Case of the missing CD (true user tale of the day)

About a week ago, I had a user come up to me and ask if it were possible for a CD to become stuck in the drive such that it wouldn’t be visible, even with the tray open (it seems she had lost a CD and thought it was still in the drive). I assured her that she would be able to see it and/or it would interfere with her being able to play other CDs (which caused no problems). That was the last I heard about the missing CD.

Today, I swapped her PC out for a new machine. As I was doing so, I asked her if she’d ever found the CD. It hadn’t turned up. On a whim, we popped open the case to see if there was anything inside. As soon as the cover came off, out fell the CD. It seems as though she had inserted the disk in between one of the drive bay block-off plates on the front of the computer. Mystery solved.

My gooch is friggin’ killing me

I rode into work again this morning. There’s one thing that’s very important about getting back into cycling or first starting out. It’s not making sure that your legs are up to the task, it’s not getting your fitness up to snuff so that you don’t pass out after the first mile, it’s not making sure you eat enough so you don’t bonk, and it has nothing to do with double-checking your bike to make sure it’s in rideable shape. No, the most important thing about starting to ride a bike is to start slowly so that your gooch has time to recover between rides. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than riding on a sore gooch. It’s like trying to go to bed after your first day in prison. Unhappy times.

edit:
Gooch (gôôch)
n. Slang

1. The area between the scrotum and anus.

Easy Money

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Even modern-day fabrics have their limits

Even the menacing skies overhead failed to keep Bill and I from accomplishing our mission to ride into work today. It was cold and, naturally, took a little longer than usual, but it left me feeling good by the time I got into the office. As of right now, it looks like our ride home is going to be accompanied by near perfect conditions.

I didn’t do much last night. Watched a little TV, flipping between NHL playoff games and American Idol. I was happy to see Minnesota defeat Colorado; not that I’m necessarily rooting for them to go all the way, but it was good to see Colorado lose. As for American Idol, any one else notice that Kimberly Locke split her pants? When she came out to sing, the right leg of her pants was all taped up; a repair made hasty because of the element of live TV, perhaps?

As I was getting ready to go to bed, I got a call from Spare who needed help moving some, ahem, furniture. Turns out he and Lucas needed assistance moving a refrigerator turned kegerator and a 5-foot fire-proof safe up a couple flights of stairs. Surprisingly, it only took us about 20 minutes to move their combined weight of about 450 pounds up the stairs. Even more surprising is that all of our backs survived.

If only bowling were cool

Work has been unbelievably busy these past 2 weeks; I’m having to set up and distribute 36 computers before the end of the month. Life outside of work has been pretty hectic as well.

LA Dave was in town for a weekend getaway with his girlfriend, so on Friday night, Kevin, Julia, Michelle, and I met up with the two of them at Surf Side Sushi for dinner. After dinner, Desiree (Dave’s girlfriend) wasn’t feeling well, so we all called it a night.

Saturday, I spent a couple of hours detailing my car (it’d been far too long since the last time) and taking care of some things around the house. Around 2:00, Michelle and I headed up to Buena Park to meet her parents for dinner at Wild Bill’s Wild West Extravaganza (think Wild West version of Medieval Times). It was the first time that I spent any significant time with her parents, and I think everything went pretty well. The dinner show was a lot of fun; there were a half dozen or so acts, separated by comedic banter between Wild Bill and his missus. After dinner, we parted ways and Michelle and I made our way over to Hemet.

We were making our way down Gilman Hotsprings Road (two-lane rural highway) and I was thinking to myself that the road was pretty heavily patrolled and I should probably be using my radar detector. I didn’t bother taking it out, which proved to be a huge mistake. After traveling about a third of the road, I noticed a car with its lights off on the opposing side of the road. By the time the thought, “that’s probably a cop” went through my head, it was too late. I slowed down to 55 as we passed the patrol car and my eyes became glued to the rearview mirror. Sure enough, within a couple of seconds the car’s lights came on and he flipped a U-turn and began following me. “I’m about to get pulled over,” I commented to Michelle. The cop seemed to agree with my thoughts as he turned on his light bar. “Shit,” I sighed, as my heart sank into my chest. Remembering as much as I could about how to get out of a traffic ticket, I went into damage control mode. I found a huge area to pull off the road to give the cop plenty of breathing room, I immediately turned off the engine, put down my window, placed my hands on the wheel and waited patiently for the officer to appear at my side.

