| Marking a milestone |
[Nov. 14th, 2009|04:40 pm] |
I admit it: I really enjoy noticing milestones, markers for transitions between phases of life. I like seeing them in general, and am really interested in my own (cue navel-gazing joke). I feel like this week has marked another milestone in my transition from adolescence to adulthood (and for the sake of this post, we are assuming it is possible to make that transition in a variety of ways, and that just because I am 30 and married doesn't mean I can't still make the transition in other parts of my life), and in the manner of a good American, it was marked by conspicuous consumption. I purchased a trendy (well, they were trendy like 8 years ago, now they just seem ubiquitous, at least in my neighborhood) Timbuktu-brand black messenger bag.
I have been using the same green REI backpack since 2002, when I bought it to replace the previous green REI backpack I had used since high school. I still really like the backpack, and think it's really useful, but I was starting to be uncomfortable with looking at myself leaving for work and wondering if I wasn't a little old to still be a college student. Slowly, with some trepidation, I have been trying to look more like a successful, middle-class professional, at least when I go to work (you can still find me in baggy jeans and a hoodie on weekends, if not shorts and a t-shirt), starting by wearing button-down shirts at my first job after grad school. I've got the sensible brown loafers, and I'm working on transitioning the pants collection towards fewer jeans/dungarees, and more slacks/khakis.
I'm honestly not sure exactly where the trepidation comes from. Am I worried about losing my identity? About becoming too "mainstream" or "normal"? Am I concerned about getting old? Or do I just hate change (I do have some t-shirts that I wore in high school, although a certain housemate is pushing me to divest myself of the ones with holes. . .)? I'm leaning towards the last one, but perhaps there is a little bit of the other reasons in there as well. At least I am still upholding the tradition of Hawaiian shirt Friday at work, that'll stick it to The Man. |
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| I hella [heart] vacations |
[Oct. 24th, 2009|09:59 pm] |
Man, I love going on vacation. Of course, a big part of it is not going to work, but I also like getting out of town. Just a few days ago I returned from a 10-day New York trip with the missus, and we had a great time. We started out in Flushing (which is in the borough of Queens, which is in Queens county, on Long Island), where E's cousin was getting married. After a quick trip into Manhattan to have coffee with a friend of E's from grad school, we headed out to the wedding. Her cousin and his now-wife live in Brooklyn, but decided to have an outdoor wedding, so they had the ceremony and reception at the Queen's County Farm Museum, which really is a farm. We didn't manage to get there in time to go through the corn maze, but visiting the goats and cows and horses and chickens in dress clothes was fun enough. The reception was fantastic, and the food. . . well, the bride is Filipina, so there were 5 different kinds of pig at the wedding. Man, do I love eating pig.
After the wedding, we rented a car and drove up the Hudson valley, stopping in New Palz (ah, hippies) and Saratoga Springs (which is the namesake for Calistoga. As many of you may know, Calistoga is a portmanteau for "the Saratoga of California"). Now, this is where we realized that clearly we have a California bias. We looked through the travel books on Saratoga Springs, and we were really disappointed that the hot springs closed during the winter time. I mean, that seemed the perfect time for hot springs! When we got there, we found that there was still a city park with springs that we could visit, and sure enough, there were several fountains from natural artesian springs, with mineral water bubbling out. Cold mineral water. We then went back to re-read our books, and sure enough, nowhere did it call them "hot springs". It called them "mineral springs". Somehow, we had mentally inserted "hot" in front of "springs" when we read it.
We stayed up in the Adirondacks for two nights, and visited the Olympic town of Lake Placid. It snowed on us while we were there, and in fact, while we were in upstate New York, only got above 42 degrees one day. After our lovely fall color viewing in the Adirondacks, we drove northwest to Canton, NY, the home of St. Lawrence College, where a friend of E's from grad school is a professor. It's a tiny town, but it was cute, and it was nice to visit and relax at their huge house (which doesn't really stand out amongst the other huge houses I suppose. Man, I need to stop paying attention to other housing markets). We then drove along the St. Lawrence Seaway for a while, checking out Canada, and marveling out how much water there was in update New York. We made it to Syracuse, to visit another friend of E's from graduate school, and had a lovely time catching up with her and her husband. In the morning we stopped by the "famous" Dinosaur BBQ, and checked out the murals, which were pretty funny (biker dinosaurs?). We then meandered from Syracuse to Seneca Falls (home of the Women's Rights National Historical Park), and then down Lake Cayuga (with a stop at Knapp Winery to taste some bland wine), and then two nights in Ithaca with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) eruthros. She was kind enough to tour us around the lovely natural features (so that I can attest that yes, Ithaca is Gorges), and we could have a meal at the famous Moosewood Cafe, which was not bad, but of the "we make vegetarian food by taking meat out of meat dishes". It is definitely of an era, but it was homey and fun.
