http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod A few words about what's on his mind. Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:35:24 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It's been almost three months since the last update and I have 15 movies and one tv documentary here so it looks like I average just over one movie a week. The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave -  I loved the Super Dave shorts when I was a kid so when ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/08/19/tuesday-media-roundup-34/ Buffalo burgers We tried buffalo burgers recently and I was surprised at the difference between it and beef. The texture in handling it feels sort of clean and loose but it all holds together well. In cooking it seemed to want to brown faster than beef and in spite of it ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/08/18/recent-food/ We finally had part of our fence replaced in the front. It was leaning at abou a 30 degree angle ever since the winds hit last year and we think it was mostly being help up by the passion flower vines on top. Our neighbor decided it was time before ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/06/14/reclaiming-outside/ I found a number of "B"movies on DirecTV recently in addition to sme good stuff so I have more than I normally do. Nice thing about the "B" movies is they rarely exceed 90 minutes. The Neanderthal Man - I had seen this before. A scientist believes that the larger brain ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/27/tuesday-media-roundup-33/ Finally a weekend without many planned activities let me catch up on the far overdue weeding. First I got the new weeds in the backyard that grew from the last attempt. Then I moved on to the front yard and managed to get everything but the weeds between the flagstones ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/19/weeds-and-artichokes/  I don't have a picture because there are only camera phones in the office and none of them can get close enough to resolve the image. I would draw a picture but my poor drawing skills are more likely to mislead. It's a bright red bug (6-legs), about 2.5-3mm long and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/16/longshot-bug-id-request/ A Knight's Tale - With the passing of Heath Ledger I learned that I had not actually seen any of his movies. I probably wasn't going to be seeing any until The Dark Knight later this summer until I saw a movie channel was playing A Knight's Tale. Aside from ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/13/tuesday-media-roundup-32/ 1) As I watched them set up the difference engine I pictured a more practiced person setting it up in maybe half the time. Operators being a skilled profession in a world where the machines were completed and used in Babbage's time. Cities would have computational centers that people send ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/12/more-from-the-weekend/ Saturday we went to the Computer History Museum to see the opening of Babbage's Difference Engine exhibit. It's the second one that's been built and it's impressive in person. After wandering through the rest of the museum we arrived at the difference engine in time to see them setting it ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/12/a-weekend-of-entertainment/ I didn't think about the connection before, but Monday morning when I came in to work the power strip in my cube was dead and one of the bricks plugged into it didn't survive either. I'm thinking whatever was the fix took out my power strip in the process. Unrelated to ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/08/more-electrical-strangeness/ We went on Sunday and after finding parking and then waiting in line for tickets finally made it to the the stuff. The main hall had the stuff from previous issues of Make and Craft magazines. Having kits for sale for the more popular items was a good idea. The ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/07/maker-faire/ The bathrooms where I work are shared among a several offices. The 30-foot journey to relief brings with it a large charge differential so that when you touch the bathroom door handle you get a large shock. Going out the rear entrance has similar issues. Strangely, the reverse trips don't ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/07/electrically-balanced/ 27 Dresses - A fun comedy. I hope Katherine Heigl makes continues with the transition from tv to the movies. She was great to watch and her reactions felt very real even as the situations weren't very likely. 1408 - I wasn't expecting much from this and I got a good ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/05/06/tuesday-media-roundup-31/ The Forbidden Kingdom - Jet Li & Jackie Chan, fun story, cool fu! If you haven't seen this yet, what's your problem? DCI 2008 Countdown - Since I'm a band geek I tend to go for these drum & bugle corps shows. This was a theater event showing the best shows ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/04/29/tuesday-media-roundup-30/ This past Saturday was the second match for the Santa Cruz Roller Girls and it was clear that they practiced a lot on their weak spots after the first match. For the first half Candie Hooligan and Heather Headlocklear were the jammers most of the time which makes sense since ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/04/15/santa-cruz-roller-girls-vs-redding-angry-beavers/ Yesterday a different contest popped into my head, one between Brocolli Obama and Celery Clinton. I was surprised to find no reference to it on the internets. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/04/08/a-different-primary/ I tried Trader Joe's but they had nothing but drinking chocolate. Then I remembered Staff of Life and decided to try there so we went there this morning. On the bottom shelf of the baking section are cans of cocoa. Those are sweetened or natural cocoa. Looking over to the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/04/04/dutch-processed-cocoa-update/ I lose. So there was this really great looking cake that I was hoping I could have for my birthday.  We went to the store (New Leaf) and picked up all the ingredients we were missing except there was no dutch-process cocoa. No problem, we can get it at another ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/04/02/natual-cocoa-vs-dutch-process-cocoa/ Babel - One of those movies where you have several different stories that are all connected. In this case it's has a global scale of connection. Not like with a global phenomenon or event, but that the people involved reach around the world. If it was just that it would ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/04/01/tuesday-media-roundup-29/ The Spiderwick Chronicles - I didn't read the book so I have nothing to compare it against. The characters were entertaining, but on the whole I liked them before they encountered the computer generated characters. I liked that the same actor played both twins, that doesn't happen often. The Other Boleyn ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/03/25/tuesday-media-roundup-28/ Nicole and I decided to try the Ten Years Thinner program by Christine Lydon, M.D. to get us back on track eating and exercising better. Both the diet and exercise are backed up by nutritional and exercise research that pulls it all together into an follow to get manner. The ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/03/24/ten-years-thinner/ With the ends of the rain and the sprouting of plants has also come the return of the gopher. It doesn't really eat any of the plants we have in the yard, it just makes a mess as it takes dirt from one place and pushes it to the surface ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/03/23/grrrr-gopher-season/ Last night we went to see the Santa Cruz Roller Girls in their pre-season opener against the Silicon Valley Roller Girls at the Santa Cruz Civic. The Civic was sold out and the crowd was amped up! By the end of the night my ears were ringing some but that's ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/03/16/roller-derby/ The haircut we gave to Grover: We have our dogs shaved fairly regularly because they get too hot in the summer otherwise, they bring in WAY too much dirt, and it cuts way down on the dog hair. Why not get some clippers and try it ourselves? How hard can ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/03/10/messed-up/ I just finished reading this collection of small presidential biographies and seeing the changes over time in this was is very interesting. The styles of campaigning changing from you announcing your candidacy and the party campaigning for the candidate compared to today where the candidate has a lot of work ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/03/06/the-presidents-edited-by-michael-beschloss/ So far with the iPod Touch I've checked the weather, stocks, browsed the web, played music, watched video (found a nice recipe to use Nero for that). However the most entertainment I've had with it so far is to watch the names of WiFi hotspots that come into and go ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/03/05/my-favorite-use-for-an-ipod-touch-so-far/ For awhile now as I ride to and from work I get to look at the increase in graffiti around here. It's ugly and it's pretty much impossible to stop because catching someone in the act is very very unlikely. So I started brainstorming ideas on how to stop graffiti. More ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/03/01/stopping-graffiti/ After one day back at work I can safely say I'm glad to be there! It's rare that I feel this comfortable in a job after a day. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/02/19/first-day-back-2/ Romantic Comedy - It's not often funny but it can be amusing and it felt more like the kind of characters and story I would see in a 30s movie, but done in the 80s. With the right director I think this could have been really good. Rambo - Unlike some ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/02/19/tuesday-media-roundup-27/ Republican: Anderson Cooper kept things rolling for the most part and for the first half it was all very polite between the candidates. McCain and Romney were givent he most time to talk and Ron Paul was cut off several times after one sentence.  After awhile Huckabee reminded the moderator and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/02/01/the-debates/ This morning I planned to bake some things for work as a parting gift to my co-workers. I decided on this "Death by Chocolate" recipe (it's not really deadly, but it is very good) and what some people call Sugar-Crack cookies (I should write that recipe up). I surveyed the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/02/01/last-day-at-work/ I don't knoww hat happened, when I left it was find and when I had a chance to check at work it wasn't, but at the time I thought that my computer had just been excluded fromt eh network since it was my last day. That wasn't the case though ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/02/01/sorry-about-7thsign-being-down/ Yesterday afternoon I was talking to Nicole on the phone and suddenly she interrupted what she was saying with "Oh shit! I just heard gunshots!" About 15 minutes later she called back to report that there was a shooting in the street in front of our house and that the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/31/tuesday-nights-shooting-no-really/ Well, it's still as money so anywhere money changes hands should be ok, but outside of post office vending machines you don't find it so much. Yesterday I decided to try it in the vending machines at work. The snack machine just dropped it through, but the Coke machine happily ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/26/more-uses-for-dollar-coins/ I'm leaving VeriSign (last day is next Friday, Feb 1), and while I'm sad I'll be leaving my co-workers, I am excited to be moving on to a new job at Full Power (starting Monday, Feb 18). That gives me two weeks off before I start. It's still local and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/26/new-job-time/ Rocky III - Still working my way through the Rocky movies again. Mr. T starts out pretty menacing but halfway through he turns into a charicature of himself. The central story of a man overcoming loss of  confidence brought about by learning his accomplishments were a lie works though. Not ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/22/tuesday-media-roundup-26/ It seems like an eternity in coming but there's only one more year to the Bush administration! http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/20/finally-one-more-year/ Nicole ended up talking to Kevin Smith and somehow ended up communicating that we were frustrated that we couldn't talk directly to the presidential candidates. So he lent us his RV so we could drive around to the various campaign events, and having Kevin Smith's RV would indicate to those ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/18/dream-from-last-night/ My old scooter (the one that I was clobbered by the door while riding) had it's batteries fade to unusable. The new scooter that was the replacement had a motor problem that took a year to get a new one and I didn't think about the batteries going bad but ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/12/battery-goodness/ Nicole was telling me about a product called Scargo which is a combination of oils to help scar tissue. My first thought was that the logo should be a snail, followed by the thought that it should come in a snail dispenser that you rub over your skin leaving a ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/12/why-im-not-in-marketing/ On the Democrat side, Clinton , as the front runner, controlled the discourse. 