Here and There Blog

It seems a reboot is needed this evening, so the roof photos will have to wait. We did the walk-thru and went up on the roofs. There are some touch-up repairs to be done, but as we are not contractors, we are going to request the post building permit and city inspection before signing the check. If we don't do this, then we are here with an illegal roof, and anyone who wants to sell has to disclose this under the Real Estate Laws. While I wasn't sure what to make of the roof, I was happy to learn that there are no entryways via the roof for rodents, racoons, birds, and so on. I do feel covered in dirt and grime but I think that has more to do with the tree branches and cobwebs that hit us on our way up the ladder. Roofs, BBB, Permits. I hope I get some sleep tonight. Last night I stayed up worrying about the whole thing. I'm sure this is not going to play out well but it's over for today.

The Caution tape is still everywhere, even after the gardeners helped take most of it away! And the fence rail is covered with roof debris!

Supposedly, the roof project is complete and Baker Roofing Company is demanding payment in full without a final walk-thru. As of today, there are three incomplete items in the job contract. As the reluctant but forced into the job, VP of my condo association, I now get to deal with a potentially unpleasant situation. Therefore, I will vent my irritation at Baker Roofing Company on my blog and tomorrow if the situation is still unresolved, file a complaint with the BBB. I just learned that the roofing employees were going door to door during the project to demand payment. A complaint was made to the contractor and the employees were fired. The contractor said all the workers were hired by the company and not sub-contracted out. Interesting. According to the Contractor's License, there are no employees of this company and no Worker's Comp insurance is carried. Not good. The office staff has been bullying the condo president and the property managment company for payment. Yet ther...

Everyone who lives in a small condo association gets to know their neighbors probably a little bit more than they'd like. Sometimes you get normal people, sometimes you get the druggies, but everyone condo group has that one person that just drives everyone else insane. We had her until Saturday. Her name was Susan. No one else is going to write about her, not even her family so I will tell her short tale as I know it. Susan really was crazy. I'm not quite sure of the exact nature of her craziness but she was paranoid, disorganized, tended to repeat the same things over and over, questioned everything, and in her early 40's, was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have been told she was crazy long before that and as a result her husband left her, and took the children with him. Susan was left alone with her orange tabby, Ringo. Susan was so crazy that she even annoyed me, and I felt sorry for her. She would show up a Homeowner Meetings, clutching a wad of meeting notes ...

Red Eye has to be the surprise movie of the summer. I had pretty much concluded to give it a pass, as it has been promoted as a Wes Craven movie. The promos hinted that it might be a supernatural thriller and nothing more. I didn’t set out to see Red Eye today but somehow the thought of going anywhere beyond my normal two mile radius seemed to be an impossible event, and I ended up where I always do on these days; at the Secret Theater. And I have to say I was pleasantly surprised that Red Eye is a good movie! It has nothing to do with monsters, masks, or Freddy. Instead, we have a slick suspense movie that plays out with a good timing, acting, and enough believability to work. Cillian Murphy is probably about to become the next big breakout big star from Ireland. His recent performance as the bad guy in Batman Begins was compelling, and in Red Eye , Murphy plays a twisted person that goes from charming, to twisted, and back again. The IMdB provides us with an accurate plot outline...

It's a surfer's paradise today. Carlsbad is experiencing the local version of big wave swells and the word got out quickly! By 8:00 am, the parking lot was packed and the ocean full of surfers.

The Brothers Grimm is one mess of a movie. Will and Jacob Grimm, known for their collection of fairy tales, are the lead characters in the movie. The Grimm’s are charlatans and through the use of elaborate deceptions, perform demon banquishments. Neither of the brothers has ever seen the supernatural, and the main part of the movie has to deal with what finally happens when the brothers come face to face with an enchanted (and angry) forest. The movie does not bring the fairy tales to life but instead works in references to them in subtle and at times, not so subtle ways. Jacob Grimm writes it all down, and enhances the truth along the way, so that we can say "aha!" that’s how the story began. What’s good – The tower in the forest and the evil queen. This is the strongest storyline in the movie and Monica Bellucci is wonderful in this role. Grandmother Toad is fun. Looking for the background elements that refer to the fairy tales is fun. The Valet to the evil French guy is a...