Finally, we drove to Cooperstown, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which was great. Lots of history of the game, and of baseball's relation to the rest of US culture, without as much "rah-rah" American jingoism as you would expect. The section on the history of African-Americans in the game, and the history of women in the game definitely brought out some emotions in me, and Emily will attest to my identifying every Oakland-born player in the museum. Alas, the gift shop was only awesome if you were a Yankees or Red Sox fan (or a Cal Ripken, Jr. fan), but I did get a t-shirt version of Jackie Robinson's Brooklyn Dodgers jersey which makes me happy.
It was fun, and nice to see so many friends, but I am glad to be home with my own bed and clean clothes, and now I can catch up on my webcomics, LiveJournal, Facebook, and laundry. |
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| Dang, East Bay, you are harshing my mellow! |
[Aug. 25th, 2009|09:11 pm] |
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First off, I say this as someone born and raised in Oakland, who was a bit apprehensive about moving to the City, leaving the things that I knew and loved, and heading to the pretentious, white, expensive city to the west. My first month here, I admit to enjoying the location, and enjoying the bigger apartment, and generally liking the weather (I enjoy the cool mornings and evenings), but there were changes for the worse, as well. For one thing, E and I had gotten used to being able to do all our shopping at Berkeley Bowl, and just before we moved they had opened Berkeley Bowl West, which seemed like the original, but closer and less crowded, and we have not found a suitable replacement (in terms of selection or price) here. In addition, there has always been a soft spot for the Rockridge neighborhood, as that is where I lived when we started dating and fell in love. There are all sorts of good memories of walking along College Ave, and we bought our wedding rings (as well as E's engagement ring) at a little store called Pave.
So this past weekend, we decided, after a long day of errands (I miss having laundry in the building!) on Saturday, that we would take it easy Sunday: brunch at the Rockridge Cafe, followed by a little window shopping along College, a trip to Berkeley Bowl, and dropping my car off in San Leandro. It sounded perfect, a throwback to those carefree days of yore (where "yore" = 2007). It turned into a nostalgia crushing gantlet, sucking the soul out of our Sunday.
First, the cafe was crowded, as usual, but that included a very whiny ~2.5 or 3-year old boy, for whom nothing was going right ("I want the high chair! I don't want to draw! Where's my paper? I don't want this food! I don't want this chair!"), and by the time we were getting ready to leave, a young man waiting in line decided that leaning his arms on the divider right over E's head was a great way to pass the time. The stroll down Rockridge included a stop by the jewelry store to say hi to our favorite jewelers who of course were too busy to actually chat with us this time, and a trip to the shoe store when nothing fit. So we headed down to Urban Ore, and then to Berkeley Bowl West, through worse than usual traffic, and into a store which had become ridiculously crowded, and seemed to be missing a few things. Our 30-minute shopping trip became a 60-minute trip, and E and I were both super grumpy at the end of the day, but somehow managed not to snap at each other while dropping my car off in San Leandro. We decided to take the San Mateo bridge and 101 back to the City, and that ended up being the best part of the trip, just taking the opportunity to talk with each other. By the time we got home, all we did was plop down on the couch and watch "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", which we had forgotten that we had already seen, but we still enjoyed letting the old brains drift.
