Texas Tour - Day 0 (3/26)

March
I decided that I was working too much to the detriment of all else, namely my social and mental health (ironically, in a Japanese company even working too hard is not working enough). So I decided to take vacation to visit some college friends, and what better time to do that than during Rice's revered tradition Beer Bike (disclaimer: although there are bikes involved, there is no beer... anymore).

As luck would have it, only one person I contacted was planning on even going to Beer Bike.
So I decided to take a week and do some travelling to reach everyone. However, (miraculously,) I was able to get at least one meal out of each person I contacted, and didn't have any meals left over, so it was worth it.

I'd never flown on Continental before, but they had what I coveted most out of my trip: a direct flight to Intergalactic Airport (also known as George HW Somebody-or-Other Airport). Gullibly believing them when they announced they would be serving lunch, I didn't purchase any food in the terminal. The lunch was cheeseburgers. When I asked if she had anything meatless by any chance, she said "you can eat what I give you or not at all". They should call it Your Mama Airlines!

I was famished when I landed, and then I had to collect my luggage and pick up the car. Thank the goddess I reserved a navigation system because I got the last one (unfortunately I didn't get the Corolla I reserved - I got a Sonata). The first thing I did when I got out was find a Taco Cabana! Had my first bad experience with Hertz Everlost GPS. When I did finally reach the TC (having not been able to get there by the imaginary roads Everlost showed me), I ate so fast I almost got sick. My gods it was good to have a real tortilla again!

The sun had gone down by this time, and I still had a 3-hour drive to Austin. I couldn't have been past Tomball when the skies positively opened up in one of those rare but harsh East Texas thunderstorms. The rain was so hard I couldn't see the road, I couldn't see the highway signs, I couldn't see the land around me; and so loud I couldn't hear the hotel operator when I called to tell them I'd be late. I was able to make it by luck and following the tail-lights of the only other car crazy enough to be on 290 in Waller County, who I could only hope was staying on the road in front of me.

I finally did get to Austin about 2AM and checked into possibly the loudest hotel ever - at the intersection of Hwy 183 and I-35.

Looong overdue... continued

January
CZ announced she was leaving the Partnership. I was glad that she was upgrading, but sad that she wouldn't be just down the hall anymore. That stunk. Now she's making up for it by working brutal amounts of overtime.

The CaFCP were asked by First Lady Maria Shriver to run a taxi/limo service for VIPs during the Governor's 2nd Inauguration festivities. Decorum prevented me from taking pictures and getting autographs, so you'll just have to take my word on this: I drove Bob Saget, Jerry Zucker, Tom Arnold, and Tony-winning Dreamgirls star Jennifer Holliday between airports, hotels, and performance halls, while giving the typical Fuel Cell Spiel. Jerry Zucker is really knowledgeable and interested in alt fuels! Bob Saget is a really cool guy who dotes on his children in an adorable way. People said Ms. Holliday was rather rude, but I claim that all my years as a singer taught me how to handle divas. I thought she was pretty nice myself, we had a good conversation as I was taking her home from rehearsal, and when she emerged from Memorial Auditorium after singing at the Inauguration, she ignored everyone else and said to me "Hey, Songbird!" I felt so special!!!

February
Traveled, traveled, traveled.

Loooong overdue

I'm eager to update everyone on recent events, but I feel I should at least summarize the several months before that. So let's see if I can remember back that far...

November
Tried to join a church (ok, stop laughing, it was a Unitarian church) for several reasons: spiritual enlightenment, meeting people, and networking into volunteer activities that would hopefully entail more meeting people. Made it two weeks before the idea of sleeping in overwhelmed the idea of going to church, so you can imagine how it went. The spiritual enlightenment was so-so: I got the impression that the Universalists are so diverse in their beliefs that there's not much they can discuss during sermons except politics, because that's about all they have in common. Not that I particularly disagreed with the politics, but I was more in the mood to be happy than angry on a Sunday morning, and angry is pretty much all we liberals are these days. As for the meeting people, the median age of the congregation was about 65. Not really my target pool.