We went through the license and registration routine, how fast I was going (63, 64? Radar said 65), what the speed limit was (uh, I think it’s 55?), I explained that I was heading home for Easter, etc. Well, the automotive gods were smiling down on me that night, as the cop handed all of my documents back to me and wished me a good night, provided I kept my speed down. There are a lot of things that feel great in life, but getting pulled over and not receiving a ticket has to be in the top ten.

Easter Sunday was great. We had about 15 people over at the house and, as always, my mother brought forth an enormous spread of food. Michelle was a good sport about the whole thing and everyone enjoyed meeting her.

Monday was a pretty crazy day around the office, but I got a lot of things done. After work, Al and I headed over to Sunset Bowl for our last week of league bowling. Having not bowled in two weeks, I wasn’t expecting big things. Sure enough, I was about 10 pins under my average for the first game. In the second game, things picked up a bit and I think I bowled a 192. By the third game, I found my groove and I bowled strikes for the first 4 frames. Then, in the 5th frame, I left myself with a 4-9 split. “Oh well,” I thought to myself, “there goes that big game.” I threw my second ball and witnessed an act of divine intervention as the ball was impeccably guided into the precise spot on the 4 pin, allowing it to fly over and take out the 9 pin. At that point, I knew that something special was going to happen. When all was said and done, I had bowled a 255; exactly 110 pins over my average to date. The next thing I heard was my name being announced over the loud speaker and people coming over to congratulate me. Figuring in my handicap, that means I bowled a 313 (the record high for the season)!

Everyone else had a pretty good night as well. Al ended up bowling a 178, which helped us to sweep the other team in all four games, hoisting us out of last place.

Tomorrow will [hopefully] mark my first day back on the bike. Bill and I (and possibly Al) are planning to start riding our bikes into work. Tomorrow will be our first run. I hope that it will spark me to continue to ride on a regular basis. My primary goal is to be able to ride a century (100 miles in one sitting) by the end of the summer. It is a lofty goal, so I’m not sure how achievable it will be, but I will give it my best. My secondary goal is to be able to do the Rosarito-Ensenada ride again in September, but this time I won’t eat the tacos.

Happy Easter/Passover (If that's your thing)

I really need to go back to playing hockey 3 or 4 times a week. I’m so antsy these days; I feel like I’m a big ball of nervous energy with no outlet. I think I’m driving Michelle nuts. Unfortunately, I don’t have any games for at least another week, so it can only get worse.

Last night, Bill came over after work and we changed out his brakes. Felt good to work on a car again. I’m currently waiting on a bunch of performance parts for my car to show up. Hopefully they’ll get here soon as I’m aching to put them on.

This weekend should be pretty full. Tomorrow, I think Bill and I are going to try to get out and play some golf in the morning or maybe do some cycling. Then, in the afternoon, Michelle and I are going to go up to LA to meet her parents for dinner. Afterwards, we’re going to drive over to Hemet for Easter with my folks.

I left my heart in San Francisco

In order to allow myself time to get my stitches out and get packed for the weekend, I decided to take Friday off. I got up and headed straight over to the hospital in the morning. Fortunately, there weren't many people there and I was in and out fairly quickly. I spent the rest of the day running around town and putting my suitcase together. Michelle and I left for the airport around 4:00. By 7:00 we had touched down in Oakland and Manu picked us up at the airport. The three of us went back to his place where we met up with Patty, dropped off our bags and decided on a place for dinner. We finally decided on an Indian food place that was up near the Berkeley campus. The restaurant's claim to fame was that they featured over 200 kinds of bread (naan). We received our food within minutes of ordering and it was all quite good. The most momentous part of the meal came when Manu put 11 years of vegetarianism behind him and sampled some of the chicken that I had ordered. It was a unique sight to see, to say the least. At the same time, however, it was a bit anticlimactic. His head failed to explode, no aliens popped out of his stomach and started dancing; he just chewed and swallowed the bit of poultry and that was the end of it.