I am hoping that this unpleasant experience does not sour all of my East Bay nostalgia (and I don't think it will), but it certainly is making me appreciate where I live even more. |
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| Busy busy beaver (see, because I am an Oregon State grad) |
[Aug. 1st, 2009|02:31 pm] |
Man, it has been a busy couple of weeks. Work has been picking up even more (to the point that I really need to work on reports a couple of hours this weekend), while simultaneously E and I moved across the Bay. We started packing the house on Monday the 20th, had the truck come on the 26th, and today, August 1st, we are close to fully unpacked. Which has been stressful, but when looked at more objectively, it is pretty great to have it done in such a short time. Hiring movers was definitely the way to go (thank you to those hearty souls who volunteered to help us move), and they were fast, efficient, friendly, and relatively inexpensive. It was so worth it.
The new apartment is. . . oddly laid out. There are two main rooms, which share one long wall, and each has a doorway onto it from the hall, as well as the shared wall having a double-wide doorway. The double-wide, and the doorway to the room most logically the bedroom do not have doors, or hinges for doors, or really any way to close them. At the moment we have a curtain and a couch across the double-wide, and an open-door policy on the bedroom. There are all sorts of quirks (like the bathroom that looks like there was a deal on towel racks at the hardware store. I have never seen a shower with two towel racks INSIDE the shower), but it is significantly bigger than our old place, and has only one flight of stairs, and not three. This is a huge, wonderful difference.
The neighborhood is also a change of pace, as for the first time perhaps ever, I live in an area filled with late 20- early 30-something middle to upper-middle class white people. Apparently I finally found out where all the "cool" kids are, and they are in the Castro and the Mission. So far I have hit La Mediterranee 2 (same food as the one in Elmwood that I adore), but definitely a different crowd (yes, the aforementioned selection of white folk), and Tartine (the double pain au chocolat was a bit disappointing), but there is much more, no doubt. I think it will be fun to explore, especially if it stops raining every damn day (well, drizzle, but still), and we get more days like today, beautiful and sunny and pleasant. Yay!
oh, and Happy Birthday to magogin! |
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| I am now an anachronism |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|06:16 pm] |
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Wow, for those that haven't seen the Facebook post, an article in today's NY Times mentions that in order to save money, the University of California Santa Cruz campus is cutting the minor in music and the bachelor's degree in Earth Sciences. It doesn't seem to be reflected on the department website yet, but it kind of shocks me. I mean, it was never the biggest major (maybe 100 students when I was in the program), but the department was pretty well-funded through research grants. What is the world coming to? or, I should say, what is California coming to? Ai-ya. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/education/11calif.html?hpw |
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| A personal update. . . |
[May. 25th, 2009|07:22 pm] |
Boy, I don't post much anymore. It seems like many people I know have moved towards Facebook or Twitter (a service I really don't understand), but given how little I post, I can't complain too much, can I?
E is back from her West African research trip, and that is a good thing. 6 weeks without my wife is really more than I like (and more than she likes!), but she got a lot done, including information that really couldn't be gleaned without actually being there. Unfortunately, we managed to both be sick by the time we were reunited, and have moved into "trying to get better mode" which involves a lot fewer hikes/bike trips/outings. We did go camping this weekend, as planned, with some Stevenson folks, but we showed up mid-day Saturday, and although we planned to stay through Monday morning, we ended up leaving Sunday evening. by 7pm my coughing gets bad (thank goodness for cough suppressants, which help), and E gets fatigued and unwell. This morning I woke up okay, although still coughing, and E was felling generally bad, but the advice nurse seems to think it's unlikely to be malaria. However, it has lead to a mostly sitting around, not putting away camping gear, and watching movies or sleeping. Not quite what we had in mind for our 7-month anniversary, after missing our 6-month while she was in Nigeria. Oh well, so it goes.
The search for a new apartment in San Francisco will have to begin in earnest soon. We are planning to move at the end of July when our lease here runs out, but so many places are looking for ASAP tenants, and we are not quite there, so trying to balance "being prepared" with "not being too early". It does look like there are quite a few options in the Mission district and Potrero Hill, so that's a good sign. Will keep you updated if there is actually any news. |
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| Wow, blogging! |
[Apr. 19th, 2009|07:58 pm] |
Boy, I haven't posted on here for a while, have I? Well, let's see what I can update.
-Work is going well. I am staying busy, which means I'm not getting fired (it's nice when it works that way), although we haven't laid anyone off for a few months. I'm getting to manage a couple of small projects, which is kind of cool, and one of them is near where I grew up, so it's pretty neat to look at the history of the area.
