Monthly Archive for December, 2007

Year in review

Published on December 31, 2007 in DailyGrind, France, Netherlands, ResidentHipster, Travel and Xena the Dog. 0 Comments

I like doing year in review posts because way more happens in a year than I remember. Day to day life always seems so uneventful to me so it is extremely nice to have a little list of stuff I’ve done in the last year. In making up this list, I kept wanting to add things that had happened in the fall and winter of 2006. I guess I’m thinking in academic years.

This year I:

- Picked Xena up from my parent’s house and proceeded to have a pet larger than a hamster for the first time in 10 years.

- Sort of unexpectedly fell in love with Paris all over again after visiting for a weekend.

- Took the LSAT and actually did really well on it. Which I’m rather proud of even though I decided not to apply to law schools this year.

- Walked the dog in a small hurricane. Pet ownership is awesome. :/

- Ran around in the snow as often as possible.

- Got an espresso maker and learned to make a mighty fine soy latte.

- Celebrated Queen’s day in Amsterdam.

- Learned a lot about Dutch culture via shopping for camping gear.

- Went on many bike trips.

- Discovered that camping in France is super awesome.

- Ate one of the fanciest dinners of my life while dressed all grungy. In a cave.

- Decided that trying to be a tourist in Tours is probably just a bad idea for me in general.

- Made a mad dash across Paris by bike to catch a train.

- Made a mad dash across Amsterdam by bike to catch a train.

- Made a mad dash across Berlin by bike to catch a train.

- Had an awesome time in Berlin again. Man, that city is great.

- Went to Prague for the fist time.

- Made a mad dash across Prague by bike to catch a train.

- Went to Dresden.

- Biked from the Hague to Brussels.

- Learned a lot about Dutch culture including the fact that you can ask any random person on the street about where to finding camping and they’ll be able to tell you.

- Learned a lot about Belgian culture, not all of it great.

- Decided to never again drink Jack Daniel’s because they use the Confederate flag in their European marketing. Which on top of just being offensive and upsetting in general, it also makes it really difficult to figure out where and who you should avoid in Europe.

- Canoed along Dutch canals.

- Got an amazing new camera.

- Went to the Eco Cathedral, which was more awesome than you’d expect.

- Ate a lot of homemade ice cream.

- Biked from The Hague to Copenhagen.

- Discovered that staying in fancy hotels isn’t actually all that great. But they do have nice bathtubs.

- Made a mad dash across the Hamburg train station carrying a folding bike and a lot of equipment.

- Took a ferry from The Netherlands to England.

- Learned to take apart and put back together my giant bike of doom.

- Moved back to California.

- Decided to go back to school.

- Hung out for a day up in Marin and remembered how amazing the California coast is.

- Went to New York and this time didn’t get chased by any cops.

Tales of yard work form Apple Valley

Published on December 29, 2007 in Apple Valley, DailyGrind and ResidentHipster. 0 Comments

Now that John and I both live outside of Apple Valley, when we’re home together we have tons of heavy lifting to do around the house. My Dad’s not as mobile as he was ten years ago so most big projects have to wait for us to be home. This week we were tasked with pruning back the six fruit trees out in the front yard and cutting off bits of dead tree here and there from the other trees in the yard.

My family once had over eighty trees on the property, but due to some snow storms a few years ago, most of them ended up falling over and are now big piles of mulch out in the front yard. I’m sort of annoyed. I’d dug holes and helped to plant all those trees when I was growing up and now they’re all gone.

But we still have the fruit trees and they still produce a nice little crop of fruit every year. But they’d gotten very tall and needed to pruned back so that Mom and Kristen could actually harvest the fruit. I don’t like the idea of either of my parents using ladders so John and I tried to make sure the most of the branches were only a little over my head.

We ended up with three or four pick-up truck loads of branches after two days of pruning. Just to put that in perspective, I think that when we cut down an apricot tree that wasn’t producing fruit last year, it ended up only being one truck load’s worth of tree. I felt bad cutting back the trees so much but Mom assured me that they’d be fine and continue to produce fruit so I guess it is ok?

This is the first time I’d actually gotten to run any kind of chain saw. I usually end up doing all the clean up when there are power tools being used. When we cut down the tree last year, I just loaded all the branches into the truck and made sure John didn’t trip on anything. I’m still out moving a ton of gravel around or taring roofs, but when it come to power tools, I tend to shy away a bit. I do make sure to have people show me how everything works, I just end the lessons in the theoretical stage. Power tools sort of scare me because they work so fast and I have trouble holding things at anything but an angle, so I’m worried about fucking up something badly. Yesterday, however, John and I alternated between running the pole saw and dragging the branches around. The little electric chain saw is surprisingly heavy, I have to say. I didn’t expect it to be so hard to keep up in the air.