'Most electable' and 'not George Bush' seemed to be the biggest messages, at least the ones that I received. I think the Clinton campaign must have been coasting after being ahead for so long (one of the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/12/some-campaign-thoughts/ National Treasure: Book of Secrets - Like the first National Treasure movie, this one was a lot of fun though less realistic. Also you have to have seen the first one to appreciate the characters. RoboCop - I re-watched this in HD recently. It's nice to not have every movie with ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/08/tuesday-media-roundup-25/ Were she not in stage 4 of her cancer I would have liked to have Elizabeth Edwards in the presidential race. I like what she says in her speeches, she's a little more liberal, and she seems like a strong and forthright person. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/07/a-candidate-i-would-have-liked-to-have-in-the-race/ First I have to say that I like having both the Democrat and Republican debates back to back. I also liked there being distinct discussion and direct question sections. All that said, watching four hours of debates is pretty tiring. Republicans: I  haven't really kept up to date with the Repuiblican candidates ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/06/new-hampshire-debate/ Yesterday morning there was about 5 minutes of wondering what was going to happen next. Nicole looked out to find her snowman (cloth) laying face-down in some water. She rescued it and pulled it inside to dry. I sat down to put on my shoes and there was a crash ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/05/storm-mess/ Grover had his final cancer check up this morning and is now declared to be free of cancer! We didn't really expect anything to suddenly to pop up at this point but it's still nice to have the official word. Now we just need to get the weight off of ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/02/grover-is-cancer-free/ Movies: Protocols of Zion - A documentary about "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" and a look at who believes it to be true. Well mostly about who believes it to be true. If you know about the protocols then it's mostly seeing how far and wide they have ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/01/tuesday-media-roundup-24/ It was a mellow stay at home NYE watching movies and comforting the dogs as the explosions sounded. Unlike previous years where there are a few fireworks, this year there were a lot of explosions. Deeper and louded booms than you normally get on the 4th of July. The dogs ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2008/01/01/yay-new-year/ When I was walking by the almost completed Woodstock's Pizza I saw they had a sign with their URL on it. I visited and signed up and in return they sent me an evite to try them out last night (they open today) so Nicole and I went. When we walked ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/12/14/woodstocks-pizza/ I'm switching my preferred transliteration from Channukah to Chanukah. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/12/11/567/ Lately when walking the dogs I've been doing off and on running. The dogs think it's great since walking is never fast enough. There's a 0.4 mile straight stretch that I've been able to run the whole way and this morning I decided to time it to confirm that the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/12/05/fitness-and-anti-fitness/ Some Girls - An older meet the crazy family kind of movie with. The characters don't always seem to make sense but it doesn't matter because something funny will come along to distract from that. Man of the Century - A black and white semi-period piece. For awhile it seemed like ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/11/06/tuesday-media-roundup-23/ It took only one day to start feeling like autumn/winter. One day after the time change and the fog came and it was overcast all day and it got dark early to go with it. Finally! http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/11/05/one-day-winter-transition/ Well, first the rain and then the heat, a few thousand weeds and grasses decided to start up. The weeds I can pull but I can't go pulling individual blades of grass and single-leaf clover. A gopher has  moved into the yard. I think it's feeding on the new bounty of ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/11/05/results-of-the-heat/ On October 12 we saw Weird Al at the Golden State Theater in Monterey. Now that he's become somewhat popular he plays bigger venues and they also tend to be seated which allows for better control of the stage production but it's not quite as fun as being in a ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/10/28/weird-al-two-weeks-later/ We got a chance to see George Carlin on Sunday and it made for the perfect end to the weekend. Previous times I had seen him albums had been recently released, but this show was leading up to an upcoming HBO special so the material was all new. Enough so ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/10/09/george-carlin/ That was a great finale and I made something that won me a steeping teacup! (spoilers at the end) I made a  dessert appetizer composed of graham cracker, semi-sweet chocolate, and boysenberry butter. It ended up being a lot less sweet than I thought it would be which was a good thing since I was ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/10/05/top-chef-finale/ Sampling the cake again today, the cake flavor isn't so bland now so I guess if you make this cake you should make it the day before you intend to serve it. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/10/01/pound-cake-update/ It's amazing how things turn out when you use the right amount of sugar. I even used standard baking instead of convection just to be sure I didn't change any variables. Ok, instead of greasing and flouring the pan I greased and used powdered sugar. When I went to make ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/09/30/brown-sugar-pound-cake-round-2/ Recently I needed to reduce my vacation time and with the current project load not wanting me to take a block of time off I decided to take off a number of Fridays in a row. Either I have a problem with 3-day weekends that begin on a Friday, or ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/09/30/im-bad-at-3-day-weekends/ Oppenheimer opened and had a lot of fun songs, and really how can you go wrong when you have a song with an air-horn solo. They Might Be Giants were tight, moving from one song to another with few breaks in between. There were a few mistakes which probably wouldn't have been noticed had they not apologized for them. It's still the beginning of their tour so I guess they're still working out the kinks. One thing is for ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/09/30/they-might-be-giants/  The plan was to wake up this morning and make a cake for Top Chef viewers tonight. ITwo weeks ago I saw a recipe I really wanted to try and everything was set to go.  I mixed it all up and put it in the oven with a timer set ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/09/26/oops-to-the-cake/  Shoot 'Em Up - Lots of guns, rediculous gun usage, not even trying on the physics. I was laughing pretty much from beginning to end. The trailer focuses on action and doesn't show the humor. I don't think it'll be in theaters much longer, but maybe it'll be on DVD ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/09/18/shoot-em-up/ Finally I've read the end of the Dune series, and unlike "Hunters of Dune", I thought it was pretty good! The feel of it, the characters, the story, all feel like Frank Herbert and so I feel pretty comfortable in saying that this is the bulk of where his final outline ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/09/15/sandworms-of-dune-musings/ Superbad - It started off fairly slow but after the first 15 minutes I thought it was pretty funny and it just got funnier as it went on. I also liked the unusual response to alcohol consumption. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - This movie is all over the place. ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/09/04/tuesday-media-roundup-22/ I went to sleep at 1AM and the sky was perfectly clear so I set my alarm for the appropriate Aurigids time and when I woke up there was endless fog. Stupid weather! http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/09/01/no-aurigids/ I wanted to see the eclipse last night but I didn't want to set an alarm, which would wake up Nicole. So I told the dogs to wake me up between 3 and 4. Grover woke me up at 3:36AM! It was hard to find the moon at first since ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/08/28/dog-assisted-eclipse/ The past weekend was great! Nicole came back from the UK Thursday night and the Friday day we drove to LA for a family reunion on my dad's side. Nicole held up amazingly well despite the jet lag. Our family met at the Laguna Sawdust Art Festival and wandered before ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/08/21/family-reunion-2007/ The Illusionist - I loved the uncertainty it generated throughout the movie about what was real and what was illusion. Plus you generally can't go wrong with Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti and I think it's the first movie Jessica Biel is good. Happy Gilmore - It's been awhile since I've ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/08/14/tuesday-media-roundup-21/ This morning after I walked the dogs but before I went to work I saw the wasp again. It was trapped between the window and the screen actively looking for a way out and that's where it's going to stay for now. When I went home at lunch to let ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/08/14/the-wasp-is-back/ Yesterday morning I was in the kitchen when I saw something flying with the corner of my eye. I turned to look and saw a black wasp making a course straight for my head. Recalling recent tales of swollen ears from wasp-in-hair action I dodged and ran out of the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/08/12/wheres-the-body/ When Nicole left I figured I would spend a day or two replacing the 7thsign hard drive using Nicole's computer as the host for the two laptop drives. Her machine was too unstable for that so instead of upgrading her machine to be more efficient and quiet after the drive ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/08/11/things-work-again/ During the past few months, when writing, I've had an urge to use a semi-colon. I resist and tell myself that it really doesn't know what it wants and restructure things so that no semi-colon is possible. I don't know where the urge comes from. I've read the rules on ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/07/25/today-i-used-a-semi-colon/ At least with regards to keeping current on technology. Before my computer died forcing me to upgrade now, I was planning on an upgrade next year which would have been a 7-year life-span. A few months ago I replaced my video card from 1998, which still worked well, so I ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/07/22/slow-on-the-uptake/ I was out for a week and a half and I