-E is in Nigeria at the moment, doing research for her dissertation. She'll be in Nigeria for another week, and then spend a couple of weeks in Cameroon, before heading back to Nigeria and then home. Nigeria is apparently a tough country to travel in, but she is doing well, getting lots of interviews and archival research. I am really ready for her to come home, though.
-I still haven't fixed the "o" on my keyboard, and it's really starting to bug me. It has given me high speed on the ctrl-V combo, though. But it's all the way in Hayward!!!
-I feel very conflicted about the California special election measures. They are almost universally terrible, but the alternative is. . . the state going bankrupt? Immediate firing of tons of state workers? I mean, the thing is, there isn't a good alternative. There doesn't even seem to really be a not terrible alternative. Just horrible, and worse. Ugh.
-It looks like I will be moving to San Francisco in a few months. E got a fellowship with an institute at Stanford, and since the commute from Berkeley to Palo Alto sucks big time, we are moving to SF to split the commute a bit better. I'll try and keep you updated on actual new info.
-To sum up: It is hot today. |
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| Honeymoon pictures |
[Nov. 23rd, 2008|10:01 am] |
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For those interested in Honeymoon photos from Bali, many photos have been posted up on flickr, for your viewing pleasure. People at work keep telling me I need to make a presentation of this, but you will have to wait if you want the narrated Powerpoint show. |
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| Back home, trying to deal with the fallout |
[Nov. 16th, 2008|10:00 pm] |
Man, what a difference a few weeks makes. Just 3.5 weeks ago, I was living in California, not knowing who the next President would be, proud that my state had recognized queer couples as full citizens in marriage, with no legal obligations to another person. Now, in the middle of November, I am looking at an upcoming Obama administration, 52% of Californians think preventing gay couples from marrying will prevent foreclosure (or something? What do they think?), and I am legally responsible for another human being. There are some conflicting feelings going on here, where I am really happy to be married to a woman I love so much, but feel guilty that the state is claiming that my relationship is more valid than some others (m_shell and eruthros will be happy to let you know that their marriage is not only equally valid, but longer than mine. Nicely done, ladies). That's BS, and I think my Friends list here knows that. I'm not convincing anyone here, but I hope maybe at least some of my more conservative relatives had to think about it a little bit at our ceremony.
E and I did go to the anti-prop 8 rally yesterday (Saturday) to show our support, and hear some speakers, and enjoy the day. One recently married couple spoke, two women who are PhD students at UC Berkeley, both of whom come from immigrant families, whose wedding actually convinced their parents to accept their relationship. Nothing like watching your daughter getting married to make you realize that really, love makes a family. I appreciate everything that has been written by my friends on LiveJournal, and can't add much more, but I've added a link to a few photos of the rally, as a visual "Oakland supports equality". Because, well, Oakland is awesome.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lmarighi/sets/72157609223026664 |
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| the gays in debate form |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|09:49 pm] |
Well, perhaps this is really a story about how far we have come in America that the issue of gay marriage got like 2 minutes in this debate. And Joe Biden said something about respecting same-sex marriage (I can't believe he said that out loud), while Palin spent more than half her time talking abut how she has lots of gay friends and how adults should get to pick their own partner. Then they moved on, because apparently Palin didn't think she could score political points with gay-bashing. What country am I living in, Canada?
E and I just looked at each other mouths agape. Man, how times have changed since I was little and gay-bashing was the thing to do for Republican candidates. |
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| Is it Irony? Ask Alanis |
[Sep. 9th, 2008|10:25 pm] |
As some of you may know, a mild earthquake (4.0 M0 according to USGS) occurred Friday night near Alamo, CA (on the wrong side of the hills, near Mt. Diablo). We could feel the quake here in Berkeley. In fact, it gave me a bit of a start, lasting just long enough to make me get out of my seat and head for a doorway (and out of the path of potential falling tomes), and startling enough to make me spill my gin and tonic on my laptop keyboard. This seems to have been the final straw for my poor 1.5 year old laptop's "O" key (I didn't know it was so close to the end of it's rope, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention to the non-verbal cues). So now, if I want to type anything with an "O" (and boy is it a popular letter), I have to cut and paste it, or resort to the good old-fashioned wireless keyboard that I haven't used since the days of my desktop computer in Seattle. I can't figure out how to get the keyboard opened up (I may have to google "Toshiba schematics"), and I'm not sure it would do any good at this point anyway. *sigh*
Other updates? Hmm. . . Work is keeping me pretty busy, and I am spending a lot of time in the south bay. I hate south bay traffic. However, there are a few more interesting places in the south bay than I realized before I started working there. Either way, it is a lot of damn time in the car, and I'm a bit sick of it. But the hours sure are good for building up vacation time.
