Troutmaster

Leaky Sprinkler

I got a notification on Tuesday that people would need to come into my condo to replace my sprinklers because they were known to leak and have other problems. Little did I know that those people would show up on Wednesday morning to do the work. As a result I had to work from home that morning and follow them around the house while they worked. It took them a few hours to get all the work done, and I had to move lots of things around and clean out one of my closets to accomodate that work. After they left there were pieces of dry wall all over the carpet and a few smudges on the carpet from their shoes (we don't wear shoes in the house). I was not happy because not only was I inconvenienced for that work to be done, after it was all done I had a mess to clean up. Then on Wednesday evening Timber came home and found a leak in the closet. We put a bucket underneath it and called the people. They said they would check it out on Thursday. The funny thing is that we never had a leak until they came to fix the sprinklers. So they came on Thursday and changed out the leaky sprinkler, but now we have to leave the closet door open and try to air out the closet so we don't get mold and mildew as a result of the leak. This means that all the stuff we had put other places has to stay there for a least a few days. I absolutely hate having my house look like a train wreck. So again, not only was I inconvenienced again but I couldn't even put things back they way they were. Hopefully by this time next week everything will be back in its rightful place. All in all this has been frustrating.

Tiger On Its Way

Tiger is coming out at the end of this week. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm lagging a bit behind so I won't be one of the early adopters. Basically I have to upgrade the RAM in all of my machines, then back everything up, then install tiger. I think I'll wait and make sure it is stable before I jump through all those hoops. But it should be pretty cool.

A Bit Uninspiring

This past weekend's plans went from ascending Mount Whitney to (snowboarding/snowshoeing in Tahoe or hiking to the top of Yosemite Falls) to playing 18 holes of golf to playing 9 holes of a short (par 3) course to playing two games of risk. Granted, there is nothing wrong with playing risk, but I need to do something every now and then that gets me outside and causes a fair amount of excertion at a minimum. I think it is time to do something inspiring again.

Earth Day Progress

Last year I posted what I already did and what I will try to do over the coming year to be more environmentally friendly. My scorecard for the specifics that I would do leaves a little to be desired.
Get Net Thermostat -> Not Done
Replace Dining Room Light with Ceiling Fan -> Not Done
Bring my own bags when I go shopping -> I rarely do this
Take myself off of junk mail lists -> Done
Ride my bike to work more -> I can get a little better at this but not much
Get a compost Bin -> Not feasible for my house

WTF?

I was casually glancing at the news while updating my exercise information onto my laptop and I saw this article. I can't believe people would pretend to be pregnant and then near their supposed "delivery date" they will kidnap a woman and try to take the baby out. What kind of sick weirdos would do such a thing? Don't they know that there are tons of kids out there that need to be adopted? Is it really that hard to get knocked up? Come one people, come back to reality before it's too late!

Finally Got Some Exercise

Tuning up my bike this weekend caused me to get some exercise. On Saturday I went for a bike ride and on Sunday I went for a run. We are having beautiful weather here in San Jose right about now which really kind of forces you to get out and do something.

Old Animosities Arise

I've been reading over the past few weeks about the escalation of hostilities between China and Japan. It looks like China took exception to the Japanese textbooks that are said to gloss over the atrocities committed by the Japanese in WWII. Japan, on the other hand, has taken exception to the protests which seem to be condoned by the Chinese government and the Chinese government trying to block Japan from becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council. I guess old animosities die hard. I would be willing to bet that China doesn't feel any good will toward the US for defeating Japan to end WWII. Kind of like how the French don't seem to show us any good will anymore. The flow of time washes appreciation away.

It's Tax Day Bitches!

Sorry, I can't help but curse a lot leading up to and on tax day. I know that here in the United States we pay less taxes than in a lot of countries around the world, but you have to understand our perspective. I think I can put my money to better use than the government, and I just don't like handing money over like it's nothing. I work hard for what I earn, so I would like to keep as much of it for myself as possible. That being said, I still hate the tax forms for the State of California. But luckily it is all over so I can go on with my life.

Interesting Blood Donation

I donated blood this weekend and a few interesting things happened. First, I brought Timber with me and we went to the Cupertino office for me to donate. Secondly, the two ladies that greeted us had Romanian accents which I thought was ironic. Third, for my donation I went with a new machine that extract blood, spins it around as to separate the red blood cells from the plasma, then puts the plasma back in me. The procedure took a while but it was explained to me that they can get twice as many red blood cells this way than with the standard methods. So essentially they did the processing as the blood was being drawn instead of in a lab afterward.

Scams

Of course I assume that people are too smart to fall for stupid scams like this but every year I read about people getting swindled out of thousands of dollars in scams like this. Hopefully some spammers will pick up on the abacha wife email address and spam whoever is sending out this garbage.

PLEASE I NEED YOUR HELP
EMAIL:abacha_wife_2000@yahoo.com.

Attention:My Dear,

I am mrs.marriam Abacha, the wife to the late Head of State, of the federal Republic of Nigeria from 1993 -1998 -[General Sani Abacha.] My husband made a lot of money as the formal Head of state of Nigeria for five years. He has different accounts in many banks of the world. and has not left any stone unturned in accruing riches for his family.

The present democratic government of Nigeria led by President (Gen. (Rtd))Olusegun Obasanjo has not find favour with my family since their inception. This may be as a result of his hatred for my late husband who kept him in jail for over two years for a coup attempt by him, before the death of my husband. He was released immediately my husband died and he was later made the present President of nigeria. He has confiscated and frozen all my family account and properties in Nigeria and some other countries like American,Europe and Asian continents, It has been in both the local and international news. Presently my son mohammed Abacha has been languishing in different prison centers in Nigeria for a case against his father which he knows nothing about.And i am presently on house arrest oder here too.

