my life, as far as i know.

yesterday i walked to the train station after work.

as i approached i saw the train pull in. was i running late? i hurried and made the train. sure enough, i was on the too-early train. i was trying to catch the train ryan takes.

i rode the train to mountain view and waited for the next train. i had 10 minutes. i waited and got on the next train.

the next train was also wrong, it’s the bullet which bypasses most stops. i took it to its next stop, Palo Alto. i would wait there for the next train, the one ryan was already on at that point.

while i waited for the train, i noticed a chinese guy and a woman (presumed she was his mother). he was wondering when the next train would be there. they apparently got on the wrong train. he was heading back south but his mother needed to go to San Carlos. he barely spoke english, but managed to ask if i would look after her and make sure she made it to San Carlos.

i accompanied the woman, both of us smiling at each other, as the young guy left to catch the next southbound train. while we waited, the woman approached another woman there on the platform. the other woman spoke chinese, so they conversed. i could tell by hand gestures (and saying the words “San Carlos”) what they were talking about. Both the other woman and i looked after this person.

when the train arrived, i and the other woman loaded the bags of this woman onto the train. we both looked after her. she made it to San Carlos quite safely. on the train, the other chinese woman sat across from someone reading a book titled, why do men have nipples?. we both chuckled at the title. the book reader said it was quite a good book.

i’ve never been stuck anywhere where i didn’t speak the native language. :-/

i finally met up with ryan and made the trip home. one of the more interesting train experiences i’ve had. it’s a little more interesting than the time the train ahead of mine had broken down and they connected the two trains together.

ryan’s mother has been in town. tonight we cooked dinner for her:

our steaks - angus grass fed ribeye, slight change to my usual steak rub.
our fries - 2nd fry a little longer, they came out really crispy.
finally opened a 2000 zin from annapolis (acquired a month ago). yum.
dessert - strawberries with fresh whipped cream (pinch of sugar, tsp of vanilla, whip in a cold bowl). again, yum.

today we started our day with a every nice high tea at lovejoy’s. then we went on a nice long walk in golden gate park. it was a little cold and foggy. great walking and talking weather. (picture from our walk is above)

family stuff kinda blah. i will probably head down to san jose some day this week to spend time with everybody.

i’ve been commuting to santa clara five days a week, working on new hardware at work. the number of machines i am responsible for is nearing 50. they don’t break often at all. in fact, most of them have been up for more than a year with no reboots (knock on wood). there is budget next year to hire a full timer to work in my area.

that reminds me. i really “own” quite a bit at work. i’ve found it difficult to relinquish control of part of any of it. i’ve found i am really perfectionist when it comes to system installation and wiring. hiring someone to supplement me at work will be weird. will i feel less useful?

i’ve been busy with family (mine and ryan’s) a lot lately. i hope to see some of my friends soon. i need to catch up on evite RSVPs.

people linking to images on the server i run is really grating on my nerves.

a particular someone linked to a fairly innocent image on my server for his myspace home page. i usually notice if the links are from high traffic sites or link to large files/images.

it would be a shame if someone swapped the image out with something horibbly grotesque. something like, a naked man holding holding open (with both hands) his horribly disfigured anus. i mean, a real shame.

this past week i’ve been busy with family stuff.

my brother tom and his wife michelle were in town. in five days, i spent time with them and our father. i had them up to san francisco to check out my new place and to have dinner. i got some quality time alone with my brother so we could talk. it had been a good long while.

i was looking forward to their arrival.

i love my brother.

i’ll see them again in december.

this week i went to work on thursday and friday. it was a little tough, since i have some deadlines coming right up on me.

tonight ryan and i made our second attempt at fried chicken using the deep fryer. we used free range boneless chicken from whole foods. along with a copycat recipe we came up with some decent eats. the breading came out too soft, but the chicken stayed juicy.

i made some home-made balsamic dressing to toss with romaine lettuce. i topped the salad with thinly sliced robusto cheese (similar to parmesan).

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olice oil
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
4 garlic cloves, mashed to pulp with 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt (i found using the blunt end of our wooden citrus juicer acted as a great pestle)
add freshly ground pepper to taste

the balsamic i used was pretty sharp, but the cheese cut it down. i strongly suggest this recipe [source].

this past week has been mostly good. i have been super super busy. there was a alot of good that came of it, but now i must write about the bad.

my week ended up with crap.

i spent the entire last day working on a family computer. it was so broken that we couldn’t install drivers for the wireless card for the family’s new house. the new house uses wireless because they didn’t want wires running everywhere nor the hassle of running wires in the walls. someone set the wireless up for them, which has been nothing but headaches for me..

long story short, the network uses encryption and a pass phrase. i’ve seen at least 3 versions of the linksys client software and they all have different interfaces and options, none of which match perfectly. in order to sort through it, i set the WAP to use mac address filtering and disabled encryption. of course that broke all computers, so i set some of them up again. another hour later, two of the computers still couldn’t connect because the signal was too weak. it lead me to discover why some couldn’t print - they were bound to a neighbor’s access point.

anyways, the computer i was working on, i had to reinstall it from scratch. it took forever to back the machine up. it then took forever to copy the backup file to another computer. it took another forever to defrag after the initial install (which somehow leaves a horribly fragmented disk). i rebooted, then the keyboard and stopped working.

it would reboot fine, i just couldn’t login or do anything. it just stopped.

the keyboard and mouse (and wireless) worked on my apple powerbook just fine. another keyboard didnt work on the computer either. so i booted off the install cd. mouse and keyboard worked. so i stumbled through another full install of the operating system. luckily, the keyboard stayed working

i installed the anti-spyware software, the itunes, the google toolbar (to disable pop-ups), and re-imported the itunes library. i left defrag duties to my stepbrother.

i left flustered, exhausted, and once again cursing both mal-deployed wireless and microsoft windows (and its eccentric networking).

i was in dire need of mint chocolate chip ice cream after the hour long drive back home. i stopped by safeway, which had bryer’s for buy-one-get-one-free (which means i buy more than i want and take home product they’ve either overbought or couldn’t sell by normal means). did i mention i hate safeway? that it’s the denny’s of grocery stores (ie, good only because it’s open at the moment).

as luck would have it, the ice cream was super soft when i got home. i had a bowl of it anyways (after griping about it to ryan) and once it is of a decent consistency, i will have another bowl of it.

oh, and i’ve done so much driving i’ve purchased more than $120 in gas in five days.

war is the best game and the worst life.

— ryuichi sakamoto, “war and peace”

happy dont bother using your turn signals day, bay area!