The Survivor fun carries on.....

We got the link to the finale party organizer's flickr page. Check out all the photos of the craziness. The coolest ones are of us, of course. Let me just say in my defense that I did not, I repeat, NOT make the yellow sign you see me holding or on the ground in front of me. Someone made it before we got there, so since we were in front, they wanted us to hold it for the TV cameras. Not that they put us on TV or anything....

Jeff, however, DID make the red sign. Apparently Yul claimed in high school to be named after Yul Brenner, who played the king in The King and I.

Yul Rules!

I got to do a once in a lifetime sort of thing tonight. I got to watch a friend of a friend win $1,000,000 on TV tonight, live.

Yul Kwon became the most recent winner on Survivor. We've been faithfully watching all season since Kerriann went to school with him. We've had high school reunion-style TV parties and everything. Tonight's party, however, took the cake. We managed to get ourselves invited to the hometown celebration in San Mateo, CA at a bar called Kingfish. Kerriann and I and a handful of her closer high school friends joined over a hundred other people to watch three full hours of Survivor thrills. And the best thing is, we watched a live satellite feed from the East Coast, so we knew he won about three hours before everyone else did.

If you saw the celebration clip on CBS, I was the red sleeve in the bottom right hand corner, right before they cut back to the studio in Hollywood. None of us actually made in on the screen, but here are some pictures and video - we really were there! It was so much fun. The cheering you saw wasn't live, however. We faked that about 45 minutes before he actually won. They had us fake cheer three times. You saw take three. We actually cheered a lot more once we saw that Yul actually had won though. Anyway, enough writing. Check out some photos. I'd put some video up too, but most of it I think I'd get in trouble from CBS for.

The Projection Monster

Kerriann's gone and done it. She's purchased a new TV. A DLP model - projection screen. That supposedly means it won't burn out as fast as a plasma screen TV, but isn't quite as pretty. She batted her eyes at the Best Buy guy and got him to knock an extra 10% off the already rock bottom deal she found. It's huge. 42". Which may not SOUND huge, but compared to our 21"er, I mean, like wow. She won't have to sit two feet away from the screen on a folding chair anymore. That means more cuddling with me on the couch. I guess the TV is on okay purchase after all. Now if we could only afford cable...

Weekend Update: Gone fishing with suicidal dog

Kerriann, Ripley, and I spent the weekend at Lake Tahoe with K's father and sister. The drive up was frustrating for me and scary for Kerri. Against my urgings, she scheduled an eye doctor's appointment for Friday afternoon so she could get out of work early with a justifiable excuse, instead of just wanting to beat rush hour traffic. (our last trip to Tahoe took us 6 hours instead of 3.5 because we left too late). So she got her eyes dilated. The problem is that over the past few years she's developed this intense fear of driving in the dark. Or riding in the dark. Especially on windy roads. So on top of riding on windy roads in the dark, THIS time she couldn't really focus on anything for the entire trip. On straight freeways. In the bright sunlight.

After much arguing and holding on to the oh-shit handle of my car, we found the cabin. It was themed. We'd seen pictures online, so sort of knew what we'd asked for, but I had no idea how crazy it would be. My maternal grandfather would have been in heaven with all the fishing gear strewn about the place, meant to be decorations. Ripley was right at home because of all the animal skins lying about the place. Much lab report grading ensued. There was more puppy frolicking in the lake. Money was lost in casinos. Uno marathons were played. We soaked in a possessed hot tub (the jets would turn on by themselves).

We went to Austin's Restaurant for dinner Saturday night. This place caters to the mountain man, with entrees like chicken fried steak (breaded, deep fried beef), chicken fried chicken (that's right, not just fried chicken, but *chicken* fried chicken), pork chops (3), 16 oz. of salisbury steak, etc. I tried to go veggie, ordering the French onion soup, a house salad, and the marinated portabella mushroom. I was stuffed halfway through my soup and salad. Good solid eats. Check them out (they're in Incline Village).

