seriously??? arugula????

I might be 100% wrong but...I think I've grown some arugula!!!!!!!!! From seeds!!!!!!!!!!

if these are weeds, don't tell me

Also, I was on a leadership call today and found out my sr. VP shared the video I made with my colleagues with our CTO and they both LOVED it. And they both said I should be in Hollywood making movies.

Hahaha.

But the CTO wants me to make more movies!!!!

Go me today!

In other news the guy who offered me a job in his kitchen at the jazz fest contacted Jessica on her FB page and offered Brasil Street Food the opportunity to cook at his distillery every Sunday. She's looking into the permits.

the official diagnosis - I'm "internally deranged"

I went to see a doctor today (I'll call him Dr. M) because my dentist told me I have TMJ (it's causing pain and hearing issues in my right ear, difficulty sometimes chewing or opening my mouth, and apparently wreaking havoc on my back teeth so she suggested I go see someone).

I knew he was the right doctor for me when the first words out of his mouth were "wow, you have a REALLY big forehead". Later in the exam, Dr. M asked "why does your nose look weird????" (I broke it 3 times). Anyway, he said that the problem should be fixable with surgery because I have the kind of TMJ that can be helped with surgery (caused by trauma, when I broke my jaw in 2001), but he was afraid to suggest surgery because he didn't know what the doctor who originally fixed my jaw did to fix it. He is worried that the other doc used a teflon thing to repair the break and that teflon stuff is bad (I researched it and he's right). And the 2001 doc put in some screws which I was supposed to have taken out 6 months after the surgery...but I never did that. So I have some bone spurs that have grown over the screws that are contributing to the mis-alignment in my jaw.

So he had me see another doctor in his office for a second opinion and I have to go see a third doctor at the end of June. Dr. M said it's a simple problem to fix, potentially, if they can find out what the original surgeon did, but as it turns out, he's no longer practicing and I don't have a surgery report (I broke my jaw in a bike accident and was treated at the ER so it wasn't like a normal surgery where they give you a report after - luckily I kept the doctor's card). In the mean time I have physical therapy to do and potentially may have to wear a mouth guard that will keep me from closing my mouth (that's. just. great). I'm sure it will all get sorted, eventually.

I wish I had those "easy" medical problems to fix. This is like my zombie knee redux...

think pink!

I got my hair re-pinked today (thanks for the gift certificate mom!!!!). Since pink is what's called a "fashion" color it fades more quickly than normal dye. But hopefully since I've stopped washing my hair it will stay bright a little longer.

very pink! looks the same on my hair!

I'm 44 - I can do whatever the fuck I want now

A note on not washing my hair...Jess kept telling me about how she only washes her hair when she gets color put in but I thought, since she has really long hair, maybe that's why her hair didn't look dirty (we have similarly curly hair and you would never know she didn't wash her hair if she didn't tell you). And I did stop washing my hair for almost an entire year when I lived in Athens in 1998 - 99, mostly due to the water shortage, and only washed it after I slept in the sahara desert and got sand in my scalp. But I was swimming / scuba diving practically every day in the ocean.

Anyway, when I got pink in my hair a month ago I decided to do an experiment and not wash it for as long as possible. Then I did some research about not washing hair.

Personally, I've found everything those articles said to be true. I used to have an itchy, flaky scalp (thanks, aging scalp, for that) and my hair would come out in big clumps. Plus, it always looked dry, even though I never blow dry it and use a really good, mild shampoo.

What I do is rinse my hair with water...

...one sec, forgot I was boiling water in the kitchen and the pot is making a horrible noise...

...every other day or every third day and then I apply conditioner (and rinse it out, obviously, or maybe not so thought I would mention to do that).

My hair feels like little kid hair. My curls are healthier. And my scalp is itch and flake free. And that's after not washing for just 5 weeks. The first two weeks were a tad bit rough (until I found out about the rinse with conditioner thing). And my hair was put to the ultimate test standing over frying dough and shrimp / chicken at the jazz fest. It did not retain any frying smells after I rinsed it. And a guy at work complimented me on the way my hair smelled (I don't know why, but when I'm in an elevator with men they sniff me - weird, I know - I was once in an elevator at work with this totally uptight religious guy and he was like "SNNNNNNNNNNNNIIIIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" and then said "I love your perfume!" - I had to laugh because my perfume is made with cannabis extract - it doesn't get you high, it just smells nice but he probably would have freaked out if he had known - btw, the one product I use occasionally in my hair smells like coconut, maybe that's why my colleague liked it - also, I was only taking the elevator because he wouldn't take the stairs).