Due to the new wave of blog spam, I've temporarily disabled the posting for non-registered bloggers. I'm going to wait and see if the spam wave passes and then I'll enable the posting feature again. I'd prefer not to have to resort to the dreaded "type in the word you see" type of spam prevention. I trouble figuring out those things and I don't want them here!

Rolling blackouts are back in style! At least that's what the energy companies tell us. My grid was hit yesterday afternoon but luckily the TiVo resets itself and there's so little food in the fridge that I didn't have to worry. Hopefully if we have more blackouts my street will be exempt. Tonight is movie night and it looks like The Brothers Grimm is our choice. It only scored 41% on the tomatometer, but that's 41% better than Ashlee Simpson's movie Undiscovered . It's a rare thing not to have at least one person like your movie so this one must really suck!

New Car Happiness! Well, I'm slightly tired from driving 8 hours today but what the heck! I've got my own car!

This was a day of buying power! First off, I had to replace my cell phone because I've dropped it so much that I broke the receiver and no sound would go through. It's the next version of Motorola and while it wasn't supposed to lose info, all the e-mails seemed to have disappeared. Next up was the big purchase - the new car! I ended up with a Subaru Impreza and it's a fun little car. I tried to take a picture of it but couldn't find the camera button and ended up taking a video instead. The video does not want to transfer to blogger and seeing how I managed to take most of the pictures of the ground, it's probably for the best. I pick up the car tomorrow and I'll get the official photo then! In the space of 6 months I went from owning no cars to owning two! Pictures tomorrow evening.

I took four pictures in St. Louis. Not one of the arch, or Busch Stadium, or even at dinner. It rained a lot and my life was hotel - work most of the time. Now I had a lovely tour of the city when I arrived but I thought (silly me) that I would have time for photos later. I even had the adventure to East St. Louis but it's not wise to take photos there. But on my last night, I turned in my building badge and found myself locked out of the office with nothing to do but wait for someone to rescue me. It was an entertaining time once I took out the phone. I watched taxis go by and I watched a taxi driver wash his bald head with the entire contents of a water bottle. I annoyed the taxi drivers so they all moved away from me. It's not normal just to sit on the street in downtown. I was so bored I considered talking to them but no. Probably would have been a bad move. So for a while, this curb was my friend and I contemplated life and how I came to a place where I was sittin...

I'm checking in to let you all know I still exist! I had some pictures of my curbside relaxation time but those don't seem to want to appear online right now. I did make it to a Cardinal's game and enjoyed the hospitality of the suite. I drank diet coke so that answers the question of good beer in Busch Stadium. I just finished the second school class yesterday and it feels great to blog instead of doing homework! It seems that I'm going to be car shopping this weekend. After 10 years of having company cars the good thing has finally ended! I'm being switched over to a car allowance plan. I think I'm going to test drive a Subaru Impreza and see if I like it. I'd lease but I generally drive 50K a year. Even with the new job this will only go down to 30K so leasing is tough with those types of miles.

I've been in St. Louis now since Sunday evening and my world has consisted of the one block span of space that is made up of the hotel, a street, and office. It's been cloudy and rainy so even the arch is partially obstructed from view. I did have a wonderful welcome recetion and mini-tour of the city on Sunday evening but I didn't take pictures. Big mistake! It's not hot or humid so I lucked out! Hopefully I'll have something to show later on!

Brad took on a big hobby this year - he's going to rebuild this 65 Mustang Fastback. The car arrived in one piece and the first thing that happened was Brad gutted the car. The engine and all the parts are scattered around the garage and the car is up on the rack. There's even reason to believe that someday this car will look good and be street-worthy!

Sunday was pool day as we celebrated Brad's 42nd birthday! You'd think he could have at least looked a little bit happier! After all, the weather was great and the pool was warm! At least Lorie is smiling! Then we have the view from the pool. Afterwards it's off to Oggi's for pizza. Let me see, 4 people, 3 pizzas. The waiter was stunned. Our strategy was leftovers!

