Texas Here I Come (Again)

Travel Notes, Day 1

I can never get a good night sleep before a trip to see Bibi (LOL, Bibi!). I watched TV and filled in New York magazine crosswords last night after a final packing and general grooming. Past midnight, I watched TLC including the new season of The Gosselins saga and one from the old seasons. TLC successfully markets their contrast. Total sleeping hours: about three. Total TV hours: hmm, about five hours.

I packed two bags: a backpack and a laptop/mothership bag. Good weight exercise as I had to walk about a mile to catch VTA and another mile traveling airport in-site. Food to clothes ratio roughly equals 1:3. I scavenged Trader Joe's for a little something for people back home.

I didn't remember any of the US airports I'd been before to offer a free wifi and was glad to find that DEN offers one. Airport past time triumphantly spent on Facebook, Bloglines, Flickrs and blogs. Plane rides, on the other hand, spent on manual sudoku, crosswords and the good old sleep! As we were flying west, I had to put down the window as I realize the higher altitude makes the UV damage more vicious. What do you call a plane equivalent of a driver's tan. LOL!

Interesting views as we landed in DEN. I doubt that it was The Broncos home stadium that I saw (no branding whatsoever). Also patches of green acres (not of trees) around the city that seems to serve no purpose. Better research more on this.

NY and I are going to find our way to County Line BBQ. I seem to can never eat enough meat in CA. So meat is the first thing I am looking for when I am in TX. It was Saltlick with Bibi and brother last trip.

I am boarding Austin flight in fifty minutes.

Updates from AUS:
Landed safely at 4:52 PM local time. Unfortunately my chaffeur/sister was kinda lost.

After much consulting with Bibi and Information guys and of course, NY, we all finally figured out where she was and the new route she could use to arrive at AUS to pick me up. Here's a diagram of the situation.



Poor girl. We need drinks, correction, she needs it more than me.

Anyway, there is a free wifi here at AUS. Although, it wasn't supposed to be free, I suppose. I am posting with it. KYH might be arriving in half hour or so.

Back Log: May 30th

As part of Memorial Day long weekend, I enjoyed the company of this adorable couple for a light hiking trip around the South Bay area.



A detour for a to-go of tummy filling Vietnamese rice platters and yummy durian creme puff treats to South San Jose's Vietnamtown (thank God for GPS) could almost christened this trip a Culinary Adventure instead.

We were supposed to see chain of seven waterfalls on Uvas Canyon Park in Morgan Hill. But we were keeping our hopes low since foliages and waterholes at ground elevation were dry. Up a 1000 ft later (we drove ourselves up), a lush of evergreen suddenly greeted us.



If you are thinking of a great wonder of a waterfall that is Niagara, this Upper Falls is of course a no match. As you can see, the fall's height only reaches 25 ft and the width was about 15 ft. Still, the serenity of the walking and the giggles of babies playing in the water flush away the hectic world not much far from this heaven.




These last two pictures only satisfied the narcissus in me. Also in succesfully keeping the envy of a DSLR alive.




Photo credit

Back Log: May 31st

The grad school advisor:
"So, can you speak Chinese now? You have missed on the opportunity while you were in grad school. Don't miss out on it now that you have many Chinese colleagues at work."

Me:
"Uhm..."[damn it, what should I say, why do I need to learn Chinese anyway, you foo'...]

GSA:
"Or maybe you should find a Chinese husband. So you can learn and speak Chinese all the time!"

Me:
*fainted* [BF would definitely not appreciate that patronizing comment, but you know, BF, he's The K**].

A blurry picture from around the moment the above conversation happened. The GSA was visiting for a conference. We (former students) went out to eat with him at a Korean Chinese restaurant at Japan Town. How sick was that such place exist? LOL. Food were good, though. This picture, however, was by a coffee shop still in Japan Town where we were for an after-dinner coffee session, his treat!



PS:
I have always thought that this will be a nice starter bling, or better yet this. I am tired of being cameraless. The 1S has met its unfortunate fate sometime last year. Alas, all semblance of personal economic welfare these days needs to be channeled for more important causes.

Sigh

When I was young(er), there was an intention to pursue a career in medicine. And then I got that full-ride scholarship to study anything I want here in the States. The unpaved path to become a medical doctor got slashed out for being not too practical (time-wise and financial-wise). I regret the decision sometimes that I could have done something for my father and his sickness. Maybe he would listen to me, maybe he would have been alive. And to think that I ended up spending a lot of time in school for my field of choice to get to where I am now. The road not taken has made all the difference.

