My car was covered in a sheet of ice this morning that was at least 1/4" thick. It took me 15 minutes just to get a door open. Afgter that, another 45 minutes to get the ice off of the windows so I could see out. The ice on the back window of my car was half an inch thick. I have a hatchback car, so that window has a more shallow slant to it and the car is on a little hill, so it's more slanted. It made for an almost level surface for the ice to just build up on.
Anyway, after that, the roads are still a mess. There's ice, snow and/or slush on every road on the way to work. It was bad even the highways that I use. I was being SO careful the whole way. I only started sliding once. And that was on a steep highway hill. There was a Jeep in the next lane that I was sliding towards. He would have been fine if he kept going the way he was because he was a little ahead of me. But, he started slowing down >.< Luckily, my car is front wheel drive. I turn the wheel left (I was sliding right) and that had no effect. I expected that because I was sliding... Then i hit the gas a little and the car practically jumped. :O It went left in a hurry and I was back in my lane and not sliding in two seconds.
Then there's the bus ride. When I got on the bus, the driver was smiling and seemed too happy. As the driver closes the door, he says "There's already three quarters of an inch on top of the stuff." and laughs. I'm thinking: Oh boy, this guy is nuts...
So, he starts pulling out of the side street and onto the main street. he's really gunning the engine like the roads are clear and dry... I'm in the back of the bus next to the rear door. I notice that as the front of the bus starts going left, I'm still headed for the other side of the road. He's sliding the back of the bus :O And I can hear him giggling. :O About halfway to work, he does that again through another intersection. The rest of the trip is pretty safe, but him laughing and giggling is such serious weather... He's got to be crazy.
28 January 2009
23 January 2009
An OK Day
So we're TOTALLY swamped at work this week. Lots of new PCs coming in and I'm on the team that gets them installed. I have 8+ PCs all running and none of them are mine. There's also a half dozen I haven't even unboxed yet. I was kinda stressing because the next month is coming up and they're all marked Feb... But, I was mistaken about a little detail. they're all PCs that need to be installed by the end of next month, not the beginning, so we have plenty of time to get them done. :)
After work, I was riding the bus to the parking lot and got a phone call. A friend invited me to join him and another at a local resteraunt. So I went. We had dinner there. I had the peppercorn ribeye steak with garlic mashed potatos. *YUM* Friend had a chicken alfredo and the other a Philly chicken sandwhich.
After that, we moved to the resteraunt's arcade area. Dave & Buster's, if you're wondering what the place is called. The two of them purchase new cards and put some credits on them. I still have mine from years ago. We walk around some to see what's changed and settle down in front of Gauntlet Legends. We all play through a few credits and almost got the dragon at the end of the first levels down. He was at, like, 3% >.<
We move on after wiping that last time. The only other games for 3+ people are the racing games. So we sit down in the Daytona game and race a few times. With our bellies full, credits spent and me having to get home for a WoW raid, we decide to leave.
After work, I was riding the bus to the parking lot and got a phone call. A friend invited me to join him and another at a local resteraunt. So I went. We had dinner there. I had the peppercorn ribeye steak with garlic mashed potatos. *YUM* Friend had a chicken alfredo and the other a Philly chicken sandwhich.
After that, we moved to the resteraunt's arcade area. Dave & Buster's, if you're wondering what the place is called. The two of them purchase new cards and put some credits on them. I still have mine from years ago. We walk around some to see what's changed and settle down in front of Gauntlet Legends. We all play through a few credits and almost got the dragon at the end of the first levels down. He was at, like, 3% >.<
We move on after wiping that last time. The only other games for 3+ people are the racing games. So we sit down in the Daytona game and race a few times. With our bellies full, credits spent and me having to get home for a WoW raid, we decide to leave.
17 January 2009
IT'S TOO COLD!
I went out to changr the battery in my car and it was frozen to the plate it sits on. >.< Last night I bought the battery. I tried to change it at the store so I could immediately return it and get my core charge back. But, it was dark and I couldn't get it out. So, frustrated and about freezing, I re-attached the battery cables and drove home. As I suspected, there is a bracket at the bottom of the battery that's bolted in and holds the battery securly in place. I couldn't see the bracket the previous night because it was dark. Anyway, I get the bracket off today without much trouble. The ratchet I have in the carr came with an extension bar, so it was uber easy to get it into the narrow space and remove the bolt. The hard part was getting the battery out. The bolt was out and the bracket removed, but the battery wouldn't budge.