According to the IMDb summary " The Great Raid tells the true story of the 6th Ranger Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt) who undertake a daring rescue mission against all odds. Traveling thirty miles behind enemy lines, the 6th Ranger Battalion aims to liberate over 500 American prisoners-of-war from the notorious Cabanatuan Japanese POW camp in the most audacious rescue ever." Set in the Philippines in 1945, The Great Raid is a story that needed to be told, if only to remind people that WWII truly was a world war and not just the story of Hitler, Hiroshima, and Pearl Harbor. I have lived my entire life in San Diego and I knew the reason for the large Filipino community had something to do with WWII but I never knew the specifics until now. The two countries formed a strong bond during the resistance against the Japanese and that bond is still in place today. The actual events took place over a five-day period and the story of th...

Part two of the Thursday included a walk over to the OB Marshes. Even though the marshes are a few hundred yards away from the ocean, we never bother to go over and check them out. What we found were little crabs who were most unimpressed at our arrival! Especially when Mondo decided to see if she could get one to fight. This guy is not amused!

Thursday afternoon we went in search of exercise and dead jellyfish. It appears that in Ocean Beach, the jellies have disappeared just as quickly as they arrived. It was low tide and there wasn't a single jellyfish in sight. We did have our wildlife rescue though. Ms. Kitty, kind hearted person that she is, rescued a June Bug from a near death experience and carried to a safe release spot. And the sun slowly sets over another perfect beach day!

New cars are always a cause for celebration and today we're celebrating with Mondo! Not only is it a new car but it's even a new model and type of car - the Matrix! Yes, this is the look that is only found on the faces of proud owners of new cars!

This is just a quick shout out to someone who noticed that I hadn't posted yet today. You know who you are! Actually nothing of great excitement has taken place in the last few days. I've been working too much, studying too hard, and have had a boring week in general. I haven't even looked for jellyfish in the last 36 hours. Fun stuff that's headed my way: Hit the beach this evening, Friday night movie night, Saturday pool party, Sunday head off to St. Louis! Okay, back to work now.

Space Shuttle Discovery has landed safely! This is a positive sign for the US space program and hopefully all future missions will be as successful. The NASA news mission statement reports the landing details: Monday, August 9, 2005 – 8:30 a.m. CDTMission Control Center, Houston, Texas 08.09.05 STATUS REPORT: STS-114-28 STS-114 MCC Status Report #28 Discovery glided to a pre-dawn landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California this morning concluding a journey of 5.8 million miles, touching down at 7:11 a.m. CDT. The landing marked the sixth night landing at Edwards Air Force Base, and the 50th time overall that a Shuttle concluded its mission in the California desert. Commander Eileen Collins and Pilot Jim Kelly, assisted by Mission Specialist Steve Robinson, began Discovery’s return to earth by firing the spacecraft's orbital maneuvering system engines to slow its speed and begin its descent. Discovery's ground track took it from the firing of the 2 minute, 42-second deorbit...

Okay, one last jellyfish post and then I'm done! I had to go check out the situation last night and see what was going on. The ocean was looking less rusty so the kelp is going back to sea. That's a good sign. The sunset was even looking decent last night. The beach was still full of jellyfish only now there were a lot of small blobs, along with sad tangles of jellyfish and even burial sites. Luckily those will wash out to sea. For all the people who were abusing the jellyfish, it was nice to see that someone cared enough to attempt a rescue! Sadly these poor guys probably won't make it but at least someone tried.

"Jellyfish, jellyfish, wherefore art thou jellyfish?" And the jellyfish reply -- well, actually they don't. I had to know more so I went to the site of all knowledge and this is what I found. First off, they're not red jellyfish, they're black and go by the formal name of Chrysaora achlyos and the informal name of Black Sea Nettle jellyfish. They've only been seen 5 times in the last 80 years in local waters which would explain why I've never seen one before. Check out these photos at: http://www.divebums.com/main.html click on the link for Black Sea Nettle. For San Diego specifics go to: http://www.nbc4.tv/news/4774839/detail.html

There are only a couple of things that freak me out about going in the ocean. One of them is sewage and I steer clear when the water gets polluted. The other thing is a certain form of sea animal. In So Cal, the water is full of fish. There's the basic grey fish in small and medium size varieties, there are dolphins and seals that usually stay away from the shore, there are even small sand sharks and rays, both of which disappear when they see a shadow. All of these are okay to swim with. Even the disgusting seaweed can be dealt with. Only one animal keeps me from the water and it has arrived in numbers - the jellyfish! The normal jellyfish looks like this guy. It's white with red veins along the tentacles. When we were kids, "other brother" managed to get stung by one while he was out in the water. He ran back to shore screaming jellyfish! and spent the next few minutes hopping up and down in pain before my parents hustled him off to the lifeguard station. You only ...

