Still limping along.

Last night Mr S. came up to me and said - guess how big my disk drive is.

Me - 200 gig. I said proudly.

He points to the ground.

Me - Whaaaaaat?

Him - 80 gigs.

Me - No way! It's like from the 1970's.

Him - when I bought that drive 5 years ago, it was a decent size. Drives double in size every year.

Me - well, more than double right? When I got that terabyte drive it was about a year ago and now they are out with 2.5s.

Him - I've even been seeing terabyte laptop drives now.

Me - that's crazy. I think I've chewed through 4 sets of drives in that time, and you are still on the same drive.

I hope to be fully up by this weekend. But, I'm also going out of town-ish and hope to have something interesting for you.

Offline.

I don't know when I'm going to get back online. I got hit with a virus. Spent the last day just trying to get a bootable CD. It so irritates me that you have to play 7 games of twister to find a valid bootable image.

Oh - back in the day you used to be able to just burn a floppy. Machines these days don't come with floppies, and for some reason burning a bootable CD or thumb drive image seems to be an act of nature. And of course, when you buy a machine these days they hardly even give you the CD's for the OS, little alone a boot disk.

I was feeling so clever that I raided my drive (mirror). But, that only helps you in a failure. When you have a corruption. Both drives are corrupted.

And, since I'm dealing with a terabyte drive. It litterally takes 4 hours for just about everything. Even a virus scan. Which is what got my into this problem in the first place. Instead of running a full scan - I rebooted. Yeah me. I told you I wasn't smart.

It's amazing how butt puckered you get when you realize that 1000's of gigabytes of pictures are at risk.

Anyway. If you were wondering.

Conjoined.

Freeway stories.

Today was suppose to go much, much differently. We were going to get some lunch in Santa Clara, then go to the Tech Museum.

Yeah... notsomuch.

In the roughly 10 miles it took to get through San Jose to Santa Clara there were 6 accidents. I've never seen anything like it. Especially on a sunny, unobstructed day. And they weren't follow on accidents. Every two miles or so - someone had spun out, or crashed into someone. It was just the weirdest thing. I've seen a ton of pileups, but never so many in such a short stretch.





If you look closely where those guys are standing - you can see a tire. This was a full on rollover.





The whole thing was the suckiest thing ever. And, there were even a few bad ass cars on the road. But, since the traffic was so thick I couldn't get a clean shot.

Lamborghini diablo. They were only 250 grand new. Now a mere 200 grand.



And a meh Tesla Electric. They do cost a lot of money though.



It amazes me how often I can get shots of really expensive sports cars. It's like Silicon Valley is paved with pricey sports cars. Which makes me happy.

Then, there was this funny dog.



The whole traffic thing sucked the life out of me. So I didn't get to the museum.

Great. Before long we are going to get a drum circle.

Today I was at the drug store picking up eye KY for Saffron. It's basically sterile Vaseline. Usually the stuff costs around 10 bucks. But, the store I was in had the prices as high as 18 bucks. For a tiny tube of Vaseline mineral oil two inches long. Which sort of pissed me off. I mean - the people who would normally use this stuff is old people. And, 18 bucks. Why not bend them over and ball gag them. It's ridiculous. Oh no... there isn't any inflation here though.

My pissed offedness didn't stop there. When I checked out the item was 10.99, but my charge was 12.08. You see it's the small items were you really notice the state is raping you. A buck in tax. 9.75%. When you buy a bunch of stuff it gets lost in the noise of overcharging. Then, I guess I'm just a little pissed that starting today the state is basically mugging Californian's.

Apparently they can just say they are going to randomly take 10% more in taxes. But, it isn't a tax. You will get it back in April. These assholes don't get that everyone who can - will just change their withholding so they get even less money.

Then, I guess my town is being successful at making this place and "art" town. Which is basically code for bum haven. These people looked to be camping in the parking lot of the drug store. They were all hanging out in their bean bags on the ground. I know it looks like they might be broken down. Yet their beggar sign said "can you spare a smiley". Which is so fing Berkeley style bumming. Pisses me off.