We packed up Sunday morning and were just about to leave when I realized I couldn't find my cell phone. We searched forever, then decided to retrace our steps from Saturday night. We checked the Wells Fargo ATM - no dice - then headed back to Austin's. When we returned to the restaurant, we were met with a sign telling us they had just closed the night before for two weeks for a vacation. That's right. Not opening again until November 20th. How do these things always happen to me? The great part is I could *HEAR* my phone ringing. No mistaking my ringtone of Madonna, loud and clear through the door of the restaurant - "ring, ring, ring goes the telephone, I'm done. I'm hanging up on you." A nice woman at the apartment complex next door asked to help. She knows the owners. She made some calls. They were all already out of town.

So don't try me on my cell for two weeks.

The drive home was uneventful. More urging from the passenger seat to slow down, more insistance from the driver's seat that we weren't going very fast.

I dropped Kerriann off at hospice on our way home. In an effort to unload the car alone sans dog, I left her in the house unsupervised for about five minutes while I made a second trip downstairs to get our stuff. I opened the door with an armload of luggage and food to find a very guilty looking dog who immediately slunk out onto the porch. I found half a leftover Enteman's chocolate cake in an overturned box on the floor of the living room.

Anger mixed with intense worry.
Chocolate is toxic to dogs.
Right?
Is that an exaggeration?
How much is too much?
It's Sunday. Our vet is closed.
Google search "chocolate dogs"

"You can recognize that your dog has eaten a toxic dose of chocolate from the symptoms. Within the first few hours, the evidence includes vomiting, diarrhea or hyperactivity. As time passes and there's increased absorption of the toxic substance, you'll see an increase in the dog's heart rate, which can cause arrhythmia, restlessness, hyperactivity, muscle twitching, increased urination or excessive panting. This can lead to hyperthermia, muscle tremors, seizures, coma and even death."

How to treat a dog with chocolate poisoning:

Induce vomiting - use hydrogen peroxide or syrup of ipecac

We don't have any
Old fashioned way?
Yuck
Dogs have no gag reflex
Call emergency vet

For a 35 lb. dog, a toxic dose of milk chocolate is 4 lbs. (wow!)
Of dark chocolate it's 10 oz.

She's probably safe, but may just have GI tract problems.

whew.

Is this what it feels like to be a parent all the time?

Delayed and Dismayed

So here I am, sitting in the Las Vegas airport, tired, bored, and getting increasingly annoyed by the doo-doo-doo-doo noises from the Wheel of Fortune slot machines that are everywhere. You know the sound - the one that plays as a new puzzle is framed on the TV screen and Vannah smiles her plastic smile.

I'm waiting for the last leg of my trip to be over. My first leg was delayed leaving Oakland by an hour. Luckily Southwest was kind enough to hold my connecting flight to Tucson so I could actually get to my destination Friday night. While I was exceedingly happy about it, most of the people I passed on my long trek down the aisle of that plane were bitching about having to sit on the plane at the gate for an extra half hour waiting on ten random strangers to show up. One man's trash.... So for the return trip I got to fly through Vegas instead of LAX. Leg 3 was late, and the plane for leg 4 still hasn't arrived at my gate. I probably won't get home till close to 1 AM. But I'm impressed that Southwest was 0 for 4 for my trip. I'm not looking forward to the trip to Seattle in a month, but at least it's a direct flight.

And now comes the comment about the absurd rules in place at airports that are meant to help with security. Check it out. You can have as many bottles holding 3 oz. or less of any liquid, as long as they fit into a quart sized, sealable bag. But the kicker is - the bag must be transparent. Nevermind that the security workers can pull out the bag from your suitcase, individually inspect all the bottles that are less than 3 oz. and confirm that they do not in fact contain liquid explosives. If they can't put them back into a clear bag, you throw them all away. The intelligence of the rule floors me. Needless to say, I lost all my travel sized toiletries on my way to AZ. On the way back, no one bothered to check. Good thing I had my ziplock bag with me.

The Fruits of My Labors

The Fall Lineup

I'm going to be busy this fall, so try not to expect too much on the blogging front. Well, you can expect, but expect of Kerriann. She's not been holding up her end of the blog. Remember, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood. I need help.

