End of Four Days

I started these four days off with a six mile hike and ended it with a six mile ride on my bike. In between I ate and slept.

Housing Bubble Blog

I'm not sure what the purpose of this blog about the housing bubble is, but there are some interesting posts about the housing situation around the country. Well, it might be interesting if you are a homeowner and are thinking about investing in real estate.

Yes, it is Memorial Day and here I am indoors reading blogs. Maybe a bike ride later today.

Just use Cash!

Why do some people use a credit card to pay for low priced items like a $.99 bag of ice? Just use cash! I had to wait for 5 minutes for the man in the check-out line to pay for one bag of ice! It took me less time to buy $44 worth of food. My general rule is: if the total is less than $20 I use cash. It is not that difficult people - get a clue.

Street Scene 2005

Or should it be called "Parking Lot Scene 2005"? This year the annual Street Scene is being held in the parking lot of Qualcom Stadium. The upside: more space. The downside: a parking lot? They only way I will go is if there are three good bands playing one night. If Garbage, 311 and The White Stripes are playing on the same day then I might go. But how much fun can one have in a big parking lot? The allure of the previous Street Scenes was that they took place Downtown and you could go into the local bars if you got board of the music. Plus, now that both days, Friday and Saturday, are all ages, you are forced to go to "beer gardens" to drink. A beer garden is a nice name for a fenced-in area where you can drink beer in a confined area like a wild animal!

Paris Hilton Made me Eat a Burger

Wow. Advertisements do work. I had a craving for a spicy six dollar burger from Carl's Jr. today. Boy, did it taste good. Especially with beer. Yes, I am a hungry young male - the target audience. I knew I should have invested in their stock the day before the advertisement premired, as advised by some coffee drinking man on CNBC.

After Work Hike

As you can see from the photos below, I just hiked Iron Mt. once again. I was going to do it in the morning, but decided I had time after work to hike it tonight (I got back to the bottom just as the sun set). Plus, tomorrow I can sleep in and get a good start to my four day weekend. Now my reward - a very cold beer!

Made it to the top!

Looking East from the top of the mountain.

Iron Mountain at Sunset

View from trailhead.

A Picture Share!

Car show.

Noise canceling Headphones

For the past six months I have been looking for some kind of headphones to wear at work to protect my ears. I work in a noisy room and I think the constant background noise from the air conditioners and computer fans has damaged my hearing, causing a constant ringing in my ears. Headphones that just block out sound aren't made to be used 8 hours a day. I considered getting a pair of noise canceling headphones but I didn't know if they would work well enough, plus I couldn't find any I liked. Someone at Radio Shack suggested that I try the Bose store. So I went there this weekend and tried their premium headphones and boy did they work well. They can be used without any music and without being plugged into anything. This reduces the noise by taking the sound waves and inverting them, thus reducing the sound you hear. Using the headphones for music, like all Bose products, sounded great. I bought the set and tried them out on Monday. They did a great job of reducing the noise from the air conditioners, but not so good reducing the noise from loud people. There is a side effect though - they make me dizzy and nauseous! I can't explain that. Hopefully I'll get used to their effect and the dizziness will go away.

Final Star Trek Enterprise Party

Last night I hosted a party for the last episode of Star Trek Enterprise. Everyone enjoyed the pizza and beer, the same could not be said about the last episode of Enterprise. The second-to-last episode which aired just before was probably one of the best episodes of the short lived series. Why did it take so long for the writers, directors and producers to realize that what the show needed was character development? The final episode of Enterprise was basically ruined by the characters of Commander Riker and Consoler Troi. I guess the producers decided that the Enterprise cast couldn't carry the story, so they got two popular actors from The Next Generation to join the show. Having them in the episode was a distraction and made the story confusing. There was a reason that Buffy was not in the final episode of Angel. Oh well. Maybe the next Trek series will start up in five years and Rick Berman will NOT be involved.


The highlight of the night was the drinking of Romulan Ale. This blue-green beer is a great novelty but I can't say much about its taste.

Volleyball After 10 Years

For some reason yesterday I decided to play volleyball for the first time in ten years, and today my muscles are in pain! I must be getting old. Well, it didn't help that I did a workout at the gym the day before. I hadn't planned on playing volleyball. In fact I don't even like the game anymore. But somehow I ended up at Mission Bay on a very sunny day after buying a butterscotch milkshake. So I dropped by the place my friend said he would be playing thinking it was too late, but they were just setting up the net. I remembered the basics, bump, set and spike. However, the ball never went the direction I wanted. I got better as the day went on, and must say I played no worse than I did ten years ago. At this rate I won't play volleyball again until 2015. See you there.

Framed Art

I recently had two pieces of art custom framed. The first is a poster that my Dad had stored away. He worked on the Viking project (as well as Apollo). I had this poster custom framed at Aaron Brothers and they did a great job (which they should have for the price I paid).

The second piece of art I had framed was a water color painting by my Mom. She had several water color paintings - this was the largest one. Once again, the frame and matting look very nice. Both of these pictures are now hanging on my bedroom walls.