Anyway, if you're bored, not washing your hair is a fun experiment to try. Think of all the money you'll save. I hardly put any product on my hair these days because I don't need to tame frizzy curls or try to make it look less dry and crap.

Now I'm off to continue this really cool algebra class I'm taking (watching it to get ideas for a book I've been thinking to write called the math castle) and eat some spaghetti with Martha Stewart baked cherry tomato sauce that I just made (hope it's as good as the reviews claimed - it was so simple to make it seems like it shouldn't taste good.).

crushing it in Colorado

Not to brag, but I've finally managed to break into the top 10 in the Colorado fitbit group.

It's the little wins every day that keep people fit...

the best awful shoes ever

I decided on Wednesday that I should look into getting some flip flop like shoes so I don't have to put on my socks and shoes to walk at my treadmill desk. I checked at a store my ortho surgeon recommended to see what they had in stock.

And I did get two pairs of super cute flip flops and have decided to retire my chacos because they hurt my knee (possibly because every pair is at least 5 years old). And I did find one of the most comfortable pair of sandals I have ever worn. They have a rubber sole with a cork middle and the insole is made out of memory foam so it's literally like walking on marshmallows but they are durable enough that I can put a lot of mileage on them without having to replace them.

The only problem is, they are SO FUCKING UGLY.

are you fucking fist fucking me????? this designer needs to be fired and then sent somewhere without pencils and paper so they never design ANYTHING EVER AGAIN - I can't believe I paid $120 for these shoes

Seriously, if I had to walk over molten glass and was given the choice to do it barefoot or with these shoes, I would go barefoot because I don't ever want anyone to see these on my feet. I kept the box so I can hide them when I'm not using them on my treadmill.

Why do shoe designers equate "comfortable shoe" with "people who have no sense of style"? Ech. I'm doing some research on how I can cover that awful triangle in the middle of these shoes with something more esthetically pleasing because I occasionally catch of glimpse of them under my treadmill desk and they make me want to throw up.

I love paint and plants

On tuesday I was going to do some ironing and noticed that the hamper I keep my wrinkled stuff in, which is 17 years old, was looking kind of crap. Then I noticed the trash can in the laundry room also looked like crap. Then I spilled pink nail polish in the trash can in my room so I was like "fuck it, I have a Home Depot gift certificate". I got some spray paint and went to work.

very cool spray paint

hamper, I tried to clean it so it would look nicer but the paint came off

$3 trash cans I got from Ikea in 2001 - they're rusting

nail polish disaster

post painting - they look so cool!

And since I was painting I decided to repaint all my window sills since the plants / cacti have made a mess on them. I coated them with polyurethane this time so they'll be easy to keep clean.

But the painting of the window sills required me to move all my plants outside and I decided to re-pot them (I did not know you were supposed to re-pot house plants at least once a year to refresh the soil until I took a gardening class). I have them all outside until the window sills dry. Might leave them out for the summer, I'll see how they do getting real sunlight.

I put the old shelves from my office outside - the plants seem to like it out there so far

I transplanted all of them into larger pots I had laying around...might use these pots to start an herb garden using seeds

I also went to the nursery and got some arugula seeds (apparently no one sells arugula around here that's already grown - I called a bunch of places and no one had any). Funnily, the woman who owns the nursery where I got the seeds said she'd never tried arugula. I was like "hmm" and she said "I hate vegetables, but this year I decided I'm going to try kale".

How can you own a nursery and hate vegetables?????????????????

an herb garden with chives, arugula, arugula seeds, and chives seeds...could be a disaster or might turn out great

tomato and raspberries seem to be coming along...well, at least they're still alive

with apologies to the Blair Witch Project

On Friday I and two of my colleagues made a movie. It's about solution architecture which is what I work on. I've been trying to think up ways to encourage people to follow a standard practice and thought, since they seem bored with my power points, multimedia would be the way to go.

It's horribly acted and likely only funny to anyone who is an (IT) architect that has also seen the Blair Witch Project. You can see the fading pink in my hair (have to do a refresh next week). I am eternally grateful that my colleagues agreed to join me in this project.