Now my purpose of all these introduction and proposal to you is just seeking for your candid assistance in claming these sum 0f $50.8.000,000.00 USD [FIFTY.EIGHT MILLION.DOLLARS]which my late husband has hidden from the Nigerian govt.during his regime.which is presently somewhere in a security company here in Nigeria.under secretive
means. This is a huge sum of money,due to secret reuires upon this transaction I cannot trust much on mostsaboteur friends of my family here in Nigeria who could not be trusted,so I deemed it?s necessary to contact you for this trustworthy transaction.

All whom I needed is a sincere, honest, trustworthy and God-fearing individuals whom my mind will accept to help me in this deal.If you have feelings about my situation, do not hesitate to stand for me as a beneficiary to claim the funds from the security company.

And If my proposal is sudden to you,all I need from you now is for you to stand as the Beneficiary of these money to claim it and bank for me pending on our freedom from the trial which we are going through here in nigeria,to proceed to meet with you in your country for our stay There is no difficulties,As I will send your name as the recipient as well as the beneficiary of the money.On your identification and confirmation from me by the security company the consignment containing the said funds will be handed to you. all i need from you now is your confirmation of willingness as my beneficiary,I will give you the full details.You will be compensated with 25% of the total funds for all your efforts in keeping the funds on my behalf,while we have set aside 5% for expences that may occur during the process of thetransaction.provided these funds are save for me in your care in your country.Please this is a very serious matter,and it?s a save my soul request from you asI will be!
delighted too much to receive a positive response from you in order to move into action for the completion of the project.I will give you details on request from you.

Thanks and be blessed by God almighty.

Regards,
Yours faithfully
Mrs m Abacha.

for the confidentiality involved in this transaction kindly reply me through my private email address:abacha_wife_200@yahoo.com.

Put That Beer Away!

I guess in Montana you used to be able to drink alchoholic beverages while you are driving. That is about to end. I always knew Montana was a little different but I didn't know that the state government was so negligent. Can you imagine driving somewhere and seeing people throwing back beers on the road? I would probably swerve off the road the first time I saw it. Makes me glad I haven't gone to Montana yet for my big fly fishing trip yet.

Spammers Beware

I saw this article about a spammer getting sentenced to 9 years in prison for spamming. Way to go! Maybe this will make the rest of the spammers sit up and take notice that their constant bombardment of unsolicited email needs to stop. I was just thinking the other day that I haven't had much comment spam over the past week. Not only is it a waste of time to go through emails and blog comments that are spam, it is also a waste of time to have to set up filters and automatic processes that go through and move the junk out. I wonder how much productivity is lost each year because of spammers? Then again how much productivity is lost each year because of blogging? :-) The truth is out there.

Tivo'd The Pope

I don't know about you, but I wanted to watch the Pope's funeral but I didn't want to stay up at all hours of the night to do it. The solution? Tivo! I set it to record last night and then got to watch the funeral over breakfast this morning. One thing I noticed was that Hamid Karzai, the leader of Afghanistan, was sitting down the whole time and it didn't seem that any of the other leaders came over to shake his hand and talk to him. So while all the other world leaders are schmoozing and networking he was sitting there by himself with little or no interaction with those around him. Farewell Pope John Paul II...

Pretty Good Contest

I had mentioned back in March that I had won my club level table topics contest. I went on to the next level up and won that contest too. Yesterday I competed in the 3rd level up and didn't win, but I enjoyed the competition and am glad that I got to listen to such great speakers. If you are looking for a way to increase your skills at public speaking I highly recommend you check out your local Toastmasters club. They have them all over the world, so you don't have the excuse of not having one nearby.

Almost Unheard Of

Recently, the management team on my project has given my team permission to spend 3 hours a week (during business hours) to work on sharpening our skills. This is unheard of. Most other projects want you to stay up to date on your skills but tell you do to it on your own time. I have never been on a project or seen a policy in my years in tech where employees were given 3 hours a week to push away their deliverables and work on sharpening their skill sets. I have to give kudos to the management team for allowing this. The only downside is that I have to come up with the curriculum for my team which takes more time, but I'm really not complaining because in the long run it is totally worth it to spend time sharpening your skills because you will be able to get your work done faster and more efficiently.

Warriors Beat Rockets 122-117

We went to the Warriors/Rockets game yesterday. I finally go to see Yao Ming and T-Mac in person, and I have to say that Yao is pretty tall. Overall the game was fun and traffic wasn't too bad because we took BART.

Made it back from LA

We continued out eating tour of LA by visiting Roscoes in Pasadena. On Sunday we went to the Pan American Jiu Jitsu Championship and watched some good matches. We ended up getting home pretty late on Sunday night.

Apple Store @ The Grove

I'm at the Apple Store in the Grove right now. We had a crepe and burrito for lunch so we were able to kill two birds with one stone. The traffic in LA is horrendous as usual but our eating tour is rolling on. Thanks to Apple for having an unencrypted wireless network in their store.

LA Bound This Weekend

We are heading to LA soon and the weather this weekend should be fantastic. Some new places we might check out include Zankou Chicken, the rooftop bar at the Standard Hotel, and Loteria Grill. Of course I'm sure we'll hit Roscoes as always. Oh yeah, and we are going to check out a Jiu Jitsu tournament.