today’s commute was 1.5 hours long. i don’t know why it was so long and it just makes the day seem to go by more slowly. on the way to work, i decided to stop over at mcdonald’s to pick up some breakfast. i hadn’t eaten dinner the night before and i felt that i was in need of some food.

while happily eating my breakfast, some of the grease from my steak and eggs bagel sandwich dripped on to my shirt and now wherever i walk i can catch a whiff of the greasy meal i had this morning…also wherever i walk people can see a big fat grease stain in the middle of my shirt. greeeeat. i tried to go to the bathroom to blot it out, but it wasn’t coming out well so i decided to try and clean it out with a little water. now, i have a huge wet spot in the middle of my shirt. yeah…things aren’t getting better, just worse.

so it’s been a bit of a crazy start of a monday. at least i don’t have any meeting scheduled. that’s a relief.

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i went to donate blood yesterday. the last time i donated blood i felt very light headed. it’s been a long time since i donated blood and i don’t really remember much about it.

when i went in this time we had a series of questions that we answered and after that screennig i went to sit in this chair to donate blood. the actual blood donating takes a few minutes to do. i was surprised at how quickly the blood flowed.

my arm felt a little numb yesterday, but that quickly went away and i feel pretty much normal now. now i just have to make sure i keep eating well. hmmm, i wonder what i should eat for lunch today….

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so i saw the rosters for the new season for sunday night volleyball. this league is a little interesting in that every season captains are chosen at random and then they pick the teams that they want. i’m not sure i know a few people who are on my team, but i do know some others so it’ll be interesting to see how this season goes.

i bought a whistle not too long ago so that i can ref for this league. i don’t really like to ref much, but it’s a friendly league and we let a lot of stuff go anyway. we’ll see how this season goes. this’ll be my third season in this league, though my second in the B pool. sort of was hoping i might get picked up in the A pool, but i guess not. oh well.

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i have been interviewing people for a position that we’re trying to hire. while talking to this guy for the potential programming position, i asked him to describe the experience he had. after telling me about his experiences, i asked him to tell me about some of the challenges that he faced while programming that project. his reponse?

“the project was not too hard. i think the biggest challenge was in the programming part.”

…

really? that’s your answer? i mean, do you NOT want the job?

sheesh.

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maybe it’s because i’ve been spending less time in front of a computer and more time out that i’ve been posting less. maybe it’s because i have too much to say but don’t know if, when, or how to say. maybe it’s just because i’ve been caught so much in the moment that i haven’t had a chance to record any of my thoughts.

let’s see if i can first recap the long weekend. saturday was a bit busier than i had originally anticipated. my brother decided to celebrate his birthday on saturday instead of sunday so i had to do some schedule shifting so that we could meet up at dinner.

we had dinner at sundance steakhouse in palo alto. usually this place serves up a good prime rib, but i was pretty disappointed that their prime rib was not very juicy or tender that evening. probably the most disappointing experience i had there that night. but i still managed to finish off my 14 ounce serving which my whole family thought was an outrageously large serving of meat, but i thought was normal. oh well. it’s less than a pound anyway.

i also went mountain biking with [url=http://jimmy.ocliw.com]jimmy[/url], greg, and josh earlier that day. we went to the [url=http://mtb.live.com/rides/SoquelDemo.html]soquel demonstration state forest[/url] to do some single track biking. this was the first time that i’ve gone single track and it was quite an experience. greg was giving me some last minute tips on how to ride certain parts of the terrain and with each tip i was growing more and more concerned.

it was a 3 mile uphill ride into the forest and then a 10 mile descent through the forest which consisted of treacherously rocky, narrow downhill trails that snaked its way down the hill. after the initial ascent, i had to break for lunch and eat a sandwich that i brought with me to give me much needed energy. i was thrown over the handlebars at least 5 times over various parts of the trail, the worst of which was when i was trying to jump off a log. the log came up faster than i had anticipated and my front wheel just sunk down into the ground. i proceeded to be flipped off, over the bike and landed on my helmet and shoulder. i have a very nice bruise and scrape on my left shoulder which prevents me from sleeping on my side now.