I used wondershare to edit the video since we filmed it on an iPhone, iMovies sucks, and I don't have a Mac. I've never edited a video in my life so had no idea what I was doing. I think it came out pretty well except for a bad splice at the end (learned a lesson about having some pauses in the vid in case you have to edit it). It's pretty obvious I spent the whole movie on the verge of hysterical laughter. My colleague Pete kept coming up with one liners that I wasn't expecting and that I couldn't laugh at. We both almost made each other laugh a few times in the movie.

Anyway, not heading to hollywood, but had a ton of fun and plan to make more movies. The movie took us about 20 minutes (including set up and practicing each scene) to make.

I also did a vlog after the movie about making the movie and the ideas behind what we did. I sent the above vid, and the vlog, to a senior VP in my company (I made the vlog for him). He should get it on Monday at which point I'll either be praised or fired. I'll try to post some quick clips from the movie later this week.

fingers crossed for a green thumb!

While I've been slacking on my blog I've been busy with all kinds of projects...

I had to sand, patch, and repaint my ceilings upstairs because I had new vents installed for my swamp cooler. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to sand and patch and there was a huge mess to clean up after...

And today a guy came to fix the back flow for my sprinkler. He also made some minor adjustments to make the drip system work better (no charge for that). I happened to mention to him how I get a really bad pipe bang (pipe banging against one of the 2 x 4s holding up my kitchen) every time the sprinkler system goes off. The banging is so loud it would wake me up at 430 every morning, and because the sprinklers run for 15 minutes it kind of sucked (sometimes I could fall back asleep but most times I couldn't - nothing sadder than wandering around a house at 5 in the morning with nothing to do because it's too early to vacuum). He managed to fix the banging by putting in a release valve. Psyched!

it's like a cigarette for the sprinkler system - relieves pressure

I told the sprinkler guy how my next door neighbor was complaining about military planes flying low over our building early in the morning waking him up and at first I was puzzled since we hardly ever hear planes and then realized my neighbor was also hearing the pipe banging and assumed it was an F-16 or something. The sprinkler guy laughed so hard he had to turn off his torch thing that he was using to weld the release valve. As I was writing him a check he called one of his sprinkler buddies and told him the story. If you read about it somewhere else, that was me.

And since my mom gave me a gift certificate to home depot for my birthday I decided to go there after work today to buy some plants. I didn't even spend half of the money yet because they were sold out of some of the plants I wanted...things could get really interesting in my back yard as I use up the gift certificate.

I got these, um, white and pink flowers - I don't know what kind they are, they're...flowers - and I like them

the plant to the left is a raspberry bush (going to see how it does in a planter as an experiment), and the other two are cherry tomatoes plants purported, by their labels, to grow "excellently" in planters

blueberry bush!!!!!!! much of what I read cautioned that blueberries can take over a yard - have at it! I love blueberries

I had to re-pot my christmas cactus that Cam gave me for christmas - hope I don't have to re-pot it again because it's getting too heavy to lift - 13" planter, I remember when I first got it and it fit into a 6" pot

this is the start of an herb garden, I'm going to add some chives and cilantro to the pot as soon as I can find some - it's like a little herb garden in a big pot

while I was carrying the christmas cactus outside one of his little arms snapped off - so I put it in a shot glass to see if it will grow roots

this is some thai basil from take out pho that I got two weeks ago - I put it in a shot glass and it grew roots so I potted it to see what will happen

Hopefully my garden will be a success this summer. If not, I'll be sure to post pics of the deadest plants ever.

happy birthday - here's your disasters!

Today is my 44th birthday and we had sun, hail, a tornado, and now massive flooding.

see sewer lid popped off lower left corner of the pic near the white truck

And my Aunt Mary sent me the best birthday card:

Here's the video of the car:

work, walk, and lube

My new swamp cooler has finally been installed! Hooray! And as soon as the rain from the storm we had dries up I will take a picture of it. I also had new vents installed inside my house, but am going to have to do some repainting and dry wall patching because they're slightly smaller than the vents I used to have.