Went to Thanksgiving at the Oppenheimers' home in Stockton. Danny, my friend from Rice, is now a psychology professor at Princeton, and his folks have been looking after me since I moved to Sacramento. It was good seeing them all again.

Just after Thanksgiving I got some bad news. Dave Hermance, senior engineer at Toyota and stalwart promoter of alternative technologies, was flying in his personal acrobatics plane when it crashed into LA Bay. The initial headlines were "Long Beach Man Dies in Plane Crash"; several days later they were "American Father of the Prius Lost in Terrible Tragedy". I only had the chance to meet Dave a few times, but he was a great man. His death was a tragic loss to the company and the industry.
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December
My choir (the Valley Choral Society) had our winter concert. Were doing some good pieces (selections from Messiah, a few of the better Christmas carols) and some not-so-good pieces (a few of the cornier Christmas carols). I was a little horrified by the audience prayers and dedication of the concert to Jesus. When I joined the choir, no one told me that was going to be part of the deal. Seems less appropriate for community choirs (which this one allegedly is) and more appropriate for church choirs. Jared asked me what did I expect? Um, I expected for people to come and hear us sing, and for us to sing for them. However, that wasn't nearly as horrifying as my uniform - Yikes!

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Winter vacation was nice, but a little complicated since I was scrounging for rewards tickets.

Here's how I got there:
Drive car to work, park in secured lot (to avoid the street-sweepers and associated parking tickets in my neighborhood) --> taxi to train station --> train to Oakland --> picked up by Carmalyn et al for the night --> 4am taxi to Oakland airport --> Dulles airport --> Miami airport --> drive to Islamorada for family vacation

On the plane to Dulles, I sat next to a couple that looked oddly familiar. They just seemed to have that Rice aura about them, but I couldn't place them. After 3 hours I finally said to them "excuse me, did you by any chance go to Rice University?" They had, and we exchanged names (which I've unfortunately since forgotten) - we had no idea who each other were, and we couldn't find any common friends or activities. It's amazing how we can just tell one of our own. (Another good story about that in my Texas Tour update later).

Anyway, back to Islamorada. I spent a few days with the parents, sisters, et al, but somehow didn't end up with any photos. Sorry about that. My next stop was Lexington.

Here's how I got there:
Bummed a ride with et al to Fort Lauderdale airport --> flew to Charlotte airport --> my flight to Cincinnati was cancelled, so I called the friends who were going to pick me up to tell them I would be late --> as I was walking to my new gate, I heard a boarding call for Lexington --> as they were closing the doors I ran up and asked if I could fly standby and they got me on! --> flew directly to Lexington --> bummed ride with friends to my house

In Lexington I spent a few days with my best high school friends Loni and Saima, and also Loni's husband Arsenio. (Saima's husband was still in Pakistan at the time, so unfortunately we didn't get to meet him.) None of us live in Lexington anymore, but we figured it was a good central location between College Station TX, Sacramento CA, and Chicago. We had a wonderful wonderful time bringing in the new year!

Everyone's Favorite Day

Happy Crane Day!

Every February 15 we former Hanszenites celebrate the day a construction crane almost fell on our dorm but didn't. The most fitting way to spend this holiday is by playing hookie and drinking beer, in honor of the original event in 2001 - since we were prevented from going home and in no mood to go to class, someone ordered a keg instead. However, I didn't do any of either today. I worked until 7pm and came home to my Netflix of Sex and the City. Still, that doesn't make it any less special a day.

The famous Crane Day came not long after workers digging in one of Houston's omnipresent field drainage ditches hit a natural gas line and caused another Hanszen evacuation, which came many years after a fire destroyed the commons. Folks at Will Rice called it "God's 3 Failed Attempts to Smite Hanszen College". Of course God failed - we have The Guardian out front. HFH forever!

That is, until they tear it down to build the ExxonMobil George "F" Bush College.

