A Busy Monday

Yesterday started off normally enough. Wake up too early; fight to get the kids dressed, fed, and out the door. I dropped SKGP off at school, and went in to work.

I completed and mailed the state and federal taxes for the Rucker Home & School Club, wrote some work related checks, and checked some other items off my to do list.

From 3:30 to 5:30, I worked with the Rucker (SKGP's school) Principal and SKGP's teacher, Mr. H, to narrow down the list of architects from 15 to 6 for the Rucker rebuild. Then I went to the gym, relieved Nana from EJP duty. I watched SKGP do some gymnastics, and tried unsuccessfully to help the girls do some kind of bar exercise.

I took EJP home and washed the dishes while RCP made calzones for dinner. During dinner, I got a text message and a voice mail from my VIP (police volunteer) team leader. I ignored that for a bit. The phone rang, and it was someone looking for me to run for my state district's Libertarian Party state senator seat, which I declined.

After I finished eating, I decided that this would be as good a time as any to start actually doing something with the VIPs, so I called my leader back and left him a vmail. Then, I suited up, and drove to where the text said the issue was, arriving a few minutes before 8.

Around 7:35, a truck ran into a bike. I gathered that the guy was hurt pretty bad and might die; there was quite a bit of blood in the street, and his bike was broken in half. While we didn't learn anything last night, the newspaper reports that he's going to be fine.

For the next 3.5 hours, I stood in the cold with a little flashlight with a red plastic cone on the end, waving at cars to keep moving. I chatted with some of the other volunteers, and learned some of the basics of keeping a crime scene clear. I learned some things that I need to add to my kit, like gloves and warmer socks. I lit a flare. I watched the Gilroy PD team do a real survey of the area. It was an interesting, if boring and cold, experience.

I got home a little before midnight.

Good News

I let Garbanzo out on Sunday night, and a while later we smelled some skunkiness.  I went outside and found the cat and he hadn't been re-sprayed. Yay!

Also, I got a call from Yosemite, and they had my wedding ring.  They FedEx'd it and it got here today, and is now back safely on my finger.  Double yay!

Choose Your Own Adventure

I've been reading some of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from my childhood with the kids. As I'm reading them, Ive been wondering if it is possible to get to every page and if there are any interesting properties, such as loops, in them. Today, using the magic of AT&T's Graphviz, I generated digraphs of two of the books. Behold, House of Danger:

And here is Space And Beyond by R.A. Montgomery:

JEP, Mechanic

I successfully changed the windshield wipers on the van this morning.

We bought the blades at Costco yesterday, so I think this job saved us a bunch of money. It was harder than you'd think -- I had to try to figure out the geometry of the slots and tabs. The internet saved me (again).

Dream about jaking

Another dream. This one was complicated. But one of the the interesting parts was when I ran into my friend Andrew. He told me that he was changing one class for another, and he was really excited about this other computer class that he would know be taking.

I looked at him and told him that he was "Jaking on me." He instantly knew what I meant...

Our freshman year of college, Andrew, Jake, and I were all in the same program. The three of us sat together in the back of the various classes, and often weren't the most attentive students in lecture. In fact, Andrew and Jake met when Andrew noticed that Jake was the only person who slept more than him in class. (Don't get the impression that we were complete losers. Jake would finish any test at least 10 minutes before anyone else, and always got good grades. Most of you know how Andrew and I turned out.)

Then one day, in our junior year, Jake started to pay attention during our Electricity and Magnetism class. He stopped reading the newspaper, bought a 4 color clicky pen and took copious multi-colored notes, and sat in the front of the class. He went on to become a very good radio engineer. Something pretty early in that class grabbed him.

If I recall correctly, the non-dream Andrew jaked when he took the Computer Architecture class, which he followed up with the graduate level course.

I don't know if I ever jaked. Perhaps in the OS class, or working at Tandem. I know at some point I became a filesystem geek and a Unix afficianado.

Dream

I dreamed I was biking around downtown Davis.

10th Anniversary Cruise

In early August, RCP and I went on a cruise for our 10th (!) anniversary. It was a 4 night jaunt, from LA, to San Diego and then back up to Catalina, then to Ensenada, Mexico and back to LA. If you look at a map of California, you will see that this routing doesn't make any sense -- the harbor is 20 miles from Catalina.

When booking the cruise, I spent some time finding the cheapest fare, and Orbitz won. It was about $750 for the two of us, which I thought made the whole trip a cheap date. Our room was small, but it had a window and we weren't under water.

We left the kids with Gram and Pop, and they seemed to have a good time.

Our dinner companions were nice people. One of the couples was married on the same day as us, so the night of our anniversary was festive. Another couple was from Brazil, which is fascinating because why would someone come from Brazil for a silly cruise along the California coast? (Answer: they were here for a job thing.)

I bought a bottle of absinthe in Mexico, which is banned here. I appear to retain my sanity, so it isn't everything its cracked up to be.

I discovered that I like playing blackjack. I won about $150 on the first night (which is HUGE stakes for me), and stayed about $100 ahead for the rest of the trip.

This ship doesn't really compare to the Freedom of the Seas, which is the huge boat we took last year. The crew on this one seemed like they were in training, compared to the amazing service we had on previous cruises.

Star Trek Interrupted

I was watching an episode of Star Trek (TOS) last night, which Tivo had picked up earlier this week. The episode was about halfway over, and we'd just returned from a commercial break. Then, mid scene, the screen changed to the G4 logo, with the message that G4 had moved. That is, they changed what channel represents G4.

Smack in the middle of a show.

Stupid Charter Cable.

Recurring Nightmare

I just had my nightmare again.

I've enrolled in a non-major course, as well as my computer science stuff. Perhaps it is for GE credit or something. It is some sort of Indian mythology or history. I went to class once, and the professor said there was a giant research paper due at the end of the quarter. Then I stopped going, but I never dropped it.

When I realize I'm still in the class, I try to find when and where the lectures are, and what the texts are, and what the giant paper is on. I also try to figure out how to drop it.

Its very disturbing.

Dream

Last night, I had a dream that I was tired.