Here and There Blog

Now that I've been home for an unbelievable three weeks, I'm getting the hang of what it means to look forward to Friday night. A weekend! Again! And I get to enjoy it! I also am getting the hang of what it feels like at 7:23 am to wish it was already 5:00 pm and be done with the day. Discipline must be called in. Luckily I have a full work day ahead so I can be productive in spite of what my brain wants. Wishing you all a great Friday and a speedy countdown to the weekend!

I still end up in hotels even when home. There's a steady stream of people coming in from other countries who are here for meetings, training, and random work related stuff. So this week has seen me in my third hotel room as I've taken people from Burbank to Tijuana to Santa Barbara back to Burbank. Countries represented - Turkey and The Bahamas. Next week brings in Indonesia and Australia to keep me busy from the 4th to the 14th. Then maybe a two week break and in comes India. Repeat roulette of Los Angeles, Tijuana, Santa Barbara, and back around. Toss in a few Anaheims and I'll be ready to leave the country just to keep life simple!

I'm not quite as behind on music as I am on movies but the Grammy awards have always passed over me. I've bought the Grammy winner compilation cd's a couple of times only to realize that I liked zero of the songs. Sometimes I haven't even heard of the musicians. This year, due to me spending most of my time traveling, I actually know/own quite a few of the nominated albums. No wonder iTunes cut me off on one trip for downloading so much music that it looked like my account was compromised. Of course just because I know who the artists are, it doesn't mean that my favorites won. What I don't get is how in the year of Miley Cyrus, she wasn't nominated at all? I admit it, I like Miley. The Grammy's don't always make sense.

My brother has hiked this mountain constantly. People are always going with him or he's setting speed records on his own. I grew up in Poway, I hiked and for some reason never once went here. So out of  hiking shape but ready to do it, I finally climbed Iron Mountain today. You can't tell from the photo but the trail was crowded. This was the day where dogs, people and even babies were out on the mountain. The elevation got me a bit going up and the rocks were trying to trip me on the way down but it was a great morning hike and I'm glad I did it! The stats according to Homer's Garmin: Distance: 5.91 mi Time: 3:01:00 Avg Pace: 30:37 min/mi Elevation Gain: 1,171 ft Calories: 512 C Avg Temperature: 78.9 °F

Monday was a great day to get up early and go for a walk in Mission Trails. The weather had slightly cooled off and not as many people were out and about for a holiday Monday. At times, the park felt deserted.  Even though the San Diego river trickles through this area giving some green trees, it's pretty dry. I hope the rain comes soon and the winds stay down.

Who and why is so much energy spent to be a lame individual? If you are smart enough to hack computers then you are smart enough to get a good job, doing good not evil. After another round of paranoid password resets (and I'm never going to remember all these new ones) and complete dumping of cookies, saved files, it's still not enough. Lockdown on new Twitter feeds (where this seems to be coming from) and that limits half the fun of Twitter. Then the realization that nothing from Twitter connects to anywhere else that I have e-addresses so the mystery grows. I think the email from the phisher is hacked from another person because when I found a likely candidate, this person's profile seemed normal. Bummer for her, bummer for me. Virus scan and malware scans check out okay from three different sources. Blech! The battle continues.

At last I made it to see Catching Fire before it leaves the big screen. This is the type of movie that I'd rather see on a big screen before a re-watch on an airplane. I liked the movie but didn't love it. Once a movie hits two hours if it doesn't have my 100% attention then I want it to end. In Catching Fire, I was trying to remember where the book ended so I could gauge how much longer I had to be in the theater.  Sometimes I like a movie better on second viewing so that may be the case with this one.

Thoughts of the week. When you're trying to do something with your Blog, save the template so you don't forget what it was you had and liked. Siri is not that exciting. I made a commitment to use Siri this weekend and I did. Then I was bored. Maybe the next step is to set up voice activated calls. No matter how bad your day is, it wasn't really. Unless your house burnt down in the Colby/Glendale fire and then you whole month has been ruined. I'm not able to function in an office environment anymore. I spent 3 days at an office and I'm so programmed to working to music that I had to be anti-social and pop in my ear buds and turn on iTunes so I could block out gossip, silence, and listening to other people's conversations. Is it really tax season already?

In the category of "did I see this movie?" Best Picture/Director - Nope Best Actor - Nope Best Acress - saw Blue Jasmine on the last flight. Movie was annoying but Cate Blanchett was fantastic in the role. Best Animated - I usually have seen these but this year, nope. I do plan to see The Wind Rises since I love most films by Studio Ghibli. Where does my most watched category come in? The SF standard category of Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects. Go Hobbit!

Two fires yesterday and we're still on alert today. It's always a disconnect when the worst fire weather brings on the clearest sky (before the smoke hits) and you have that perfect near sunset moment. I hope the winds calm down quickly today and I'm grateful all the firefighters were out in full force so the two fires were quickly stopped.

Home but never home. I am back in California but after a great 5 nights in my own bed it's back to work meetings. Luckily from one beach to another, I'm in Santa Barbara enjoying a warm day!

