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This past weekend we neither rented nor went to the movies. For the first time in months the weekend passed by without us seeing a movie of any kind. What did we do instead?

Friday night we watched the A’s lose the first game of a three game series to the Yankees. It was a tough night for Ted Lilly. Then we played Warcraft III against the computer. The computer beat us in the first game. We were still getting the feel for the game again after not playing it for months. The second game we pretty much marched over the computer’s base with impunity.

Saturday we watched in disgust as Keith Foulke blew the win for Tim Hudson who pitched a great eight innings against the Yankees. Then to add insult to injury he picked up the win after Chavez bashed a two-run homer in the 10th. Good for the A’s. Disappointing for Hudson who should have gotten the win.

We pretty much just lazed around the house doing nothing for most of the afternoon. Later we did go to Babies R Us to start registering for baby items. We’re not finished yet. Later that night we played some more Warcraft III.

Sunday was another great day for the A’s as Zito shutout the Yankees to win the series. Emily went shopping with Lisa and Sarah at the Napa outlets. I played some PS2 and cleaned up the house a bit.

Are you jealous of the exciting weekend we had? Right now I bet you’re wishing you could have hung out with us. After all, we’re always doing the coolest and most fun things.

A few weeks ago Emily and I took a trip to San Simeon to celebrate our 2nd anniversary as a married couple. San Simeon is on the California coastline about four hours south of the Bay Area. It’s most famous for being the home of Hearst Castle, which was the subject of our visit.

We stayed at a small hotel in Cambria, which is only about ten minutes away from San Simeon. We also happened to be there during a time of the year when a large number of elephant seals crawl up onto the beach and just lay there. We had a good look at the elephant seals and took plenty of pictures.

So without boring you further with my long-winded descriptions just look at our 2nd Anniversary Trip Photo Album for yourself.

Note: The photo album was produced with the export feature in iPhoto. It seems to do the job good enough but I wish the default HTML template was a little nicer.

The second day of “Work Weekend” is now at a close. Today involved packing a lot of clutter into boxes and washing all of our windows inside and out. Emily did some touch ups on the hall bathroom paint job and the master bathroom as well. Nothing exciting really. At the end of the day we went out to dinner at Fisherman’s Grotto to celebrate Buzz’s birthday. The highlight of the evening was seeing two seagulls fighting each other in the water. It really looked like they trying to drown each other. We’re talking mortal combat here.

Then we also discussed what a slow and horrible death fish must go through when they’re caught. They basically “drown” over a long period of time and we’re not aware of any current methods to quickly kill a fish as soon as it’s caught. Surely there has to be a way to give a fish a quick humane end. Some of the ideas floating around the table involved clubbing fish to death as soon as they’re caught, shooting them in the head and electrocution. Don’t you all wish you could have been there for that conversation?

The first day of “Work Weekend” has come to an end. We got a lot done but still have so much to do. The day got off to a false start when we went to a local storage facility to buy boxes. As soon as we got out of the car I realized I left my wallet at home. A trip back home for my wallet cost us a good fifteen minutes. Then came the mowing of the lawns which can be very time consuming.

Last summer we bought a new lawn mower and thought it would be a good idea to get an electric mower. We had good reasons. Less pollution. Less dependence on foreign oil. Starts easy. It’s quiet. At first we were impressed with our new mower. However, over the last year of using it I have come to realize it has a few shortcomings. First, it can’t cut really tall grass unless you raise the wheels up high and go over the area twice. Second, the grass can’t be wet at all. That seems to suck all the power right out of the mower. Also, it has to be kept charged which means it needs to be near an electrical outlet at all times. If I had to do it over again I would probably go for a gas powered mower. I’ve never had to worry about the lawn conditions being just right for a gas mower. However, we’ll probably stick with the electric until we feel like we’ve gotten our money’s worth out of it. So where was I? Right, mowing the lawn.

Our trimmer broke in the middle of the day. The part that spins broke off and went flying across the patio. So I had to go back to Orchard Supply Hardware to get a new one. All in all I spend about eight hours in the hot sun getting our lawns into shape. I won’t even mention getting snail guts on my face while using the electric trimmer on a dense patch of weeds. Does everyone feel bad for me yet?