some parts of the trail were so steep we had to walk our bikes up. some parts of the trail were so steep the other way that we had to walk our bikes down. if it weren’t for the difficulty of the trail, i think that i much rather prefer single track than open fire roads. i do like the technical aspects of the trail and it was a lot of fun, albeit painful.

i don’t know if i would do soquel again, but i’m totally up for more single track trails. greg said that if i could do that, then northstar would be a breeze. maybe i’ll spend a weekend there before the season is over…i think i need to get new gloves, though. mine feel a little thin.

sunday was spent playing volleyball in the park. after volleyball, [url=http://www.track15.com]dardy[/url] and i met up at tea era in mountain view to catch some pearl tea. i think that the barley milk tea there is my stand out favorite. it’s probably my favorite drink in the mountain view area. dardy and i got caught up on things, him on his trip to europe, and me with the current events of my life.

later that evening i learned how to play stratego with shirley. learned a lot about strategy with that game and am curious to play more. we’ll see how that goes.

this weekend had some incredibly ridiculous hot weather. i really hope things cool off because i don’t know if i can handle much more of this.

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not that i think he reads this, but in the event that he does, happy birthday, nelson!

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i am so glad that it is friday today. it’s been a long week and i’ll be glad to welcome the long weekend and relax just a little bit. not sure what exactly is being shaped up for the weekend, though. i have broad stroke ideas on what i want to do, but just don’t know how that’s going to work out just yet.

[url=http://www.phamily.org]paul[/url], [url=http://leafee.ocliw.com]leeya[/url], [url=http://www.drnonek.com]mike[/url], [url=http://www.ocliw.com/~nwang]nelson[/url], and mia left early thursday morning for their road trip to vancouver. i do want to go to vancouver, but i felt like the trip would have been a little too rushed in terms of all the driving so i opted to stay back here and just relax. so i think a lot about this weekend is going to be about relaxing. that sounds like a splendid idea. absolutely splendid.

jen is leaving tomorrow for hawaii with diana and jason tomorrow. their first trip to hawaii, but they are going to maui, interestingly enough.

seems like so many people i know are leaving on vacation…i sort of feel i should go somewhere too. but i have been tired lately and i do like to just relax. maybe i’ll go on a bike ride sometime this weekend. that ought to be fun, haven’t done that in a while.

i got into work early today. it’s kind of a nice feeling.

volleyball was a disaster last night. one of our setters hurt his finger and so i had to set. let me just say that i have a new appreciation for setters. but anyway, i sucked it up pretty hard last night and i feel like i let the team down. i’m really going to start to practice setting more diligently now.

my captain was giving me some pointers on how to set and a rush of memories came back to me when i was first learning volleyball. i felt like i was in uncharted seas and i was just learning everything all over again.

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my co-workers and i had a discussion about whether or not you make food or if you cook food. apparently there is a difference between making food and cooking food.

when you make food, you are just preparing the food to eat. there is no thought about how the items will come together and there’s more of a methodical way in which you make food.

when you cook food, there’s thought behind how it all gels together. there’s a synergy of food that lends itself to a meal. there’s a deeper understanding of how ingredients blend into each other to create a meal greater than itself. indeed, to cook food is more than the preparation of food, there’s a natural instinct to cooking the food.

so this means that there are three levels of food preparers. the food makers, the food cookers, and chefs. chefs are another level of food preparers that elevate cooking to an art form.

my co-workers said that they think that i’m somewhere between a cooker and a chef. i thought that i was somewhere between a maker and a cooker. there are a lot of foods that i have no idea what to do with.

what are you?

man, i am so upset. i thought that the santana row wireless internet was free, but apparently they charge for inet access just like anywhere else. what a crock. luckily there are enough wireless networks in this plaza that i was able to hop onto someone else’s, but still….grrrrr.

very aggravating. but i’m sitting outside in front of the big chess set in the middle of santana row waiting for vball to start up. but i am definitely quite disappointed that i couldn’t use the santana row connection. very upset.

i did a bit of shopping this afternoon and blew through a little wad of money. oh well, new shirts for me and my brother got his birthday present so that’s good. there’s one shirt i got at the gap that i’m really re-thinking. we’ll see how i feel about when i try and wear it later.

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