I also got my treadmill fixed today (for free!). The incline wasn't working. The guy who came to fix it is as enthusiastic about treadmills as I am and told me about all these things I could do to make my treadmill better. He also put in a work order to get me a new motor because my existing one ticks (it's a slight annoyance, but why not get a new motor, especially since it's free and an upgrade to the one I have).

he seemed surprised at the amount of mileage on my treadmill and dubious that it was just me using it so I showed him my fitbit status in the colorado group - my goal is to be in the top 5 by June

He also said "oh, you've got the best lube! and you got the wand!" Haha. I ordered a product called lube n walk for my treadmill (you have to put lube under the belt - I do this once a week). It's pretty cool, you put the lube on this wand contraption thing, slide it under the treadmill belt, and slide it down the length of the belt. One side lubricates the deck and the other side wipes dirt off the underside of the belt. I like killing two birds with one stone. He told me the lube that normally normally comes with treadmills isn't as good as what I have and is so thick it can cause the belt to stick to the deck which is exactly what the lube is supposed to present.

He said "I have to give you this tube of lube but you can throw it away when I leave." At every service call he has to give clients the crap lube that comes with the treadmill. Maybe that's a way for the company to get your belt to wear out so they make more money, I don't know.

And, he said it was "excessive" to vacuum out the motor compartment every week. What ever.

Now the only thing I have left to fix is my sprinkler. The overflow valve is leaking. That's getting done next week. I was going to try to fix it myself but am afraid I might break it and that would be an even more costly repair so fuck it, I hired a professional. I did research how to fix it and came across this lovely instruction step. I keep repeating it to myself for reasons unknown to me:

yes, let's place a bonnet on the poppet and load it on a rocket

Finally, Jess sent me this pic from the jazz festival. At first I thought it was because it showed the food tent, and she was like "no, look, there's you slaving away at the stove!" Fucking asperger's. I didn't even realize I was in the picture until she pointed me out.

note the paper towels and you can almost see the sanitizing spray sitting RIGHT behind me - I should have recognized myself because of that...

buckets, bruises, best brazilian street food

I woke up at 530 on Saturday morning since I had to be ready to go by 645 to help Jessica and Edglas set up their brazilian street food tent at the 5 points jazz fest. I probably could have slept until 6 but I was worried about how the jazz fest would go. We had staged food and other stuff at my house with the plan of moving it in increments to the jazz fest since it was so close to my house so I felt weirdly responsible for the jazz fest being a success.

Welton street was blocked off but they let vendors in at 7 for set up. I was worried because I didn't have an official pass like Jessica did and she was like "when they see your car (stuffed with a tent, tables, coolers, a fryer, etc.) I'm pretty sure they'll let you in."

It turns out we were the very first vendor to arrive, and we were so early the location of our tent had not been identified yet. Niecy, who was in charge, gave us a spot right in front of one of the jazz venues. This was great for Jessica because it brought people by the food tent. It was great for me because the bands that played there were amazing and I got to listen to their music the whole day.

I initially thought Jess would limit my participation to running shrimp and chicken and whatever else was needed from my house to the food tent. But after we got set up she happily decided to keep me around. Literally at the opening of the fest (actually, the fest officially started at 11, we got our first order at 10:58) we were mobbed and not even the brief rain we had around 630 (I think it was 630, I was too busy to check my watch) made people leave the line.

this is the line at one of the slower periods of the day - it goes all the way back to that guy in the blue shirt where the red arrow is

 One of the things I had to do was to walk huge (think the buckets at home depot) buckets of dough from my house to the festival. The buckets were full of wet dough, i.e. REALLY FUCKING HEAVY. We had sort of made friends with the guys that were running the power because Edglas had to start cooking at 930 and at 920 we still didn't have power (they got it on at 935). So as I was walking empty buckets from the festival and full buckets back from my house the power guys, who were stationed at the entrance to the festival, would call out "hey, it's the bucket lady!" followed by some other comment like "I hope there's chitlins in that bucket!", "nothin sadder than the bucket lady with an empty bucket!", "check it out! bucket in a backpack!" (my arms were so bruised from carrying the buckets that around 2 pm I had to put them in my expedition back pack because I literally couldn't hold them anymore), "aw, bucket lady's got a small bucket!" (said as if I was carrying a puppy - I was carrying a small bucket full of vatapa) and then, at the end of the night, as I was bringing two cooler back to my garage "bucket lady's got two coolers! over achiever!"

