It's all a dream - random ramblings

3/31/09 - Why would anybody let me get in a $70k car to drive it as fast as I possibly can around an auto cross course? I have no idea but they did!

I got the opportunity to go out and do to a Porsche Driving Event and test drive the new Cayman S and Boxster S. They arranged the event to show off the new PDK technology (automatic shifting) in their cars. The shifting mechanism was actually really, really smooth I only every felt it shift once. Of course I had my full concentration on trying not to wreck the car as I squeeled around the corners of the track. I didn't knock over any cones and the drving instructor said I did really good for my first time.

I got to take the Boxster and Cayman around the track 3 times each. There was a driving instructor in the car at all times giving tips on how to go faster and handle the cars better! To top off the day I won a car in the raffle drawing. A brand new Porsche GT....in 1:18 scale. Since a pretty cool day.

2/20/09 - Played hooky to go watch the time trial stage of the Tour of California. I camped out with my camera just before the 1K to go banner and got some good shots of all the bike riders. Every year I've seen the crowds get bigger and bigger which is really nice. This years the crowds were massive due to the return of Lance Armstrong. It's nice to see the crowds but 30,000 people trying to all leave Solvang at the same time on a 2 lane road really sucks.

11/10/08 - I hate my eyes. Five weeks ago I developed ulcers on my cornea. I took the stupid headache causing eye drops for 2 weeks to get rid of them. Then last week I find out that I have a staff infection in the same eye...aarghhhh! I only wore my contacts for 2 or 3 days in-between being healing and the new infection the rest of the time I've had to wear my glasses, which I also hate. They make my ear ache and give me headaches.

Because of these continuous problems and the fear that I won't be able to wear contacts without getting sick, I went in to see if I qualify for lasik. The idea of lasik still freaks me out a bit but it sounds better than being in mild pain for the rest of my life. I might go 50/50 and do lasik on the problem eye and get a monocle for the other eye. If I start wearing a top hat I think I could pull off the look.

10/31/08 - Happy Halloween!
I've already started to eat...er sample the Halloween candy. That's why I buy 4 bags for the 5 or so trick or treaters I get per year. You really need to sample several peices of candy just to make sure none of them are bad or tainted.

Woohoo! My happy pumpkin worked this year and I got an all time high of 12 trick or treaters!

5/31/08 - Jean Luc's getting to be a bit of a lush. He insisted that we head to Munich Germany to visit the famous beer gardens, so off we went!

We did manage to wonder away from the beer gardens and visit some of the other nearby sites. Jean Luc was a little tipsy when he decided that we should go on the hiking and biking trip to Neuschwanstein Castle. We hiked up the steep hill to the Mary's bridge that offers the most scenic views of the castle. After the very short tour of the castle we hiked over to a ski resort in the Hohenschwangau region. From there we hoped on a bike and headed to Swan Lake, inspiration to many playwrights. After arriving at Swan Lake and finding a smelly bug filled area with 2 lonely swans braving the water we decided that the playwrights most have been visiting the beer gardens too often as well.

After the successful trip to Hohenschwangau we decided to hope on a train and head to Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart. We managed to find the Mozart Wohenhaus, where he grew up, and the Geburtshaus, where he was born and where now resides an ice cream parlor on the ground level. We laughed and bought the Mozart balls, a popular chocolate candy. Then we took a Mozart break and headed up to the Festung Hohensalzburg, another castle on a hill. This time we smartened up and paid 2 Euros to take the funicular up to the top. On the way back down we spied a cemetery that had something to do with that family from Sound of Music. Being a sucker for creepy crypts we paid 1 euro to climb up 200 stairs to see the crypts carved into the side of the hill. BIGGEST RIP OFF EVER!!!!!! 200 stairs to see a big empty room. I say no crypts, no tombstones, no bodies, no scary spiders or rats. After this profound disappointment it was off to lunch and time for a beer.

All in all we had a fun trip, saw a lot of cool things and yes...had a few beers!

5/18/08 - I went to Toys R Us and this little guy followed me home. He looked so sad that I had to keep him.

5/17/08 - I keep reading about how all the scientists are worried that the bees are mysteriously disappearing. Well, I've got good new for the scientists - I'm pretty sure I found all of the bees. Unfortunately I was descending down a hill at about 30 miles per hour on a bicycle when I made this bee discovery. Bees everywhere, I have no idea how I managed to get through them without getting stung. I did feel a few hit my helmet, might have killed a couple....sorry.

