One last thing before I leave MI!

Here we are... Myself, Matt, and Bryan outside Athens Coney Island, where we enjoyed some coney fries and some delicious conversation about the upcoming Troy Athens Reunion. (ten year) I bailed to head home for SF, but I hear that the turnout wasn't too high. (125 including guests out of 360 graduating seniors back in '96) After eating up, Matt let me drive his dad's pontiac solstice around the neighborhood. This was a special treat, as I worked extensively on the design of the brakes for this car for over a year in my time at GM, and they felt great. The car was a lot of fun to drive and would be even sweeter in california without the snow. Hmmm... maybe when the cavvy quits on me. ha! let's hope that never happens! She's still a baby with under 63k and a brand new passenger side window. ;)

All Hail Olivia!

I couldn't help but snap another picture before I headed off to my final lunch in MI. I had a great time, though this visit was definitely different from ones before. I really now feel permanently separated from what I used to call home, and now hail from SF. (for better or for worse!) It's been a bit rough lately with health and apartment issues, but looking ahead, the horizon is looking good so far. I was happy to see almost all of my friends on this past visit home, and enjoy some special time with my family too.

Olivia is here!

I visited home for the week of thanksgiving, and was lucky enough to see my sweet little neice, Olivia. Here's a pic of mom holding her, she's now about 4 months old and lethally cute and little chub to hold and carry around. She loves her parents and smiles whenever they come into the room, and even has started warming up to dad, laughing when he holds her now. Mom is the ultimate grandma too... this girl is going to grow up spoiled! =)

BTW- my new parking spot of death is shown here... It is definitely tricky to work the angles to get in, as the spots on the left are perpendicular, and the spots on the right are angled. I have mastered a new technique, but it still takes me a couple minutes to get out facing forward to see bikers and pedestrians.

My ghetto fabulous new window arrives! errr... I went to safeway and bought some saran wrap and wrapped it over and over my window. The glass express folks are coming to my work parking lot tomorrow and will be working on the car over there. I can't wait to have a real glass passenger-door window again!

Here you can see how the inner tint coating is working as a rubbery glue to keep the chunks of glass together. There would have been a million chunks in my passenger seat if it weren't for the tint! whew!

Here's a look at the inside of the car, minus stereo and with some damage to the clips that hold the instrument panel together. This was no doubt caused by the trauma of extracting the stereo from the DIN area. There's small chunks of glass everywhere, so I'm being careful. However, a huge chunk of the window stayed as one piece. I think the tint coating helped keep it all together.

The fun continues... this morning (finally caught up!) I took the early train to work to pack a workout in. This way, I can leave immediately from my apartment, workout at the gym at work, and then shower before walking to my desk.

I've been parking at the caltrain station around 6:15AM, catching the train which gets me to work around 7:20AM, and running and showering until 8:30ish. It's actually worked out well, because I can sleep on the train, and fit a workout in before I even start working.

Well, apparently, the 3rd time's the charm. I got a call around 7AM when I was just about to get to work. Bethany and Brenna from work just saw my car on their way to the later train. Only, with a smashed passenger window and no stereo. Luckily, Bethany grabbed my registration and anything else of real value. I took the train up and today has been one of dealing with insurance, the police, and taking pictures.

More old man house problems and disasters continue... My first monday morning was a fun one in the bathroom. Unfortunately, when they re-painted the door, they took the handle hardware off. I took my morning shower and closed the door to let the water steam up the room, brushed my teeth and shaved... all was great, until... I tried to open the bathroom door!

The knob kept turning, and I realized that the screw in the handle (which locks the handle to the squarish post that goes through the door and to the other handle) was missing! I was just turning the thing on the threads until it rubbed against the housing and got stuck. Luckily, I had my cell phone and 1 bar of battery left. I had been using it as a clock so I would make the train on time (in theory). boy was I wrong!

My phone died immediately when I tried calling the apartment manager for help, and the next couple hours were filled with frantic shaking my battery and dispatching text messages to Mike, Sheila, and Bethany who was almost at the train station. I was never sure if the messages made it, but I'd be able to turn on my phone and see replies every now and then. Ahh.. people knew I was stuck. This was good. Also, on the bright side... if I had to use the bathroom, it was right here. I had plenty of fresh air and drinking water access. Really, the bathroom is the premium place to get stranded!