Plus my cell phone didn't get very good shots. I should know to never leave the house without my camera.

Bad ass cars - stuff you don't see everyday edition.

Mr S. and I were driving down the freeway and this black viper passes us.

I say - Ooooh. Viper!. Then start whipping out the camera to take photos. Just at that moment, Mr S. catches the Ford GT crawling up on us. He was back drafting the Viper. I don't think they were together as they went in different directions.



I don't really like these Ford GT's. But, Mr S. does. And he says they are pretty uncommon. They've only made them one year or something. Much more rare than Vipers. I still think they're ugly.

The GT got off on the same freeway exit as we were getting off on. Mr S. thought he might be going to the exotic car lot. I said he was probably going to Hooters. Which was just a block away.

We run our errand. Two hours later we were in the same area finishing the errand which just happened to be a couple of blocks from the hooters. Which we had to pass to get back on the freeway. And.... who do you guess was at the Hooters? Ford GT guy. Mr S. and I both laugh. I win!

If that guy can afford that car - he should really think about getting better chicks. The hooters girls are pretty meh. And what is with those 70's shorts?

OMG! They killed Kenny!

For your entertainment Davis.

Mr S. was able to re-purpose the pumpkins by just changing the mouths. Before pictures for everyone else here.

Happy Halloween!

This is Mr S.'s brain trust. South Park Pumpkins.

Evil Pumpkin Snowman was a huge hit getter this year. It isn't easy coming up with good pumpkin ideas. I think the Kenny pumpkin turned out so awesome. Mr S. is just really clever. Honestly they all look more like the characters than I could have expected.

Friday.

Today, Mr S. and I pulled an unusual weekday lunch. I mostly don't eat lunch during the week. The traffic usually sucks too much to do anything but grab some subway when he works from home. Plus, it's just hard to grab time due to work.

Today though, we figured we drive down and get some Dim Sum. We found a parking spot right away. Which was the most amazing sign ever. To be honest - finding a parking spot is like winning the lottery. They've underestimated the business traffic by 100%. Not even joking. We were able able to get seated right away. Also unheard of. Everything seemed to be smooth sailing to have a quick lunch.

Then Mr S. tried to log into work and he couldn't. Since we were pretty close to where he worked, he figured he would just pop in and reboot his machine.

As soon as we got to the parking deck he spotting the Tesla that always parks in the electric plug in station. Talked about it here. I figured I'd hang out in the car and wait for him and take pictures of the car.



As I was waiting for him, I got to watch people come in and out of the parking deck. One guy had his dog. The place is just so old time Silicon Valley. There are lots of times I wish I could talk about the things they do there. But I won't. Not because I don't want to be sued. Because - I want them to win. Fierce loyalty doesn't exist like that much anymore. It used to be common in the old Silicon Valley. You always felt like you were on the edge of changing the world and you wanted to protect the source of that.

I've been reading a lot of stories about people getting laid off recently. I have to wonder if the workforce would have had the same feeling as I do, if things would be different right now. Everyone seems to think the company should be loyal to them. It doesn't seem to go the other way. Everything is someone else's' job.

You have to protect the hive. The hive being your employer. Then hopefully - the hive protects you. So what the company gets richer than you do. It must be an enormous strain to have all the lives of those who work for you resting on your shoulders.



Driving out of the parking deck we spotted this Aston Martin and it made me happy. Somehow I've always loved that about the Valley. Walking out of a building and seeing the most expensive cars imaginable. Not that I could ever dream of affording one, and if I could - I'm not sure I could stomach driving around something that costs as much as a crappy house. This is California after all. Houses aren't that cheap in the Valley yet. Those cars represent someone having made something great. I hope they enjoy them for as long as they can.

I see the natives are restless.

I see you guys tagging my site. I should have something for you later today.

What - you expected the virgin Mary?

The plan on Saturday was to start out with breakfast. We found ourselves at a little Honduran place that just opened in town.