feel like a feel red-neck with the old motherboard and power supply sitting out in the front yard, but I'm back! The hard drive getting corrupted wasn't the problem, just a symptom of a failing motherboard. I pulled off ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/07/16/i-have-a-working-computer-again/ The final Price is Right with Bob Barker - I hadn't watched the show in years and I mostly watched it as a kid. It was fun seeing this. The excitement of everyone on the show was awesome and a number of cars were won. The value of the final ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/07/10/tuesday-media-roundup-20/ Thursday night I was playing chess with Peter when I heard a clunk-clunk from the hard drive. Then my computer was frozen. I copied down the state of the chess board and tried rebooting which the computer informed me was impossible becasuee it was an unmountable drive. I tried booting ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/07/09/my-computer-works-again/ From Overheard in New York: Pilot: Why, hello, everyone! This is your captain, Bud Howard, and your copilot, Harvey the Rabbit. The FCC or FCA... Some fancy organization told me to tell you that I have to show you a very low-budget and entertaining movie on how to act on a ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/06/20/i-guess-i-could-be-an-airline-pilot/ "Thank you for flying ______ Airlines. I hope you enjoyed the in-flight movie, I know I sure did!" http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/06/15/why-im-not-an-airline-pilot/ Tuesday I was feeling the allergies strongly and took my last Allegra. Wednesday I had my allergy shots for an increased allergy load and I didn't make it to the pharmacy to get a prescription refill. My head filled up. Thursday I got more Allegra in the morening and I had some ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/06/15/a-river-flows-from-my-head/ See that windowed deck/bar that goes across the front and hangs over the sides some? I'd put a moving red light in there to make it an ocean cylon or an ocean Knight Rider. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/06/08/why-i-dont-design-cruise-ships/ From when I was in the Chicago O'Hare airport security line when everyone was taking off their shoes: Do foot fetishists have to work at keeping their cool going through airport security? From when I was brushing my teeth last night: If we develop intelligent machines, are we going to ban and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/05/31/thoughts-of-the-day/ Movies going back to early April! The Pursuit of Happyness - Everyone like nothing to something stories. This one avoids sap and forceful attempts at manipulating the viewer and ends up being very enjoyable. The Holiday - It's like two movies in one and neither could have stood on its own. Kate ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/05/22/tuesday-media-roundup-19/ I've kind of missed out on the last month of reading about people's lives, even on icb where I'm just paging through text between meetings. I think I'm caught up now, mostly. Now there are just evites to go through. I don't expect this to get better any time soon ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/05/20/kind-of-caught-up/ Similar to the trip to Chicago, work sent me to Atlanta at the beginning of the month for two meetings on two different days. That left me time to wander around before the afternoon meetings happened. I like the MARTA train system they have, it's quick and convenient for getting ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/05/18/atlanta-and-the-quest-for-frozen-custard/ Work sent me to Chicago two weeks ago. My co-workers and I flew in at night (late because United likes delays). The escalator leading out of concourse C had a video screen on each side of it. The boot device for the PC driving those screens had failed and you ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/05/04/chicagokinda/ I mean besides to take care of an itch. It seems likely that the cause of an itch is often some external irritant so scratching might elliminate that irritant or bring your attention to it. What I noticed the other day though as I was having an allergic reaction is ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/04/19/the-reasons-for-scratching/ I just got one of these in change and realized that it's the first quarter to feature death. It makes it kind of unsettling. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/04/12/montana-quarter/ Last night I attempted a version of pad thai, and the result was fairly good. In the first couple batches the rice noodles weren't cooked enough but it's hard to know when they're done. The cooktop can easily keep the heat high enough without even going into boost mode, I ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/04/10/wok-cooking-without-a-wok/ The road the crosses the yacht harbor from 7th Avenue and continuing past where it turns into San Lorenzo as it goes by the Boardwalk is being repaved, which is fantastic news. On either side they have the electronic displays explaining that between the dates shown there will be delays. ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/04/09/long-time/ I rented Sonic and the Secret Rings and it is definitely the nicest looking Wii game I've played so far. I like how the story is told with lightly animated storyboards. The voice acting doesn't make me cringe in pain like with older 3D Sonic games. This was supposed to ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/04/04/sonic-and-the-secret-rings/ Thanks to those who brought chocolate and voted. I'm glad to have help in this critical research! Voted most deadly of the chocolate dishes last night was Black bottom chocolate pie prepared by Shelley. Second was the chocolate mousse brought by Ian. My arms feel their arm workout from mixing the extremely ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/04/02/mortal-chocolate-results-round-2/ This Sunday at 6:30PM at my house, tasting/voting to hopefully begin at 7PM. If you want to bring something that claims to be deadly chocolate here is a good place to look. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/30/mortal-chocolate-reminder/ My boss, who is about to leave, used to develop video games and he wanted to see the Wii, so I brought it in this morning so he could try it out. He was having fun with tennis and then he wanted me to demonstrate bowling. I was careful to avoid ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/29/my-first-wii-injury/ Five people, including my boss, are moving on to other things this week. One of the others is the guy who wrote the server component for a small "demo" program that we wrote in December. It was a program that everyone who saw it wanted it, it will never find ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/28/just-not-feeling-it/ The crazy cold wind Makes scooter rides angular But my hair looks good http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/27/cold-wind/ Premonition was.... not so good. After awhile you're wishing for some progress and when you get some progress you're like "uh huh, sure." I'm going to go into a few spoilers here.... The moment where it completely lost it for me is when, seeing that she needed to consult someone about ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/27/tuesday-media-roundup-18/ My main goal this past weekend was to finally re-claim the tv room. That didn't quite happen, but I got a lot of stuff put away so the majority of floor space is available again and I'll be able to vacuum it tonight to start on the last of the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/26/weekend-of-productivity/ All caught up on everyone's pages. Not everyone in the world, just the ones I normally read. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/20/whew/ Tami was visiting and she likes horror movies and thrillers and movies about serial killers and such. So we ended up seeing those types of movies while she was here. I like just about anything so that was fine with me. The Number 23 I wanted to see because 23 is ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/20/tuesday-media-roundup-17/ Tami arrived back home yesterday, and I returned to work today. That makes for a more structured, but less entertaining day. In more exciting news, I had a hard drive failure on my desktop machine at home and with a little time here and there during Tami's visit, and a ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/19/heading-towards-normalcy/ I wish I had graphics skills or a chocolate themed version of the Mortal Kombat theme, but oh well... Date: Sunday, April 1, the day before Passover starts Time: 6:30PM Making something is not a requirement for attending, but if you feel inclined, I would like for people to make a recipe found ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/06/mortal-chocolate-2-i-have-no-clever-subtitle/ It looks like the Diebold voting machine division is taking a step towards going away. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/06/diebold-in-die-off/ It's still a novelty for me and it shows that the allergy shots are working. Today I had to walk home and back to get my spare scooter charger. I managed to walk the 6-mile round trip at 4 miles per hour and I was able to breathe through my ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/05/using-both-nostrils/ In preparation for Nicole's brother and his wife visit two weekends ago, we put a new faucet in the other bathroom, put in a new towel rack, and fixed the bathroom vanity door (that I broke when it broke my fall). Unfortunately they didn't end up coming but those are ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/05/updates-on-the-two-houses/ I just finished this book last night. Troy Denning knows how to tell an engaging story and is good at getting into the emotional state of Star Wars characters. Which really makes the endings land well. This one is no exception and now I'm really looking forward to what happens ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/03/05/star-wars-legacy-of-the-force-tempest/ The grand opening appears to be today, but I'm thinking with the wind and rain that will get rescheduled. Anyway, I like that they made it look like a beach. Most of it is a mottled sandy color with a big cylinder painted like a curling wave. I should remember ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/02/22/santa-cruz-skate-park/ Mo was nice enough to take me to see Alpha Dog just so we could watch Justin Timberlake in his first movie. The movie itself was entertaining and Justin Timberlake is decent on the screen but he comes across too nice to be a gangster. You leave the movie wishing ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/02/20/tuesday-media-roundup-16/ This past three day weekend was a lot of work. Friday night, Nicole and I drove to Sacramento so we could paint the inside of her mother's house to ready it for sale. We managed to paint the ceilings in 4 rooms, fully prep three of those rooms, and paint ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/02/20/work-is-for-resting/ I found a recipe for Indian dry stir fried chicken but I didn't have all the ingredients so what follows is what I came up with instead, which was really good. Bowl 1 4 bay leaves 6 cloves 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp asafoetida Bowl 2 1 tsp corriander 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp ginger powder 1 tsp minced garlic 1 ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/02/19/indian-inspired-dry-stir-fried-chicken/ This one doesn't try to do as much and so it loads more quickly. Also I think it's better written. I think if I want the pop-up functionality it had then I should write it myself and in a more standard way so it behaves better. Also I added a plugin ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/02/13/back-to-a-simpler-theme/ I've crossed below 195 as of this morning and measuring my body fat as I do at 5lb intervals, it's at 19%. That's pretty surprising since my last 5lb milestone was back on November tenth and I was at 23 or 24%. I attribute the body composition change to walking ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/02/13/next-weight-milestone/ When frank Herbert died he left a safe deposit box with notes and a detailed outline for what would be the seventh Dune novel. When Brian Herbert & Kevin J Anderson started writing their prequels the details of the 7th novel were found and that shaped their Butlerian Jihad series ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/02/10/hunters-of-dune-ramblings/ Last week I made chicken piccata and this week Nicole wanted it again. The difference is that this week started a candida diet so some changes had to be made. The first was no white wine. No problem, I can substitute water or chicken broth. The second change was using brown ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/02/08/chicken-piccata-candida-style/ Having finally seen the season finale of Top Chef, I'm disappointed. I really wanted Marcel to win since I think he pushes himself and creates the more interesting dishes. Unfortunately he's not as good at kitchen management which is part of being a chef and that was his downfall. Of ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/02/02/top-chef-season-2-spoilers/ Grover had his latest cancer check-up this morning and was again pronounced all clear. In addition to the poking and prodding he had a chest x-rays and blood drawn. We'll find out the blood results tomorrow. Our only cause for concern is he recently started having partial seizures on the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/30/grover-is-still-all-clear/ Friday when it was late and I was tired I attempted to upgrade the blog software I use to WordPress 2.1. It was broken until I had a good night's sleep and was able to tackle it again Saturday morning. The result is not really much difference for the outside ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/29/blog-software-upgrade/ Hello? Is this thing on? How do I work this thing...   