Emily was also very busy outside removing weeds from our flower boxes and planting new flowers. She has done an excellent job and her additions should add much curb appeal to the house.

The real savior of the day, however, was Emily’s dad. Ron pulled up in his PT Cruiser early in the day and helped me put our toilet back together in our master bathroom. Then he came back after lunch and painted our second bathroom all by himself! This was a real lifesaver! There was no way Emily and I could have painted that bathroom without running ourselves into the ground. Thank you Buzz! You have no idea how much that helps us.

It’s been a few days and I still haven’t posted any more pictures of the work taking place on the master bathroom. Actually, the work is 99% completed and there’s only a couple of minor touches remaining. So rather than post a couple of pictures of something that happened a week ago I’ll just wait until everything is 100% complete. In the meantime enjoy these pictures of Ripley. We’ll try to get some good pictures of Cali sometime. She just doesn’t model for the camera they way Rip does.

This weekend Emily and I will be working very hard to get our house ready to be seen by potential buyers. Yep, we’re selling our house and buying something in Alameda. It’s amazing just how much work we’re going to have to do just to make the house presentable the way to want to. We’ll be repainting our hall shower because the existing paint doesn’t exactly match in all places. It also needs some touch ups from when we had the shower retiled. We’ll also be washing all of our windows inside and out. Both the front and back lawn have to be mowed, trimmed and edged. Then of course comes the task of packing all of our loose unused stuff in boxes so the place doesn’t look so cluttered. It’s going to be a hard few days and the work will probably spill over into Monday but we’ll have a nice reward on Tuesday evening when we can relax by going to the Oakland A’s home opener Go A’s!

This past weekend Emily and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary by taking a trip down the California coast to Heart Castle. We had a good time touring the estate and eating ice cream in the visitor center. We also got to see a bunch of elephant seals during their “molting” season. Basically, it’s just a bunch of female elephant seal laying in the beach sleeping but it is pretty cool because they’re not in a cage or anything. They’ll all on the same beach you and I walk on. Of course it is illegal to feed, touch or otherwise disturb them so you can’t really walk right up to one and pet it either. Everyone observes from a respectable distance. We got some great pictures which I’ll post later in the week.

Also, I’m officially sick of all the hype and awards Chicago has been getting.

A couple of weeks ago I thought I would plan a nice Valentines Day date with my wife Emily. We would go to San Francisco to have a nice dinner and see a show. I chose A Feast of Fools since it is a comedy and I thought Emily would enjoy some good laughs. This year Valentines Day falls on a Friday. Going out to San Francisco on a Friday evening can be a little stressful since we have to rush home from work, change into nice clothes and drive to the city in time for dinner before the show. I didn’t want us to be under these kind of time pressures so I decided we would go out Saturday evening instead. We would have a nice leisurely day and more than enough time to make the drive to San Francisco. That was the plan anyway.

It turns out last Saturday was also the Chinese New Year. Naturally, San Francisco has a big parade to celebrate this event. I assumed this parade would be limited to the mainly Chinese area of San Francisco and wouldn’t affect our route through the financial district to the Marines Memorial Theater. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

5:00 PM – We leave our house in San Leandro. Our dinner reservations are at 6:30 PM so we have a full hour and a half to get there. Should be a cinch. In fact, I’m a little worried we might get there too early and will have to entertain ourselves until we can be seated.

5:30 PM – We just crossed the Bay Bridge and have entered the streets of San Francisco. Now I know we’ve arrived way too early.

5:35 PM – Crossing Market street we see a parade float and group of people in costumes. It looks like the parade does cross our path but we get to cut through it. We think it’s kind of cool to see a small part of the parade.

5:40 PM – One of the streets we are supposed to take has been closed off. We don’t think this is much of a problem. The city is laid out in a grid so all we have to do is take our detour and make our turn a block or two later.

5:45 PM – One or two blocks turns out to be five or six and we have to take another detour which puts us going in the exact opposite direction we want to go in.

5:45 PM to 7:30 PM – We spend the next hour and fifteen minutes desperately trying to get to Sutter street which is where the restaurant and theater are located. Every street near the place was closed. We have to drive to Mission and 6th before we could find a way up to Bush (a one-way street) which would take us to Sutter (one-way street running in the opposite direction). Amazingly enough we were able to keep our bearings so we didn’t get lost and knew what direction we were supposed to be going most of the time. Whenever we got lost we would run into a landmark to reorient us. Traffic was extremely slow. Most of the time we wanted to be in the right lane to make right turns and there would be cars stopped in the right lane trying to park and buses just sitting there. We have long since missed our dinner reservations and are now worrying about getting there in time for the show which starts at 8:00 PM.

