Friend's House Rebuilt

I found a photo of the house before the fires. So here is the before-fire photo.



I hope they don't mind me posting these pictures, but I just drove past my friend's house and snapped a photo of how it looks after being rebuilt. I don't have a before-fire photo (I do now - see above), just an after-fire photo, and finally almost one and a half years later, an after-rebuilt photo.



They added about 1000 more square feet, and although I haven't had a chance to go inside, the house looks great from the outside. Very modern. However, I can think of much better ways to have your house remodeled. I'm happy they finally get to move back in to their own home and hope no more fires burn down any more house - ever.

Joseph Michael Cofrancesco

I just got home from attending a funeral and wake for Joey, who passed away recently. I didn't know Joey very well, but he was my friend's cousin and I had seen him several times over the years at various parties and event. I feel I know him much better today, which is kind of sad, now that he is gone. The funeral was held at the same place where we had the services for my Dad four years ago this month. I was feeling weird as a drove up and parked, but once I sat down, not in the front row, I felt better. It was a nice service, where Joey's life was celebrated and we were encouraged to laugh and not cry, and yes, everyone did laugh at a few of the stories told about Joey. I knew the place might fill up so I got there early, and yes, there were about 20 people standing in the back during the hour-long service.

Then there was a wake held at the Bernardo Heights country club. They ran out of parking and tables, but arranged some seating outside, which was fine because it was a nice, sunny day. I sat with my friend's, met a few people, said hi to the family, including Joey's daughter and father, who ironically was the one who bought my Dad's ride-on lawn mower four years ago. Joey's dad is, unfortunately, not in good health, but did remember me.

Tonight I might go see my friend's son play basketball, and tomorrow perhaps I'll do my taxes and then drop by a friend's house that just got rebuilt after the October 2007 wildfires.

Tractor on a Hill

I took a short break after my ride around Lake Miramar to snap this photo of a big tractor on top of a pile of dirt. I'm not sure what they were doing, but at least the operator of the tractor has a job.

Yes, I left work early (PTO) because I was not feeling good, but then came home, ate lunch, went to Costco and then took a bike ride. Now I'll relax.

Inspired Bike Ride

I was watching the Tour of California on TV and was inspired by the racers biking up to the top of Palomar Mountain. So I got on my bike and went on a 45 minute ride, during which I snapped this photo of the same mountain that the race was taking place on. It is kind of hard to see, but there is snow on the top of Palomar Mountain, and with REALLY good vision, you can see Lance Armstrong - just kidding. This was my second bike ride this weekend. I hope I can keep up my current exercise routine - it feels good.

Mobile Uploads From Phone and Late Christmas Gift

Yesterday while at was at the mall exchanging a pair of slacks, I journeyed into a Hallmark store and found a shelf containing last year's Christmas ornaments on sale for 60% off. The ornament I really wanted, and regret not buying in December, was a Star Trek ornament where Kirk is being pelted by Tribbles that fall on him and then get lifted on a belt back up and fall on him again. However, I did find this Simpsons ornament that shows Bart and Lisa watching the Itchy and Scratchy show on TV. I made this short movie with my cell phone and then sent the video to my home e-mail. When I viewed the movie online, it looked good. But when I downloaded it to my PC it looked very compressed, with lots of pixelazation and I saw the size was 500KB instead of 1MB. I could not figure out how to get the better quality video to download until I remembered I can copy any file off my cell phone using bluetooth, which my Apple computer has. So I copied the file to my MAC and then to my PC, where I was able to upload it to Blogger. I also sent the movie to my Facebook page (directly from my phone) and it displayed there with the better of the two qualities. It is too bad that Sprint compresses pictures and videos before downloading just to save space and download bandwidth, but I found a way around this restriction, as long as I'm at home with my computers and not on the road with just my cell phone.

Second attempt: The first upload to Blogger, as a .mov file, had no sound. So I converted it to a .mp4 file and uploaded it again and now there is sound. Don't know why the sound didn't play as a Quicktime movie.

Short Weekend

After enjoying a four-day weekend last week, it seems that this weekend is going by so fast. So far I have accomplished everything I had planned, which was to return a pair of pants at Nordstroms. Yes, I know, not very lofty goals, but then anything else productive I do makes the weekend even that much better. On Friday I left work and went for a very aggressive bike ride. I was trying to burn of some steam after having my intelligence insulted at work in an e-mail by a manager of a company that does work for my company. The bike ride helped, as did a good night's sleep, but I still feel kind of angry. After a huge lunch, a nap and a work-out at the gym, I'm already winding down my Saturday. I just found out about a big bike race in town tomorrow, which starts not far from my house. I have some friends going so I might join them. I don't know how crowded it will be, as this is the staring point for the last leg of the race and there are all sorts of festivities planned. I'll see how I feel in the morning and then decide on what to do.