*BAH!* says I, or something similar ;-) Remember what I said earlier about not much getting me 'excited'? Being cold is one of those few things. I HATE being cold. My ears hurt, my fingers hurt and won't move, my toes hurt, my eyes dry out and just want to close, my nose gets SO dry from breathing that it feels like it's gonna bleed at any moment... It's just makes me feel horrible. So, frustrated as I am, I just kick the thing. I raised my foot up over the car and dropped it as hard as I could on the battery... and it moved with a loud *POP* :D WOOT! I heft the thing out, which wasn't an easy thing to do since I couldn't get my hands down the narrow spaces around the battery. I had to lift it gripping only the top 2" or so. I see some heavy frost in the bottom of the battery space, raised in places, a perfect mold to the bottom of the old battery GRRRR...
I drop the new battery in. Hook up the cables. Start my car to make sure the new battery is good and then clean up my tools. After getting the old battery back in the car in front of the passenger seat, I run to the house. The previous night, it took me 8 tries to unlock the door. >.< I had gloves on and the door is secured with a number pad. The gloves kept hitting different buttons and ruining the code. Today, though, my sister was walking by the door, saw me coming in and unlocked it from the inside. :D Thanks Sis.
*BAH!* says I, or something similar ;-) Remember what I said earlier about not much getting me 'excited'? Being cold is one of those few things. I HATE being cold. My ears hurt, my fingers hurt and won't move, my toes hurt, my eyes dry out and just want to close, my nose gets SO dry from breathing that it feels like it's gonna bleed at any moment... It's just makes me feel horrible. So, frustrated as I am, I just kick the thing. I raised my foot up over the car and dropped it as hard as I could on the battery... and it moved with a loud *POP* :D WOOT! I heft the thing out, which wasn't an easy thing to do since I couldn't get my hands down the narrow spaces around the battery. I had to lift it gripping only the top 2" or so. I see some heavy frost in the bottom of the battery space, raised in places, a perfect mold to the bottom of the old battery GRRRR...
I drop the new battery in. Hook up the cables. Start my car to make sure the new battery is good and then clean up my tools. After getting the old battery back in the car in front of the passenger seat, I run to the house. The previous night, it took me 8 tries to unlock the door. >.< I had gloves on and the door is secured with a number pad. The gloves kept hitting different buttons and ruining the code. Today, though, my sister was walking by the door, saw me coming in and unlocked it from the inside. :D Thanks Sis.
16 January 2009
A car ride in Malaysia
So Lase is driving me away from the airport and I immediately notice one thing: Every tree is a palm tree. For many miles, all I saw was palm trees. Clear-cut hills and palms trees. Power lines on poles and palm trees. Crazy motos (more on those in blogs to come) and... palm trees. Back in the states, before I left, I had heard several times about people boycotting Malay palm oil because of what they do to the enviroment. Now I see why. The land is devastated by clearing, terracing and planting only palm trees for MANY kilometers. The US people are boycotting because the palm plantations are now wiping out rain forests to expand. But, even if it wasn't just because of the rainforest, I'd have to agree that they should plant palms in a more eviromentally friendly fashion.
I forget what words started it, but a little bit into the trip from the airport to Melaka, she says something like 'well, fine then, I won't talk.' I then say something like 'I can play that game too' and we have ourselves a little game of silence... at least 15mins of neither of us saying a word. That's easy for me, but Lase not talking? 8O I'd look at her, smile, check outthe palm trees, look at her again, take in more scenery, etc. I didn't think it was bad though. i was comfortable being with her. :) Anyway, I wanted to end the game and said soemthing. I flew to the other side of the world to see my girlfriend and I wasn't going to spend my time with her playing a game of silence.
Down the road, there was a resteraunt build across the highway :O i had thought of something like that before. It's rather logical, really... There's TONS of unused space over our nations highways. We have double-decker bridges near where i live and I've seen video of long higheays in California where highways are stacked up. So, i know there are ways to use the space. I just didn't expect to see it ever happen. Kudos to Msia for showing retail use of the space to me for the first time.
i also have to say the drivers in Msia are pretty crazy. Esp near my hotel where there's no lane lines. They just go from one side or middle of the road to another position whenever they want without signaling. We have that here, too, but they leave considerable space between cars when they do it. There, it was so close, I thought we'd get hit several times. Not only that, but the motorcycle drivers do it and do it more aggressively. Weaving between cars on what should be a lane line and driving around them at stop lights, etc. I thought they were asking to be killed. Here in the US, motorcycles obey the same rules as cars. If you're behind a car, you stay behind the car unless there's a lane to pass in. If there's two lanes and two cars side by side, you can't go between them. You have to wait til one car passes and follow behind it to pass the other car.
Anyway, thank you Lase for keeping me safe in all the hours we were on the road. <3 And I hope you stay safe in all the hours we're apart.