Jess' sister showed up at 1045 and they made plans on how the line was going to work (Jess to take orders, sister to make orders, Edglas cooking, me cleaning and running food to the fest from my house). That all went to shit as soon as we were mobbed by people (around 11:05). Jess was like "I need you to cook!" and I was like "I don't even know how to turn on a propane stove!" In any case I ended up cooking the shrimp and the chicken (I have never cooked either before) as well as helping Edglas with the dough for the acaraje.

Edglas making black eyed pea dough fritters - the bread for the acaraje - that fryer is super hot - I helped by beating the dough with a whisk and then holding the tray when he removed the dough from the fryer - at first he would only put a few of the fritters on the tray before telling me to set it down - eventually he figured out my arms are stronger than they look - fucking twig arms

once beaten, with the whisk seen in the bowl, he rolls the dough on a big wooden spoon before dropping it in the fryer

I started out cooking chicken - I was worried about the shrimp because I can't even touch them without having an allergic reaction

I finally took on the shrimp and managed to make it without fucking it up OR having an allergic reaction

 The funniest thing that happened to me at the jazz fest was when a guy came up to me and said "I have been watching you hustle for the past 45 minutes. I am really impressed by the way you run your kitchen (I was running back and forth between my cooking station and Edglas' cooking station while also cleaning and sanitize spraying everything in sight and, maybe, this guy figured that meant I was in charge????). I'd like to offer you a job in my restaurant as a cook."

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I can't cook ANYTHING!!!! Except, now, shrimp and chicken.

Anyway, we literally were slammed from open to close. When we had 10 minutes of rain we had to close down the cooking stations and were telling people in line that it would be a 20 minute wait for food after the rain stopped (obviously, can't have hot cooking oil mixed with water). It didn't matter. People waited.

One of the stranger things that happened yesterday...Jess had a best friend (from the age of 4) in Carbondale, who died at the age of 23. Yesterday the friend's mother, who was visiting someone in Denver, decided to go to the jazz fest and came to our tent. She didn't know that Jess was starting a business or that she was going to be at the jazz fest, it was a total coincidence. Nice reunion for the two of them.

Anyway, we busted our asses until 8 o'clock and then began the onerous process of breaking down the tent and moving everything back to my garage. We finally finished at 930. I hadn't eaten anything all day but wasn't hungry at all. And I had thought I would be tired but was so wired up from the festival that I managed to stay awake long enough to watch a movie. According to my fitbit, I walked 14 miles yesterday.

Today Jess and Edglas came over to pick up their stuff. They brought me this:

Edglas picked out this orchid because he said it looked brazilian. Jess said she was going to give me cut flowers but Edglas insisted on the orchid. I hope I don't kill it because it's so beautiful.

And Edglas paid Jess and I a huge compliment. He said he never met two stronger (he meant in the physical sense) women. Ha. I was like "so don't judge my arms because they're skinny!" and he laughed.

They also gave me this card:

I'm going to try to help them at their next event. Maybe my cooking skills will get better. And if you've never been, and you love jazz, food, and people watching, I highly recommend the five points jazz fest.

There's other stories about what happened, but my arms are like noodles right now and that's all I can write...

the biggest frying pan ever (and my poison freezer)

Last night Jess and her husband dropped off some stuff for the jazz fest so that they don't have to worry about hauling it all in their car saturday morning. One of the things they're storing here is their special frying pan (and guess who gets to clean it for saturday...I'm hoping ME! I've never cleaned a big frying pan before).

this pan could make the most bacon ever - I put mine next to it for scale - and yes, I finally made an appointment to get my new swamp cooler installed so that box will be out of the garage in a week

We packed everything in my garage and then went into my house so we could take measurements to determine how much stuff would fit into my refrigerator / freezer.

This morning they came by again to drop off some frozen shrimp and chicken. My freezer is now LITERALLY packed with food I can't (shrimp) or won't (chicken - chickens roll around in their own feces so no, I'm not going to eat one) eat.

Jess d asked "does it feel weird to actually have food in your refrigerator?"

On Friday they're dropping off the batter and the other half of my refrigerator will look like the freezer. And Saturday I promised (and you know, I am really NOT a morning person) to be ready at 645 am to help take everything over to the jazz fest. And I'm going to help at their booth, though I'm not sure what I will do. Jess wondered if I was still against trying to cook and I told her that having food in my house and getting up early on saturday were enough changes for one week.

