Mmmm..... Snow

I don't know why living here has made me love snow even more but it has. Here is the snow we got yesterday. It snowed for another couple hours yesterday afternoon.

Not in a million years

Just so you know.

Blech

High cholesterol, need a stress test, blech! I guess lots of exercise and eating right doesn't cut it anymore...

My Doctor's office

Last week I took advantage of working from home and had a physical and dentist appointment. Here I am a week later at a follow up visit to the Doctor to see what my irregular heartbeat is about.

San Jose Airport

Here I am more than an hour before my flight leaves. San Jose Airport is pretty small but at least I can play on my laptop a bit. For the first time in a long long time I don't know when I will be back in California. As it stands now I won't be here for the whole month of April. The last month that happened was January 2006!

Well I'm a little too tired to show it...

but I'm really excited to be going to NYC. It looks like I'll be there 3 of the 4 weeks in April. I'm staying at the Hilton near the Avenue of the Americas right by Times Square, Rockefeller Center and NintendoWorld!

I'm even going to make it home next Thursday in time for Blossom's second doggy school graduation. Who knows how many more she wil have? I just know she knows a lot more tricks and is a lot better behaved this time around.

I ate dinner at The Cheesecake Factory..

But I would have rather eaten across the street at Sushiya!

Downtown Palo Alto...

Is pretty!

Spoilers suck

If you haven't watched the Battlestar Galactica finale and are interested, skip this post...

Maybe it's because I woke up at 3 am this morning. Maybe it's because I watched the last four Battlestar Galacticas in a row while I was working. Maybe it's because I had heard new Cylons were revealed and that the President's cancer had returned but the finale was a bit underwhelming. This isn't a complaint, as it is still one of the best shows on TV (and it was excellent), it's just that I had read other posts of people saying it was one of the best season finales for any show ever.

If you haven't watched, rent the seasons and start watching! The season that just ended will be out by October.

New York here I come!

I just booked my flights to New York City for next week and three weeks from now! For work of course. Too bad I won't have time to see a show or three while I'm there.

Of COURSE I will!

What was that?

Yesterday was very stressful at work. Crashed server, environment needing rebuilt, 13 hour day, all that jazz. Well when I get tired and overworked I eat. I'm owning up to it, moving on and will have a much better day today.

Today I start a new assignment (while still being tied to the old one) that is close to here, it should be interesting!

For Ruth

Where I am right now!

Weight Watchers Week 1

So I lost 3.5 pounds my first week. Not bad but a lot less than on Atkins. Still being able to eat more of the foods I want (just in small quantities) makes it feel like I'm almost not on a diet.

I've never been good about eating well when travlling so I set out to have a small sensible breakfast this morning but it turned out to be a 17 point breakfast! 16 more for the day, oy. We get extra points if we exercise so I might end up going to the gym extra tonight.

The party!

Yesterday's Birthday party for my 3 year old nephew was a lot of fun. Of course he's a 3 year old so the graciousness of receiving presents wasn't quite there but eh, he's 3. The adults had a lot of fun playing the Nintendo Wii and I found that my bowling curve is as good as ever! Here is some footage of the cake cutting. My Mom asked to make sure I took footage of Skip and myself. Skip is cutting the cake and if you look really closely you can see me wave to the camera.

The cake!

Here is the cake Skippy made for my nephew's 3rd birthday. In the next few weeks he's making a camouflage cake and a Little Mermaid cake with (hopefully) blown sugar bubbles and everything!

Casino Royale

I have liked the Bond movies in recent years and was excited to see Casino Royale after the positive buzz. I finally watched it last night while Skippy baked the cake (he had watched it on the plane trip to NYC, I refuse to watch plane movies) and was very impressed. Daniel Craig is a great bond and I hope he does more films. I always like when the secondary characters are unknowns (at least to me) to keep me more in the story.

Ha!

Sanjaya has McPheever!

Cake!

Skippy is making a cake for my nephew's birthday. The cake is amazing but I'm not allowed to take a picture of it yet so I took a picture of the mess.

Blossom loves doggie class!

Her awesome presence

I was playing with Blossom in my office this morning and all of the sudden she stiffens up and starts barking and growling and staring. Staring at Wonder Woman! For almost five minutes she was fixated on the glorious Lynda Carter. Then to makes it even funnier, Sha Sha comes in later and stares also!

Did you know we live...

Close to a lot of buffalo? Buffalo Bill's grave is even nearby. It's almost time for the baby buffalos!