After dinner, there was talk of heading out to a bar for a nightcap, but by the time we got back to the apartment, we were all too tired to leave again. When we awoke the next morning, everything was wet from a rain shower the night before. It continued to rain lightly as Michelle, Manu and myself headed out to grab some breakfast. We ate at Cafe Durant in downtown Berkeley. The plan after breakfast was to head down into San Francisco for the day, but the rain kept us at bay for a couple of hours. Finally, it let up a bit and we took off for the city. Our first stop was to meet up with Randi; we visited with her for a while and then the four of us went down to the Haight district for a quick bite and to do some shopping. I had a hankering to return to an Ethiopian restaurant that David had taken me to when I visited him in Berkeley. After a bit of searching, we found the restaurant and made our way inside.

Being that it was the middle of the afternoon, there were quite a few people in the restaurant. For those who haven't had Ethiopian food before, it is actually quite good. I guess I would liken the dishes to Indian food, but they are served on a large piece of spongy bread. There are no utensils; rather, you eat everything with your hands, using additional pieces of bread.

After lunch, the weather cleared up a bit and we did some shopping along Haight St. I was excited to visit some of the retro clothing stores, but I wasn't looking for anything in particular, so I ended up leaving empty handed.

Upon leaving the Haight, Manu dropped Michelle and I off at a BART station so that we could head down towards Palo Alto to meet up with Alexis. She wanted us to come down and have dinner with her and P.F. Chang's and then take us out to a couple of her favorite bars. We went out to dinner on the way home from the BART station. Because Alexis worked there, we were able to simply walk in and sit down immediately (something I don't think anyone's ever done at P.F. Chang's). Of course, we received very good service and the food was delicious. Following dinner, we trekked back to Alexis' dorm room to hang out for a bit before heading out. When it was time to finally leave to go out, it was pretty late. I don't think anybody was really up for a night on the town, including Alexis. Being the trooper that she is, she headed out anyway, while Michelle and I decided to stay behind and get some sleep.

Sunday morning, Alexis drove Michelle and I down to San Jose to visit with Michelle's aunt and uncle. Michelle and I stayed there for a couple of hours before heading over to meet up with some of her college friends (most of the group from the ski trips). Because I hadn't eaten all day, I was pretty much starving at this point. I requested that we stop and get a snack before continuing on with the day's activities. We stopped off at the food court in the mall for a bite and then headed over to the Winchester Mystery House. The Mystery House is an enormous mansion that was built by the heiress to the Winchester Rifle Company fortune. Essentially, it serves to exhibit what happens when someone with more money than brains (or architectural ability) tries to build a house. There are staircases that lead up to the ceiling, windows and doors on the floor, doors that open into walls, etc.

After the tour, it was time to eat again! For dinner, we went to a great little sushi restaurant in San Jose. After dinner, Michelle and I got dropped off at the BART station and we were on our way back to Albany. Monday, Michelle had her interview at Berkeley, so she had to leave fairly early in the morning. I took this opportunity to get caught up on my sleep and didn’t end up getting out of bed until about 10:30 in the morning. As soon as I finished eating breakfast, I went over to the sink to wash my dishes. For whatever reason, the water was turned off. This also meant that I wasn’t going to be able to take a shower. So, I filled my time with Monday morning television, periodically checking to see if the water had been turned back on. Finally, by about 12:30, there was water again. I showered up and then took a walking tour of the area by Manu’s place. It was a nice day to be out and about. I had lunch at a little Thai place (of which there were about a hundred to choose from—literally). By the time I was done, it was time to meet up with Michelle again. It sounded like her interview went well, and now it is time to play the waiting game again.

In other news, Dave completed two of the three weeks of a diet that I put him on. The bad news is that he didn’t make it all three weeks because school and the awkwardness of dating while on a diet got in the way. The good news is that he still lost 10 pounds. Congratulations, Dave!

Anybody catch American Idol last night? Is it just me, or was Smokey Robinson’s skin so tight that you could bounce a quarter off of it? Whatever happened to aging gracefully?

Face off in the corner

The weekend started painlessly enough, but by the end I found myself receiving stitches in the emergency room. On Friday night, I was pretty tired and I was starting to feel like I was coming down with something, so I decided to take the night off and go to bed early. I woke up on Saturday morning feeling refreshed and ready for the weekend. Kevin and I hit the gym and I came back home to await delivery of my new bed. The guys showed up with the bed around 3:00 in the afternoon and had everything assembled and ready to go within about 15 minutes.

