm falling asleep, I start worrying that I'm going to forget that I'm sharing a bed with Lucas and accidentally throw my arm around him, thinking he's Michelle. So, now I'm doing my best to stay within a foot-wide strip on the left side of the bed unable to fall into a deep sleep because I'm too worried about the repercussions of doing so. Somehow, I manage to fall asleep for a little bit, only to be woken up shortly after by an upsetting wave caused by the seriously undampened springs in the mattress as Lucas climbed into bed. I made my way back over to the last 12 inches of the mattress and tried to fall back asleep, constantly reminding myself that I wasn't in San Diego. I did manage to fall sleep here and there, but for the most part I got very little quality sleep that night. Every time Lucas or I would move, we'd wake the other person up.

Friday morning, the whole team met up at the buffet in the hotel. I tried to eat things that weren't too heavy, for fear of having them sit in my stomach during our first game, or worse yet, having them spill out onto the ice. The game was early in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to make our way over to the rink. Overall, it was a good game and we were pretty well matched to the team we were playing. In the end, we found ourselves in a 4-4 tie.

After the game, everyone headed back to the hotel to get showered up and ready to go out. Mark, his cousin Bob, Eric and I went to dinner at a Brazilian BBQ restaurant in the Mirage. This consisted of a number of side dishes (salad, rice and beans, creamed spinach, fried bananas), various sauces, and all-you-can-eat meat in about 14 different forms. In short, a carnivore's dream. The meal was served as follows: there was an indicator on the table which signaled whether or not we were ready for the next meat offering. When given the green light, a waiter would come by with a huge skewer of meat and slice off a piece onto our plates. This continued until the stop signal was displayed. Having stepped off the ice shortly before, we were all fairly ravenous. As such, we all had each of the 14 meats and then a second helping of at least 4 or 5 of them. I think we got our money's worth (although, looking around at a lot of the Vegas clientele, I think a lot of people are getting their money's worth).

After dinner, we made our way over to Gamezone to meet up with the rest of the team. There, we shared a few beers, played some pool and threw a couple darts. Evidently the bar also has karaoke on Friday nights. Unfortunately, the only person interested in actually performing was the guy running the karaoke machine. Talk about an awful voice. He made just about everyone who tried out for American Idol look good. This guy was so bad that we actually moved pool tables until we were as far away as possible. Since nobody else was singing, there was a lot of downtime between his "performances." To add insult to injury, he took this opportunity to play three Green Day songs over and over. After about three hours of this, we'd had enough and decided to head back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, I played blackjack for a couple hours at one of the dollar tables. When all was said and done, I walked away with a few more dollars in my pocket than I started out with. Lucas met up with some friends from work and stayed in another hotel for the night, so I was able to get a much better night's sleep (as I'm sure he was able to do as well).

The next morning, we all walked over to the Stratosphere for lunch. Finding no good restaurants to eat at, we ended up getting some sandwiches from a deli in the middle of the casino.

Our schedule for the day included two games, one at 4:00 and the other at 11:30 PM. At the four o'clock game, we were thoroughly outplayed and ended up losing 8-1. After the game, we had dinner at a Macaroni Grill just up the freeway. Then, it was back to the rink/casino to kill time before the game.

The second game was a lot closer to the first game, but we ended up losing 2-0. It was a still a good game, none-the-less. With no chance of any playoff games on Sunday, we were free for what little remained of the weekend. By the time we got back to the hotel, showered up, etc. it was 2:30 Sunday morning. I decided to head down to the casino with everyone else and try my luck at the tables again. I sat down at a table that had a couple of spots open. There were two guys sitting across from me, talking, and a couple of interesting looking girls between the three of us. Within a couple of minutes, some more really eclectic people joined our table and one of the two guys across from me, left. It didn't take long for me to realize that nobody at the table was saying a word and then I realized why. With the exception of myself and the guy across from me, everybody at the table was deaf. Well, except for the dealer, but she didn't speak much English. It was a somewhat surreal experience, but not as unusual as one might assume. At any rate, the table wasn't that good to me and I ended up walking away dead even. It was probably about 3:45AM at that point, so I decided I was going to say goodnight to everyone and head up to bed. I found everybody sitting together at another blackjack table with an open seat. How could I resist such a team bonding experience? So, I pulled up a seat and had a go with everyone else. By the time 5 o'clock rolled around, I decided it was time to gather up my chips and head to bed.

Because we didn't have any games on Sunday, I called Southwest to reschedule my flight for an earlier departure. The only open flight they had available was at 10:00 in the morning. With barely three hours of sleep under my belt, I gathered up my belongings and hailed a cab to the airport. After a thorough discussion with the cabbie on alternative fuel vehicles, I was at the airport and on my way home.

I got in around 11:00 and Michelle picked me up. We grabbed a quick lunch and then I went home to sleep for the remainder of the day. I had a floor hockey game later in the evening that went much better than the weekend's other three games. We won 10-1.

The only negative for the weekend was that there was a huge NASCAR race at the Las Vegas Speedway as well as a big boxing match. Both factors combined to limit hotel availability, which is how we ended up at the Sahara. For a recently renovated hotel, that place was a dump. It really felt like it should have been downtown instead of on the strip.

The NASCAR fans were something else! Every one of them looked like a garish, walking billboard. Their jackets were plastered with all things White Trash. And, they were everywhere. I'll be fine if I don't have to look at another redneck sporting a bright red Bud Light jacket ever again.