Stupid Why didn't that get rid of it?   Stupid machines hate me.   $@#$%! http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/27/498/ This time Diebold had pictures of the key to the voting machine cabinets on their site. How many times do they have to screw up before they stop being adopted? http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/26/another-diebold-foul-up/ Researchers have stored an entire image on a single photon (for a very short while). http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/25/awesome-oddness-of-quantum-physics/ Last night's dinner experiment was Moroccan Chicken. It was very easy to prepare (you don't have to let chickpeas soak overnight when you buy them in cans) and ends up being very tasty. The recipe should scale down easily too. The only mishap this time is I forgot the lemon ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/22/moroccan-chicken/ Last week was only 4 days of work but it felt like two work weeks. Saturday was full of errands and after the seemingly long week and the day of errands we flaked on plans and just vegged out at home. After having played the Nintendo Wii briefly after Thanksgiving, Nicole ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/22/hope-its-a-slow-week/ That was last night's dinner and the recipe is here. It's spicy but not too hot and is very tasty. This recipe is a keeper. The only problem is that it doesn't specify how much oil to use to begin with. I guessed at 1/4 cup which was enough for ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/16/chicken-and-sausage-gumbo/ Sunday and Monday when I woke up (6:15AM) the temperature outside was 23 degrees F. Saturday was 27, this morning it was warmer at 25. Many of the plants in the area are freezing, including a good portion that were doing well from the landscaping. I'm hoping they will bounce ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/16/effects-of-the-cold/ I like trying new snack foods. Most of the time the new thing isn't so thrilling, but sometimes I find something I really like. I hadn't seen three snacks I really liked in awhile so I decided to call the makers and ask what was up... Lay's Sensations Sweet Chili & ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/12/calling-for-snacks/ Starting on Thursday I've had various Mötley Crüe songs in my head. Not continuously, but they keep returning. So now here I am constructing paper recycling bins and listening to Dr. Feelgood. Tangentially related, when did Yngwie Malmsteen get fat, and how does that not interfere with his playing? http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/07/dr-feelgood/ I rented 18 Fingers of Death because, well, I can't pass up a title like that. It's about a kung-fu actor trying to get his next movie made. It's written and directed and stars James Lew and it's based on the his experiences in hollywood. Unfortunately it's not nearly as ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/02/tuesday-media-roundup-15/ Last year was loaded with chaos. I'm looking forward to things being more normal and catching up this year. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2007/01/02/im-ready-for-this-new-year/ After years of driving by the pretty lights in Los Gatos and trying to remember to look them up when we got home, we finally learned they are in Vasona Lake Park and that they are called Fantasy of Lights. Even better is that we actually made it there this ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/12/29/fantasy-of-lights/ I needed a quick read while brushing my teeth so I chose this book I've been carrying around since I was probably in elementary school. I remember picking it up at a library book givaway but it's one I never got around to reading. It's hard to tell if it's ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/12/28/the-new-world-of-the-atom/ Last year something built up (I don't remember what specific event was the tipping point, maybe it was just a bad week) and made me think wtf is going on with all the sex and fake sex and flashing and the reporting of it all. And the participants, is this ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/12/26/female-chauvinist-pigs-women-and-the-rise-of-raunch-culture/ Not Grover, but her reflection. For years we've noticed that Grover seemed to be able to use the mirror to look elsewhere in the room and recognize the real world correspondence. Sage never was interested in the images in the mirror, almost like she couldn't see anything. A few weeks ago ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/12/23/sage-discovered-the-other-dog-2/ So I've now completed the last Dune novel that Frank Herbert wrote. Reading it reinforced my notion that Heretics of Dune is much like the original Dune. It is re-introducing you to the universe they live in since it is now drastically changed. Chapterhouse: Dune fits in to the mold ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/12/12/chapterhouse-dune-ramblings/ Last week I finally got the chance to see Stay thanks to flannel and cindy. It's a bit convoluted and as it gets towards the end you're thinking it's just going to keep spinning more and more out of control, but right when you're on the verge of writing off ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/12/12/tuesday-media-roundup-14/ We got a Christmas tree on Friday nght and got it set up. It didn't even take long to assemble the cheap stand that the guy running the tree lot called "marriage enders." Saturday all the decorations came out including the Christmas village and a tree that lights up. The batteries ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/12/04/weekend-productivity/ My parents watch a lot of movies when tv gets slow. Generally you never knoww hat you're going to get to see when you visit. Often it's something I never knew existed and sometimes that thing is good and sometimes it's pretty bad. This time it was Save the Last ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/28/tuesday-media-roundup-13/ "The education of the will is the object of our existence." http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/27/from-last-nights-fortune-cookie/ Before Nicole and I went down to my parent's house for the Thanksgiving weekend I weighed 199.6. My goal by the end of the weekend was just to not have crossed over 201 but I didn't think it was a realistic goal. We arrived Wednesday night and had tri-tip and potato ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/26/damn-i-ate-a-lot/ Stuff Happens is a history play by David Hare that looks at the very recent history of the Bush administration's path to engagement in Iraq. A lot of it is made up of actual quotes and conversations that members of the administration have had and it's filled in with reasonable ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/26/stuff-happens/ I finally saw The Producers (2005 version) and after a rocky start where Bialystock and Bloom meet I think it works out really well. That was my least favorite part of the original movie too but I think it worked a little better there. I liked the expanded role for ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/21/tuesday-media-roundup-12/ Grover had his checkup with the oncologist this morning. After feeling around the doctor said it all felt good and the radiated area looked good. So next checkup is in a month, then 6 weeks, then a few at every other month and then every three months. He didn't say ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/21/grover-checkup/ Grover has finished all his radiation therapy and he didn't get sick at all during it. He did seems a little uncomfortable for a few days but for the most part he was fine. And the groggy dog routine was always funny after a treatment. They painted a target on ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/17/grover-status-update/ I think it was second or third grade when we made these at the Jewish Community Center. We all started out with blocks of wood and a smaller sheet of wood to cut the arrow out of. I recall the group leaders drilling all the holes but they were ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/17/making-an-arrow-through-a-block-of-wood/ The collactables are gone or soon to be gone but I took pictures to remember them by. You can see them here when you scroll down to my first name tag. And after that, some pictures of t-shirts. Two of them are from the Cowell Coffee Shop, there's the Orbital Mind ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/17/more-pictures-of-my-collectables/ It's the song of the day (says me) http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/15/pancreas/ When you bring in some fill-dirt to modify the shape of your yard, one thing you're never told is that there are dormant plants and seeds just waiting to pop out. Since our yard has been done I have seen a number of plants (and weeds) in our yard that ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/14/what-youre-never-told-about-landscaping-2/ When you bring in some fill-dirt to modify the shape of your yard, one thing you're never told is that there are dormant plants and seeds just waiting to pop out. Since our yard has been done I have seen a number of plants (and weeds) in our yard that ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/14/what-youre-never-told-about-landscaping/ Yay! Nicole got me the new Weird Al album! Those reading might think it's strange that I didn't have it before yesterday but from September through the end of the year I don't buy anything. That way when people ask what I might like as a gift I don't have ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/13/weird-al-straight-outta-lynwood/ In January 2006 Discover magazine changed ownership to be owned by Bob Guccione Jr. The change in content was immediate. Now a large percentage of the content is human interest stories about how a scientist felt about their research instead of abou ttheir research, tongue-in-cheek articles like the fight between ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/13/an-interesting-idea-from-newt-gengrich/ I've now watched every episode of Scrubs and now I'm ready for the new season that starts at the end of the month. I'm glad I have two comedies to watch now (My Name is Earl is the other) and I'm really liking half-hour shows right now since it's easier ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/13/scrubs/ We got the new color in the arrow ballots, and while they are more clear in what you are selecting, they are HUGE. They don't even fit in the rickety voting booths. You have to juggle an over-sized envelope/folder, your voter's guide, and maneuver this thing so you can color ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/07/done-voting/ But I still can't remember much of them. About all I can remember from last night's was that it took place about 20 years in the future and where Lulu Carpenter's and the place next to are on Pacific was instead a public access restroom but it was open to ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/06/sudafed-brings-strange-dreams/ This weekend we planted a new ponderosa lemon tree to replace the old dead one. Hopefully this one makes it. It already has unripe lemons on it. Also all the dead weedy grass where the lemon tree is was removed, yay! Then to top it all off we went to Ikea ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/06/weekend-update-more-lemons-less-grass/ When I was leaving work last week my brake cable broke and the motor wouldn't run. I called Rick at the Folks Cafe (formerly Volks Cafe) and he explained that power gets cut to the motor when the brake lever is pressed so unless I was holding it up it ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/04/replaced-my-scooters-front-brake-cable/ I was tired of my old dentist, Dr. Wickum. Mo told me about Dr. McClure. I didn't call. After awhile I just stopped going. A few weeks ago I finally called and got to see Dr. McClure and I'm so happy now. He's the first dentist I've actually liked! The ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/03/new-dentist/ Does anyone want to dog/house sit November 22-November 25? Not too likely, I know, but I thought I'd ask. We want to go to my parent's hosue, we want to not take the dogs and we want to not board them. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/02/doghouse-sitting/ This one is fairly strange coming after God Emperor of Dune. 1500 years after Leto, the God-Emperor, dies there is no centralized ruling body for humanity. Conflicts still happen but they are fewer by far. There are powerful bodies but without a government to influence, what is the point of ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/01/heretics-of-dune-ramblings/ Not slow at work, work had a costume party with much beer so there was a lot of loud people running around in costume. Also not for my stomach. I've been eating well but yesterday I decided to eat tons of sugar and it was great! 4 cup cakes, 6 ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/11/01/slow-halloween/ While I was off I got a chance to see a few movies and I finished watching season 1 of Scrubs (thanks to Cathi for pointing me there). First up is Many of the Year. It was entertaining overall but as a whole it was uneven in just about every way. ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/24/tuesday-media-roundup-11/ I had all of last week off. Originally my sister was going to be here for it but her work exploded into a nightmare that leaves them without a manager going into the holiday season. She's at 60 hours for the week and on her 9th consecutive day. Not only ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/23/vacation-was-good-for-me/ Thanks to Cathi I learned that there is LJ IM. And based on this page I could set it up in Trillian using Jabber. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/21/lj-im/ I saw in teh Friday Sentinel that the Santa Cruz Band Review would be happening on Saturday. I haven't had enough marching band in my life lately so Nicole and I went to check it out. After seeing about 50 bands and getting a little sunburned there is now satisfaction. ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/21/santa-cruz-band-review/ A couple Fridays ago we went to the Davenport Roadhouse at the Cash Store which is to say, it's new and improved. The food is actually good and reasonably prices and the wait staff is fun! Also the decor inside is much nicer than it used to be. I'd definitely ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/18/two-new-places-to-dine/ This recipe was our latest attempt in Vietnamese cooking. It turned out very tasty served over your average white rice. The only difficulty was finding mint. We visited three different stores to find mint. I guess it took two stores to find the fish sauce too. Anyway, it's good and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/18/lime-cured-beef-salad-goi-bo/ When I'm not reading while brushing my teeth (I take a long time) I often hum along to my Sonicare. Sometimes it's the same tone, usually it's harmonies. Today on the way to work on my way to work on the electric scooter, I found myself going not at full ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/12/how-i-roll/ He destroyed all the spice so that humans would invent a way to navigate fold-space without needing the Spacing Guild's monopoly with it's prescient navigators. Also to remove people's dependence on spice in general and not be able to be ruled by its necessity. The Fish Speakers (Leto's all woman ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/11/a-little-more-on-the-god-emperor/ Gerald will think I'm crazy, but I think this is possibly the best Dune novel thus far. It doesn't stand on its own like Dune does but it's just about great in every way. It's about humanity, what it means to be human, and where they should go in ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/10/god-emperor-of-dune-ramblings/ When we were working on the Mpemba effect we needed to boil water. It wasn't a full kitchen, just a sink, a refrigerator, and a microwave. We also had those 15.7fl.oz. bottles of water. First we dumped out a little and put it in the microwave with the top off ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/10/shrinking-bottles/ I just found the experimental results from our testing of the Mpemba effect at my last job. I learned about the Mpemba Effect from Trivial Pursuit when the answer to "According to the MPemba Effect, what does hot water do faster than cold water?" was "Freeze". Sure enough, after looking ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/07/the-mpemba-effect/ of her cast. Terry signed it this past weekend as you can see here but that only lasted a few days as the vet came today to free her. The brown thing on the end is duct tape which I had to apply since she wore a hole through the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/04/sage-is-cast-free/ Nicole was gone last week so I took the chance to watch V for Vendetta while I was brushing out the dogs. The movie doesn't just look good, but I was drawn in by the main characters. The rest could have been cardboard cutouts with moving jaws and it would ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/03/tuesday-media-roundup-10/ When I was looking for what to make to break the fast this evening I stumbled across a tremendous page of Vietnamese recipes. Seeing as how aside from Lee's Sandwiches there is no Vietnamese food in Santa Cruz I decided to give it a shot. I made Ginger and Garlic ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/02/breaking-the-fast/ Some people are surprised at my low (42%) nerd score. Let me help assure you of my nerdiness through a little nostalgia... The other day I decided to search to see if any information was out there for the TRS-80 Color Computer. My first computer was the TRS-80 Color Computer. You ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/10/01/adding-to-my-nerdiness/ Today I got about 6 solid hours of weeding in and my hands are feeling it. I know I should wear gloves, but the gloves make it harder to get a hold of things to pull out. Maybe if there were microfiber gardening gloves. Is there such a thing? I ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/30/weeding-raw-hands/ I don't feel like I've done enough, just some errands and sit in meetings all day. Since I've started a more sensible eating plan I've been losing some weight I should lose. This morning I was finally below 210. My plan? I eat when I'm hungry, not when I'm just 'not ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/29/how-can-it-be-friday/ I was archiving things off my hard drive on to dvd and I was reaching for the disc folder so I didn't just leave it laying around to collect dust, but that made the top of the tower of of jewel cases fall down, some with discs in them. As ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/26/tuesday-media-roundup-9/ In the on-going Star Wars saga in writing, this takes place in the latest series which is about 35 years after Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode 4). As the second book of a 9 book series I really wasn't expecting so much to happen. It seems wide open now, ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/24/star-wars-legacy-of-the-force-bloodlines/ I had my annual checkup with the allergist to discuss how my shots are going. I told him I didn't think I was doing as well allergy wise as I was about a year ago when I was still on weekly shots. Around that time I was about to switch ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/21/one-nostril-back-two-nostrils-forward/ Sage's log of a leg, courtesy of linkaloo http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/20/sages-peg-leg/ After consulting with the oncologist and being given the option of another more extreme surgery and 4 rounds of radiation a week for 4 weeks, we decided on the radiation. The surgery might change his gait and will take a few weeks to recover from and leaves the radiation as ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/20/dog-update/ Now that I've finished Children of Dune I better understand that Dune Messiah was a necessary story to tell first. Children of Dune takes place nine years after Dune Messiah. More Dune ramblings to skip. Paul's children are coming to an age where they can move and act on their own ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/08/children-of-dune-ramblings/ I've been avoiding talking about this unless it's been directly mentioned. Partially because I just didn't want to be thinking about it so much, and partially because when I told people about it I wanted as much information as possible. But I'm done with that now. We know all we're ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/05/a-cancerous-dog-have-i/ Finally I was in one place long enough to sit down and focus on Control Room, the al-Jazeera documentary dating to the start of the Iraq war. It is really interesting watching them try to get information and work hard to present a high quality news report. I like when ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/05/tuesday-media-roundup-8/ Cigarettes today have on average 10% more nicotine than 6 years ago. The brands popular with kids have 20% more. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/04/nicotine-pushing-bastards/ But now there's help http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/04/i-suffer-from-ird/ Nicole and I were walking down the sidewalk and I dodged a branch which made me head-butt the bee. The bee fell a few feet but looked a little irritated so I hurried along. Then down by Aldo's at the yacht harbor (they serve dinner now) two little girls were selling ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/09/03/i-head-butted-a-bee/ Do you like embedded media like videos, or do you prefer links to media? I'm specifically thinking of youtube in this case and I wouldn't be putting in some auto-playing control that you have to scramble to turn off. