Just read who dies in the Harry Potter book. Eh, don't want to ruin it for everyone else but this book seems to deliver. My sister pre-ordered it so I was went to the midnight party at the Barnes and Noble here in Laguna Niguel. Lots of fans all dressed up. Anyways, they started selling them at 12AM and she got it just like 10 min ago. After skimming along, I found the PAGE OF DEATH. It's Page 805.
Too tired to type much more. I'm leaving OC for the Bay Area today also in the early morning. Ouch.
Happy Father's Day to my Dad!!!
Relaxed yesterday with a trip to Muir Woods. Originally, was supposed to hang out in Napa but it was too late for that kind of trip. Had a lot of fun although we did only the easy trail instead of the long way that goes all the way up onto the ridge. Afterwards, we headed out to this Arabian restaurant in the Mission District called Amira which featured belly-dancing. I've never seen belly-dancing before so this was definitely a frist for me. Pretty intricate stuff. The first belly-dancer we saw was Heidi's professor at Berkeley who we'd come especially to see. Nice place although really cramped. I had to stretch out my legs every so often. Parking was also horrible in the Mission District. Jesse kept on circling around looking for parking, always being kept a step behind. Hate parking in SF.
On a side note, Leah is taking up knitting. Crazy stuff. Incredibly hard diagrams to follow.
I did take this one picture that was so cool I had to share it. Somehow all the settings on the camera came together at the right moment. It's of Muir Woods. The second one is of the second belly-dancer that we saw that night.
So woke up early yesterday to get down to Stanford. Didn't wake up early enough though cause I needed to get gas and cash and traffic was heavier than I had imagined. Had the hardest time finding the right building but eventually got it. Met a lot of people from all over the country. People from Penn, NYU, UBC, UCSC, UCSD, UW. Lot of CS Majors. It was a lot of fun talking about what we were going to teach. This guy Jeff from UCSD really cracked me up with his jokes and attitude. The training session was pretty informative but I think everyone got more out of the CPR training. Scary stuff really. I don't ever want to have to use that training on anyone especially one of my kids. So I have to come up with lesson plans before I get started. Cool stuff, I want to be the best instructor these kids have.
After that, I headed back to the Berkeley area. I had developed an instant hunger because they didn't really satisfy my hunger down at the orientation. At first I was just going to head to Sushi House but thought better of it and went to Pusan Market instead. Ahhhh....good stuff. I bought a Spicy Tofu Sauce packet and tried it out last night. Good stuff. Got some authentic Korean silverware (you know the flat stainless steel chopsticks and spoon). That market had the craziest specials. $2 for the large eel. Great deal.
Hung out for a while at Heidi H and Lisa's place after that. Heidi's friend Deidre and later Jesse came over and hung out as well. Lisa had a particularly interesting Scientific American which I pored over. 2 articles really interested me. 1 was on scale-free networks or well-connected networks as it's known in Berkeley. The other was on synesthesia. What interested the other people was the article on parallel universes.
Had the instructor's orientation yesterday. Pretty much a whole day affair at Stanford. Got my CPR certification as required. I'll talk more about it all later. Must get sleep now.
The green stylesheet is more like a jade though. Need to work on that.
Those images below I just threw up. I've been wanting to do so for a while now but got the urge last night to just do it. I made some automated actions for Photoshop so I don't need to spend too much time editing each photo. Took me forever though to get the steps in the actions just right and even then it's not totally what I want it to do.
So the first pic is of the church at USF during a particularly funky nighttime sky. Wish I had a tripod there for that one. Same with the shots of SF/Bay Bridge from Treasure Island although for the really clear one I had the help of a railing. Still the wind affected the shot. Just had to look up the difference between affect and effect. Pretty small difference if you ask me. Anyway, another pic is of the latest iteration in Pot Roast (the Peppercorn) and another is of the new and improved Union Square area.
Another reason why some of the pictures are shaky is because I kinda had to take them in illegal parking areas of Treasure Island. Couldn't stay there long enough to find good stabilizing platforms. Mostly, camera-in-hand work.
Whooah! Well, the stylesheet/banner changer just got implemented. It uses cookies so if you disabled it, no changing for you!
