An adventure requiring more recovery time

My trip to Tennessee turned out to be a little easier to start than I expected. I had fully anticipated that the flights would be too full for me to make it but suddenly on Wednesday the red-eye to IAD was moved to a larger plane, and there would suddenly be a seat for me. I rushed home and packed my things in 45 minutes and grabbed a cab back to the BART station. I made the flight and found myself in Nashville 15 minutes before most of the rest of my family arrived. We rented a Hyundai Santa Fe, which turned out to be a nice piece of machinery and off to Shelbyville we went. I managed to forget a ton of important stuff like jeans and ties, but other than that I was pretty well prepared. We managed to have far more silly fun than people gathered for a funeral should have. It turns out things like using farm equipment, lifting stuff, cleaning stalls, taking care of livestock, and riding the 4 wheeler are all pretty fun. I certainly don't look too sad above. The services for my uncle were actually very nice. I still haven't learned to like viewings, but sometimes they are a necessary evil. The memorial itself was really great, the minister said something wonderful about how Carson was a man who needed a brace to walk, but never ever let that be an excuse not to do something that many able bodied people would not be able to handle. There was however an awkward interruption when someone (Despite the minister's warning at the beginning) allowed their phone to go off in the middle of the final prayer. Here's a tip: when warned to turn your phone off do it, and skip the cheesy polyphonic "when the saints go marching in" ring tone. We spent my next to last night in town playing some poker, and the next morning got up, kicked everyone else out of the house and had some breakfast at IHOP and a Cherry Lime Aid at Sonic. Then my Uncle and I accomplished a good deal of farm work for 2 city boys and went out for Mexican food and beers for dinner. Monday brought another early day where we got out the door a little late but still should have made it to the airport on time. We stayed on the street level rather than taking the freeway, and it became painfully obvious we weren't going to be on time. I made the timing worse by needing to stop to throw up. We scrambled to the airport and I got to the gate to see the door already closed. I started to feel worse, and was running back and forth to the bathroom as quickly as I could sit down. I took a nap in the airport, but I couldn't hold down any water or any of the pills I was taking so I checked myself into a motel and decided to sleep it off. Turns out 3 other members of the family were busy going through the same ordeal. I finally made it home late Tuesday but it meant I totally blew off the training I had at work on Tuesday and Wednesday. Here's my favorite picture of the whole weekend, the three most mismatched amigos ever. On the left sleepy Asthmatic kitty in the middle the Guinea fowl that believes with all its heart that its a cat and at the bottom right the skittish cat whose best friend is a guinea fowl.

Here's to brother Todd, the best of the best

W's parents were in town last week, so it was the perfect opportunity to bust out our new wine decanter. Todd graciously picked it up for us at Ikea during his visit, and we just needed guests to use it. So if you visit us in early spring you can expect a nice glass of wine out on the patio, and it might look something like this. This week brings sad news that my Uncle Carson is losing his battle against cancer. I am going to attempt a trip to Tennessee to pay my repsects. Unfortunately its a small airport and with the weather being as screwy as it has been the last couple of weeks, the chances are not real great, but It is surely worth the effort.

Thanks Easter Bunny!

The Easter bunny knows that we're not eating any candy at our house, so instead it brought us these nice flowers. Thanks easter bunny for watching our waist-lines and making our house a little festive.

Now if I could just get this chip off my shoulder...

A long time a go in a land far far away, A young Jason Herron had just sprouted himself some new front teeth. How did I celebrate this momentous occasion? by falling face first on a side walk and chipping off a large portion of one. I always wanted to wake up one day and have beautiful straight unchipped teeth, and this week I got a step closer. As a part of my other dental work, my dentist gave me a whole front tooth. I've also been referred for an orthodontic consult to work at that whole straightness thing. Here's my warning to all you little ones out there: Floss every single day no matter what! By my calculation I'm spending about $1 per day I didn't floss in life on fillings and root scalings and all sorts of other not very fun stuff.

