Friday, July 30, 2004

I've recently been watching episodes from Season 3 of The Family Guy. This show is absolutely hilarious. Good thing it's returning to television next year...

Funny conversation with Tony:

(I'm asking about his job)
MADDOGCHEN: database, inventory, managing that. and then they sent me to China for 2 months to teach them our database program, how to use it
[...]
KeFanMan: well that's cool, you got a trip to china out of it
MADDOGCHEN: yeah, china sucks, what a shitty country
MADDOGCHEN: i never want to go back

Monday, July 26, 2004

Manjunath had steak yesterday. I thought this was momentous enough to blog.

Saturday, July 24, 2004

I changed my front brake pads today, mainly because I started hearing a slight noise that I thought might be the wear indicators. I bought the brake pads over a year ago, but never got around to installing them until now. (And I've only done the fronts.) I was also hoping it would get rid of an occasional squeal... I haven't heard it yet, so hopefully it's gone for good.

I bought a 100-Mbps network card at a garage sale last weekend. I had been using a 10-Mbps card that was at least 10 years old, so now I'm up to 9-year-old technology. Not that 10 vs. 100 Mbps matters over a 1-Mbps cable modem, but hey, it helps in local transfers and it was virtually free.

I also got an old video card from the garage sale so now I have a dual flat-panel monitor setup at work, courtesy of Mike being out of town. Sweet.

Food Network was showing the World Bartending Championships. It was pretty cool, all the bartenders were juggling bottles, flipping tins behind their backs, balancing stuff on their heads, pouring drinks sideways while spinning, etc.

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Dodgers have won 14 of their last 15! That be crazy. Of course last time I blogged about how well the Dodgers were doing, they proceeded to lose 8 straight.

Here are a couple of rock climbing photos, courtesy of Florent. Me at the top of a wall:

Now I'm belaying (lower left) as Manjunath climbs:

Me bouldering (as Florent says, I enjoy bouldering in therapeutic doses of 3 seconds):

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Today was fun. First, I had my first flight lesson in over a month. It was in the club's brand new Cessna 172SP, which they just got a couple of weeks ago. My instructor pointed out that I'll probably never get to fly a newer plane.

Then I went rock climbing for the first time, which was cool. It's interesting that a light person like me can belay someone much heavier (the instructor weighed 60 pounds more than me). Anyway, it was fun, we all took turns climbing and belaying. I tried a handful of the easier walls and was able to get all the way up most of them. And these are pretty tall walls, much higher than the one they had at the Wooden Center. I'll post some pictures when I get them.

Since we got the starter package (which included gear, a day pass, and instruction) we also got a free day pass to be used within the next month. So we'll probably be going back.

As I am getting too lazy to blog about Belgium and Paris, I will just post this link to the photos. There are captions on the later photos (after page 13) so you can get some idea of what is going on.

Monday, July 12, 2004

I got a new 20" flat panel monitor at work today. It's sweet. Now I have a lot more desk space, but I've already filled it with junk. Heh.

We just had to shoo a bat out of our house. It was pretty exciting. This is actually the second bat we've had in the 2 years I've lived here.

One of my roommates tells me her friend had bat problems, so her dad used to vacuum them up, drive somewhere far, and then put the vacuum on reverse and shoot them all out. Pretty amusing.

Saturday, July 10, 2004

Hey there! Lots to blog about, which I will get to eventually (with pictures!) but probably not right now. Here is a sampling, in roughly chronological order: Belgium, Paris, lost luggage, braces removed, New York, fireworks, Yankee Stadium, Coney Island.

Today I saw fireflies when I came home at dusk. Fireflies are cool.

Now I have to do laundry as I haven't had a chance to do it in 3 weeks so I am really running low on the important stuff.

On my flights to and from New York, I got upgraded to first class, which was cool. But since it's such a short flight anyway (1 hour 20 minutes) there isn't much difference between first class and coach, other than the additional space.

Currently reading: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris. Parts of this book are laugh-out-loud hilarious. (That sounds like a book jacket quote, but it's true.) I think the person sitting next to me on the flight today thought I was weird since I kept laughing.