If you are interested in trying some brazilian street food now's your chance! The sandwich they make, acaraje, is pronounced AH cah rah tay.

on stalkers and their impact

A friend of mine was telling me Friday night about a stalker who has been bothering her 20 something daughter. He hasn't done anything violent (yet) but has been doing things like breaking into her house, breaking into her car (he  threatened to put sugar in her gas tank and the next day she found the gas tank ripped open - he did not put any sugar in that she is aware of), tailgating her on the road, calling and facebooking her incessantly, and, when she blocked him from her phone and facebook, sending emails to my friend.

The daughter has called the police but all they will do is file a report. The stalker's parents, who are friends with my friend, called her and asked why her daughter was filing police reports against their son! They have had behavior problems in the past with their son but are in total denial. They also seem to be blaming the daughter as if she is somehow doing something to this kid to make him act like a total asshole. The daughter is wondering if she did do something to set this guy off.

I was reminded of an experience I had in the past with a work colleague who stalked me, showing up at the JHU campus at 10 PM as my class was letting out and following me to my car, and on numerous occasions threatening me physically in meetings (he was once restrained from punching me and another time told me in front of other colleagues that he knew where I lived and was going to put a bullet in my head). Why did this colleague feel so negatively toward me? Because I was brought in to take over his job because he apparently had "nerve problems" and was on so much medication (oxycontin, back in the day when it was hardly prescribed) that he couldn't function at work. At the meeting where he had to be restrained I had merely asked him if he had any documentation from the customer that I could look at.

And yet, when things finally got to the point where I felt this guy actually might do something to me, I had to answer a bunch of questions about MY behavior toward him to see if I might have done anything to justify him stalking me! AS IF! What could I have possibly done? Murdered his family (presume they would have heard about that)? Run over his dog? Put a voodoo spell on him???

The bottom line is that there is outlier behavior that should not be excused. Even if I had been totally rude to that guy in a meeting (I wasn't, since I was new to the project I was trying to be friendly to everyone) does that REALLY justify him threatening to kill me???? And if the daughter had had a romantic dalliance with stalker boy before deciding he was crazy does that justify, in anyone's mind, him stalking her because she doesn't want to date him??? Then why should he be allowed to make her life such a living hell that she's thinking to move to a different city where he can't find her?

The advice I gave my friend is, if a guy acts crazy toward you maybe you did something to set off his crazy, but that doesn't change the fact that he's still crazy and that isn't anyone's fault but the guy. Most people show their crazy early on in a relationship (friendship, romantic, colleague, whatever kind of relationship). As soon as you see the crazy get out of the relationship. Unless you're a profession shrink you aren't ever going to change that person's behavior and it's best to keep their crazy out of your life because it will drive you crazy too.

End of soapbox speech.

To be fair, it's not just guys that are crazy. I watched "Play Misty for Me" last night (got a box set of clint eastwood movies, 3 for $2 at target on saturday).

I'm working, really

Been a while since I posted anything but I swear I have been super busy the past week...

Where to start...well, I got pink highlights in my hair. Yes, pink. REALLY pink. They look so cool but amazingly people I know don't notice them at all until I point them out. They're called "peek-a-boo" highlights but seriously, when I walk down my street or am walking around Target people stop me and compliment my hair so why my friends don't notice I'm not sure. Note that my friend Cam noticed.

Next, I have a leak in my garage roof. I think I know where it is and how to fix it but wasn't able to get to it this weekend because of the rain/snow. I don't know why I keep saying "my last project in the house is done!" because there's ALWAYS another project. I also had to remount a bracket for my bike because it kept falling off the garage wall. It's fixed now. And I moved out my old work table and put a new one in and then cleaned the hell out of the garage because my friend Jess who started a food business is going to use the garage (and my refrigerator) to support her booth at the Jazz fest this saturday. I'm going to be a volunteer for her and she said I'm going to learn to cook brazilian food (ha. ha. ha.).

She was also like "are you sure you'll have room in your refrigerator?" I sent her a pic of my frig and she was like "oh, yeah, plenty of room". I have 5 beers, 5 sodastream sodas, a tub of yogurt, and salad stuff in one drawer in there at the moment. Oh, and a box of feta cheese. It's empty like Houston streets after 6 pm.