Mixing my sweet and my savory

Someone who I share this house with can't stand for her savory food and sweet foods to be mixed. That means no apples with our ham, No mango salsa on our macadamia nut crusted fish, No orange-cranberry glaze on our turkey and the worst offense of all? No Ham and pineapple pizza! So W has gone off to Chicago for some "business", leaving me here to fend for myself. And given the opportunity what did I make myself? A Ham/Pineapple/Pepperocini pizza. I know what you're thinking, that's not on the diet. Its OK though, I bought the leanest ham I could find, I used part-skim mozzarella, organic tomato sauce, and baked it on a Boboli whole wheat thin crust. It was pretty good, just enough to keep me from buying one of these insanely delicious looking prosciutto artisan pizzas. I'm due for my midyear review at the MOHP, but my boss has pushed back the date on it so many times I hardly remember when it is anymore. It was supposed to be 2 weeks ago, then last Thursday, then today, and now 3:00 on Thursday again. It should be great, and may finally unlock the promotion I've been anxiously waiting for. So since I have the house to myself, I'm going to bed nice and early. We'll see how that works out for me.

It must be springtime

Spring suddenly broke out in San Leandro this week, where the temperature suddenly reached 70 degrees yesterday. My good friend Todd happened to be in town and was surprised to find temperatures in the bay area warmer than when he left Sarasota in the morning. I'm super jealous, because he's on his way to a 2 week trip to Japan. Todd had never actually been in an Ikea, so we took an extended walk through the Ikea in Emeryville. We then grabbed a late dinner at Johnny Foley's in the city. They have a lamb dish that is so amazing, and lots and lots of great beers. I spent a good portion of the last week with a nasty nasty case of the flu that I am finally shaking. It rampaged through the office, where all 4 of the people on my team were out at least one day, and one of the guys I eat lunch with was out 3 days with dehydration. Despite feeling crappy I finished the closet project, so now all the places in our condo that are supposed to have laminate floor do. Now I'm down to trying to get some base boards put up, and then I can finally move on from the flooring project that won't die. I have presidents day off tomorrow, the last 3 day weekend on the calendar until summer time.

Does this restaurant serve Thai food?

So it was back to the grind this week, things at the MOHP (manufacturer of household products) are super busy because of a financial forecast and a month end coming together into a perfect storm of early mornings and late nights. The nice thing about being busy is our management usally feeds us lunch when they know we're working this hard. Unfortunately food is not chosen from the most healthy places. I usually blow the diet during the day at lunch and then feel guilty about anything I eat the rest of the day. I've spent too much time at the office to even get near the gym, so I'll have to get some exercise this weekend. On monday I have a presentation to give about my work project that won't die. I've been working on a budgeting project for 3 months, and its become an excel file thats bigger than 10MB. Its been a great experience for me though, gotten me a ton of visibility in the company and makes my boss say nice things about me all the time. I've learned a ton of fun excel stuff and already find that I'm not hiding from array formulas like I used to. I'm still going through Thai food withdrawl, I ate it 3 meals a day and suddenly eat none. This weekend I'm attempting to finish the closet so we can get some closure on the floor project. I'm not sure I'll know what to do with myself with the floor and my work project finished.

Bangkok Day 4

On Tuesday we weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves. We grabbed a leisurely American breakfast at the hotel. We decided we'd try to go the the Thai museum in the morning, but got there only to discover that it was closed on Monday and Tuesday. Someone outside the museum recommended we go see the Standing Buddha, the sitting Buddha and the golden mount. All three I'd read about, so they seemed like a good substitute. The man alleged the standing Buddha was 40 meters away, but it was a lot more like a mile, I'm glad we had decided to tuk tuk it over there. After that we went to the golden mount, which required a lot of stair climbing, but the payoff was great views of the city. We went back to the mall area to do a little more shopping and to squeeze in a final fitting. We had dinner at a restaurant called cabbages and condoms. All proceeds from the restaurant go to promoting A.I.D.S awareness in Thailand. So we did something good for the community and ate an absolutely delicious meal. We noticed that they had a lounge with free Internet, so we thought we'd go check on the flight. Our six a.m. flight was cancelled. Not good, I needed to be in the office on Wednesday. We looked at buying me a ticket, but $600 or more seemed like a bit much just to get back to Tokyo. We decided not to sleep so we could crash the airport the minute it opened, and try to get on a few other airlines we knew had seats. After much nervous waiting we got on a Thai airlines flight in the farthest back seat you can get. Their seat spacing is awesome and their food in coach is actually edible. We got to Tokyo and W had to take our bags through customs, so I ran ahead to try to catch the first flight back to SFO, it was going to be close on getting first or business, but when an eplus seat came up I had to take it to get home. I slept for the majority of time on both flights.
My final impressions of Bangkok:

• A lot of stray dogs and cats
• Horribly bad air
• Incredibly congested roads
• Possibly the worlds greatest cuisine
• Truly impressive historical buildings
• Incredibly nice and friendly people
• Did I mention how good the food is?
• When can I go back? Theres still plenty of Thailand I haven't seen!
  