7:30 PM – We arrive at the Marines Memorial Theater. We can’t believe it. I pull up to the valet parking area and get out to find an attendant. There are none around so I go into the building and ask the desk clerk. He says someone should be right out. I end up waiting almost fifteen minutes before the valet parking attendant finally shows up.

7:45 PM – We pick up our tickets at the Will Call window and take our seats. That’s when we feel the light cool air blowing on us. Except after about five seconds it stops being cool and becomes really cold. Great. We left our jackets in the car because it was raining out and we didn’t want to ruin the material. My jacket is suede and Emily’s is leather. So it looks like we’ll be sitting through the show being cold.

8:05 PM – The show starts and this is really the highlight of the evening. It was really good and we both enjoyed ourselves very much. It was basically one guy doing various silent comedy bits. Old fashioned humor but good. My favorite part of the show was then the musical accompanist played a beautiful and haunting song by running her fingers along the edges of several crystal glasses. There must have been twenty-four glass in all of varying sizes and filled to varying levels with water. They were sitting on a contraption that automatically spins the glasses when turned on. At first I though she would just play a simple melody but she played a beautifully composed and arranged that had me completely mesmerized.

9:20 PM – The show ends. We go to pick up my car from valet parking and are told it would be at least half an hour before we would be able to get our car. The parade was still affecting things. By this time we are really hungry. Neither one of us had eaten since lunch and Emily is pregnant. It’s really not good for her to be missing meals like this. We stopped by the restaurant we were supposed to go to earlier to see if they were still open. Much to our delight they were open and seated us immediately. However, our delight was short lived when our waitress told us that they were out of everything on the menu except for three items. Despite the limited selection we did enjoy our meals and had a good time joking about what a horrible evening it has been.

10:15 PM – We walk out of the building and are absolutely amazed to see my car already parked right out front. It looks like our luck was finally turning around.

The lesson of this story is never try to drive in San Francisco on the Chinese New Year.

For the first time since I have lived in the Bay Area we have a Bay Area team football team playing in the Super Bowl. I must admit that I’m not a hard-core football fan. I only really develop an interest near the end of the season when the race to make the playoffs starts to heat up. But I am very excited to see the Raiders make it all the way through the playoffs and into the Super Bowl. We’ll be glued to the television Sunday afternoon cheering for every yard gained by the silver and black.

After the game is when the real action starts though. We’re pretty sure that win or lose many drunk overzealous and moronic fans will be doing their best to bring the city of Oakland down by destroying as much property as they can. The logic goes something like this, “Our city’s team has just won a major sporting event! This is great! We must now destroy our city!” Emily and I will be ready to do our part. If anyone within a ten block radius still has their Christmas lights up we will savagely rip them down in the name of celebrating the Super Bowl win… or loss. It doesn’t matter to us. We just want those lights turned off and taken down already.

But seriously, it’s Oakland’s destiny to bring home the Super Bowl trophy this year. Go Raiders!

This is it! The project is finished. Completed. Done. There is nothing more left to do. We are really happy with the job the contractor did for us. And in time too. I think out next major project will be building some stairs to go from our garage floor to the door for the house.

The project is now 99% complete. All of the tile is now up on the walls and the grout has been applied. Right now we’re waiting on two things. First, the grout needs to dry for about twenty-four hours before we can use the shower. Second, we need a new pipe thingy for the bath faucet.

The problem with the existing pipe is that we added pro-panel and a layer of tile where there was none before. Therefore, less of the pipe is sticking out than before. This makes it impossible to reattach our faucet. The solution is to get a longer pipe thingy so the faucet will properly fit over it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get this done tonight so it will have to wait until the morning. Expect final pictures tomorrow.

Also, if you’re observant, you may have noticed in the above picture that the cold nozzle is on the wrong side. We will have to swap the nozzles back to their proper sides before anyone starts actually using the shower. Otherwise, they might not get the water temperature they expected.