undeep_thoughts

Mom tells me Bill Clinton recently made a visit to Havre, Montana. OMG!!!!!!!! This is a sure sign the world is going to end, right? I mean, if Bill's in Havre, Chelsea's in Billings, and Hillary and Obama are in Missoula, that means those oh, so few Montana delegates are worth courting. People, they have 16 delegates. 16! And Montana is practically the last state to have a primary (ok, they tie for last with South Dakota)!! I don't think anybody's ever cared about Montana's delegates before.

Ok, I admit it. I'm just jealous. I'd love to hear Bill speak but California is so yesterday's news...

By the way, you might want to brace yourself for the whining. My whining about the weather, that is. After weeks and weeks of Mother Nature struggling to reach the low 80s on a daily basis, Sacramento is scheduled to get slammed with 100 degree weather by Thursday. *sob* 

Plus, there's apparently going to be "plumbing and electrical" work being done Wed, Thurs, and Fri at ye olde apartment. My landlord left a message with those as the only details. Makes me wonder if the building didn't pass inspection or something since the only other detail on the note said "per Sacto city." Dammit, now I actually have to call and talk to him so I can get the details. And I so hate talking to him! *sob*

Bet you thought I'd never get around to writing up more days from my Japan vacation, didn't you? Well, my allergies making me unable to breath while treadmilling (ie feels like asthma in my lungs!) is just bonus for you... if you happen to want to read of the continuing Tokyo adventures, that is. It was truly a loooooooooooooooong day.

Well, filled with the veggies I just snacked on, I have the energy to write up another travel day. So, how was the jet lag, you ask? Well, I answer even though you didn't really ask, for the most part I was ok. My body always prefers traveling westerly directions because it has fewer problems staying up late than going to bed early. I didn't sleep incredibly well but that's hardly unusual for me. What did get completely whacked was my internal body clock. Well, it actually didn't get whacked at all, rather, it alerted me that it knew what time it really was and that I wasn't supposed to be up and about when I was. Essentially, I was convinced all the buildings in Japan were swaying (hey! It could have been some sort of earthquake-proof feature. *mutters Coulda been */mutters*) because apparently when I'm awake when I'm usually sleeping I get vertigo-like symptoms. It's like getting drunk without the alcohol! Only not. I figured the swaying was, indeed, "all in my head" when I returned to Sacramento and it, too, swayed where it had never swayed before. Took a full seven days for that to stop. Still, a minor bit of swaying (particularly in the bathroom at the hotel, the less logical part of my brain is convinced the bathroom was bouncing under the influence of trains) wasn't that big a pain. But I don't think I'm going to become a world traveler.

 

As expected, the English toffee didn't turn out so well. Instead of smooth, hard sugar I woke up to soft, gooey sugar. *sigh* I feel kinda bad that there are food riots all over the world, and here I am throwing away (literally) a pound of butter and masses of sugar two days in a row. Alas, you can expect me to not undertake any baking again for years. And then I'm going to need a really compelling reason to do so. 

Oh, and I broke my candy thermometer, too. Here's hoping the mercury didn't leak into my highly porous granite counter tops overnight. *sigh* Now I need to figure out how to throw the stupid thing away in a responsible manner. Again, this is why I don't cook or bake or make pastry. Or whatever. 

On the bright side, there were other delicious desserts at the library picnic today. I think the picnic itself went pretty well. I had fun, and that's what counts most, right ?  ^__^

What's that smell, you ask? Oh, it's just the scent of burning sugar. Really hot burning sugar. Yep, completely "forgetting" last night's disaster, I decided to try to make REAL toffee tonight. The kind that requires sugar, butter and not much else (no stupid flour tonight!) all cooked to like a million degrees. I even walked to the store to buy a pound of butter, a ton of sugar, and a candy thermometer. I realized I forgot to buy chocolate chips in the parking lot.  Did I take that as a sign to turn back? Maybe buy the chocolate chips or, better yet, just buy an already fabulously baked dessert? HELL NO! Not only would that mean giving up, but it would also mean facing that hellish wait in line again (seriously, 10 people deep for each of the mere three checkers working). 