Bangkok Day 3

On Monday morning it was Sunday afternoon back in the states, so we got up in time to catch the end of the Indy-New England game. It decided to rain, and when it rains in Thailand it does not mess around. We crammed into a cab to check out a couple of the Buddhist temples or Wats that bangkok is famous for. It was here we had our first experience with a cabbie who didn't want to run the meter. Fortunately the Concierge had told us about what the fare should be, so we were not willing to negotiate. As we arrived at the grand palace and Wat Pra Kaeow it was pouring. Some Thai boys chased down our cab and sold us a few umbrellas for way more than we should have paid for them. We sought shelter in a nearby restaurant and had a great lunch topped by a really big bowl of ice creams in tropical flavors. Once it stopped raining we ventured into the grand palace to see the Wat and the emerald Buddha. Pants are required since it was a holy site, and they made scotty put on a pair of loaner pants. It was even steamier than usual because of the rain, and I spent the first ten minutes trying to clear the condensation from my camera lenses. We checked out the emerald bhudda, then wandered over to Wat Pho to check out the reclining Buddha. I had seen pictures of it in a National Geographic as a kid and always wanted to go see it and there I was standing in front of it. Its always great to cross things off your lifetime list. We had been hot for long enough and headed back through insane traffic in a cab ride even scarier than our loaded down trip from the airport. We had to go back to the tailor shop for a fitting, so afterwards Dave and I grabbed a beer, and we let W and Scotty go get massages. A quick shower and then we were headed for a nice restaurant for W's birthday. We decided to go someplace we'd seen in a book that was across the river, so we took a train and then a boat to get across the river. We get all the way to the restaurant only to find out they require pants for men (as opposed to shorts) and both Scotty and Dave took a comfortable approach in shorts, so we had to try something else. By the time we were back across the river it was after ten and we were hungry, cranky and not real sure where we were going to eat. We got off at the major transfer station in Siam and decided to look around, but everything was closed. A nice man took pity on us and recommended a seafood place that he knew was open til midnight. He was an English teacher, and he even got us a cheap tuk tuk fare to the restaurant. The seafood was a little pricey, but we were so hungry at that point we would have eaten the fried crickets at a roadside stand. Our meal was actually very good, and ended up being worth the hassle and price. We went home to crash and try to figure out what to do on Tuesday.

Bangkok Day 2

We woke up pretty early Sunday morning, so we hustled out to the weekend market. We took our first ride on BTS which we often called by any 3 letter acronym that popped into our brain. There was a stop right near our hotel and one right at the weekend market. We were fortunate to wake up early, since it was only in the mid 80's by the time we got to the market and the real crowds had yet to arrive. We shopped and looked for a good place to eat. In a back corner of the market we found a great restaurant and sat down and ate pad thai for the first of many times for the weekend. We shopped until we were too hot and tired to go any farther. While eating we saw a really cool condiment set that we went back to get and the lady at the shop gave me a thumbs up on my Thai pronunciation. By the time we left the market was super crowded and steamy hot. We were glad to leave but wished that it was open more than weekends so we could come back and try all the great looking food. We went back to the hotel to get cool and change and then it was off to a mall and a tailor. After the tailors we took our first tuk tuk ride, a three wheeled taxi that you have to negotiate a fare and then hold on for dear life. The cool air of the open tuk tuk is refreshing, but smog filled. Plus, everyone in Thailand drives however they feel like. We had dinner at a restaurant that both Scotty and I had read about in the guidebooks, a place in Patpong called the Mango Tree. Patpong is the red light district, so the cast of characters we passed on the way to the restaurant was interesting. The restaurant was a nice place, but the food wasn't even as good as we'd had earlier at a place called Yum Saap in the mall. We then wandered through Patpong for a bit checking out a lot of the bootleg goods and advertisements for shows I will not print here. Nearly exhausted we went back to the hotel and crashed. This picture of the weekend market doesn't do much to convey the sights sounds and smells of the market.