Hey, it isn't a new Mexican place at least! Anyway, I've fallen in love with these things called sweet tamals. After the third time at the place, a light in my head went on and said " hey, these are just tamales". Tamal/tamale. See.. I'm smart like that. (eye roll)

Then sod, then the pumpkin patch.

The sod was quick, but the pumpkin patch threatened to derail me for the day. The place was packed. Especially considering you could get any old pumpkin for at least half the price at the supermarket.

We figured we'd get the sod in an hour, and then carve pumpkins.

Yeah. Not so much. Every piece had to be custom cut. We did get the robomower line run, and at least providing a signal. I guess we will find out in a couple of weeks if the mower will do the full run. For now it looks good on the dry run.

Today we have a big wind event. You know what grass hates? To be dried out by wind. It was the last weekend to be able to get that sod in though. Apparently, you have until the first of December. I mean - November.

Home instead.

Remember a couple of weeks back - I had my panties in a bunch of the tree trimmers blowing me off? Well, last week one of the guys called me back. So I ignored him. My refrigerator had just broken, and the storm came and went without really any damage.

He called again. I ignored him. Finally, he called a third time and I relented. Which basically gave him the feedback that he can blow people off, and if he is just persistent, he still gets work.

Anyway, we set a time for today - and Mr S. lined up a bunch of crap to do around the house. Like splitting up this expensive fancy grass I'd put on the side of the house. Then putting the splits somewhere else. I don't even remember the name of this stuff - but I love it. It doesn't need any water or any attention. My picture isn't great - but you are lucky to get any pictures at all. It was a busy day.

The other thing was trying to get the robomower to do my courtyard. It's been one of those projects that we've never gotten back to. For like three years. I had to let some of my grass die this year due to the drought, and it was the perfect time to run the line. And figure out if the mower will pick up the signal through the concrete pads we stuck down. I'll try to get pictures tomorrow. Because tomorrow is sod day.

Our first pass at this found a break in the line, and we had to dig down to the wire in between every single pad and see if we could get a signal from it.

To be continued......

Oh yeah - the tree guy came out, and he was completely normal. I assured him I'd talked to my neighbor about the tree thing and he was fine. (story here) I even went over there again to make sure. I'll have to tell you some of the things he said to me. But not now. Later. I'm tired Yo. The tree guy is coming in about 10 days. He's charging me less than the crazy guy, and I asked him to do more. (shrug)

Gmail hacking.

When I got up this morning, Mr S. said the following to me.

Him - I got a weird email from one of my old friends.

Me - What is weird about it?

Him - It was a letter asking for help. That he'd flown to Europe and had gotten robbed at gunpoint. They still had their passports, but they needed money to get home. His wife and kids were okay. (the wife's name was included in the email)

Mr S. goes onto say - I'm sure it's a scam. So I wrote him back and asked him to verify how we knew each other.

Me - That is weird. It sounds like a scam to me too. But, how do they know his wife's name.

Him - Right. And how would they know he had kids?

Me - I'm pretty sure it's a scam. I mean, how would you fly to Europe and not have a return ticket? And... I thought they didn't have guns there, I say sarcastically.

So, Mr S. winds up calling the guy. Apparently, it was a scam. It was a Nigerian scam.

The guy goes onto say - the Nigerians have apparently figured out how to hack gmail. And that he can't get Google to shut the account down. But, he has heard from a lot of people he hasn't heard from in a while.

Anyway. Just a warning if you have a Gmail account.

All roads lead back.

It was a few months ago, when I went to the kite festival in Berkeley - that Mr S. and I needed to find a breakfast place. For some reason we decided on this place in Oakland called Lois the Pie Queen.

Not knowing if it was a good or bad area of Oakland we were a little apprehensive. But, look at the name! Who wouldn't risk it?

It's the kind of place where the cooks are wearing Che t-shirts, and the patrons are straight out of a movie. This weekend when were were there, a couple of guys were dressed like they were in the matrix. Everyone just has very big personalities. And, the owners always greet you with a "welcome" instead of a hello. A little like being wrapped up in a warm towel from the dryer.