So what am I up to? Next weekend the fam (K and Ripley and I) are going up to Tahoe with our friends, the Ickies (that's Mikki and Vicki, in case you don't know) and their two pups, Tigger and Kaya. Kaia? Hopefully we'll return with pictures and a pocketful of money. Gambling will ensue next weekend.

The following weekend K's on her own with the pup while I travel to sunny (hopefully) Tucson, AZ to conduct a Princeton Review training.

The weekend after that I'll be camping in the Mendocino Woodlands at the 10th annual Camp Swing. This has become the last vestige of my dancing hobby. I used to be good. Now I can just barely remember when I used to be good. It's tons of fun whether you're a new dancer or a vet though, so I keep going year after year. And my cabinmates and I have to defend our title - we've won some type of award in the cabin decorating contest two years in a row.

The following weekend we'll be back in Tahoe vacationing with Kerri's dad and sister. And then I think I get to do something that doesn't involve me driving my brandy new car three to four hours twice during a weekend.

Marriage rights

The California Appeals Court decided that they should not be the ones deciding whether queer people can marry or not. It should be decided on by the legislature or the voters. California's legislature historically did just that not all that long ago, and the Governator vetoed it, saying the courts should decide. The people have already spoken with the outcome of Prop. 22 a few years ago. Where does that leave us? Back to educating the populace.

Wednesday is National Coming Out Day. Support your fellow human beings out there, and talk about it if you're queer. Studies show that the more people who personally know gay/lesbian/bisexual people are more likely to have favorable opinions about marriage rights, adoption rights, military service, etc.

Car trouble

There seems to be something weird going on in the universe with respect to cars these days. First my coworker totalled his car leaving school at the beginning of the summer, then I totalled my car leaving work at the end of the summer, then another friend totalled her car not all that long ago, and finally, my good buddy had her car stolen from her condo parking lot. What gives? I guess this is how the car industry stays in business. I mean, if cars are super dependable and last a really long time, who needs to buy another one? Unless it gets crushed by some random bad driver, stolen by a joy rider, or you have a midlife crisis and decide you need to drive a European sports car (Kerriann, you do NOT need a Porsche).

The Matrix is awesome, by the way, and Ripley seems to be okay riding four feet away from me, in the very back hatch space. Much better than slip sliding around the entire back cargo area that exists upon folding down the back seats completely flat. While it's quite entertaining for me to slam on the brakes or drive in and out of my parking garage, she gets a bit upset. My little girl needs some security.

My friend

My friend passed away yesterday. I had planned on seeing him today with my Mom but he passed before I got over there. It makes me sad - Pancreatic cancer goes so fast - 1 month from diagonsis.

He had his own blog maintained by the family to keep all of his friends and family updated on his condition. I thought it was a good way to keep everyone informed with out needing to call or email a lot of people.

Kerriann

Where am I?

TV's best show is about to premiere for the season this Wednesday. LOST returns to baffle us all, and leave us wanting more. Both of my LOST-watching coworkers from last year have moved away, so I may be all alone in this little vice of mine this season. BUT, Kerriann has sucked me into watching this season's Survivor with her (she went to high school with Yul, one of the Korean guys on it this year). So far, Yul's looking good - he's found the immunity idol from Exile Island and is dominating the online popularity poll on the Survivor website.

Not sure which show I'm more embarrassed about - the one with the polar bear, horse, and talking black smoke that magically appear from the wilds on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere, or the one with cuddle puddles and a ditzy roller girl that make stolen chickens disappear into the wilds of a tropical island in the middle of nowhere. Stay tuned for updates.

Benefits

Kerriann and I have received our first domestic partnership benefits today. Not that we've actually filled out any paperwork to become legally "partnered" in the state of California, but we now have a single multi-car insurance policy and just saved ourselves $400 a year on car insurance. By the way, we love 21st Century Insurance. They were awesome with my car accident, gave me a GREAT price for the value of my car, and are quick, thorough, and friendly. Highly recommended if anyone's looking to switch.