Driving around Town

After going to the gym this morning, which I did after booking a flight to and a hotel at Buenos Aires, I drove around town taking photos of three buildings for my Facebook albums and groups. First stop was the Riviera Supper Club. Yes, it was a long ways to drive for a few photos, but I had no other plans for the day. After that I headed back to Poway to photograph Meadowbrook Middle School and Painted Rock Elementry School. I had not see Meadowbrook in a long time and it looks like they are doing some major remodelling after all these years. Painted Rock has not changed much at all. A new building where the bike racks used to be, but otherwise it was the same school I remember. It looks as if they have not re-paved the teacher's parking lot in 20 years. It was in very bad shape. On the way home, I stopped at Bev'n'more to buy some strong ale beers, including Racer 5.

Speakeasy Speed Tests

I have used this site for years to test the speed of my Internet connection. For the past year it was at 10000 Kilobits/second. Today it measured at 16000 Kilobits/second. Somehow TWC increased the download speed over 50%. How nice.

Exchanging coins for cash at Pacific Trust Bank for Free!

Over the years I have been emptying my pockets of change when I come home. When the pile gets too big, I put it in a baggie and store the coins away. I was reluctant to use the coin machines that charged 7% to get cash for my collection. Then someone at work told be that you can exchange coins for cash as Pacific Trust Bank, even if you don't have an account there, which I don't, for free! So this morning I took my bags of coins to the closest branch and the tellers were very helpful. I jammed the machine once with some odd coin and they had to unjam it, otherwise the process went very smoothly. The machine spits out foreign coins and even silver coins. I had one silver dime - what a nice surprise. The machine gives you a ticket which you then take to the teller and get cash for. I would recommend to everyone with spare coins to go to this bank and not use the coin machines that change a fee.

A productive week at work

I accomplished everything I wanted to do this week at work and more. Even better, I started learning a new programming language which will be very helpful if I need to find a new job at the end of summer. Since one of our programmers left last December, I had to step-up and finish his work. He was coding a program in C++, which I have very little experience in. By figuring out how is code worked, I was able to write come C++ code of my own with the help of a book and the compiler which found all my coding errors. If I had coded this in 'C', it would have taken one day, but I would not have gotten the experience that companies like to see on resumes. Not knowing C++ has been a big problem when I have applied for jobs in the past. They want at least two years of experience with C++. If you have NO idea what I'm talking about then consider yourself lucky.

So anyways, I'm off work for four days :-) and I guess my plans will depend on the weather. They seem to change the forecast every hour. It went from heavy rain on Sunday and Monday to "possible showers". I hope to go on a hike during the sunniest day, otherwise more time in in the gym to work off my beer gut.

Newer Refrigerator At the Office

It was a week later than promised, but this morning a new (or at least newer) refrigerator appeared in place of the broken one. Since it was just plugged in, there was no food in it yet. It is much bigger than the old one, and a better color than avocado green. However, there is already controversy brewing. Since the old fridge was government property and we don't think this one is, and it occupies space owned, or paid for by one division, but was bought by someone from a different division, someone may have a problem with it. We'll see if anybody really cares. It's just a refrigerator!

Riviera Supper Club

I just got back from the Riviera Supper Club in La Mesa and had an excellent dinner with friends. This "new" restaurant is one of those places where you grill your own food. It used to be called Turf Supper Club and located in Golden Hills, but recently move to La Mesa. The new location is slightly easier to get to, has much more parking, is way bigger inside with more, roomier tables, and the menu now includes cooked sides like baked beans and onion rings. There is also a bar inside called the Turquoise Room, which glows with a turquoise hue and also has a fair number of booths for eating and drinking. I had the usual, a sirloin burger with cheddar cheese and a Guinness beer. The sides and some dessert were a nice bonus.

Refrigerator Killer at Work!

Last week I overheard some woman saying she was going to defrost the fridge at work, since it does not have auto-defrost and the freezer was a virtual iceberg. Well, I had Friday off and got an e-mail from someone at work telling me the refrigerator was dead. Apparently she did not read the warning "Do NOT defrost using a sharp object". She punctured the refrigerant lines with a screwdriver and thus released ozone-destroying Freon into the atmosphere and killed the old, olive-green fridge. Well, that's one way to get a new refrigerator. However, to make matters worse, even though she put some of the items into another fridge, she left the ice to melt everywhere. Luckily, someone came into work on Saturday and placed large, melting chunks of ice in a trash can, preventing a flood of the floor and carpet. She said she was going to replace the refrigerator, but as of today she hasn't.