What is left of that interest is the occasional hypochondriac, self-diagnosed persona. Like today, I feel some pain on my left leg around the side close to the knee joint. I immediately consulted several webpages for Deep Vein Thrombosis. I checked on my health insurance coverage just in case I need some hospitalization. I am going to monitor until tomorrow if my pain subsides. I am thinking it might be the result of over working out from last week.

Good night.

Back to work

I just want to take a deep breath into an imaginary online paper bag. I have been reciting this too many times, "My timeline is not God's timeline". Although, I have bought a magazine last weekend--something I have been avoiding so as to minimizing the creation of yet another monster.

I also have been looking at possible dates for EE--a weekend in Houston, right on August shutdown, cheaper than CA ones.

What a girl to do. And to think all of these are hard on him too? Sigh.

PS:
BF, if you ever get around to read this blog, I still need my bling stat. Something like this will be really appreciated by me, who loves you so much. LOL!



A vintage (looking) sapphire ring in white gold.

I...You,

Baby

Fine Saturday

Life sans laptop is just unbearable, specially when there is need to catch up on gossip time with a certain someone, winks. As a temporal solution, I needed to fire up that old desktop unit. Little did I realize that it lived on the dark age technology that are eight years behind and had no recent anti-virus updates.

On Saturday morning, I opened the tower only to find a total of 256 Mb at 266Mhz RAM, at least they are already the 168 pin type. No wonder it was slow. Lo and behold, there were two RAM sticks magically lying around. The use of these two sticks would effectively double the memory storage and almost double the speed. First attempt on installation failed. Soft pounding here and there solved the problem.

Next was the anti-virus installation. Luckily, my fantastic cable/internet provider provides anti-virus software at no extra charge. I adventurously chose customized setting. It would've been easy if I optioned in on all but the parental lock option. In the end, I had to download the .exe for a total of three time to have both firewall and the anti-virus properly set up.

The blazing weather outside reached the mid 90s as I spent the productive afternoon hours working on fixing up the old computer. Going swimming seemed to be a good idea. Plus, I have always wanted to devirginize that apartment swimming pool, so to speak. I mixed a little concoction for a little after swimming treat--notice the word after, I am a safety oriented person. It consisted of mainly grapefruit juice, some rum, and sugar. BF would have been proud. I swam a total of 16 x 25 m laps (free-style and breaststroke). Those were some challenging manuevers I performed to survive, among others, babies learning to swim and 15 year olds having fun in the pool. I dipped myself on the bubbly hot tub for a while after and parked myself on a poolchair with my drink. A good book would have made the day even better.

Recent Update

Being laptop deprived since Friday has resulted in nights and weekend sans internet. The situation can easily be relieved if yours truly got her ass sitting in front of the desktop unit. She has been just too lazy to do that. Instead she's been focusing her mind on watching endless TV. She would be really happy to catch reruns of any of Star Trek series, but sadly, none of them were on during her waking hour. Instead, she settles on reruns of 3rd Rock from the Sun. Apart from being one heck of a funny series, the celestial body animation in between its scenes kinda reminded her of said series.

In other news, Aunt Flo decided to drop by last night. At four in the morning yours truly woke up with such a pain. Chocolate (and aspirin) has been proven to be a perfect remedy for time like this. She heated up the non-stick pan and made a grilled meisjes sandwich. Apart from the hint of chily oil taste, it worked wonder. Note to herself: get a sandwich toastmaker or dedicate a pan to make dessert like items.

In yet another news, "The One Who Got Away" is getting married. She feels nothing but pure happiness for him and the bride. Congratulations.

Meow

Me and two other girlfriends were going to lunch at an ordinary workday. I came first to the restaurant, there was a pregnant woman with a year old toddler on the sitting next table. The little girl was cute and has a mixed race appearance.

The first of the two friends came, saw me and walked towards my table. Before we had time to catch up, the woman on next table talked to my friend. They knew each other-- although, my friend had a hard time remembering her, my friend later told me. My second friend came in as the woman and the child were about to leave.

My two friends went on a discussion about the woman as soon as the entourage left.

"She used to be so pretty and stylish, remember? She wore all the branded stuff from head to toe."

"I know. I wasn't even paying attention to her at first. She looks so...mumsy. So
that's how people are after they're having a child, huh."

"She should be taking better care of herself."