I forget what words started it, but a little bit into the trip from the airport to Melaka, she says something like 'well, fine then, I won't talk.' I then say something like 'I can play that game too' and we have ourselves a little game of silence... at least 15mins of neither of us saying a word. That's easy for me, but Lase not talking? 8O I'd look at her, smile, check outthe palm trees, look at her again, take in more scenery, etc. I didn't think it was bad though. i was comfortable being with her. :) Anyway, I wanted to end the game and said soemthing. I flew to the other side of the world to see my girlfriend and I wasn't going to spend my time with her playing a game of silence.
Down the road, there was a resteraunt build across the highway :O i had thought of something like that before. It's rather logical, really... There's TONS of unused space over our nations highways. We have double-decker bridges near where i live and I've seen video of long higheays in California where highways are stacked up. So, i know there are ways to use the space. I just didn't expect to see it ever happen. Kudos to Msia for showing retail use of the space to me for the first time.
i also have to say the drivers in Msia are pretty crazy. Esp near my hotel where there's no lane lines. They just go from one side or middle of the road to another position whenever they want without signaling. We have that here, too, but they leave considerable space between cars when they do it. There, it was so close, I thought we'd get hit several times. Not only that, but the motorcycle drivers do it and do it more aggressively. Weaving between cars on what should be a lane line and driving around them at stop lights, etc. I thought they were asking to be killed. Here in the US, motorcycles obey the same rules as cars. If you're behind a car, you stay behind the car unless there's a lane to pass in. If there's two lanes and two cars side by side, you can't go between them. You have to wait til one car passes and follow behind it to pass the other car.
Anyway, thank you Lase for keeping me safe in all the hours we were on the road. <3 And I hope you stay safe in all the hours we're apart.
15 January 2009
Oh Pooh!
Several years ago (more than I care to admit now since I'm getting old XD), I read The Tao of Pooh. It's a very good book. I would recommend everyone read it if I thought other people still read books. Anyway, someone wrote a simple guide to blogging Pooh-Style. It makes some nice points and I hope it'll help any readers who blog blog better.
"Pooh never panicked when plans went astray. Life continually threw him curve balls and he never seemed surprised. Obstacles cropped up constantly, but that didn’t bother Pooh either. He expected adversity to happen. When it did, Pooh seemed almost pleased, as if he were greeting an old friend come to visit."
That's how I feel a lot of the time. Every now and then something will cause me concern, but it's far from the norm. That's basically what The Toa of Pooh is about. Taking things as they come and not getting excited when they come.
"Pooh never panicked when plans went astray. Life continually threw him curve balls and he never seemed surprised. Obstacles cropped up constantly, but that didn’t bother Pooh either. He expected adversity to happen. When it did, Pooh seemed almost pleased, as if he were greeting an old friend come to visit."
That's how I feel a lot of the time. Every now and then something will cause me concern, but it's far from the norm. That's basically what The Toa of Pooh is about. Taking things as they come and not getting excited when they come.
08 January 2009
At the airport
Yah yah, I be lazy. But now that there's absolutely no work for me to do, I can get some writing done. Besides that, I have to post more than Lase. You can take that as a challenge, Love.
Where was I... Oh yeah, leaving LAX for Taipei.
I get to Taipei and I'm not feeling very comfortable. The place is under heavy construction, so there's very little lighting in some places, temporary plywood walls, wires hanging out of the cileing, etc. I just feel like I'm walking through abandoned tunnels and am about to get mugged at any moment. It totally reminded me of the airport in Mexico, which was just in a state of horrible disrepair.
I'm feeling a little sleepy because it's VERY late for me my time, but it's morning Msia time. So, I walk into a bar, have myself a muffin, bananna and orange juice for 'breakfast' and sit down at the terminal to do some more reading. After a while, I got bored and walked to one of the paid internet thingies. It's just a little screen with a keyboard that folds out. I give my credit card info (very creepy feeling doing this on a public PC) and get a few mins of internet time. I send Lase an email and get off of it.
The flight to KUL was absolutely boring... I can't even remember what I did. I know I stayed awake somehow and the movies wer still free as it was China Air. But, I don't recall what I watched, what I read, etc. It did teach me to not pick the very front row of coach, though. There's a wall in front of you, so you can't stretch out at all. In other rows, there's not much room, either, but you can still get your feet under the seat in front of you. And I land in Msia...
After first class disembarks, I'm the first off the plane :D I start walking, and walking and walking some more... XD KIL is a VERY nice airport, but it's also HUGE. Even with the rail shuttle, it takes about 20 mins forme to get from the plane to the luggage carosel. And there, I wait for the luggage to start coming out. That takes a while. I start seeing other people from my flight showing up. They pick up their bag and move on. I was the first one there, but I'm among the last to get my luggage >:| Then I go to customs. I was very nervous about getting in because I didn't do anything before beginning my trip to get permission for entry, but it was very easy for me to get in. I just showed my passport, handed them the paper I filled out on the plane and they stamp my passport.
