with my recent interest in biking, i haven’t had much of an opportunity to watch tv. as a result, i think that i’ve probably got something like 10 hours of tv queued up waiting to be watched. at this rate, i’m not sure if i will ever have the time to catch up on my tv. so sad. how will i know what happened with amy and ephram? what happened to angel, buffy, spike, and the immortal?

it’s weird that i’m doing all of these things outside of tv these days. it used to be that tv was my rock. it was what everything else revolved around. well…maybe not that bad, but i did watch a lot of tv. a few hours a day.

at night, i’ve been opting to read the da vinci code instead of watching tv. i’m not sure if i should be concerned, but i really do like the book so far. it’s just taking me forever to read it. i wonder sometimes if i have some kind of reading disorder that makes me sleepy whenever i try to read a book because within 10 minutes of reading my book i fall asleep.

yesterday after work, on a whim, i asked paul if he wanted to go biking. he agreed and we decided to meet up at the [url=http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/los_gatos/residents/events/creek_trail/map.html]los gatos creek trailhead[/url] in campbell.

we stopped over at nelson’s workplace where we indulged in a cold beverage and i got to check out his company’s product. pretty cool.

we biked the length of the trail and we were getting to the very end of it where it meets up with the lexington reservoir when on the very last big incline i started to hear this hissing.

i stopped to check out what the noise was coming from, and lo and behold it was coming from my back tire!

i called paul who had biked ahead of me to inform him of the situation. i decided to walk my bike up the last incline and then we would decide what to do. when i got to the top of the incline, paul noted that there was still a lot of air in the tire and if we hurry, we might be able to make it back.

so we jammed.

for about 3 minutes.

then i started to feel the bike getting heavier and i looked at my back tire and the sidewall was starting to give. paul also noticed that the tire was rapidly getting deflated and suggested that i should stop riding. so we started walking.

we were about 11 miles out away from our cars and we were walking about 3 miles an hour. it took us about an hour to get that far, but the prospect of walking all the way back would mean it’d take me nearly 4 hours to walk back to my car. it was not looking good.

paul informed me that he had a spare tube and patch kit so we could just stop over at the side of the trail and replace the tube and borrow someone’s pump. it sounded like a good idea to me. we decided to see if we could find a gas station in downtown los gatos and we walked a few blocks only to find no gas station in sight.

dejected, we decided to switch out the tubes at a park we were at and then just fill up the tube whenever we came across a gas station. at the park, i was beginning to take off the tire from the bike when paul goes:

“uh oh.”

“what?”

“well, i have the tube box…but there’s no tube in it! i guess i must have used it.”

“…”

“it’s ok, i guess we’ll just have to patch the tube then.”

“ok, sure.”

“uh oh…”

“uh oh?”

“i don’t have a patch kit.”

hahaha. at this point, i’m thinking, great, i’m going to have to either walk all the way back or maybe walk to nelson’s work and maybe he could help me out or something. or, worst case scenario is that paul goes and bikes back and picks me up.

so dejected, i’m about ready to turn around and walk my bike when paul says to me, “hey, there’s a bike shop across the street!”

i look over and i see the bike shop and laugh. how fortuitous! so we bought a patch kit and they let us use their pump and we fixed up the flat and rode home.

we did 20 miles in two hours (some of which was spent walking. =P) not bad and a lot of fun. i definitely think that i want to get a few spare tubes now, though.

biking: everyday is an adventure.

sometimes you just have to let things go. you have to try not to read more into a situation than there really is. sometimes you just have to take things at its face value and just go with what you know as fact. speculation can only lead to half-truths and assumptions.

all that ails me will be dropped like water off a duck’s back.

that’s what i tell myself whenever i start to get a little to wrapped up in something that is probably more than its worth.

—–

ah, just trying to make it over the hump. it’s wednesday and that means that it’s time to push through this day and coast through the rest of the week. i’m trying, anyway. i don’t have anything planned for the weekend, but i think that i’ll probably end up taking some pictures of the JACL volleyball tournament this weekend.

sunday starts up the JACL league. i’m still not totally sure if i’m actually on the roster or not, but i guess i’ll find out sunday when i show up and pathetically ask around, “am i on your team? no? can i play with you?”

sigh.

i’m hoping that today will be a better day than yesterday. it’s not starting out so good, though.

—–

it’s been one of those days.

quite often i liken myself to characters in tv shows. i think that the more i identify with the characters in a tv show, the more i end up liking that show. today, i think the character that i identify with the most is angel from the tv show angel.

how do i identify with a vampire with a soul, one may ask? is it because i’ve got rugged good looks and unnatural strength? no. is it because i have super healing powers? no, my ankle clearly demonstrates the lack of healing powers i’ve got. is it because i will burst into flames if i go into the sunlight? alas, no.

i am cursed. i’m not sure how to really describe this curse, but the gist of it is that like angel, if i am ever to exerience the beginnings of true happiness, my world begins to fall apart. odd, isn’t it? you’d think that if you were happy that things would be great. but it seems that as things seem to be getting better and better, life just starts to take a turn for the worse.

earlier today, i think that i really started to have a pretty positive outlook on things, but something happened to change my mind. it went from a good day to a dark day. i guess i’ve had all this time to slowly store away the pain of yesterday’s past, but it slowly boiled up to the surface. just when things were starting to look good too.

*sigh*

oh well, life goes on. i guess i’ll try to see where it leads.