At this point, I was jumping in to defend the woman. I see nothing wrong with her appearance. She was wearing stylish white capri pants and a gray top. She wore no make up, and her hair is better than mine. She probably gained some weight and her body changed. But aren't those expected for a mother of two? As for the child, she looked clean, healthy, and happy.

"Hey, it's a hard work to be a mother with a toddler and one on the way. I think she's doing just fine."

My friend insisted, "No, she could've done better. She should make time for herself."

Later I found out there were personal problems between my friend's relatives and the woman. So it might explain the harsh judgment on the woman. In retrospect, I might have done the same thing. But as an outsider looking in, trust me, the woman is doing OK, my standard anyway.

What A Life

There are clothes to press, an apartment to clean, food to cook,people to socialize with, instead I am currently sipping wines (cabernet and dessert), eating a mini chocolate bundt cake, browsing the 'net from A-to-Z, with TV on in the background, while lying down. What a life!

April Shutdown

Donna, the Atlanta BFF, came to visit for a Leonard Cohen concert last week. We had a lot of fun driving around to places (SF, Sausalito, Monterey, Oakland). I had been driving to all three bridges on the open bay (Richmond, Golden Gate, Bay). Unlike March shutdown time (Inok's visit), pictures from disposable cameras commemorated the days.

"Serious" Conversation

While he was driving me to Austin to catch a flight back to the Valley last night...

X: I am so past a waiting for a wedding. Other than the ceremony, the reception is sort of like, "Here people, eat our wedding cake with us now that we legally and morally can have sex with each other." You know, an announcement where you feed people.

BF: *rolling his eyes, shocked*

X: So, the objective has been moved forward. When are we going to buy a house?

BF: Ah, if the wedding is for everyone, a house is just for us.

X: Exactly.

BF: You and I really think alike. I want to have a house too.

X: Yup. So I have been calculating. You and I have to save at least [insert lot of money] if we to afford a CA house. Bonuses, stock options.

BF: Yes, a good job and we have to live in austerity then. Maybe we get a fixer upper and fix it ourselves, wouldn't it be fun?

X: Ooh, I love fixing stuff ourselves. I love buying tools. I watched enough of This Old House. LOL.

So Close to Home

There are three events today that made the day bound to be remembered than most days these days. Two of them hit, literally, so close to home.

1. Earthquake, a 4.3 Richter scale, with epicenter within 20 mile radius of my place of work and residence, at 10:40 AM. From what I've gathered from news, no major impact on the daily life of the South-Bayers. People at work including myself didn't experience any jolt whatsoever. The quake possibly was pale in comparison to the busy, noisy lab activities. Mainly, I suspected the building owner has practiced good architecture on designing an earthquake resistant structure.
2. An apparent murder-suicide that left six people dead (four were children) and one critically injured. It was within one mile from my apartment complex and happened on Sunday night around 8:30. Guns were found in the crime scene. Victim identities slowly revealed. Motive was still in the air. Place of incident, though, is widely publicized. I went on my own tour of the area tonight, although at the end I decided I couldn't take the view of it and drove the other way around. God rest your souls...
3. I asked boss for a swing shift instead of a normal day shift, he granted my request. My sole reason is that it will be more effective for me to work at this allocated window as machines are less occupied then. The lab is my oyster, or as BF texted me a reply:

   Your plan to dominate the world inches forward...

   Uhm, more like mils forward, BF.
   

Sick Again?

Tada...would you believe that yours truly is sick again. This time, whateveritis is riding on a fast track. By the second day, I have a runny nose, by the third day (today) I was in multiple coughing fits. I popped the only over-the-counter medication I had on my medicine cabinet just before the weekly meeting with the group. I anticipated its "comparable to a Nyquil" effect by preparing myself a cup of hot Orange Pekoe tea--a black tea variant I just discovered recently. The tea somehow worked to counter act the drowsiness lest I would have passed out not twenty minutes into the meeting. Instead, I was just experiencing a marked sleepiness lullabied by people "discussing" important-but-less-interesting business and technical matters at hand. LoLs. The effect worn out after two hours, though.

On to the next sickness. ETS, extrapolated time of sickness, is 40 days from today.

DSLR does make a difference

My profile pictures taken at the recent visit of a certain Ms. Inok of LA. She has a kickass "entry-level" professional DSLR camera. From now on, I'll just make it a requirement for every visitor to bring his/her DSLR camera along in order to be eligible to stay at my place. LOL.