Reality

I've never been too much into reality shows, only following American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance? and occasionally The Amazing Race (but only one full season). Everyone seems to rave about Dancing With The Stars so Skip and I gave the abbreviated version a try (only the dancing, thanks Tivo!).

Well! It certainly is skewed to an older audience. The types of dancing, the cheezy, cheezy, cheezy covers of half-decent songs, blech. I can't stress enough how those cheezy covers make the show feel like some 4th rate low-budget cable show. After watching the great dancers on So You Think You Can Dance? it's almost painful to watch these people.

In other reality news, for the first season ever, we haven't watched much American Idol at all. We just can't get into it so all the episodes waiting for us on Tivo have been erased.

And now... Justine!

One of my favorite parts of watching the series Arrested Development was seeing Justine Bateman's role in one of the last episodes as a potential love interest for her brother. She seems to be doing a lot of guest roles lately and that makes me happy. She's set to star opposite David Duchovney in The TV Set starting in April. Hello, Tivo!

And yes, the photo including Jason is just gratuitous. So sue me.

The good news about working from home...

is that I can go to the gym with Skippy. The bad news is we have to be at the gym by 5:30 am so he can get to work on time at 8 am.

But you don't hear me complaining. Being home during the week is rare enough!

Day One

So day 1 on Weight Watchers and I gained a pound! I had 34 points allotted to me, got 10 extra from exercising and spent 32. We'll see...

Gaston can barely see or hear...

But the animals run from his big bad self anyways.

Gaston is oblivious...

But happy taking a walk.

We're being followed!

This fox followed Gaston and me on our morning walk.

Finally he says something intelligent

“I think Bush is probably the worst president in the history of the United States.” - Donald Trump, coaxed into revealing his political views in an interview Friday on CNN’s “Situation Room”

Up and down, up and down

Time to lose weight. I have done atkins on the past which works incredibly well for me. Unfortunately staying on it is the problem as I miss things too much. So Skip and I are starting Weight Watchers today. We're doing the online method. It already seems like they want me to eat too much food (34 points a day! Plus another 10 for the exercise I did today). But it is nice to have a chicken quesadilla for lunch and not feel guilty.

Oh yeah (part 2)

I have let some things slip while I'm under the weather but by far the worst one was missing my friend Deb's birthday! Of course it was her son that got me sick but I shall forgive her someday! Happy 29th Birthday Deb! No more kids!

Oh yeah (part 1)

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm 1/2 Irish but have never celebrated the holiday as I'm not much of a drinker. Have a good one anyways!

Doggie school for Blossom

Blossom is now eight months old. She has been doing well in doggie school but still loves to jump up on you and NOT heel. We have someone coming over in about an hour to give us some tips and try to talk us into not letting her on to the furniture (good luck with that).

Yesterday we started putting her in doggie day care. It's cheap, at our Vet's (Dr. Mike!) and it's on the way to Skip's work. It lets me get work done and she of course has a blast with the other dogs. We'd send Gaston but as a almost 15 year old, he'd rather sleep!

What to do?

One of the few fun things about being sick is that I can actually play some games! I know some of you think I do it morning to night but I'm lucky if I play 2 hours of games a week these days. At the moment I'm playing Titan Quest: Immortal Throne.

Oh how lovely

I made it to the Doctor's today and I have walking pneumonia and strep throat! Luckily I get to work from home next week.

On flights and rudeness

So I'm about to jump on a plane home. Last Sunday when I was flying here to San Jose, the guy next to me was asked if he understood English as it was a requirement for him sitting in the exit row. He answered "a little" in that tone that meant "a little" are about the only two words I do know in your language. The flight attendant said "OK" so I felt obligated to remind him that the man had answered "a little." He was moved.

What is up with the seat belt sign? People are taking it as a suggestion these days and get up whenever they feel like it, even when the plane is moving towards the runway to take off. It seems that at least four times a flight someone is told to sit down as the seat belt sign is on. Even older people, who I would assume would have better manners and know better. Or not.

Aaaah a crush

I've been watching the Arrested Development series for the first time. It's certainly an acquired taste but it is fun to watch my lifelong crush, Jason Bateman! Oh yeah, the show is funny too. Especially Liza Minelli!

And I'm still sick.

The bed of a sick man

I hate being sick. Especially when I'm travelling.

From my hotel window...

Skip on vacation

I will write about last week's vacation soon but for now here is a tired Skippy on vacation...

Would you like some ice gream?

Saw this at a restaurant in San Jose a few weeks ago...

Finally!