Someone tried to jump over my neighbor's fence that I just fixed and it's broken again...so I need to fix it...again...

And the incline on my treadmill isn't working. I tried to fix it and suspect a pinched wire. I called Sole and they are sending replacement wires and a technician out to fix it for free. I think something may have happened when I moved it to my office but we'll see. I did some research to see if it was a common problem and to prepare for an argument with customer service but they were super nice about the whole thing. Note: send in those warranty cards! It made everything simple. He typed in my phone number, brought up my info, and got the wires sent out in about 2 minutes.

Work has been crazy. I came up with an idea for a medical product for people with chronic diseases and I made it through the first meeting with the senior VPs. Next step is to get in touch with the venture capital group at my company and see if I can get funding for it. I feel like this is like trying to get my book published (almost there and then it will end in defeat) so I'm trying to not get my hopes up. But it would be cool if they even just prototyped it.

And I've been working on my gardening chops. I got a $70 amazon gift certificate and have so far managed to purchase 8 gardening books for a total cost of $20 (3 of the books were only a penny). I'm going to sign up for a hunter safety course and an avalanche course and might do the motorcycle safety course (getting in this time of year is a disaster - classes are full). I'm learning a lot about how to grow and pick plants. We'll see what happens once I get my vegetables in. I'm planting arugula, cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberries, blackberries, cilantro, basil, chives, spinach, and maybe one more herb.

Oh, and I found a great pho restaurant a little more than a mile from my house. Very excited I don't have to drive to federal for a pho fix. It's called pho-natic. I'm looking forward to trying some of their other dishes besides pho because I haven't figured out how to transport pho on my bicycle without spilling it.

And I just finished a 48 lecture class on the civil war and am about to start one on meteorology.

So that's my boring little life these days...

I forget to put up my do not disturb sign, to embarrassing results

I have some updates on the Mex vacation (having too much fun to blog last week) and some more videos, but I am currently in California for work (sucked, got home late sunday night, was on a plane monday morning for Cali, no idea how I used to travel like this all the time) and the hotel JUST NOW got their internet fixed so I haven't been able to write anything...

Anyway, quick but funny story. Last night I asked the hotel to reboot their router as that's what my diagnostics were saying was the problem. Instead of doing that they put me on the phone with some poor moron from ibahn who walked me through a series of useless steps (he was obviously reading off cards or something because any time I tried to divert his attention to my findings he freaked out). After about 5 minutes of that bullshit I was like "do me a favor - call the hotel and tell them to reboot the router". Which he did.

So they sent a maintenance guy to my room who crawled under the desk and watched as I showed him the diagnostics results and then stood there looking at my computer going "hmmmm" as if he could somehow solve the problem by staring at my computer with a dumb expression on his face. Finally I was like "why don't you go reboot the router" and he said he would. Minutes, and then an hour went by as I watched the router, which was still online. Finally I gave up on the router ever being rebooted, ate a pizza and then two mangoes, and started watching "stardust memories".

I was watching with my headphones in because I don't like to disturb people (I hate it when someone in the room next to me is blasting the TV or video games on a computer). It was totally silent in my room. About an hour into the movie I started farting because of the mangoes. I decided to record one of my farts to text to FH (this is something we do, I know, very mature for two almost 44 year olds). I wanted to impress him so I really let it rip. Right as I finished there was a knock at my door. I was like "oh god" and decided to sit still in the hopes the knocker would go away. No such luck, the person kept knocking. So finally I opened the door...

...and there was the maintenance guy, barely able to keep a straight face, letting me know that he had forgotten to reboot the router. I felt bad for him because he was trying to be professional even though both of us obviously wanted to die laughing. Which I did as soon as I closed the door. I am sure he heard me. I'm sure half the hotel heard that fart. FH said he held the phone up to his ear because my farts are usually not that loud and he texted me that my fart ruptured his ear drum.

And now I think I will go get some sushi.

Acaraje!!!

My friend Jessica just got her brazilian street food business running! Check out her web site: http://brasilstreetfood.com/

batting practice

The guys we hang out with down here are all obsessed to a certain extent with baseball. Bambino plays in a league and his brothers Willy and Arturo go to the batting cages at least once a week.