On and about UC Berkeley...








At about 1000 ft elevation at Mt. Diablo State Park...


At about 2000 ft elevation at Mt. Diablo State Park...







At the summit of Mt. Diablo...




On a Bay Cruise off Pier 39...




On an about The Golden Gate Bridge...



On and about Santa Cruz's Natural Bridge State Park

BB (not Blackberry)

10:19 AM, CST (8:18 AM, PST)

Good morning Apple Fritter!*

11:30 AM, CST (9:30 AM, PST)

Sh..somebody is on a shutdown week and might sleep till noon. LOL. How is experiment going?

3:28 PM, CST (1:28 PM, PST)

I didnt know that Jim Rome is such a hottie. His wife must be a goddess of some sort. They have two sons! LOL.**

3:40 PM, CST (1:40 PM, PST)

Some people are like working.......

3:41 PM, CST (1:41 PM, PST)

LOL!

*His choice of dessert to call moi today
**Inside joke, hard to explain in here

Music on My Mind

Human brain is amazing. Should I shout this out loud? When the body has been deprived of something, it will signal the brain to relieve the situation, hence, we experience crave. Some common examples, for instance, are that when you are thirsty, you want to drink something, when you are tired, you want to rest, and so the list goes. It didn't hit me until late that craving goes behind the physical need but also happens on a mental state.

I have been listening to AM radios while driving, most notably the ESPN radio, the NPR, and the recently discovered Catholic radio station, AM 1260. While at home I watch TV programs, on the internet I browse over typed materials, on the elliptical I catch up on books. That is to say, my exposure to the pleasure of listening to the mellifluous harmony that is music has been unintentionally kept to a minimum.

I have come to notice that these past two or three days my brain has become its own music player. Songs were shuffled in my mind on random moments. The songs were from different genres, ranging from Taizé to The Smashing Pumpkins, and were never repeated. I can hear them played in my mind almost as complex as the original recording. All was beyond the control of my conscious mind.

To tie it back to my original premise, I conclude that I had been severely deprived from music solely on its own, my brain in turn is trying to relieve it by serving music à la carte.

I just find it all enlightening. It is perhaps also interesting to experience similar enlightenment on the other end of the exposure, that is, when the body is overwhelmed with a certain sensual pleasure.

Write That

I've been recruited to be in charge of a tri-monthly newsletter for a certain organization. I gave them an on-the-spot enthusiastic positive respond. Reasons behind such respond were that 1) I enjoy being involved in the organization, 2) I believe in the cause, and 3) the most important of them all that I just think it is about time for a bit of serious writing than the usual chronicle (of the banality) of my life type, don't you agree?

Another writing aspiration is something on my field of work, preferably on the professional but casual, for-the-masses, non peer-reviewed one. I really need to find a way to channel that. Maybe by starting on building enough credential, learning more about the industry, getting educated deeper on wider subjects? Oh, the possibility.

On another note, being a true hypochondriac, I am going down with an early form of dementia. Case in point: I forgot the names of several co-workers today. I tried real hard and was only able to recall them after a long while. Another case in point was the increasing severity of that self-diagnosed attention deficit disorder. So help me God.

State of Me

I am dead sleepy but I just couldn't turn off my brain...
I am still full from the vegetarian take out (it's almost two weeks since I've been abstaining from meat and poultry but I don't think I can be a vegetarian forever), but I am craving for something sweet or chocolate...
I can't wait for tomorrow so I can go to thrift stores around the area to satisfy an going desire to decorate around the apartment...
I miss Boyfriend so much, I cried...

I love that we can talk about nothing and everything
I love that you do listen to the trivial things I said, when I thought you don't
I love how we understand each other in a non-verbal way
I love that we can always find our way home when we are lost
I love that I feel safe when I am with you
I love that you brag about me to your friends and family
I love your giving me thoughtful gifts when I don't expect it
I love that you are there for my highs and lows
I love the silent moments when I can just reach you and hold your hand as long as I want
Most importantly, I have seen the best and worst of you, and I still love you for who you are

Would You?

One of the text message banters through out the days...

What's up boyfriend. I cant believe the deals at Z*les online. Crazy girl is screen shopping next to me...

What, my hand started to twitch...

And just two nights ago I had a dream I am wearing our wedding band. I woke up looking at my left ring finger. There was nothing there. LOL. I want to scream on top of my lung, "Would you just propose already????"