—–

i don’t understand why coffee and donuts are sold together. i’ve never really liked plain coffee very much. my drink of choice at coffeeshops would have to be the white mocha. ultra sweet and easy to drink for me. i decided to get a donut and a mocha this morning and after eating the donut, the mocha was quite bitter.

but it made me think. maybe the mocha isn’t that bitter, but compared to the donut which is excessively sweet, the mocha just seemed like it was bitter. and it made me think about a friend of mine. maybe my friend wasn’t really unhappy, just compared to everyone else around them, it just seemed like it.

hmmmm.

—–

i can’t stop thinking about the lenses that other people had at the COBA shoot. i want a new lens…

sigh.

really, i do.

a nice lens.

just one.

or two.

please?

—–

over the weekend, i went on the COBA photo shoot which was focused with taking pictures from different camera bodies and determining where people will start to see a different when printing images relative to its file size. i think that it is pretty much agreed upon that 8x10s can be printed without a loss of quality with a 3MP camera. but after that, where do the pixels start to matter?

one of the folks at the photo shoot was the inventor of the foveon X3 sensor. the sensor is a very innovative way to approach imaging and when i first heard about it, i thought it would revolutionize the digital imaging world. to an extent it has, but there are some inherent hardware limitations to this sensor currently which make it less attractive to me, particularly its 3MP images…i sort of think it’s cheap how they claim it’s a 10.2MP image sensor, but anyway…

so i was talking to the inventor of the X3 sensor and he was telling me about how RAW images are the only way to compare two cameras because once its off the sensor, how you deal with the image is all software. and software programmers are crazy and their implementations can vary from programmer to programmer. and it is true. how you decide to deal with the RAW images is a big deal and it can vary wildly from program to program. but this is a very hardware-centric view of how to compare two cameras.

the software programmer may come to you and say that the images that come out of a camera are really dependent on the hardware and how bad of an image you start with and how much correction you need to implement on the software side.

personally, i have a consumer emphasis. so for me, i want to know out of the camera, which image comes out the best. which ones requires the least amount of post-processing on my part to get the image to where i want it to go. so whe i compare images, i definitely look at the combined effort of the software and hardware pieces to see where it brings me.

i don’t think it’s fair to blame the software because the sensor is good. the camera is bad if the software is bad. the camera is just as bad if the hardware is bad too. it is interesting to see how different people see the world though.

speaking of which, MAN, these COBA people are hard core. they all wanted to shoot everything RAW. now, i haven’t shot RAW in a long time, but it’s a serious pain in the butt having to process these. i need a faster computer.

—–

sometimes when i see you around, i don’t know if you are happy or sad. i can’t tell if you are having a good time or if you are questioning to yourself why you are here at all.

sometimes, when i see you hanging out, i wonder if you were wishing that you were somewhere else. that maybe you would be happier if you were anywhere but here.

sometimes i wonder if you are just here, by default, because you have nowhere better to be…and you are discontent with what you’ve got.

sometimes i wonder if i want to know these answers or not.

I was thinking that I might fly today
Just to disprove all the things that you say
It doesn’t take a talent to be mean
Your words can crush things that are unseen
So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way

when it comes to some things, i have pretty thick skin. i can be cold, i can be blunt, and i can appear to not give a care in the world. with some things i can be so detached from a situation that it would be hard to imagine that i was personally involved. i consider this to be one of my strengths in my professional life. sure, sometimes it means that i’m difficult, sometimes it means that i’m mean to vendors, but sometimes you just need to be that way. i used to be a pushover when i first started working and people would take advantage of me all the time. i quickly got sick of that and started to develop a backbone.

but when it comes to those i care about, it’s a different story. even the slightest hint of anger directed at me can affect me for days. even the smallest comment could gnaw at me and slowly consume me. if i found out that someone felt that i had wronged them, it would bother me. i’d want to make things right.

You always tell me that it’s impossible
To be respected, and be a girl
Why’s it gotta be so complicated
Why you gotta tell me if I’m hated
Oh please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way

like jewel, sometimes i wonder if maybe i’m just better off not knowing if other people hate me. if i didn’t know that, it probably wouldn’t bother me. if i were oblivious to the truth, maybe i’d just be happier. is ignorance really bliss? sometimes i’d like to think that it is because it seems to make life less complicated.

i think intellectually i know that it is always better to deal with any problems that are up so that it doesn’t get worse. sometimes trying to do the right thing is just hard…and who wants to make the effort to do the right thing when you can just as easily do the wrong thing with no effort? it’s the path of least resistance, right? right?

I was thinking, that it might do some good
If we robbed the cynics and took all their food
That way what they believe will have taken place
And we’d give it to everybody who’ll have some faith
So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way

sometimes i wonder if some people just don’t give themselves a chance. if they are just too hard on themselves and don’t give themselves the opportunity to be happy. maybe it does require you to be more optimistic. maybe it does require you to do a little bit more work. maybe it requires you to get out of your comfort zone. but i think that all of your efforts, successful or not, are definitely a worthy experience.

I have this theory, that if we’re told we’re bad
Then that’s the only idea we’ll ever have
But maybe if we are surrounded in beauty
Someday we will become what we see
‘Cause anyone can start a conflict
it’s harder yet to disregard it
I’d rather see the world from another angle
We are everyday angels
Be careful with me ’cause I’d like to stay that way

—–