Well, this has set off the most unhealthy love affair with food that I think I've ever experienced. All over grits. Oh yes. I said it. Grits. I'm going to provide you with a picture in case you've never heard of them. But none of these look like the Grits from Lois the Pie Queen. Here. It's honestly like a bowl of love.

Now, I lived in the south for a while and didn't really care much for grits. All of a sudden I'm having a love affair with them. Not to mention everything they serve just looks great. Which forces you to order stuff you wouldn't normally eat. Like fried chicken for breakfast. Something I would never do. You can't get in a habit of having fried chicken for breakfast. Honestly. But OMG.

Anyway. I still don't know how good or bad the neighborhood is. A couple of times on the news people have been killed within blocks of the place. It is Oakland. Yet, I'd risk getting a cap in my ass because their food is that good. And I don't care about the Che shirts. I can look away from the love of communism for a minute. They could be having an entire revolution in the restaurant, and I would just look on. Eating my grits. Seriously.

Random shots of Berkeley.

I'm posting these in no particular order.



I thought this one was funny. Because - who are they kidding?



This is standard Berkeley. If you are aching for some tiedye. Berkeley is the place to be. Still. You'd think it was the 1970's there.



Makes the place seem nicer.



I have no idea. She was standing in front of the university. And no matter what Keyser says, it ain't that nice. I did find it an interesting shot. Though I took it on the run. I often feel self conscience taking pictures of random people.





You can't really travel five feet without some sort of overt political statement in Berkeley. The other space is filled with bums and hippies. I resisted taking pictures of a drum circle. Which I regret now.

Golden gates.

Red Eye.

Even though I've lived in California most of my life - I've only set foot in Berkeley a handful of times. I've been to the Greek Theatre, but I've never actually set foot on the UC Berkeley Campus. I thought my skin might burn.

So, when Mr S. found out that Greg Gutfeld from Red Eye was talking to the campus Republicans - my first thought was "There are Republicans in Berkeley?"

Anyway, we decided to scope out the campus. Which is pretty nice. It made me think that if my parents were rich and I wasn't such a dummy I could have gone to Berkeley. If I would have taken another path I would have fit right in with the hippies.

Even though Greg jokes on the show all the time about how short he is, you aren't prepared for how short he really is. However tall you think he is - cut that in half.

About an hour into the talk it reminded me that maybe I didn't go to college because I was stupid and poor. It was because I was too ADD. All those hours of sitting around listening to people talk. Just not my thing. He might have been talking about boobs in the photo above, but I'm not sure. But, he was entertaining and personable.

If you don't watch Red Eye, you should. It's one of the funniest shows on TV. They put it on at three in the morning for a reason. The TV censors are a little more forgiving at that time.

For your enjoyment.

Fall.

This is just filler. I should have some interesting stuff for you tomorrow.

Safety First.

Oh! This has a copyright now?

Are they out of their effin minds - or are you just jealous?

Some people may think I've gone on a little tirade against the firefighters. If they were in the private sector and not taking tax dollars - I wouldn't even care. But, you know we are having a little budget shortfall right now, and I tend to get a little bitchy about the whole thing.

So, when I found this Mercedes S500 in front of the gym, I had to take a picture.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said I run across firefighters driving luxury cars all the time. This one, (in case you were wondering) runs 83,000 dollars - 137,000 dollars. Here.

Of course that was 3 years ago. The S550 is today's equivalent and would only run about 83 grand. I wonder what the monthly payment on that thing is? It's gotta be like a grand or something. And you know he probably isn't parking it in front of a crapshack.

I've almost managed to run across one of these a month since I decided to start taking pictures. July here. August here. I ran across a Lexus last month, but it was only a 30,000 dollar one. I didn't really find it that one objectionable. It did make me revel at how yuppie firefighters seem to be in the Bay Area. Which I don't really care about. It is interesting though.

I do however have a problem when a bunch of them seem to be driving cars that cost twice the median income for most in the Bay Area. You know - because we are broke. But, whatever.