The joy of Sunday breakfast! Amoeba was in town for his 20th high school reunion and wanted to go the Tip Top for breakfast. Tip Top is the German Market in Carlsbad that serves really large portions of highly fattening and tasty food! To eat here is to enjoy the pleasure of spending very few dollars and going home stuffed! Even I indulge when the meal is Tip Top!

It turned out to be a triple stout night! If I played the lotto, yesterday would have been the day! We showed up early and were able to get the last table in the bar. I guess this Firken beer was a bigger deal than I thought. The Firken was going to be a stout, so I went ahead and made my beer of choice Strauss Stout. LJ went for the Oatmeal Stout. Our waiter told us the Firken would be passed out for free but in only small samples, so we ordered large. When your evening is centered around waiting for more beer, conversation runs the all over the board. Ours covered Street Scene, the Monday Barf event, the Fortune Cookie, past beer and future beer, and I believe we've partially talked ourselves into going on next year's Star Trek cruise. Looking back on it in the morning light of sobriety, I'm amazed that I can keep it all straight. I'm pretty sure movies, Comic-Con, gaming, and the usual SF related topics were involved too. Then it was time for the Firken Keg...

It's 3:48 and Friday night is almost here! While this is usually movie night, LJ and I are going to go to Karl Strauss for a keg tapping event. (Sorry Ms. Kitty, I hope you feel better soon) Since I didn't know what all was involved in a keg tapping event, I went to www.karlstrauss.com for the official declaration. "What is a tapping party?Long before refrigeration and modern day tap systems were created, beer was cask conditioned in old time kegs called Firkins. One of our brewers taps a fresh firkin the first week of every month in each of our six Brewery Restaurants. We choose a different beer from our list of favorites so be sure to join us each month to enjoy these unique and limited brews. " "What makes the cask conditioned beer so good?Cask conditioned beer goes through the same process as the rest of our handcrafted beer until it is transferred from the fermenter to the Firkin keg. Since fermentation is not complete, the yeast is still alive and there ...

Well who knew we all harbored such secrets in our past? I know there are others out there who share our drinking shame! The week goes on and finally we're seeing the new weekend around the corner. The roof work is still going on, I think it's in a drying phase because no workers have shown up for 3 days but all the equipment is still attached and on the roof. Tourist season is in full swing and it's hard to get down to the beach. I guess the best strategy is to actually work!

My car has turned into the barfmobile and the power of the cookie continues! First up - a big congratulations to Troyce who after waiting forever has finally been offered the job that he's been waiting for! As one of the cookie supporters (and the donor of the silver cookie) it is a well earned job! On top of that, he'll join the ranks of San Diego beer drinkers in a few months! Now at some point in everyone's life, someone else barfs in your car. It's usually when you're young and drunk but your friends are drunker than you. I thought I was covered for life when Amie (yes, I'll name names) got sick at the Rolling Stones concert right as we pulled into the stadium parking lot. She refused to be seen by anyone that we might have known, so the front seat, door, floor, etc... of my car was covered. Yuck! That smell lasted a long time! Fast forward many years to yesterday. I'm driving up to a meeting in Carpinteria with my carpool buddy. All is well f...

While I’m not ready to jump on the bandwagon of praise, "March of the Penguins" is a remarkable achievement in documentary movies. Filmed over the Antarctica winter, the filmmakers spent the harsh winter at the French research station Dumont D’urville. Located at Terre Adélie (167.000 square miles station has a population that ranges from 30 people in winter to about 100 in the Austral summer. The penguin population is seasonal, and ranges in the tens of thousands. The movie focuses on the penguins alone, and that provides a slow paced look at this unique species of bird. I like penguins as much as the next person but I can’t say that I’m a big fan. I do have a new respect for how they brave the winter months and take care of their eggs and the new chicks. What I enjoyed most about the movie was the scenery. The underwater and glacier footage was incredibly beautiful. At 84 minutes, it’s a short movie but I wasn’t prepared for how slow the time would go by. If you like pengui...