For the first time in what seems like forever, I have not seen any of the 10 movies that were nominated for Best Picture. Not even Gravity which is a movie that I would normally see but I was out of the country during its box office run. And the sad part about this is that I don't mind. None of those movies seem at all interesting to me. Where's the Hobbit? Catching Fire? I'm sure I'll see Frozen on an airplane but the rest of them can wait. That doesn't bode well for the Oscar's or any other award shows that I normally watch. A check of the BAFTA nominees looks exactly like the Globes, ditto Director's Guild. This makes life easy. I don't have to try and see any last remaining movies on my list since 10 is too many to get caught up with! The Lego movie looks more fun that the serious movies, so I think skip the theaters until February!

A beautiful San Diego day. I can't see living anywhere else!

7:30 am. I don't seem to be showered, dressed, and running out the door like I had planned in my mind last night. In my ideal world I thought it would be great to exercise as the beach at 6 am, come home, shower and be at Wal-Mart by 8 am to avoid the crowds. Then pop on over to Best Buy and purchase a new printer with my Best Buy gift card from Best Western (those nights and points can be used for gift cards!) and be home by 9 am. Nope. At 6 am I realized life was good waking up in your own bed and coffee called. Then goofing off online took priority, then more coffee, and next thing here I am. And Best Buy doesn't even open until 10 am so what was all that planning for anyway? A sunny Saturday like this is meant for relaxing. Enjoy your weekend everyone!

It's always with hesitation that I open the door and go out back after a long trip. I'm not sure if I'll like the answers to my questions. Did gophers tear the place up? Did weeds take over? Are termites around? At any given time, the answer has been yes to these so I normally wait a day to deal with it. Today, the cactus are in bloom, only one new gopher hole is visible and the weeds are contained to one section that can be managed. Damage control done since I'm home before the next rain and can get the yard under control for another week or two. And living in California, I was pretty grateful to be pulling weeds in the sun instead of having a backyard covered in snow!

While a business trip over Christmas seemed like a good idea at the time, I was surprised how much more work is involved with returning home! Christmas cards. There's a few of those to go through and open. Thank-you for the great family photos from my friends. I love seeing your kids all grown up these days and some of them are getting really tall! Christmas decorations. I guess those can stay up a few more days. Credit cards and appointments. I forgot to update my dentist with my new credit card number. Sorry! And now I have to make another appointment with the other dentist. Because somehow, one dentist is never enough. Turns out I was a Target shopper and my card was on the compromised list. I had no debit card to use on vacation and had to activate the new one today. Smoke detectors. Mine are always beeping for random no good reason. Does anyone else have that with interconnected alarms? There are 6 in my house and they like to follow the leader. That was last night...

Rio was a perfect 2 day/3 night escape from work. If I had been there an extra day I would have wanted company. I didn't do everything because the goal was to relax and be by the beach. Now sitting in my hotel room in Panama, I really miss that ocean view. Below is sunset at Ipanema.  Don't let the blue sky fool you. Corcovado to visit Jesus is one hot sun intense trip. I think he's saying "bring on the cool air!"  All the tiles from all over the world at the Selaron Steps.  The steps themselves.  Get here early, say 7:00 am so you can climb the stairs and look at all the tiles without the heat or the crowds.

Hot, humid, rain. Rio has flowers everywhere.  Street art of course. There is a special school for it to encourage kids to do art instead of mindless tagging.  Views from old buildings  A great city  And many old homes that date back a few hundred years

Let's see. It is 11:00 am. The temperture is around 90F. There is no shade anywhere. No a/c either. How do you want to get to the top of Sugarloaf. Rock climb? These are two determined climbers. More power to them.   Or aerial tram? The tram goes in two stages. This is to the first station. A second tram takes you to the peak.  I chose tram.  And this was the payoff!

The bright yellow trolleys serviced the Santa Teresa neighborhood for years. This is a hilly area with winding streets. The trolley accident killed the conductor who had run the trolley for years along with some of the passengers. Since the exact cause of the accident has yet to be determined but probably any number of safety related items contributed to it, the service is suspended until July. Residents of the neighborhood have the tear drop trolley image painted on the street walls and on car stickers. It is very sad.  The trolley sits in a garage, waiting for it's return.  The cobbled street of Santa Teresa. All the homes are on the hills.

Yesterday's tour included a quick stop to run inside the  Metropolitan Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro and take photos of the stained glass. Glass looks best when it is sunny outside and we had sun in abundance! I need to find a camera setting that works with cathedrals. Stained glass is one of the more difficult things to photograph well.

I had my alarm set for early morning so I wouldn't miss the sunrise. Pre-dawn is already light at 6:00 am. The crowds are gone from the beach and the atmosphere is peaceful. By 7:00 am the sun is already in the sky and the temperature is going from hot to melt your fat off hot. I'm off today to explore, decked out in jeans and t-shirt. I am the most over-dressed person here. My goal is to be the least sun burnt person here. Sunscreen also melts off your body.  Happy Friday!

I have two days to relax and enjoy!

I've finished up my work in Sao Paulo and have a few days before heading off to my next business destination. It's 8:30 am now and if all goes well, by my time this evening there should be a new hotel view photo to share with everyone. While I have found Sao Paulo to be a boring tourist city, I am aware that thousands of people were on Ave. Paulista for a massive NYE celebration. That being 45 minutes away and over $100 in taxi fare, I decided not to check it out. So NYE was spent rather boringly in the empty business district with other misplaced business travelers in the hotel lounge. This was my second NYE in South America in the last two years. Last time, I was leaving Ecuador back to the US and we hit NYE during take-off. You could see the fireworks down below and all over Central America. 2014. I can't wait to see what fun it holds!