Okay, I realize it's been an inexcusably long time since I last made a worthy posting. I'll try to do something about that soon.

Unwelcome news... and incitement to stop procrastinating

I have about two weeks' vacation stored up (a little over a year's worth of accrual) that I'd been saving for a mammoth friend-visiting trip all over the US, but had been putting off due to work, work, and well, work. Since October fell through, my next plan was whenever Willy Week is in 2007.

Then at work last month they told us that since we merged with another part of the company, we had new benefits, and one of the changes was that our vacation would no longer roll over. So I have until 1 Jan 2007 to take 10 vacation days... in the six weeks with the highest density of company holidays in the year.

And, not surprisingly, each of those few free weeks is filling up quickly... just today I heard about two "absolutely necessary" happenings at work during my only possible vacation week.

The reassuring thing is that we will get paid for our unused vacation in salary equivalent.
But I don't need the money.
I need the time.

On to October!

The last week of September consisted of pulling extremely long hours trying to prepare the schedule for our annual Road Rally. Then, if you know me, you know what happened the week after...

I got sick.

I couldn't get out of bed for 3.5 days (luckily - or unluckily? - two of those were weekend days), right before Road Rally. I kept promising The Big H I'd be healthy in time to go because I had a feeling it would come back to hurt me later if I didn't. I knew from previous experiences that he expected a good engineer to suck it up and get the job done regardless of failures of the flesh.

Instead, I was told not to be selfish, and not to put my personal wishes above what's best for the team.

This, my friends, is proof that a girl just can't win. If I'd really been selfish, I would have skipped the whole thing and gone to a best friend's wedding that weekend (note to self: get your friggin' priorities straight).

Well, regardless, I had committed to Road Rally instead. My health improved enough to get me through, and it was a good experience. God punished me, however, for missing Loni's wedding by arranging for my cell phone (w/ my best photos) to fall into a port-o-john in San Diego at the same time the wedding was beginning in Lexington. *sigh* More proof.

On the other hand, I was able to have dinner with my old college friend Elisabeth, who I hadn't seen in years and who had just recently relocated to San Diego. It was great seeing her again - we laughed and laughed, as we always do on those rare occasions when we meet up in various corners of the country. We've run into each other in Houston, Albany, and San Diego - where next, Minneapolis? It was also interesting (and shocking) to hear how her family and friends were affected by Hurricane Katrina - it's one thing to hear about it on the news, and quite another when it directly impacts someone you know. I can't imagine what they went through.

The week after that, as you can imagine, was solely for recovery. Big H gave us a day off to make up for the working weekend. I had several plans for that day, but ended up unconscious (either in bed or in front of the TV) for most of it. But I discovered the joy that is Arrested Development. This is Exhibit C in the case that Fox carries - AND prematurely cancels - the best shows on television (Exhibit A: Firefly, Exhibit B: Futurama).

I finally went back to choir, after missing three rehearsals in a row. You may know that I sing in a mostly Mormon choir (which MK calls the Tabernacle). The first was because I was sick, the second because I was at Road Rally, and the third because they changed location and I didn't know (MK thinks they were playing Ditch the Heathen). But I'm glad I'm finally back in because we are doing parts of Messiah and I love it more than a heathen probably should. Also, we are singing (among others) O Holy Night and Angels We Have Heard on High which, if I have to sing carols, are good ones. And when you sing with the Tabernacle at a winter concert, you know there are going to be carols.

It's been a long September and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last

So I promised to catch up before I fell too far behind. But I'm going to be cagey about the rest of September because it mostly involves my work (which is not uncommon these days). But believe me that the middle two weeks of this month were packed with travel, work, and serious overtime.