Ran into some issues with the domain and the cookie. Problem had to do with the redirect service. After I implemented the style changer, it was really a simple matter to turn off select parts of the html at will. I implemented it for the Java banner because that's where most of the problems occur.
Still have problems with the Java banner colors. I can conceive of quite a few ways to handling that little problem but I'm looking for elegant solutions.
Well, anyway, that's that. Another PHP module done.
This morning didn't start off very well. As I was going up Alcatraz towards Berkeley, I noticed up ahead that the police had taped off the intersection in front. Needing to take a slight detour I went around and ended up in the intersection they had taped off. Blue plastic blanket on the ground. Not good. A couple of cars were parked kind of randomly and the police were out doing pictures I guess with a whole lot of surveying equipment. Not sure if it was a hit and run or a homicide or a suicide...never can tell around Martin Luther. Didn't seem like a homicide though cause they usually have all those little standup cards (you know, the ones they have at Carl's) to show where all the bullet casings fell. Hit and run definitely possible cause there are a lot of people in the Bay Area that feel that they don't need to use anything like a crosswalk at all. Not that I use it all the time but... People do drive a bit faster on Alcatraz mostly because its a good straight-way, wide open boulevard that doesn't get a whole lot of traffic. Later on, people had put up flowers and cards. Don't know who this Matthew person is, or how old he was, but in a way it really echoes how life is a very precious commodity.
Pretty much determined that the problem is with Windows Explorer itself. DOS seems to read into it just fine. No idea how to fix it yet. I've applied all the stupid patches.
Cable internet service is starting to piss me off. Sometimes it's really great and other times I would kill for a dialup.
In the interim period between that long lull in posts, the parental units went to Alaska on a cruise and back. Hope I'll see those pictures soon.
Recently, I found a bowling ball someone had decided to get rid of. There are tons of that going on. Happens every year when students move out. So I am now the proud new owner of a ball named Ray. Maybe he will be my Wilson.
Thought that I might start listing some GREAT places to get good food at reasonable prices. Here's my all-time favorite for Korean food due to its impressive collection of small dishes, atmosphere, decor, and clothes-clinging smoke phenomena...
Koryo Wooden Charcoal B.B.Q.
4390 Telegraph Ave., #J
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 652-6007
Korean is also good at the Food Court near Soda Hall. I've been to quite a few other places for Korean food. That place down Telegraph in that funky courtyard...but these two stand out. The newly-opened KoKo House (also on Telegraph) is good for late-nights, beer (I guess), and the Soon Doo Boo ain't bad. Small dishes though are definitely lacking although much better than the Food Court Korean (measly pince of kimchee).
Next time, Best Japanese Restaurants
Dynasty Warrior 4 is coming out for Xbox! HoooooHah.
Went to the Gym yesterday. They have this little metal structure that helps build up the abs. Freaking thing made situps REALLY difficult. The wind was really strong yesterday blowing up the waves and stuff.
Couple of nights ago, I went over to Treasure Island to take some nighttime pics because my dad had asked me how I hadn't taken them before with the Bay Bridge and the city right at my doorstep. Pictures were really hard to take at points due to the high winds. Couple came out pretty good though. I was also able to get a couple shots of the lunar eclipse and a bright full moon.
As I was shopping around at 99 Ranch, I saw conch for sale. Conch. You know those shellfish that spirals around. So I had to get one and see how good it is. Man, I've had sea snails but conch is totally the way to go. Stuff is the bomb.
The apartments next to us are getting their roofing fixed. That means tons of stuff flying around. I accidentally left the window open and particles got in but I think it messed up my cd burner. Now it burns but for some reason, the only way it can read files is by using Nero. Going to test to see if it's a problem with XP or whatnot.
Couple days ago I woke up early and went for a jog around the marina. For a while now, early mornings have all been pretty drab. Wasn't many people around. It was actually pretty nice. I was hoping that I could go to the market afterwards and get a little OJ but alas, the Watergate Market was again not open. That place is one of the most useless places around. They open late and close early.
After the unhappy episode of Beach vs Cellphone, I was able to get a replacement cellphone from Craigslist.