Wedding planning continues and I can't wait for it to be done. 'nuff said.
I am taking my one-day (following a home-study course -- just perfect for me, I guess?) SCUBA class in less than two weeks, and while a bit nervous about the whole thing, excited about learning something so new and totally different from my other hobbies. I am also really excited about getting up close and personal with the fishies in warm water. I have wanted to go SCUBA diving since I was a little kid (plenty of PBS in my house), since it seemed to solve my big issue with swimming (hated putting my face in the water -- cf. this post), but of course never felt I had the swimming chops to actually do it.
On a fluffy note: saw "The Dark Knight" last Saturday. Enjoyed the movie, thought Christopher Nolan was doing a fine job with the film, but didn't like it quite as much as the first one. I guess I really enjoyed the exploration of Bruce/Batman's progression toward donning the cape and cowl, and how on earth someone could become a superhero (without a "radioactive bat" as Emily suggested), and I felt like it explored his psyche more. I felt there was less exploration (I guess some exploration of his limits, which perhaps he didn't realize he had), and more crazy action (which was good stuff, don't get me wrong). Plus, how can you not bring Maggie Gyllenhall back? I loves me some Maggie Gyllenhall! Heath Ledger was awesome, though. The other fun thing about seeing the movie was that we went to see it at the El Cerrito Speakeasy, which is a great place to watch a film, and also was really fun because we ran into my high school friend Alice W, on a date. We were sitting down front in one of the love seats, and there was one open in front of us, too close to the screen (we felt). This guy comes down to check it out, decides it is too close, and as he starts to walk away, E says "Yeah, we looked at that too" and he replies "I just had to check for myself," at which point I turn to watch him go, and see Alice! We talked for several minutes (after they found seats), caught up a bit, and it was really fun. It's a small world we live in. |
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| Crazy scheduling |
[Jul. 28th, 2008|09:43 pm] |
Man, my schedule has been crazy lately. Two weeks ago I worked a 56 hour week (mostly in Sunnyvale), and then last week I had to take a 4am-8am job in San Jose, which meant leaving my house at 3am, as awesome as that is. And next week I have a couple of night shifts (5pm until 11 or 12, then 5pm to 9pm, most likely), followed by a straight week of working long days in San Jose. It's going to be wild.
I also have a question: In a few months, I will need beach reading. I am looking for something that is cheap (so not brand new), entertaining, but not too heavy. I generally enjoy the sci-fi and fantasy genres, although I haven't read anything much in that arena recently, but I thought I would open it up: what would you guys recommend? Thanks in advance! |
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| Offensive, funny, both? |
[Jul. 14th, 2008|10:20 pm] |
I'm not sure how I feel about this bumper sticker recently observed in the East Bay.
"Most men would respect women's brains more if they bounced gently while they walked"
At first I snickered, then the more I thought about it, the less funny it became. I'm not sure that it's exactly "respect" when all the guys on my job site watch the buxom women in the skimpy shirt-dress walking down the street. |
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| What a crazy world |
[Jun. 28th, 2008|12:41 pm] |
Well, plenty going on. I'm working 50-hour weeks, commuting to the south bay most days (traffic is so bad!). That has kept me busy, but not too busy to keep swimming. Man, what a difference nose clips and goggles make. Swimming sucks a lot less when it doesn't hurt. And I think I am now good enough to pass the SCUBA swim test, which was the big goal.
On a work note, the big takeover of my company by a national firm has been stopped in its tracks. It's a weird, internal politics thing, and more is going on than I am privy to, but for the moment, we are not getting sold, and my supervisor, who was leaving, is now not leaving, unless we do end up getting sold, in which he may leave. Confused yet? Me too.