Joe Testa is my new best friend

I got my new car today. Joe Testa, the internet/fleet manager at Downtown Toyota in Oakland sold me an indigo ink 2007 Matrix XR with cruise control for $1000 below MSRP, the exact price I asked for. I didn't have to haggle or stress, the whole process took three hours with all the paperwork, and I have the exact car I want. Finally. I think it helped that I went in at 4:30 PM on the last day of the month. And paid cash.
It's actually more of a navy blue, but this is my new baby. There may be a christening soon. Not sure what she'll be called yet. And real pictures will be available soon, once it's light outside again.

The Last Few Weeks

Well, it's been a good three weeks since my last post, due mostly to the fact that I now have a full time job again. School has begun, and I'm finally back into school mode with a vengeance. I've been staying up way too late, drinking way too much caffeine, and telling Kerriann I'm just about to leave work, then remember twelve things I have to do or getting sucked into more fun conversations with coworkers.

So here are the highlights of the past few weeks.

The new student retreat
This is the only chaperoning event faculty members compete to be accepted on all year long. Why? We camp for three days, two nights, have very little to do because we've got great upperclassmen to do all the dirty work, get to go whitewater rafting, miss some of the beginning of the year teacher meetings, and most importantly, we get out of doing other horrible chaperoning duties, such as breaking up students freaking on each other on the dance floor during school dances in the hot sweaty gym. I never attended a single one of my own high school dances, so going to Bentley's as a chaperone is a little creepy.

Well this year at the retreat, I got to drive myself to the campsite since I needed to leave a bit early to attend a wedding the same weekend. No bus chaperoning duty for me! Excellent. But, because I had a car, I was the lucky chaperone tapped to act as ambulance driver when a student had a peanut allergy attack one night after eating dessert that we oh so intelligently served in the dark. Not sure what we were thinking. So imagine driving as fast as you possibly can, safely, with a 15 year old boy in your backseat going into anaphylactic shock with the hospital about a 20 minute drive away on twisty, unfamiliar, poorly lit roads. The student's fine, by the way.

The commitment ceremony
My ex-girlfriend from my college days has finally tied the knot with her partner in front of all the requisite family and friends. It was quite lovely - in a park in San Francisco, pretty close to the bay, lots of friends as part of the ceremony. Weird to see her younger siblings all grown up (I'm so old), but a fun evening. Which brings me to the conundrum of - what the hell do I want my commitment ceremony to look like? No clue. No political statements during the ceremony for me, but no idea what the vows should be, no idea who will officiate, no idea who will be attending, no idea where we should have it, no idea when we will have it. The hope had been to get hitched next April. Don't see that happening now. Maybe end of next summer?

The return to school
In an effort to make this year easier by getting students to do some of my prep work while acting as TAs for my lab classes, I've created another prep for myself. Now I have to teach the TAs too. I'm not sure this was the way to go yet, but the kids who've expressed their interest are all my former students and are all rock stars. I must be doing something right, so that makes me feel pretty good. I was also told by two other students from last year that I was the best teacher they've had - ever. That kind of made my year, so it's all down hill from here.

Back when I was in school, we never did anything fun and out of the ordinary during the school day. Just class. If we were lucky, we might get to go outside to do some physics lab or something (I hated physics), but nothing like what Bentley did today. Today was Field Day.

Bentley has an interhouse system, just like in the Harry Potter world. I happen to be in the Centaur house, and we are the reigning champions. We stomped the Dragons, Minotaurs, and Gryphons last year, mostly due to our amazing showing in the final event of the year - four way Capture the Flag. Well today was a mini field day to start the year off with some school spirit. Students competed in an egg toss, wheel barrow/piggy-back relay, hula hoop caterpillar race, body surfing race, tug of war, and capture the flag. While most events saw a few students stretching the rules in the heat of the competition, for the most part students and faculty were very sportsmanlike. Until the stakes got high. In our version of capture the flag, each team begins defending 6 softballs in their home base. They also try to steal the softballs of other teams. The game started with 6 balls in each of 4 teams, making 24 balls. At the end of the game, 26 balls had been "collected". Hmmm. Now if you're gonna cheat folks, you have to be a little more subtle than that. We ARE teachers, after all, and are here to make sure you know how to count and measure and do math and can read. And play fair and follow rules. Not sure what happened today, but I was pretty bummed by it.