Here's my first time in the batting cage. Note that I've never really swung a bat before. I did have to play softball in gym class and occasionally tried to hit balls with my brothers in the back yard but never had any instruction. I think I'm probably one of the few people to trip over a ball in the batting cages...ball speed was 45 mph.

if you didn't break something you aren't really surfing

Monday I was waiting out in the line up at Olas Altas (water was confused, waves were crap) and FH, who had just ridden in was like "good one behind you!" So I laid down and started to turn my board (I was facing out to sea) but the wave suddenly jacked up and was rolling right at me. I was sideways and looked at FH. He looked horrified. I thought "jump off the board" but, since I'm cocky, I then thought "I can catch this thing!"

Needless to say I got slammed by the wave and ended up in the washing machine (never go into a wave sideways on a surf board). Rolled over 5 times before surfacing (that wave was by far the biggest, over 6 feet, and fastest of the day) and miraculously I was totally okay. I didn't even swallow any water.

...except that, after walking 5 miles to and from another beach this afternoon, I realized that (I think) I broke my toe. FH thinks I hit it on the surf board fin. He said "you're like that doll in your room, made outta paper".

Anyway, we're having a great time and food as usual is amazing. For dinner monday (I had to limp to the restaurant) we had chicken tostadas and the grand total for dinner for both of us was $4.50. Everything was home made.


And, here's a pic of my toe.

Took a few days off surfing - going to tape my toe tomorrow and see how it goes

 Tomorrow I'm going to post some pics of the shenanigans that went on tonight. Our friends down here in Maz took us to a batting cage to hit some balls. The place is also a bar and they didn't seem to mind that no one was wearing a helmet in the cage and I was in there filming with my gopro....

explosions for jesus

FH and I arrived in Mazatlan yesterday, and, neither of us being religious, were shocked to find out a big party was going on at the malecon (board walk in the centro historico). To celebrate easter the city throws a huge shin dig culminating in a "naval battle". While I'm not sure what a naval battle has to do with jesus, since he didn't die at sea, I was excited to see the battle.

As it would turn out, there weren't any naval ships. It was just a set up of fire works on either end of Olas Altas beach that were being fired into the centro historico. It was still exciting, but not for the reasons you might expect.

before the fire works there was a small, 3 truck parade - that's not a topless lady, just a statue of one

mariachi band plus some women in skimpy costumes

 

the fire works set up on the side of olas altas where we normally surf - yes, they had a fire extinguisher - safety first - by the time the show started there were lots of people standing on this sea wall, about 10 feet away from the fireworks - there were cops, but they were busy texting

our maz friend Bambino seemed surprised that the show did not start on time - about 15 after the scheduled time, as some of the fire works were about to be engulfed by the ocean, this guy came out to light the fire works - I took a pic of him halfway through the show with burning embers on his shirt but the pic is too dark to see anything, unfortunately

the show started out as normal fire works shows do...

...a few fireworks high in the sky...

then they lit off these fireworks, which shot straight into the sky - you can see people in the crowd running away from the sea wall as a huge burning ember lands on the side walk

the next firework they shot off sprinkled even more embers into the crowd...

...and into the street

In any case, no one was injured and all seemed to be having a great time. Unlike the US, there was no price gouging and FH and I had a dinner of vampiros for $7, and the total cost of beer for 5 of us was about $11. We left the party at 1130 and I was surprised to see people just arriving at that hour. The singing and festivities went on until about 530 in the morning (I know this only because the noise would wake me up when my ear plugs fell out). The malecon was clean this morning and there were no signs of the party (not sure how they did that).

To be cautious we went to the beach at stone island today because FH thought they might have hosed off the malecon into olas altas, potentially causing the water there to be full of bacteria.

Tomorrow surf's up at olas!

white board frame finished!

Saturday morning I stapled the white board frame together using my staple gun (everyone should have a staple gun). Then I primed it, realized I should have sanded it first, and then figured fuck it and added another coat of prime. Sunday I added three coats of green glitter paint.

The glitter paint has to cure for 24 hours so I had to wait until 2 pm today to mount it. All was going smashingly well until I tripped while trying to maneuver the frame into my house. I accidentally broke one side off and jammed my right pointer finger. The frame was fixed with a few screws. My finger still hurts.

I drilled holes in the wall so I could mount the frame on studs even though it's not that heavy.

not perfect but considering I had no idea what I was doing, and that the total cost for the frame was $12, not bad!