Tomorrow is time to taste some cake! We are tasting cake at Sweet Adeline Bakeshop in Berkeley, so that should be fun. We've got a couple of other places to check out, but free cake is always good. |
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| First swim lesson |
[Jun. 11th, 2008|10:18 pm] |
So last night I took my first swimming lesson since I was like 8 or 9 years old. I am trying to get to the point where I can go scuba diving in Bali in November, but I have never been a good swimmer, so I signed up for the beginner swim class at the YMCA. I was filled with dread approaching the first class, because I have this very strong aversion to swimming. However, since I really want to go scuba diving, I forced myself to do it.
The lesson was quite enlightening. Practicing kicking and stroking made these memories from my earlier swim lessons come back, and also that there were fun parts to swimming. It also reminded me why I have such an aversion to swimming: water goes up my nose, no matter what I do.
The swim teacher kept saying to me "now put your face in the water, put your face in the water" so I tried, even though I didn't want to (although I didn't know why, exactly, I didn't want to). I got water up my nose, and started to choke. So I tried it a couple of times, and then tried to avoid it. So she said "you're not putting your face in the water" and I said "no, I keep getting water up my nose." She suggested that I blow out through my nose, which I did, and marginally less water went up my nose. When I got home and told E about this, she was puzzled. Apparently she has not heard of this before, and certainly no one in my class seemed to have that problem, but water goes up my nose no matter what I do. Which is why I don't swim with my face in the water. Which pretty much means I don't do official "swimming" for scuba purposes. Next up? Buy some nose plugs.
It was rather a relief, though, to realize that my hatred of swimming was related to a real, tangible issue, and not just some character flaw where I "can't swim". It was quite the struggle for me to get myself to go, but now at least I realize where this irrational hatred/fear came from (over time it had become very fuzzy why exactly I hated it. I just did).
Just 3.5 more weeks to go. . . |
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| Whoo-hoo! I passed! |
[May. 22nd, 2008|09:09 pm] |
Unbelievable!!!!! As I posted before, I took my big Professional Geologist exam back in March, and Tuesday I got my results in the mail. I passed! The whole thing! On the first try! (I think my exclamation mark key is now broken). Somehow, even the section I thought I bombed I did fine on. I am really happy, thrilled to have achieved this professional milestone, psyched to get initials after my name, and, of course, happy with the pretty much automatic promotion that comes along with it. I also get to do less of the boring work, and more of the interesting work, now that I have been validated by the State of California as knowing stuff ("knowing stuff" is geology jargon).
Plus, I am much less sick than I was! I'm probably 95% better, and this too, rules. |
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| Not what I had in mind |
[May. 17th, 2008|01:44 pm] |
Jiminies. I feel like crap. I was woken up this morning with bad abdominal pain (that's a great 3am wake up call). I felt like this on Thursday, but yesterday, after taking some over-the-counter stuff, I felt good. Now this. After like 10 hours of dealing with this, and a second call to the advice nurse, I'm going in to see a doctor, and hopefully get some diagnosis. Man, this is not how I wanted to spend my weekend. We will reschedule soon, gawlfor.
(Don't worry, I'm not dying)
****Update****
I am not dead. The doctor basically ruled out anything scary, and thinks it's probably viral, so I get to "ride it out". Yippee. |
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| Money quote |
[May. 10th, 2008|12:15 pm] |
Ok, a confession: I am addicted to advice columns. I'm not sure exactly why, but I just can't get enough of hearing about other people's problems, and potential solutions. And I read them all, from the traditional (Dear Abby, Ask Amy) to the edgier, "hipper" columns (Dategirl, Savage Love). I think I have polished off the archives of Savage Love, and am currently working my way through the last 8 years of Dategirl. Sometimes there is some pure gold, there, though, like this quote from Dategirl:
"Finding someone takes two things—luck and timing. All the other requirements you hear about are bullshit. (OK, they're not complete bullshit—a hot ass and a nice rack help—but they're not nearly as important as L&T.)"
Dategirl (Judy McGuire), 4/26/2006
Luck and Timing. I gotta concur, here, nothing beats those two. |
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