More than three years and Skip and I have never been to a concert together. Time to change that! I got us tickets to the True Colors tour this summer with Cyndi Lauper, Erasure, Margaret Cho and more. And it's at a place I have yet to visit, the Red Rocks Ampitheatre. My Mom has been and has been bugging me to see it so that will fix that. Sadly, we've lived in Colorado for almost a year and a half, the Ampitheatre is about 10 minutes away but I have only seen it from the road.

I have seen Margaret perform at least three times, all in DC. Cyndi I have seen more than that and the first time I was front row center! I was in high school and she was performing about 1.5 hours away in Lakeland, Florida. My parents were going to be out of town and said I couldn't go so I went :-) After buying the ticket and a one-way bus ticket, I had 16 dollars to my name, not enough for the round trip. I got there about 11 am and was 7th in line. Sat there all day by myself (I must have been hungry) and when they let us in they detained me to search my knapsack so I lost my great place in line. It was general admission and somehow I nudged my way up to the front row again. There were bars you could hold onto as you could get right up against the stage and I held on for dear life, since people in the second row back were just swaying and moving around from all the pushing and shoving. First up was Eddie Money who I could have cared less about. The girl sitting next to me and I took turns either untying his shoe laces or writing on his white sneakers with blue ink. After untying his shoelaces, he would go back mid-stage and put his shoe up on a chair to re-tie it.

Cyndi was amazing. I still have a green feather from one of her skirts that fell off (I did NOT pull it)! Other people would touch her when she got close and she would pull away, but when I did it, she was fine. I even touched her toes to her knee!

So the concert ended and I had no way home. AND I was scheduled to work at McDonalds at 4 am the next morning. I stood by the exit of the venue and some of the last people I saw come out were people that I recognized, but didn't know, from my high school. I begged them for a ride and even though their car was full, they gave me one.

I don't think my parents found out until I told them.

P.S. Skip informs me that we have seen a concert together, it was .... Cyndi Lauper and Taylor Dayne! I loves me some Taylor Dayne.

P.S.S. Evidently I have absolutely no memory whatsoever. Now Skippy reminds me that we have also seen Olivia Newton-John. I just love that song, Sam.

What the Sam Hill?

Skip and I just got back from a nice vacation and my poor ears are ringing. Friends complained that I don't update my blog enough. I explained that since the blog was easily found by people who emailed me for work I felt restricted on what I could post, thus the lack of posts. So here I am with another blog where I can post more about my wild drunken, sex-filled days working as a consultant around the country.

As soon as I figure out how to notify the appropriate people about this blog I will take down the other blog and just put up something generic.

Market price. Ha! Skippy's Broadway debut. Yay!

We landed at LaGuardia about 4 pm. Skippy didn't know it but I had gotten us tickets to see The 25th Annual Putnum County Spelling Bee because we both loved Barret Foa as the lead in Avenue Q.

So we needed dinner. I whipped out my GPS to find us something but the damn thing can't get a signal in NYC. All those tall buildings. We started walking and ended up at Shula's. I had only been once (at Lotusphere) and Skip had never been. I had only ever ordered a Lobster entree once and they had it (for market price) so I did. It was amazing.

The bill came and I was shocked. I figured, market price, ok. $40 maaaaybe $50 dollars. Try $125 for a four-pound lobster! I learned my lesson about Market Price!

So onto the theatre. When you walk in the whole place is decorated like a high school (it is a spelling bee after all). Skippy and I got interviewed as four audience members actually get picked to participate. Skippy got picked! He was soooo nervous before the show. I told him the only word he better not misspell was c-a-t. Other than that, he should just have fun.

The show starts, and in short order Skip and the other three are called on to stage. It's dressed like a gym and the kids sit on bleachers. Who leads Skip up to his seat and sits next to him? Barrett! A good 25 minutes of the show goes by before Skip has to spell his first word. Barrett talks to Skip (in character), eats a sandwich, etc. Finally it is Skip's turn. He misses the FIRST word! It was MEXICAN! He forgot the C. He was so nervous he couldn't even hear them telling him the word. He started laughing, the audience started laughing, he laughed more, they laughed more, you get the picture. When you misspell your word, a dreadlocked black guy (doing community service) serving as the grief counsellor gives you a hug and a juice box. Skippy was so funny he got three hugs! He came back to his seat and he gave me the first sip of his juice box. Mmmm, grapey!

After the show people were congratulating Skip and some thought he was actually a cast member. One little girl wanted his autograph. The picture is Skip with a lot of the cast.

Not bad for the first five hours of our vacation.