Mike (in LA) got the SFPD on their way, Sheila (in MI) got in touch with the building owner, and Bethany made it here and talked to everyone. I met fran, another tennant upstairs, who asked if I was hurt and eventually if I wanted her to drop a sandwich down! (I wanted a screwdriver!) fran was no help at all (except emotionally).. With no luck, I got desperate and tried clogging up the threads with some macgyver skills. That is... putting toothpaste on the threads and blow drying them to get them crusty. Hopefully, this would get the handle to catch early on the threads and continued turning would open the door. I would be a escape artist hero, and be able to capitalize the E in engineer on my business card! hah!

This did not work at all, as the knob threads just tore through the toothpaste crust like a T-rex through a 20 pack of chicken nuggets. (I assume, if timing allowed) Finally, one of the police officers suggested I try a toothbrush, as it might be square enough to fit in the door hole. So... I, having already brushed my teeth, proceeded to shove a toothbrush in the hole and gave it a good kick to advance it deeper into the door hardware.

I then tried to turn... .. .. I saw the gum massagers rubbing gently on the sprocket, but the door"s sliding wedge barely moved. I kept trying, and when it finally started to move, I grabbed the towel bar (screwed to the door) and pulled really hard. I realized this didn"t work when I found myself sitting on the toilet with a towel rod in my hand. doh! A little disheartened, I continued to try working the toothbrush around while pulling the fringe of the door bottom with the tips of my fingers... I hoped that dilligence would pay off here, and I just remembered I had the chain lock on my door, so even if the owner arrived, they would have trouble getting in. I kept turning and turning, until .... the thing actually opened! I was free! and thanked the police for showing up, and bought bethany a coffee for helping me out and coming back for me.

We had missed the train, and I probably told the story 8 times at work... (so far)
I now keep a screwdriver and the "special" toothbrush in there at all times just in case.

Finally, I found the perfect studio apartment in the perfect area and with parking in SF! yay! well... kinda. There's been a laundry list of upgrades needed as the previous tenants were here for 27 years! As it turns out, it was a man, his wife, and their 16 year old daughter who grew up here... in a STUDIO! this is madness, but ... rent controlled madness! Anyhow, these jerk-offs must have gotten sick of cleaning the tub, and eventually painted over it with white paint! here's a pic of the tub, which I have since scraped with a razor blade to fix. It was probably about 20% covered with paint when I arrived, which my apartment management deemed as "up to san francisco standards" ... the fact is, they knew it took me 2 months to find an apartment in my price bracket, so they weren't gonna budge. It's in much better shape now, and I'm going to try to get some back rent with some before/after photos... we'll see how that goes...

Ah hah! the electrical issues in my car have all been traced back to a short and this bulb. Eurodesigns aftermarket blue = crap! Here you can see that the light indeed has 2 filaments, the top is brights and the bottom one is the conventional beam. A quick replacement and some fun with a multimeter, and my car is back to normal! (except my speedometer needle is a little off) Anyway, one step at a time!

I say farewell to my mountain view apartment at Glenwood Garden Apartments, and this squirrel who lived outside my window for a few weeks. (looks neat through the screen, eh?) Anyhow, the apartment was convenient and safe, and Pat (the manager) is the nicest person ever out here.. off to frisco!

It's been quite a while since I've blogged anything... so here's a big shot of ketchup! Just before getting ready to move from Mountain View to SF, I had a 24 hour pH study done to see if I was experiencing acid reflux. Here's a picture of the situation. a catheter goes down your nose and records pH values above the Lower Esophageal Sphyncter (LES, the thing that keeps stomach acid from coming up) and values just below the LES. Based on the readings from the 1970s IPOD looking thing, they can tell over a 24 hour period if you have reflux. As it turned out, I tested normal... however, I'm still having a pretty chronic sore throat, and the jury is still out. Anyhow, they found nothing serious so I'm at least happy about that.