5/7/08 - It's Jedi time! When people know that you are a Star Wars fan, or maybe slightly obsessed, sometimes you get some very odd things. I am now the proud owner of 12 Star Wars digital watches and the display carton. My friend dropped these off at my doorstep yesterday as a thank you for help programming a site for a watch company. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all of these, but if anyone needs to know what time it is I'll know.

3/29/08 - Whale watching and sea chumming....

Ever since I moved to California I've wanted to go on one of the whale watching cruises. Well I finally got my chance to go, so I packed up my camera, Diet Coke and headed out to the deep blue sea.

The weather was nice and sunny with just a hint of a breeze as the boat left the harbor in Santa Barbara. After about 15 minutes into open water the first whales were spotted - a gray whale and her calf. They didn't seem to be too excited to see us so they promptly tried to ditch the boat by diving under water and never coming back up. Off we went to find friendlier humpback whales. Somewhere along the way a pack of sean loins came bouncing along to see what we where all up to. Then the wind started to pick up....

The boat started bouncing up and down so much you had to hang on to something at all times. I was standing on the side of the boat when my head started to feel a little funny. After that point I have vague recollections of seeing the assorted whales an whale tails in between bouts of throwing up over the side of the boat. I had actually taken Bonine which several people recommended as a good anti-seasickness pill before the trip. All it ended up doing for me was giving my upchuck a nice pinkish hue. The good news is that after my excellent work in chumming the ocean water with my pinkish spew, the other people on the boat got to see about 10 more whales, some of them being only 20-30 feet from the boat.

2/23/08 - I braved the ever increasing crowds and headed out to the start of stage 6 of the 2008 Tour of California. It's nice to see more and more people out there cheering on the cyclists every year. This year Levi Leipheimer is leading to race again. You can see him leading the field from the start in the far left of the picture.

2/8/08 - Back at the dentist to get the cavity in one side of my mouth taken care of. There is no way I'm doing both sides at once. I had to sign 2 different pieces of paper saying I know that silver filling are the worst thing to happen since Kevin Costner became an actor. I opted for the $100 cheaper silver filling well...because I'm cheap and you can't even see those teethe at the top back of your mouth anyways. Plus, I don't have dental insurance, I have a dental discount program.

The procedure itself went relatively smoothly. The only pain came at the end paying the bill, but my tooth is all patched up. The other side is getting done on the 21st.

2/6/08 - I finally faced my fears and headed back to the dentist office. Last time I went to the dentist it was not a good experience. The new dentist has this neat x-ray machine that takes the picture then automatically displays it on a computer monitor in front of you. You can see every tooth in your mouth when they are done. The only downside is they took like 14 different x-rays to get the complete picture of your mouth. I have cuts in the bottom of my mouth from the device.

After the x-rays were done the dentist came in to look at everything. He enlarged 2 of the x-rays and showed me in great detail how I had cavities in both my upper back most teeth. Oh joy....

1/24/08 - Awwww hail noooo!
What! what! what....hail in Southern California. Little pee sized balls of ice rained done on the good residents of Ventura this evening. Some of my neighbors stuck their heads out side their doors to see if it was real and shortly regretted doing that. Perhaps if it hailed here more often then they would have known ice balls falling from the sky hurt when they hit you.

For some bonus excitement we also got lightening, thunder and a tornado today. I, for one, welcome the apocalypse.

11/1 - I only got 4 little trick or treaters this year. After extensive testing with the happy pumpkin/scary pumpkin to trick or treater ratio I can now firmly say that I get more trick or treaters the years I carve happy pumpkins. Now these results are not going to stop me from carving scary pumpkins but it does make me concerned that my neighbors are raising little scaredy cat kids. Maybe next year I'll carve a 2 faced pumpkin that looks happy from the front to lure the trick or treaters in then when they get to the door they will be petrified with fear.

10/27 - The hills are alive with fire.....Actually the closest fire to me is about 30 miles away but you couldn't tell it from the sky outside. At 2pm it was dark enough to have to turn on lights inside.

10/9 - Aaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well self employment has been a bit busier than I ever could have expected. Lots of things to learn means lot of work and late nights. It's good to be busy but I need to find a way to balance a life while doing this. There are days when the only time I emerge from my apartment is when I go to check the mail. The only upside of this is I may never have to wear pants again.