Bangkok Day one

I'm finally back on the ground and settled in a little bit, so let me tell you a little about my trip to Bangkok. I had lots to do on the Thursday before we left, including staying up late to watch my Thursday shows. I snuck in for a couple of hours of work and then met W so we could rush off to the airport. We met up with our traveling friends Dave and Scotty and off we went. The first flight looked pretty full, and at first it appeared only Dave would get on. at the last possible second one more first class seat opened up so I jumped on too. Someone really wanted to sit next to her friend and offered me her window seat which I prefer anyway. The flight was pretty quiet, I watched Pirates 2 which I liked, and Little miss sunshine, but was disappointed by how not funny it was. Dave and I Went to a really cool bar in Tokyo where it suddenly occurred to me I hadn't even attempted to learn any Japanese for the trip. After a couple of big Sapporo's We knew W and Scotty should be arriving. We met them and went to catch the Nari ta-Bangkok flight. We only managed to get eplus seats, but for 7 hours we thought it would be livable. It was a looooong flight, and we arrived in Bangkok around Midnight. We took what was officially the craziest taxi ride ever. Thai taxi's are not built well enough for 4 large Americans and their luggage, and the tail end of the car was noticeably dragging. I thought for sure we would blow out a tire and spin of the road or have the back of the car catch on fire. Neither happened, and after a little searching we found the Chateau De Bangkok. Check out the bathroom!

My first ever international post

Just a quick post to say I'm alive and well in Bangkok, Thailand. Many more details to come when I return, but if I spend too much time in front of the computer I'll lose valuable tourism time. Expect lots of pics on or after Wednesday!

Sunset in San Leandro

One of my favorite things about getting a visit from Calvin is I have a good excuse to visit our local dog park, In addition to being on the water, its on the final approach to Oakland Airport. My plan was to get some pictures of Calvin romping around, but he was fairly subdued. So I snapped a few shots of the sunset and a planes landing. I'm still learning best use of the Sunset mode, but this seemed like my best effort. I finally broke down and got a new template for the blog, it was time for a new look. I'm thinking about a new title too, since my life is far more stable than I imagined it would be when I started this thing. I'm spending the rest of tonight and tomorrow cramming for my Thai test this week. I'm going to try not to overwhelm the blog with pictures, but no promises.

Introducing an Old Friend and a New Toy

This Weekend I'm joined by my old friend Calvin, who despite his age still enjoys a game of fetch up and down our hallway. He doesn't run much anymore, although with a chill in the air this morning he looked as spritely as ever. He's holding on to his new friend Bird Brain, a toy we picked up at Ikea for $2! The picture itself is taken with my new Kodak z612 camera. I fell in love with it online a few months ago, and finally talked W. Into buying it for my Birthday/Anniversary/Christmas gift. I haven't given up on my trusty Kodak CX7430, It has taken some great pictures for me, but its performance in low light, and only 3X zoom were starting to limit what I wanted to do creatively. I'm still ticked off about how bad some of my pictures from inside the Sydney Opera House were. My new camera has a 12X optical zoom and image stabilization, so I don't have to be frustrated by how far away I am from things like I was on my trip to the San Diego Zoo. I was being patient and waiting until the camera went on sale, but suddenly deciding to run off to Bangkok next week meant I had to rush my purchase a little. My Thai Lessons are going well, I've learned some key words and picked up a little phrase book so that I can navigate and try not to stick out like a super tourist. Although my bad American accent and over sized new camera are going to be difficult to hide. I'll at least skip the Bermuda shorts and black socks. I got awesome career news this week. I had fallen into the trap of the forced rating system at work, which was supposed to delay my first promotion until September, but the career management committee met this week and determined that in the case of people who received a low rating in during their first year, their mid year rating would be used to determine if they were eligible for promotion. That means some time next month when my mid year rating is done, I'll be ready to move!

The Big Roommate blowup

A friend of a friend of W's was looking for a short term place to stay, and we had a room that wasn't being used, so we volunteered. It represented some easy cash for our bottom line, and could possibly even pay off our floor early. For a few months it was weird but great, she studied and worked all the time, was never here, and cleaned up after herself. It wasn't perfect, her boyfriend stayed here to much and lately she'd been slow on the rent. So January second rolls around and we still haven't seen any money. I ask her and she announces she's moving out possibly on the tenth. She apparently wasn't going to tell us and just leave without paying. W let her know she should fork over January's rent now or pack up, and when I got home today, she had done just that. No "thank you", No F**** you, no nothing, just keys left on the dresser in an empty room. Easy come easy go I guess.

Resolving to take better care of myself, and my blog

I have resolved for 2007 to take better care of myself. It should be a resolution that is easy to keep and is its own reward. I'll eat better, exercise more, nurture my relationships, and feed my creative side, which means that I'm back to the blog. I won't announce it to anyone, but if you happen to surf by, then I'm happy to have you here. Its been over a year since I took the time to post, So I won't endeavor to catch you up in one post but I can at least summarize 2006 in bullet points.