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/31/embedded-media-question/ Yay! The ozone layer is recovering! I think in general we don't know enough to know the cycles of global patterns like temperature and weather and how things interact, but in this case it's pretty clear our production of CFCs was the main cause. Now if we can just cut ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/31/thicker-creamier-ozone/ Nicole and I were in need of a comedy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby was there with the right starting time. We got a lot of laughs out of it so mission accomplished there. It's rediculous and silly but always stays on target. I see is compared ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/29/tuesday-movie-roundup-7/ The last of the biggies from the big-band era passed away yesterday from kidney & liver failure resulting from an abdominal infection. His last and final album that he just finished recording will be coming out this fall. I was hoping to see him again next year when his tour ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/24/rip-maynard-ferguson-may-4-1928-august-23-2006/ The first single off of Weird Al's upcoming album, Straight Outta Lynwood, is now available for download (for free). It's titled "Don't Download This Song" and can be found on his myspace page. Also from there you can get a link to the animated video on yahoo. Also while you're there ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/24/new-weird-al-single/ I wanted to see Snakes on a Plane on Friday during the work day but last week was a hellish work week and I wasn't able to get away. Then over the weekend I didn't get a chance. Monday I was very happy when Gerald & Terry asked if I ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/23/tuesday-video-roundup-6-on-wednesday/ A few weekends ago I accompanied Nicole to Bay Meadows for a day at the races. I'm not big into horses or horse racing but it was fun. The notable events during the races were one horse I picked to win dumped the jockey at the gate and ran the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/23/out-of-county-experiences/ I've now finished Dune Messiah, the shortest of the Dune books. (If you don't want to read more Dune rambling, stop now) The first time I read Dune Messiah I was in jr. high (I think) and it was the hardest of the Dune books to get through. The 250 pages ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/21/dune-messiah/ Stephanie was in town touring for people she hasn't seen in years and for Santa Cruz she decided a hike in Big Basin was the thing. Making the trek were Stephanie, Tammy, Brick, Brick's friend Mike, Nicole, and myself. Mike led the way for about the first third and I'm ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/21/not-too-bad-for-being-out-of-shape/ I'm re-reading the original Dune series because another is soon to come. (This post is long and rambling... don't read it) Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson are writing the 7th book, part 1 of which is due out later this month. It's been so long since I've read the originals ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/15/dune/ Saturday was the day for visiting mo and Jeff. When we got to the hostipal we visited Jeff first since mo was asleep and seeing Jeff was amazing! After just one day he already had a healthy color in his face and he was happy and animated. I never expected ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/15/the-weekend-2/ Last Friday I left work and my brain was completely numb. Boss #3 is a project manager who doesn't really do much except confuse things and send out congratulatory e-mails. He tries to throw in buzz words he knows so he can sound like he knows what he's doing but ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/15/tuesday-movie-roundup-5/ Just one movie this time... My Super Ex-Girlfriend. It's a light cute movie that has a pretty consistent fun level throughout. Uma Thurman does a good job crossing her character back and forth over the crazy line and Luke Wilson holds up his end of the performance as well. The ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/08/tuesday-movie-roundup-4/ Yesterday Nicole and I went to the NorCal Strongman competition. This year it was held at the main beach in Santa Cruz. We arrived at around noon with the contest starting around 10AM so we missed the tire flipping and the log lifting but we still got to see the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/06/norcal-strongman-2006/ For quite some time one of the plastic tabs that holds the battery in has been broken. The other tab was starting to break away so pretty much any jostling of the phone would disconnect the battery and turn off the phone. That was annoying for anyone who was trying ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/05/i-fixed-my-cell-phone/ I upgraded the WordPress software to the latest version. The pages seem to load a little faster and the admin interface is definitely nicer. I changed the theme while I was at it. This one is called Boxy But Gold. I don't write anything for two weeks and this is the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/08/04/upgraded-wordpress/ So boss #1 is leaving in a couple of weeks so he can finish building his dream home. New #1 boss has that long to come up with the future direction before he takes over. Unlike the other changes, this one might actually impact me some how, but hopefully not ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/07/27/boss-shuffle/ I just finished the kick-off book for a new nine book story arc that takes place about 35 years after Return of the Jedi. There's some trouble of a possible civil war and Luke is sensing a threatening man that doesn't exist yet. Aaron Allston writes the kick-off in a ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/07/26/star-wars-legacy-of-the-force-betrayal/ Yay! I've now completed all 120 (including 12 training puzzles) in Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. I thought they were all pretty easy until the last seven. Those all took around 30 minutes each. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/07/26/sudoku-completed/ There are some pictures of the window in the area by the kitchen that used to be the dining area. We put 3Form plastic with reeds in it so some light can go between the laundry room and that area while not having to actually look from one room to ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/07/26/a-few-more-pictures/ Pictures of the cabinet and drawer pulls in the bathroom. Pictures of the drawer and cabinet pulls in the kitchen. Picutes of the living room, library, whatever area. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/07/25/more-house-pictures/ Failure to Launch - Not quite the typical romantic comedy. Yeah it has the same overall formula, but the situation is unique and that makes the whole thing pretty fun to watch. Clerks - I watched this again this past weekend with someone who had never seen that. I'm not sure ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/07/25/tuesday-movie-roundup-3/ We didn't get the tv room finished or the shed, but good progress was made on both. A good reason for the slow speed was that the tv room is where we stored pretty much everything during the remodel. Now I have a number of things to unpack and find ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/07/24/trophies/ About 5 days ago I started catching up on about 2 weeks of people's posts. After a few days of not seeing many I realized I wasn't signed in. Entertainment Weekly is fading away and I won't renew when the free subscription ends. What used to sometimes top 200 pages ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/07/21/lots-of-little-things/ Saturday we tried to go to Sacramento to Nicole's brother's BBQ, but after 2 hours and only getting 80 miles and hearing that traffic was the same the rest of the way we gave up. On the way back home we decided to get lobsters to compensate at 99 Ranch ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/07/05/the-weekend/ Why are digital certificates so difficult? What I want: A root certificate from which to create a signing certificate A signing certificate A certificate to put on a device to validate code signed with the signing certificate To be able to do all this with openssl or the Java keytool With the Java keytool I ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/28/certificates-eat-my-brain/ Before reading Joseph Ellis' "His Excellency George Washington" I think the most I knew was that he was the first president (two terms), he was the general in the revolutionary war, he had a wife named Martha, and he had false teeth. American history classes never talk about his except ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/28/his-excellency-george-washington/ The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift - I can't recall the last time I've seen so many cheesy cliches strung together. This movie was fantastic and is easily the best of the three Fast and Furious movies. More racing and less half-assed cop story to get in the way. Elizabethtown ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/27/tuesday-movie-roundup-2/ I haven't posted and house updates in awhile because I haven't really known what to post. Mostly we're waiting for some last few things. In the bathroom I painted the trim behind the "floating cabinets" and the bathroom pocket door. Now we just await the glass that will allow us ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/26/whats-up-with-the-house/ Morning dose of fun http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/21/394/ As of this morning I weigh 220.8 pounds. According to a website that uses the Navy's method of calculating body fat I'm at 27%. Time to turn that around. I've read that the Navy's method is at least and generally more accurate than other body fat measurement techniques that can be easily ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/20/the-physical-state-of-me-2/ I think I'm going to consolidate my movie posts to Tuesday. Nacho Libre - Nachooooooooooooooooooo! It's fun. It's rediculous. It seems like it wanders aimlessly from time to time like every idea was thrown in and not enough of them were taken out again, but I don't care. It was ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/20/tuesday-movie-roundup-1/ If the dryer's heat is working but things aren't getting dry it's because exhaust air isn't working. I knew that already. That's bad because it can start fires, but that didn't happen here and I knew that too. The likely culprit was the flex hose (knew that) but amazingly there ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/16/what-i-learned-about-dryer-vents/ Waiting... - This movie wanted to be Clerks, it even says so in the credits. It has the same problem for me that Road Trip had. The characters themselves were fun but their interaction fell flat. There were a few good scenes but mostly it was a lot of not ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/16/389/ They weren't forgettable, I was just forgetful. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - This goes high on the list of good adaptations of books to movies. The look was great, the characters came out very well, and nothing was left out. One thing I would ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/12/forgot-two-movies/ I'd have it play the music from Frogger. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/11/if-i-had-an-ice-cream-truck/ The Break Up - An unromantic darkish comedy that I think works fairly well. I bought the relationship as feeling real which is what lets this work. It's also the only film I've liked Jennifer Aniston in. The Omen (the original) - I haven't seen the new one yet, but I ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/11/movies-in-the-last-week/ It's the new Weird Al song, but it's not going to be on the next album (which will appear some time this year). You can get it at this mirror or just go to weirdal.com. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/09/youre-pitiful/ I know you're all wondering what's for dessert. Hello Dolly Cake is the answer. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/06/01/whats-for-dessert/ "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy" is the full title and it's the best non-fiction book I've read in a long time. Though at times it seems like conspiracy theory ramblings. I'm aware of a lot of ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/31/crimes-against-nature/ I brought in a set of magnetic poetry to work since it wouldn't work on the new stainless steel fridge at home. It looked like a few people made use of it before it disappeared today. My guess is that the poems turned naughty as can happen and someone complained. ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/31/hr-hates-magnetic-poetry/ On Saturday Nicole and I saw The DaVinci Code. I'm one of about 1000 people who haven't read the book and I think this was made more for those who have read the book. Sometimes it felt very rushed and uninteresting a the same time. Actually, it was that way ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/31/davinci-code-and-x-men-3/ We've had the Highlander Hybrid for 5 months now, and overall I like it. It's comfortable and it gets better gas mileage than the Passat Wagon despite being bigger and heavier. Like 10% better. First, to get the most out of the car, you need trips that last longer than 5 ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/27/how-i-would-change-the-highlander-hybrid/ Julie & Fish were going to be spending two weeks there and rented a house. We were invited to join them for a weekend so after a lot of figuring out, we made the journey. Thanks to for watching the dogs and cat for the weekend, and thanks to ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/23/first-time-in-las-vegas/ I've seen three recent movies! An American Haunting - This is the movie version of a theory explaining a well documented haunting in the early 1800s. The movie works well while you're watching it and it builds good tension and all seems to fit together. But then awhile after you're done ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/14/376/ Each player of this game starts with the "6 weird habits/things about yourself" and people who get tagged need to write a blog of their 6 weird habits/things, as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/10/6-weird-things/ I've read three books in the last month, mostly while waiting for builds at work or while brushing my teeth. First up is Fledgling by Octavia Butler. I like stories that give a real world like base for something that stories generally treat as supernatural. It's not that I dislike ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/06/catching-up-on-books/ We watched Junebug at a friend's house recently and I think I'm the only one who enjoyed it. There isn't a lot that happens so it's mostly about the characters and trying to figure out why they are all acting the way they are. (Sorta Spoiler) Everything in the movie makes ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/06/junebug/ I am not a creative person. A number of people insist to me that I am and will even cite turning my room into a cave as an example, but they fail to persuade me. A creative person is not someone who has the occasional neat idea. A creative person is ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/04/creativity-and-me/ This weekend I pulled another two green-barrel loads of weeds, bringing the total for the month up to four. The remaining weeds are very tiny or grasses and clovers where it's hard to get their roots, they are also in open areas where no plants will be going. I've sprayed ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/05/01/372/ The refrigerator is installed now. That's the major kitchen change. We're still waiting for drawer pulls to arrive and for the downdraft to be installed. We also need to order glass for the cabinet door inserts. We're slowly moving everything back into the kitchen. In the bathroom we have counter tops ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/04/28/long-time-no-house-update/ (I'm posting more today because I have nothing to do except wait for QA to find bugs for me to fix.) Last night I bought Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. It was made based on the research of Japanese neuroscientist. He found certain types of exercises stimulated blood flow to ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/04/19/my-brain-is-old/ I've seen a number of studies and surveys that show women having a preference for a man who makes them laugh. I've also read about a study or two that showed that women tend to have a more advanced sense of humor than men. Advanced being more word based and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/04/19/evolving-for-comedy/ Thank you to everyone who brought chocolate goodnesses and to everyone else who helped eat them. I only have a few pictures of the desserts because I got too busy. brought the Dr. Delicious cake and it was by far the best looking chocolate there. Suitable for service in a restaurant ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/04/09/mortal-chocolate-results/ Today I decided I was up to tackling the bathroom fan in Dar's bathroom again. The old fan didn't really move much air and it turned out it just blew the air it did move into the attic. I was going to run the vent line through the roof, but ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/04/09/bathroom-ventillation-finally/ I saw the trailer for Slither and I knew I had to see it. Now that I've seen the movie, I know I made the right choice. Slither is from the writer and director of Tromeo and Juliet, but that's not important I just like mentioning that movie. Anyway, it's ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/04/08/slither/ I just finished reading the latest Christopher Moore book, A Dirty Job. Like all of his books I've read, it made me laugh out loud. Get it, read it, laugh, be happy. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/04/07/a-dirty-job/ I finally got around to reading "Dark Lord the Rise of Darth Vader." It takes place right after "Revenge of the Sith" through probably a few months after. In the beginning he's hating his cumbersome suit. By the end the Emperor has put him in situations that let him truly ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/04/05/catching-up-on-reading/ Please join me in... MORTAL CHOCOLATE! http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/03/27/this-saturday/ Appliances got installed on Friday. Not all of them, we're still waiting on the refrigerator, and dishwasher needs a test run before use, and the remote blower for the down-draft unit needs to be installed. That said, the cooktop works very well and I was able bring 1/2 gallon of ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/03/27/appliances/ During our week of not living at home because the floors were being done, my copy of "The Frisco Kid" arrived. I have seen this movie probably about a dozen times now and I still love it. I wanted to show this for my birthday movie fest long ago but ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/03/27/the-frisco-kid/ Two weeks ago we moved out for a week so the floors could be done. If it was just the kitchen floor then we would have stayed, but we had them coat all the rest of the floors too since the guy who did those didn't do the best ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/03/24/catch-up-house-update/ Please join me in... MORTAL CHOCOLATE! http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/03/16/for-my-brithday/ I've been busy but I have a reprieve. We're moved out of the hosue this week while the floors are being done and last week and this week were to be the final weeks of our project at work. Long hours were the norm and the only downtime was the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/03/16/where-ive-been/ I saw this like two weeks ago now. It's a fun bad movie, sometimes funny. Every fight scene is almost the same, a group of guys surrounds her and she kills them all. Really, all of them are like that. The environment effects are bad and the whole thing looks ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/03/16/ultraviolet/ Also there is grouted kitchen backsplash. First there is a kitchen faucet which is springy and has a front button to switch to spray mode for as long as you hold it. To the right of it is the soap dispenser, and to the right of that is the garbage disposal ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/03/02/some-fixtures-are-in/ A recent report showed that girls are finally outperforming boys in school. A lot of speculation about why has been thrown about, but the reason has finally become clear. Another study just released showed that for the first time girls have surpassed boys in the uptake of cigarettes, alcohol, and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/03/02/a-little-truthiness/ The kitchen backsplash tile is in and today the grout is being done. It's nice and sparkly in the morning sun but you can't see that in the pictures. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/28/kitchen-backsplash/ I really really fixed the leak under Dar's bathroom sink now. The water supply lines where they met the faucet were loose. I was able to hand turn each one at least another half turn. Also after watching splash patterns with the glass shower doors and how the water gets to ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/27/351/ I was being good and productive this weekend. I returned some lights to Costco, I exchanged a light cover at Riverside Lighting, I put Frontline on the dogs, I got my Allegra prescription refilled, I did the recycling, and picked up everything the dogs had left in the last few ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/26/350/ Last night I watched The Cookout while I sorted recycling. This movie had potential, but I think the first-time screen writers and directors killed that. The comedy is often forced and that leaves you wanting more drama out of it. I think the direction of a light-hearted drama would have ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/26/the-cookout/ Just one more picture of the end cap. Last night we painted the living room and the color looks good but it needs a second coat. Today the lighting stuff gets installed. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/23/counters-complete/ Yesterday they installed most of the counter tops. It's Caesarstone Oyester, 3cm thick. They have to put in the other end cap/vertical counter and cut holes for the faucet today. Also some pictures of the bathroom wall tile grouted. I think it looks really good and everything is starting to look ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/22/countertops/ The plasterers were supposed to come yesterday to build out the wall/column in the kitchen that had the wrong measurement in the plans. They didn't come. So they were supposed to come at 8AM today to fix it before the counter installers come at 9AM because it's supposed to be ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/21/346/ Looks like the last paitning adventure killed the power roller. Well, I think I can bring it back if I take it apart and clean it, but I needed to do a second coat ont he living room ceiling and I can't give my dad back a broken power roller ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/19/more-painting-accomplished/ I replaced the angle-stops, but then I turned the water back on the hot water valve was still leaking slightly. So I turned off the water again and tightened it another turn and now it's fine. Buying one of each size it might be worked so now I have to ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/18/bathroom-sink-is-better/ The bathroom tile is now done and next up is the grout. On Tuesday we get the counter tops installed in the kitchen. This weekend plasterers come to finish the wall in the laundry room, the patch in the tv room, the wall in the office. Most importantly, they are ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/17/bathroom-tile-is-completed/ Last Friday the floor guy, John Crow of Crow's Quality Flooring, came and installed the kitchen floor. It's wide and long oak plank running perpendicular to the short narrow oak elsewhere in the house. Its up flush against the shorts so no cap is needed for the transition. The flooring ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/15/kitchen-floor/ Pauly Shore is Dead is like watching someone's therapy during a major transition. It also manages to be fairly funny at the same time. It's good enough that I've watched all the DVD extras, but part of that might just be fascination at the whole project. If you watch this, ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/15/pauly-shore-is-dead/ We happened across another DVD sale at the local video store and picked up 15 movies for $4 each. First up is Club Dread. It's a slasher flick parody without going overboard on jokes. That's good in that you aren't overwhelmed in wackiness, but bad in that it makes it ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/15/club-dread/ We got the new GE front loaders delivered on Tuesday of last week but they couldn't complete the installation of th dryer because we had the wrong size connection at 3/8". According to the install manual it needed a 1/2" connection. I saw that I couldn't just remove the valve ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/13/new-washer-and-dryer/ For her birthday yesterday Nicole painted the dining room wall brown (Benjamin Moore Stone Brown). I prepped the laundry room for painting with the hope that we would get some done before the new washer and dryer arrive today. Fortunately birthday stuff got in the way. While we were working the ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/07/dining-room-paint/ Wednesday the refrigerator box was built and that night we primered it. Then yesterday Nicole painted it purple. This morning it was put in place so when the people arrive to template the counter tops everything would be in place. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/03/the-refrigerator-box/ Well, according to the Weekly World News anyway. Here they are: I am the one God of all faiths. Thou shalt stop bickering about it. Thou shalt not make thee a graven image upon toast or other comestibles and declare it to be holy. Thou shalt not make war to obtain thy neighbor's ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/02/10-new-commandments-found/ You can see some results from my painting in the kitchen. That cleared the way for the contractor to install the cabinets. Unfortunately, two of the upper cabinets were damaged and they will build us new ones. Also the trash drawer was built wrong so they need to fix that ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/02/01/finally-some-kitchen-updates/ We needed to get the kitchen painted this weekend so the contractor could start installing the cabinets. Nicole was sick so that left it up to me. Saturday I got the ceiling in the kitchen and dining area, and the ceiling in the living room primered. The Wagner Power Roller ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/30/why-i-shouldnt-paint/ Saturday my left nostril wouldn't stop draining. I figured some plaster dust got up there and was irritating things. I went to bed at midnight at got up at 2am Sunday morning because my nose was still a mess and I kept waking Nicole up. So I watched Moonlighting and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/24/recovering/ The Hebrew Hammer - Parody of the blaxploitation style with lots of Jewish jokes. I thought it was really funny and I'd say check it out. You probably won't miss too many jokes if you aren't Jewish. Grandma's Boy - Half geek comedy, half stoner comedy. Not great, but it has ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/22/movie-roundup/ Monday the bathroom got coats of primer and we were going to paint but we didn't make it to the paint store before they closed. So Tuesday Nicole painted the bathroom. Yay! It looks good! http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/19/bathroom-paint/ Today had a number of good things: The bike cages at work were activated again so we can lock up our bikes (scooter) again. The Coke machine has been so allowing coins to flow through it very well fo rthe past few weeks. I generally dislodge them with a coffee straw and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/17/330/ In addition to being entertaining I also found Hostel to be educational with respect to travelling near Bratislava... Avoid groups of children. They'll jack you up for money or candy. Avoid hot women buying offering you drinks. Avoid creepy old men, who knows what they want? Avoid young men, they just have work on ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/17/things-i-learned-from-hostel/ The VW was towed today by a car donation agency (a few hours later than the window they set up). It hadn't been started in three weeks. We jump-started it and it was running rough, and if the jumper cables were removed it would die. Looks like the alternator died ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/16/no-more-vw/ I took some pictures of the kitchen backsplash, and the tile we're going to use in the bathroom. This afternoon we should be able to paint the bathroom. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/16/tile-preview/ We have hot water now! The plumber came back yesterday to check into the lack of hot water problem. He experimented with running a temporary dedicated gas line to the water heater, but that didn't help though he did determine that out gas pressure was a little too low, especially ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/14/yay-hot-water/ Hang 'Em High The is the second old Clint Eastwood western I've seen, the first was The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. I think I liked this one better. The characters feel real and have difficult decisions to make, even the minor ones seem to stand out. The Family Stone I just ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/14/hang-em-high-the-family-stone-hostel/ I know they all seem like state of the house, but it seems like there are a lot of little things to mention. We got an on-demand water heater (Takagi K-2). The old water heater was in an outside closet that took up part of the office. The floor sloped slightly ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/12/state-of-the-house/ The kitchen has walls now. If you stand in the middle of it you feel like you're in a padded cell. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/09/323/ Between the holidays, and buying a new car, I haven't had time to take or post many pictures. That works out though because contractors and sub-contractors also take time off for the holidays so not much gets done. Anyway, here are pictures of the kitchen and bathroom that cover the highlights ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2006/01/06/catching-up-on-remodeling/ In the year 2006 I resolve to: Invent a better pizza. Get your resolution here http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/30/321/ Chevrolet HHR wagon - I saw there was a funky wagon in Consumer Reports and when we parked at the auto mall there it was. We walked up to take a look and they asked if we wanted to drive it. We did and it's a pretty good car overall. ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/28/test-drive/ Two weeks ago we were told that the transmission and clutch are in need of replacing. No one does rebuilds of them because with 5 different manual transmissions used for the 97 Passat it just doesn't make sense unless you are VW. The cost of a new one installed is ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/28/new-car-the-fast-way/ I saw Aeon Flux the other day and it was bad in many ways, but the kind of bad that's fun. The script was bad, most of the acting was bad, most of the ideas behind it was bad. What was good? It was clear a lot of work went ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/22/aeon-flux/ Liana had Peter call me to offer insurance advice about my scooter accident. I forgot the specifics because I was running errands at the time but I called back for more specifics and put them to use and I was successful! I will be compensated for the day off work ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/22/thank-you-peter/ At work we have these little devices where you press a button and it gives you a code to type in. I don't use the services that make use of that so I just press the button a few times a day. The thing that makes me feel it isn't ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/19/security/ I heard back from the insurance company of the door opening woman and they said that since her coverage was lapsed when the accident occured that wouldn't give me anything. I didn't really expect them to but I figured it was worth a shot. So now I have to try ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/15/315/ "The Whole 9 Yards" was a fun movie so as I sat down to watch "The Whole 10 Yards" I was hoping for more of the same. Instead it's mostly pretty boring. I didn't care what happened to any of there characters and none could hold my attention except for ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/14/the-whole-10-yards/ Not much videual has happened in the last week so I put it all here as a one week update. A lot of the work has been framing what needs to be framed and getting all the plumbing in and planning for electricity and such. The kitchen has the openings framed ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/12/minor-remodel-update/ So I went to the doctor on Thursday and he said internally everything was fine and to keep taking ibuprofen and icing my bruises. Then they bandaged every cut. I iced everything and rested and Friday morning my hips were feeling slightly better than the day before. My neck and ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/11/injury-update/ I was riding home to meet the window guy so he could measure all the windows. I crossed the Cayuga intersection and then a door was open in front of me. I think I tried to swerve some, but I hit it and went down. I think I hit my ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/08/scooter-accident/ I saw Rent this weekend. I wasn't super interested but I liked the song in the trailer so I went. I liked it all, the look, the characters, the music. The songs weren't catchy enough so that they were constantly in my head afterwards, but that's ok. The problem I ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/06/non-house-related/ There's been a few more days of work and the results have more plants and a fountain! A little more destruction and some joke doorsin the kitchen and . http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/05/more-landscaping-never-seems-to-end-and-a-little-more-destruction/ Yesterday they finished destroying the bathroom including the ceiling. You can see the lame duct work they had for the bathroom fan. It's supposed to be a short straight run, not a 25 foot (7.62 meters for any non-English unit people) run of flexible vent tube. They also did more kitchen ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/12/01/more-destruction-2/ The bathroom and the closet are just empty shells now. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/30/no-more-bathroom/ The kitchen is destroyed. Today the bathroom and closet get it and here are the before pictures and a picture of the plans. Now I think I can not have to worry about moving things around when I go home. Yay! More plant pictures soon too. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/29/bye-bye-rooms/ I watched "8 Mile" while sorting recycling and I enjoyed it (the movie, not the sorting). If Detroit is even somewhat like it's portrayed int he movie, then man in it one bleak place. I felt like I was watching a movie that takes place in a depressed Eastern European ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/28/8-mile/ My body is tired. From Wednesday through this morning, (and leaving out a Fry's trip and Thanksgiving dinner) if I was awake I was pretty much working on moving and packing things to get ready for the demolition on the kitchen that starts today. Here are plans and before pictures of ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/28/ready-for-demolition/ My previous experience with black friday is generally going to stores to watch people go crazy trying to buy stuff. This year I tried out the crazy. On Thanksgiving I saw some Fry's ads for amazing deals that would be happening on Friday so I considered going early, around 6AM. ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/26/how-not-to-do-black-friday/ I opened my freezer this afternoon to, what looked like at first a complete frosted mess. My first thought was that the frost-free cycle had broken so I closed the freezer door because I didn't want to deal with it. Then I decided to look again and realized that I ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/25/how-to-make-snow/ West Bank Story - a 20 minute musical take-off of West Side Story about rival fast food joints in the west bank and the families that run them. Kosher King and Hummus Hut. Dungeons & Dragons 2 - This one felt more like a campaign being run than the first D&D ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/24/movie-round-up/ What's your honest reaction to this story from The Week: Waco, Texas Church tragedy: The pastor of a Texas church was electrocuted this week when he grabbed a microphone while standing in a baptismal pool. About 800 people watched helplessly as the Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, of University Baptist Church in Waco, ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/18/300/ In the Pebbles & Bam Bam show... you know, the one where Pebbles & Bam Bam are teenagers. How come Bam Bam isn't super strong anymore? http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/18/sort-of-a-flintstones-question/ It's been awhile since we've had updates, but it's also been awhile since work has been done while we decide on the next parts to do. I also included some pictures of the house from the driveway that can be compared to the before pictures I think. http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/18/some-new-landscaping-pictures/ Work mostly. Wake up at 5 or 6 and start working. Go to work and work some more. Come home, work into midnight or 1. That's been my week and I'm feeling kinda tired, but it's over now. Yay! After all that work to get things ready for a demo ... http://www.7thsign.com/~salguod/2005/11/11/where-have-i-been/ Yesterday I was on Pacific Avenue waiting for Nicole outside of the cosmetics shopand thumbing through a book. After a few minutes of that I notice a bee is trying to land on me. I q