9/23 - Bad boys, bad boys
Watcha gonna do, watcha gonna do
when they come for you
I was hit by a drunk hit and run driver today. It was a weird experience. I saw the guy slam into the car in front of him waiting at the red light. He sat there for a few seconds then put it into reverse and drove the 20 feet back were I had stopped and drove into me and kept on the gas for a bit after he had hit me. I had to keep my foot on the brakes to keep from being pushed back while at the same time keeping my horn blaring at him. He pulled forward then paused, I got out of my car to check my car and he took off. I got back into my car to follow him but got stuck at the red light and lost him.

Turns out the other guy that he hit had called the cops and was following the guy until the cops could get there. When the cops caught up the guy wouldn't pull over. They had to force him over and then he resisted arrest to the point where they almost tasered him. The cop that came to take my statement sounded kind of disappointed that they didn't get to taser him.

3/6 - I dropped all my tax forms and info off to my tax man last Monday and still have not heard anything back from him. Hmm...I'm beginning to wonder if this is a bad thing. I've always done my own taxes in the past. They've never really been that hard, but now that I'm self employed I decided it was time to pay someone to do my taxes hoping they would have a much better understanding of tax law then myself. I had spent many hours reading tax documents at the IRS web site and guessed about what I could or could not write off. I entered my best guess numbers in a free tax program (TaxAct.com - highly recommended) and it came out saying I owed between $2000-$3000. Eek! So I'm really hoping the tax man can sacrifice a chicken or do some other kind of black magic to bring that number down a little.

2/24 - The Amgen Tour of California rolled through town today so I had to head up to Santa Barbara to check out the festivities for myself. I got to the start of the race a couple hours before it actually started so I could mill around, bump into cyclist and poke at expensive bikes. I was also able to score a little bit of swag. I got myself some Jelly Belly jelly beans, a tiny little pink t-mobile jersey pin and Michael Rogers (from T-mobile) autograph.

1/12 - Ah...what a screwed up time the end of 2006 was. Let's see, where to start.....Well I had been looking for a new job for a while. My old job was fine but there was this little nagging problem of having to wonder if I was going to get paid every month. I like to work, but I like getting paid as well so it was time to move on. After many different interviews I decided to accept a position with a company in Santa Barbara. Everything seemed great. They are a profitable company that were willing to give me a fair salary and looked to be a good place to work. I gave my 2-weeks notice and started planning my new and improved life.

I started my new job ready to dive into the challenges of redesigning their company store and improving their business. When I arrived they showed me my new "office." I personally would not use the word office to describe a small wooden desk surrounded by boxes in the hallway in front of someone else's door, but that's what they choose so we'll go with it for now. Okay so I sit down and try to get a feel for their business. Uh, oh - well it turns out that maybe they didn't expect me to need to use a computer with programs on it or full access to the internet to accomplish my work.

So I spent the first week doing nothing but looking at their web sites and making notes for their improvement while waiting for the approval to get some programs for my computer. On the second week I got my first real assignments. Research companies to develop an online catalog and help them close a deal with another development company. While doing my first task I discovered that they were not only blocking sites like my space and online chat but also a good half of the internet - all personal web sites, web hosting sites, shareware sites, and on and on. They hired me as their Web/IT manager and yet were unwilling to give me full access to the internet....sigh. Fine I'll work closing the deal with the development company will I look at the "you're been blocked" screens on my computer.

So a standard deal is worked out with a split payment structure, 50% up front 50% on finish. I present it to my supervisor who wants me to bully the development company into not getting paid until after the three month project is over. This is where I'm learning that bullying/threatening people inside and outside the company to get your way is common practice here...mmmkay.

So after two weeks exactly of sitting at my crappy little desk in the middle of the freezing hallway I have had enough. I go into my supervisors office (a real office) and tell him that I am extremely unhappy and the position isn't working out so I'm quitting. He is very surprised that I could possibly be unhappy their and asks me to stay and let him know what things are making me unhappy and he will fix them. Fine, I go to my freezing desk and type up my list of demands and email it to him.The issues were things like, too many blocked sites, uncomfortable desk, seat, environment in the thorough fare, cold, big brother issues (you were being constantly watched), no music or headphones to drown out the den of noise all around me (I actually got in trouble for wearing headphones, even though a number of other people were doing the same), little sketched out about the weird control issues with contractors, and why the need to threaten everybody to get something accomplished.

Of these items they were willing to get me a space heater and that's it. Their solution to the blocked sites was for me to email MIS every-time I encountered a blocked site I wanted to see and they would unblock them one by one. So needless to say I quite my new job. I figured life was too short to feel as miserable as I did every day after coming home from that.

What am I doing now you ask? Well, I decided to try to make a go out of working for myself. The time is right so I might as well give it a try. If it doesn't work out I will start looking for another job.