I ended up with a bunch of small scratches all over my arms. I’d forgotten to bring a hoodie form home and had to borrow the oversized things my parents have around. The sleeves kept getting in my way and so I kept pushing them up. I also managed to scratch the side of one of my knees. I keep a pair of ripped up jeans here to use when doing chores, but they’re in such a state of disrepair at this point that they’ve ceased being useful for protection. I’m going to have to fish out a little worn pair to leave down here again, I guess.

Today we go down to visit my sister Fay and her family. Tomorrow I think we’re getting up early to burn the tree limbs that we cut down yesterday. Mom bought marshmallows.

You can learn a lot from TV

Published on December 27, 2007 in ResidentHipster and USA. 0 Comments

When I go visit my parents in Apple valley, I end up watching a lot of TV. Anyone who knows me knows that I love channel surfing. I end up watching all sorts of weird things. TV teaches me all kinds of useless facts.

Like just know I learned something very special. I’ve learned that Wendy’s in the DC area and in Virginia have call centers taking your drive-thru orders. Seriously, people. Call! Centers! Taking your order! Off site! From miles away! Call centers! Is nothing sacred?

The call centers are actually in Virginia and not, like, overseas. But still!

I’m agin it.

Weee!

Published on December 21, 2007 in BayArea, DailyGrind and ResidentHipster. 0 Comments

I just got my Translink card in the mail today.

*Tosses emergency $3 bus fare money back into the normal part of my wallet*

I’m constantly worried that I’m going to end up stuck somewhere in the middle of the night without enough cash to get me home. I used to carry around Muni tokens, Bart cards and a 10 ride AC Transit card with me at all times. Right now the Translink card only works on AC Transit (well, it works on a few systems that I don’t use as well.). But in the (in theory very near) future all I’ll need in this one card. Because in the future everything will work, you guys.

Arty

Published on December 19, 2007 in DailyGrind, Oakland and ResidentHipster. 0 Comments

I’ve been spending much of my idle time thinking about how I want to set up my apartment once I get moved in. I’ve been thinking about different bedding options (has anyone used the sort of japanese futon that you can roll up and store in a closet? Are they the sort of thing I’d want to sleep on long term?) and various organization systems. I’ve also been thinking about decorating. I’m planning on getting a few of my photos blown up and them framing them. but I’ve also been looking for other pieces of art that I like. Les and I went to some galleries and open studios this last week looking for paintings to give for Christmas. I’ve also been keeping tabs a few websites looking for ideas.

I saw a post on Apartment therapy yesterday about London based illustrator Linzie Hunter’s series of illustrations based on text in email spam. I really rather love them, although I’m having trouble picking a phrase that I’d actually want framed on my wall. AE suggested this one:

Which I do enjoy. Not only because the idea of me worrying about my cup size being too small is really funny in a surreal way, but also because I love that thanks to this spammer I’ll have to blame my embarrassment on something other than my cup size. Nice.

I sort of think doing a cross-stitch sampler of choice spams would be fun.

I also like the two prints she has up on the 20×200 site.

This all got me poking around various sites looking for prints that I want. I still love the You’re Impossible print that I posted about a while back.

I’m also rather fond of this winter themed piece from Tiny Showcase. I also like this other winter-y one.

From Thumbtack Press, I’m enjoying this and this.

So much stuff to like. Last week I saw a small painting of the the W from the Quik Way (now closed home of greasy fries, whole pies, and giant prawns) sign. I also saw a huge painting of the Quik Way which I really liked. The W was something that I could actually afford, though.

Movin’ on up

Published on December 8, 2007 in DailyGrind, Oakland and ResidentHipster. 0 Comments

Wee!

I’ve been apartment hunting on and off since I got back to the US.  I was totally spoiled by my last apartment what with it being larger than your average one bedroom and in a great area and totally reasonably priced.  I was trying to find something similar and just wasn’t having the same luck.

And then I saw an ad for an apartment in my old building!  It’s also a large studio with good closet space and a separate dining room.  For 40 bucks less a month that I was paying before.

I’d looked at an apartment owned by my previous landlords back in October and they were very nice and offered to be a reference for me.  So they were happy that I was still looking for a place now and wanted to make sure that I’d get first crack at it.

So I’m signing the lease on Monday evening and I’ll be moving in January.

Home coffee tips form a hippie

Published on December 7, 2007 in ResidentHipster. 0 Comments

Just so you know, oat milk doesn’t like to foam at all when heated over a stove.  It still tastes good warm in your coffee, but you will not have a nice foamy latte.  Soy milk, however, creates a nice foam when heated over the stove.  It’s a tiny bit watery when used with a steamer, though.