I move on past the security area and start looking for Lase. I know I'm late because of waiting for my luggage and something told me she could be anywhere. Walking towards our pre-designated meeting spot, I see some kiosks and other obstructions that block the view and could be walked around. I keep to the front of the airport, since the back seems darker and less likely traveled. And, sure enough, I see her walking towards me about halfway to the meeting point. I was right about her not waiting there. LOL I get a quick hug. /bonk Lase and we go to the Burger King there for lunch. The burger and fries there taste just like the ones in the USA. I didn't like the pepper too much though. You have it ground into a very fine powder that just seems to clump up. Here it's larger grained, like salt, so it's easier to spread it out. The chilli dip was good though. :)
Besides eating, I also showed/gave her some stuff I had brought with me. She had mailed to me some keychains in pink boxes so I could have them engraved. I have them engraved here and carried them with me to Msia. I handed her one of the boxes. When she opened it, her eyes got SO big and her jaw just dropped. 8O I had put in that box the necklase I bought for her:
I could tell she REALLY liked it and it made me SO happy. :D It's kind of a poor pic, but she's the one with it, so I can't get a better one. I also showed her the engraved keychains. There were two pairs of keychains. you know the split ones that fit together? We each took a part of each pair. I also showed her the candies I had brought for her. I'm not sure what else... Her reaction to the necklace kinda drowns everything else out. We talked for a while and then headed out to the parking lot to leave the airport.
Clickie for Lase's side.
Where was I... Oh yeah, leaving LAX for Taipei.
I get to Taipei and I'm not feeling very comfortable. The place is under heavy construction, so there's very little lighting in some places, temporary plywood walls, wires hanging out of the cileing, etc. I just feel like I'm walking through abandoned tunnels and am about to get mugged at any moment. It totally reminded me of the airport in Mexico, which was just in a state of horrible disrepair.
I'm feeling a little sleepy because it's VERY late for me my time, but it's morning Msia time. So, I walk into a bar, have myself a muffin, bananna and orange juice for 'breakfast' and sit down at the terminal to do some more reading. After a while, I got bored and walked to one of the paid internet thingies. It's just a little screen with a keyboard that folds out. I give my credit card info (very creepy feeling doing this on a public PC) and get a few mins of internet time. I send Lase an email and get off of it.
The flight to KUL was absolutely boring... I can't even remember what I did. I know I stayed awake somehow and the movies wer still free as it was China Air. But, I don't recall what I watched, what I read, etc. It did teach me to not pick the very front row of coach, though. There's a wall in front of you, so you can't stretch out at all. In other rows, there's not much room, either, but you can still get your feet under the seat in front of you. And I land in Msia...
After first class disembarks, I'm the first off the plane :D I start walking, and walking and walking some more... XD KIL is a VERY nice airport, but it's also HUGE. Even with the rail shuttle, it takes about 20 mins forme to get from the plane to the luggage carosel. And there, I wait for the luggage to start coming out. That takes a while. I start seeing other people from my flight showing up. They pick up their bag and move on. I was the first one there, but I'm among the last to get my luggage >:| Then I go to customs. I was very nervous about getting in because I didn't do anything before beginning my trip to get permission for entry, but it was very easy for me to get in. I just showed my passport, handed them the paper I filled out on the plane and they stamp my passport.
I move on past the security area and start looking for Lase. I know I'm late because of waiting for my luggage and something told me she could be anywhere. Walking towards our pre-designated meeting spot, I see some kiosks and other obstructions that block the view and could be walked around. I keep to the front of the airport, since the back seems darker and less likely traveled. And, sure enough, I see her walking towards me about halfway to the meeting point. I was right about her not waiting there. LOL I get a quick hug. /bonk Lase and we go to the Burger King there for lunch. The burger and fries there taste just like the ones in the USA. I didn't like the pepper too much though. You have it ground into a very fine powder that just seems to clump up. Here it's larger grained, like salt, so it's easier to spread it out. The chilli dip was good though. :)
Besides eating, I also showed/gave her some stuff I had brought with me. She had mailed to me some keychains in pink boxes so I could have them engraved. I have them engraved here and carried them with me to Msia. I handed her one of the boxes. When she opened it, her eyes got SO big and her jaw just dropped. 8O I had put in that box the necklase I bought for her:
I could tell she REALLY liked it and it made me SO happy. :D It's kind of a poor pic, but she's the one with it, so I can't get a better one. I also showed her the engraved keychains. There were two pairs of keychains. you know the split ones that fit together? We each took a part of each pair. I also showed her the candies I had brought for her. I'm not sure what else... Her reaction to the necklace kinda drowns everything else out. We talked for a while and then headed out to the parking lot to leave the airport.
Clickie for Lase's side.
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