My friend Rob Totte and I spent the past two days crawling up the sides of Yosemite Valley. We’ve done a little rock climbing there while participating in a few classes there, but this was the first time we’ve attempted multi-pitch climbs on our own. The experience was like no other I’ve ever had. Continue reading →

My trip back to Michigan this past weekend was a bitter-sweet experience. The primary purpose of the trip was to attend my sister-in-law’s wedding. The ceremony was very nice and reception was a lot of fun. Her father can really dance a mean polka! It was great to see my parents and grandparents, too. Continue reading →

So ends a stressful week at work. I have to admit, I’ve been spoiled so far. I really haven’t had to work many late hours since I began working at Wells Fargo. This week was pretty painful, though. I fell vicitim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia”, but only slightly less famous is this: “Never go in debugging and tracking memory leaks though multi-threaded code that you didn’t write, when it’s for a project that is going into production in a matter of days”. Or something like that…Ah, but I’ll get by with a little help from my friends. Tomorrow night: Quake death match. Mmmm… frag therapy.A big shout out to Jennifer Richards, who’s birthday is tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Jennifer!

Okay. Totally bizarre. Jennifer and I received a voice mail around lunch time today from some guy. The message was “The cow goes MOOOOOOO!”. That’s it. No idea who it was. Am I missing something here? It was a little early in the day to be hittin’ the bottle. Whoever you are, as Marcy from Peanuts would say “You’re weird, sir.”

Between redecorating the apartment, doing repair work on one car, getting the other one washed, doing the laundry, geeking out the Apple way, going to a housewarming party, and doing a bit of shopping this weekend certainly was a whirlwind of activity. Continue reading →

Well, I guess I’ve got a little catching up to do. Jennifer and I recently went on a two week trip to England and Germany. And although it would have been possible to post new enties to the site during that time, I have to admit it was rather refreshing to have a vacation from the Internet as well (yes, I did check my email once or twice from Jennifer’s parents place in Bad Soden). I’ll get pictures up soon.This past week Jennifer and I saw two concerts up at the Historic Mountain Winery. The first was Norah Jones on Sunday night. We would have liked to have seen her up in San Francisco during the week, as that would have given us a few days to recover from the jet lag, but those shows sold out quickly. The Sunday night show sold out as well, but I was quick on the draw to buy tickets. 🙂 The concert was terrific. Norah has a beautiful, soulful voice and a down to earth personality. She was really fun to watch and listen to. It was a relatively cool night and she had to have a heater next to the piano to keep her hands warm. At one point in the show a fan rushed up on stage and offered her a leather jacket to keep warm, but the fan was quickly escorted off stage. Jennifer and I underestimated just how cold it would get considering it has been fairly warm down in the valley, so we huddled under my jacket, using it more as a blanket to keep in the heat and divert the wind.Friday night we saw Kitaro. This show wasn’t sold out, though I think it should have been. The music was terrific. Kitaro’s music is kind of like a mix of New Age, Classical, World, and a soulful Japanese movie score (yes, I do have ecclectic tastes). I found out about him though my parents, though I’m not sure where they heard about him. I don’t have many of his CDs, but I do enjoy his music quite a lot. Looking at his discography I seem to have his earliest release (Asia [1975]) which I really like and Kojiki (1990), which we only recently picked up. This concert wasn’t quite as cold as the Norah Jones concert, though this time we came prepared with jackets and blankets. We were late in getting to the show as we were half expecting an opening act. We had picked up some food to take with us and eat on the picnic tables next to the Winery. We ended up eating while listening to the first 20 minutes of the performance from outside!

I’ve just returned from a trip to Seattle for the wedding of one of my good college friends Maija Brissey (nee Schommer). She was one of my housemates for 2 years, along with 11 other friends, at 514 Monroe in Ann Arbor while attending the University of Michigan. This was the first time that many of us have been together at the same time since May of 1998. A lot has happened to many of us over the years and it was great to get a chance to catch up with each others lives. It felt like I had just seen them yesterday, and yet they were all experiencing very different life situations. Many of my friends are getting married or starting to have kids. One of my housemates has married and had a child. I’ve married. Two others have now married. One is engaged. I suppose this is the time of my life when it will happen the most. I can’t wait until the next time we get together. Continue reading →

A friend of mine convinced me to go see an avant garde jazz concert featuring Sex Mob and Bitches Brew at The Great American Music Hall on Monday night. I’m glad he did. Continue reading →

So I went to see Minority Report on Saturday. Surprisingly enough, even though it starred Tom Cruise, I rather enjoyed it. The overall look of the movie was very similar of Gattaca with colors and hues carefully chosen, and the overall message was fairly similar (beware of where technology is leading us. it is still in the hands of humans and is only as good as its users). though parts of the movie were fairly predictable (rather ironic, considering the movie revolves around three clairevoiants), there were enough plot twists and visualizations of the future that made the moving worth seeing. It has made me interested in reading more stories by Philip K. Dick.

After spending several hours in REI yesterday, I walked away as one happy camper. I’ve been looking to pick up a pack for backpacking for quite some time now. I’ve borrowed and rented a few different kinds over the past few years to figure out what fits, which packs were reliable, and which features are important to me. Continue reading →