• Started new job that underpaid me for how much I worked and in the long run underappreciated my efforts. I'm officially on the market again now that I've passed the 1 year mark
• Continued to trudge along at a second job where I usually spend more than I make
• Spent a week in Sydney Austrailia--If its not on your list of places to visit, it should be if its not at or near the top, move it up. It is sooooo worth it
• Visited Florida twice
• Visited San Diego for my birthday
• Turned 30 ugh!
• Installed a laminate floor over 85% of our Condo
• Started to Learn how to speak Thai, I'll be visiting there soon

That's the major stuff, I can assure you there was more than my share of laughs, and less than my share of pain mixed in there.

The Best Week Ever!!!!!

I have had some weeks in my life that I wished I was someone else. (One was 3 weeks ago when I was working 60 hours through the 3rd week of a sinus infection that wouldn't go away) I've had some weeks I'd like to forget. I've had some weeks that were pretty good, I've even had some great weeks. But, the last seven days it has been a really good week to be me. W's Aunt Peggy GAVE us a car, suddenly making us a 2 car family. That means I get the Jeep as a hand me down. It also means it's no longer necessary for me to trudge half a mile up hill both ways in a driving rainstorm to the bus stop. That has to be better for my health. So you're thinking to yourself, what could be better than a free car to a guy riding the bus? How about the job you'd been daydreaming about since orientation day at grad school. Where they said "What ever you do, don't accept a job for less than 50 K, it will bring down the schools numbers. Good numbers for the school mean your degree is well regarded in the job market." Well Dr. B, despite how much I disliked you by the time I was done, I have granted your wish. I can hereby announce that my MBA from the University of South Florida (it has to be spelled out here, USF is something else out this direction) is finally worth the paper on which it is printed. Anyway, I have another cold, am tired from working so much, but that still didn't stop this from being...
The Best Week Ever!

Quite possibly the luckiest man on the planet

I did something stupid on Friday, and thus far have come out unscathed. I managed to leave my wallet on a bus. You can check the archives, misplacing my wallet in the house is something I do fairly regularly, so as I was preparing for my shift at the BRO Friday evening I really wasn't alarmed that I couldn't immediately locate it. But I started to sweat it part way through, and rushed home to check all my credit card balances on line to see if I was paying for someone's shopping spree. I needed to do some house work over the weekend anyway, so cleaning up the place was a convenient way to find the missing wallet. By Sunday it was a No-show, so I prepared for the harsh reality I might have actually lost it in transit. In the most fortunate set of circumstances, 2 calls to AC Transit yielded someone who was nicely holding my wallet for me in a building a mere 3 city blocks from the MOHP. I wandered over during lunch to find that it was untouched still containing 2 bart tickets (amounting to $2.25) A half used 31 day bus pass. (approx street value $35.00) all my credit cards and $5 in cash. Plus my discount card from the BRO, and 3 separate sushi dinner receipts. Sad I know.

Photographic proof my mom still loves me!

Mom dropped in to visit W and I to make sure I was still living. (if you'd been waiting for a blog post, you might have begun to wonder) We worked the bay area over pretty good. On thursday we took her on her first visit to our home away from home, Ikea. She was like a kid in a candy store, exactly what you might expect. We dropped by to see aunt peggy after that, and then had another fabulous meal at sushi avenue. (They're hiring, and that seems like a lot more fun than working at the BRO part time) Friday We took BART into the city and then rode the MUNI up to the wharf area. We strolled throuh pier 39 walked along Until we got to fishermans wharf and then had the most delicious and filling lunch possible, a Huge bowl of Cioppino from Scoma's. We had another restaurant in mind but the nice person at the CA welcome center desk decided we should go to Scoma's instead and she was sooooooo right. We got a corner, waterfront table and impeccable service. Yes, it was expensive, but I got more food than I could have eaten in 2 sittings, and it was one of the best meals I've ever eaten. Saturday we visited the farmers market at bayfair, and found out how badly I'd been missing out on something right under my nose. We then went to Kincaids at Jack london square and had a fabulous lunch. I have to figure out how to make their signature hot crab sandwich that is to die for. Saturday night I did bust out the culinary skills as we entertained mom and family friend (and fellow san leandrite) Jen. I thought the food was good, but it was no Kincaids, Scoma's or Sushi Ave.

A tall ship on San Francisco bay. Yes, this day really was this beautiful