Later in the evening, I gave Dana a call to see if he wanted to meet up for dinner. He mentioned that he already had plans to go to see a Gulls game with a bunch of his med. student friends and invited me along. He and a couple of his friends picked me up around 6:30 and we headed over to the game. As we were walking up to the ticket window, a lady came over to us and offered to sell us a couple of extra tickets that she had. We decided to take the chance and picked them up. Luck was on our side and they turned out to be terrific seats, 5 rows off the ice. The game was pretty good, although there weren’t any of the usual fights, and the Gulls ended up winning 6-4. Watching those guys play is really inspirational; it’s amazing how fast they skate, how well they pass the puck, and just play together as a team.

After the game, we went to hang out at one of Dana’s friend’s friend’s place. There were a bunch of guys there sitting around watching American Pie 2. We all sat down and finished out the movie. Afterwards, the group was going to go to a bar, but Dana and I decided to call it a night instead. I had a great time hanging out with Dana (seems like we don’t get to see much of each other these days) and his friends. Hopefully there will be more opportunities in the future to hang out with them.

On Sunday morning, Kevin and I rose bright and early, which was exceptionally painful considering the time change, and went down to Mission Bay to meet up with Bill for a round of golf. To say that the weather was nice would be a glaring understatement. It was a perfect day. Nice and clear, sunny, just one of those days that serves as a reminder as to why I live here. We all played fairly well and I think everyone had a good time. I started to figure some things out with my game by the end and I had some pretty decent shots. When we were done, we headed on in to Pacific Beach to grab some lunch and cervezas at Fred’s.

After lunch, Bill followed us back to the house and performed an oil change on his car in record time. When he left, I was off to my first hockey game of the afternoon over in Mira Mesa. Evidently our goalie didn’t get the memo about the time change because he was AWOL for the first two periods. Since it was just a consolation game, we just played for fun and used it as a time to practice.

I had to leave the game a few minutes early to make it over to UCSD for a floor hockey game. In short, we got spanked. It was 6-0 going into the final period and there wasn’t much hope of coming back. We scored one goal to make it 6-1 and that’s how it ended. With about 2 minutes to go in the game, I was in front of the opposing team’s goal. I don’t really know exactly what happened, but somehow during the play, one of the opposing team members got their stick up in the air and hit me in the face. At the time it didn’t feel like much, so I kept playing for a bit. When I reached up to touch my chin, my hand came back covered in blood. Crap. I told our captain that I was out for the rest of the game and went to the bathroom to clean out the cut. Well, it turns out the cut was more of a gash, and a deep one at that. The general consensus around the rink was that it was going to require stitches. I gathered up my stuff and had Dana drive me over to the emergency room.

My last visit to the emergency room was for the fateful E. coli experience; fortunately, the circumstances surrounding this visit were actually less unpleasant. This time around, the whole visit took about two and a half hours. Michelle came by soon after we arrived to relieve Dana and keep me company through the ordeal. I thought a gaping flesh wound, or at least bleeding, helped to increase one’s priority in being seen, but I guess I was mistaken. It was probably a good 2 hours before they started stitching up my face. I ended up getting two sets of stitches, an inner set and an outer set. I have to go back on Friday to get them taken out. In addition to the stitches, I also got a tetanus shot, which I made sure to get in my left arm so it wouldn’t interfere with bowling tonight (and yes, Michelle rolled her eyes at the nurse administering the shot when I made the request).

Amazingly, this was my first hockey-related hospital visit; hopefully it will be the last for a while.

Too stupid to shop?

How long is it going to be before I walk into VONS and someone takes my hand, leads me around the store and does my shopping for me? Are we really as helpless as they make us out to be? The latest thing is that they have a person who helps you pick out which line to get into to check out. I mean really, how difficult is it to pick the shortest line on your own? The worst part is that the person sending you into what they deem the quickest line seems to be wrong about 75% of the time. When they practically push your cart into line for you, it’s difficult to wander into checkstand 3, which you know in your heart of hearts is going to be the quickest route to the parking lot, when the checkout director has you headed into checkstand 5. Then you get into line and the checkout person has to pretend that they care how you’re doing, when really the only thing on their mind is how soon they can go on break and burn down a fag. And, just when you think it’s all over, you get hit with the “can I help you carry your groceries out to your car” bit.

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