I did spend one night in Las Vegas as part of this travel. Everyone else had already been there a million times (crazy Southern Californians!), but I've never even set foot in Nevada. Luckily for me, my colleague and friend Crizzaig promised me a personal tour of the strip. "But first, a drink!" he proclaimed. Well, one drink turned into two, which turned into four, which turned into a promise to drive down it the next morning before we left (and a glass of the most extraordinary champagne to soften the blow - my one drink for the evening). Well, when the next morning came, I tried to collect, but Crizzaig wasn't there. Instead, I got told by Boo-Radley that tickets from Sac to Vegas are, like, five dollars.

The next day was the last day of the trip, and the guys were planning on celebrating the project completion by taking a swim in the pool. "But first, a drink!" Which turned into two drinks, which... well, you know the story. We ended up playing pool, but not actually going in one - which was just fine with me because the only suit I packed was my birthday suit and I certainly wasn't going to wear THAT to the pool!

After that was another of my regular trips to Detroit for SAE. And I have to say that Detroit Airport Smith Terminal is not only the crappiest terminal in the Free World, it also has the worst food. But the J-Man and I made up for it with our obligatory trip to La Shish, home of the creamiest hummus this side of Morocco and the famous gut-busting (so I hear) Flaming Tower (the J-staff insist on calling it La Shi-Shi, which I find rather funny because "shi-shi" means "pee-pee" in Japanese).

After the regular interminable delays in Chicago, I got home, and had to put in some serious face time with the katz to make them stop hating me for being gone so long. Feeding them soft food again helped. Dusty got in a fight, and the writhing furball that was this other cat and him rolled into the street and almost got hit by a car, so I put him under house arrest for a while.

Yes, I admit...

... that it's been over 2 months since I posted anything. So I'll try to make up for lost time. It might take a few posts, though.

September was a busy month. For starters, I finally got a new roommate to replace the semi-roommate I had from last November through this May. Grad student at Sac State. Friendly guy. Likes my cats.
(for those of you who picked up on the fact that I just said "guy", don't get excited - it's not that kind of roommate)

Labor Day weekend I went to Chicago to visit my sister Paige. Overall, we had a good time, and I saw many people I haven't seen in a long time. For instance, I caught up with my old high school friend, Saima, who just got married in June (unfortunately I missed it, since it was in Pakistan). She just started a podiatric residency in Illinois, and is now trying to import her new man, so she's quite busy as well. She told him I didn't approve of their marriage - I hope he knew she was joking!

One great thing about Chicago is that it is a very cultural town. We saw the new musical Wicked, which is the standard fare when anyone in my family visits (it was Paige's 5th viewing). I quite enjoyed it. After that, we went on the Art Tour, a self-guided walk around Downtown to see a number of public art pieces (including the famous Picasso, one of my personal favorites). A recent new addition was a work the locals refer to affectionately as "the Bean". Here's what it looked like from a distance:

And here's what it looked like up close:

In addition, we went to visit family in South Bend, Indiana. First we had lunch with some great aunts and uncles from my father's side of the family, with whom I've been sorely out of touch. Here we are:

After that, we were going to meet my aunt and cousins for coffee. I hadn't seen them in the eight years since my uncle died, and I wanted to mend the bridge, so to speak. I spoke with my aunt the day before, and she sounded like she was looking forward to seeing us again. Unfortunately, she passed away in the 24 hours between our phone call and our arrival in South Bend. We stopped by to see our cousins to make sure they were okay, but they weren't in the mood for visitors. It wasn't exactly the happy reunion we had hoped for.

No blog would be complete without...

... an adorable kitty collage!

Here are my two little ones, Ginger and Dusty.
Here's a fun game: guess which cat has which creative name!



Last Sunday I came home from running errands, and Dusty was on the porch waiting for me but Ginger wasn't. Immediately I felt something was wrong. Looked around a little and couldn't find her, tried to tell myself that she would come in eventually, but still couldn't kick the feeling that she was in trouble and needed me. The second time I went looking for her, I ran into my neighbor, and found out that his dog had chased her into a toolshed, where she had been hiding for hours and couldn't get out! I had to go rescue her, and although she was a little shaken she was fine.

Hey, I guess I do have a maternal instinct!