The dog entered daycare
Ripley made it through two hour long interviews that I had to pay for, so that I could then continue to pay the same people to watch her during the occasional day while I'm at school. Doggie day care is HUGE in the bay area. The first place, called Pride and Pedigree, is brand new. Virtually no client base so no playmates for the Ripster and the warehouse smelled like brand new rubber flooring, but it's about ten blocks from my house. You can't beat that convenience. The second place, called Happy Hound, is a little out of the way, but has been around for a while and came highly recommended. I had to wait a week and a half to schedule Ripley's interview. I was so proud when she was given the thumb's up at this place. Apparently she's got more separation anxiety than we thought since she didn't want to play with other dogs for a good while after I left her on the first day. She warmed up eventually though, and I even got to watch her during the day on their webcam.

Ripley's also now been in the bay as well. We went to Point Isabelle with Mango and her family and while on dry land, the dogs played happily together with the other bajillion dogs that were in the park. But when the lab in Mango came out and she ran into the bay after her tennis ball, the shadow in Ripley got the better of her for about 15 seconds. But then she realized she'd just run into WATER, which she HATES, and was quite comical as she high stepped it out if the water as fast as she possibly could.



And then my sickness prone dog got doggie pink eye. Did she get it at day care? Did she sniff the wrong dog's butt at the park? Did she get something in it in the woods playing with Tia? Who knows. But now I have to apply ointment to her eye three times a day for five days. She likes that about as much as she likes the water.

Ripples

Ripley, our new dog, got a new bed yesterday. Well, she got a bed yesterday. She only had a crate before. Ripley doesn't like her crate. It's taking her some time to warm up to the bed. She'd rather lie as close to me as possible on the floor than about 6 ft away from me at the foot of my bed, on her bed. After much coaxing with treats and hanging out on her bed with her, all to no avail, I moved her bed. (Note to Nikki: "no avail" means it didn't help.) I'll try slowly moving her bed an inch a day to where I want her to sleep. Or maybe a centimeter a day. We think she's Australian. This could take a while.

Shake it Like a Polaroid Picture

A tiny earthquake was enough to startle me from sleep, yet quick enough to leave me confused as to why I was suddenly awake at the ungodly hour of 5:58 AM during the summer. (Teachers have the best gigs ever.) The USGS confirmed, just a brief moment later, a quake of magnitude 2.9 on the Richter scale.

The top 20 largest quakes of all time in the United States are mostly in Alaska. Interestingly, the tail end of the list is brought up by the ones in California - while numbers 7 and 9 (OF ALL TIME!) were in a little midwestern state....Missouri. Hmmm, looks like they're long overdue for another one. Who's shakin' in their boots now?

When lightning strikes twice

At least this accident totalled my car, and left me relatively unhurt as opposed to the last accident where I was busted up and I forgot my car at home. Of course this time I have health insurance. But I got to wait for 1.5 hours for Kaiser to take five X-rays of my neck, just in case.

My two year old Corolla bit the dust last week when a woman plowed into me in an intersection in Berkeley (Milvia and Dwight). Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers - right after I crawled out the driver's side window because my door wouldn't open (think Dukes of Hazzard - Bo, not Luke), a guy walked up to me and offered himself as a witness saying the other person was totally in the wrong and had run the stop sign.

External damage looked pretty bad on the front end, but I never thought it was a total loss. 21st Century said otherwise. So I'm looking for a new car. I don't know how much I'll get offered for the value of the Corolla yet, but I'm thinking about a Matrix now that I'm living the high life and can afford a little more car this time around. Unless anyone else has a great recommendation for a high gas mileage (~30 mpg), four door, hatchback (new dog) for 20K or less. All wheel drive is a bonus. Now that I've gotten the comments bug on the blog worked out, I expect several suggestions from my new fan base.

Good Storytelling

With friends and family scattered to all corners of the globe and a new addition to the family, I'm going to try to be accessible in this strangely passive way. I like putting the onus on all of you to figure out what I'm up to. Bummer for people without internet access.

I know two people with really fun blogs to read, but I've been told by one of them recently that boring people have the best blogs. Only time will tell where I'll fall on the interesting scale.