So tonight I'm pretty sure I got all the ingredients correct but I didn't do much research into my saucepan. I think I have the type that's slow to warm up but once warm it just keeps agoin'. Because, wow! My pot o' sugar and butter went from 250 to 300 in like five seconds. And those dark spots? Oh, just vast swaths of burnt sugar. *sigh* I can't wait to taste this disaster... 

And I'm vividly reminded why I neither cook nor bake on a regular basis (besides the burnt fingers, I mean) - dishes. Bleeech! I have dishpan nails now.

First, what is Cinco de Mayo all about anyway? Is it some stay at home holiday? *crickets*  When I went to the grocery store at 7:00 pm it was like a ghost town all over Sacramento! Or is that just the recession causing people to stay home instead of shopping their lives away? 

You may be wondering what I was doing at a grocery store on a Monday night. Well, I was there buying ingriedents for the stupid "toffee bars" recipe I decided to make for the bake-off at work. *sigh* How shall I describe thee? A disaster in the making? A thing gone incredibly, incredibly wrong? A hideous mistake? Well, it's crumbly and I can't tell if I even cooked it long enough. Maybe I didn't put enough nuts in it? Maybe too much flour? Should I take it to work anyway, or should I just go easy on the co-workers and purchase something else (I've already blow three precious hours of my life and 12 bucks on this thing!)

After letting it cool, I've decided to throw the whole disaster away. My co-workers are lucky - LUCKY - I didn't inflict it on them. Heh, they'd be luckier if I actually had any baking skills. But I don't, so let's all pretend this didn't happen.

The best thing about all this? I now have 10 eggs left (stupid store wouldn't sell me just one!) and you know what that means - egg salad sandwhiches for a week! Um, does mayo go bad, because I think I've had that jar in my fridge for over a year now....

I watched another movie from my childhood last night. I've gotta quit doing that! Admittedly, my expectations weren't all that high but I guess as a child I wasn't able to detect wooden acting, problem behaviors (don't drink water directly from the stream without filtering/boiling it first!!!), and creepy adults. I was mostly miffed that the part that stuck out most in my childhood memories was such a small part of the movie. 

On the other hand, it's fun to go back and see just how wrong all my youthful impressions of the movie were ^__^

We had a complete email meltdown at work so if you emailed me Friday after 5:30 let's just say your email is now in a better place. And by better place, I mean not in my inbox. I loved planned power outtages and how "close monitoring" of them really works. And by really works, I mean doesn't really work.

Ugh, I guess I'm only going to get two days worth of vacation recapping done tonight. Heh, I'm exhausted!! I'm going to put the remaining days down there with the first two once my hands have recovered so keep your eyes peeled.

I was going to write up my vacations travels this weekend but, alas, I got completely distracted. By Farscape, Baby Mama, 30 Rock, taking my car in to be "fixed", and really, really nice weather. Forgive me? The weather was really, really nice!

But I'm happy to hear that some of you have been getting your postcards. Yay! Guess I'll just have to marvel over the fact that it only cost "seven cents" to send them so quickly. Marvelous!

Edited five billion days later to mention: It struck me in the shower the other day that my math was off. I cost 70 cents to mail the postcards. Oops! Those decimals kill me every time ^__^

So I've been looking deeper into my little equity payment (btw, in case I forgot to mention this equity pay is supposed to fix salary inversions caused the lack of raises under the previous contract) and it seems like the university wants me to have my cake and eat it too! I'm referring to the ever-confusing hire/anniversary/appointment date thing. It appears that even though my anniversary date is the start of the academic year (end of August/start of September) my hire/appointment date actually coincides with when I started (in May). So when I needed an anniversary date in September so I could get an SSI raise, I got it! And when I needed an appointment date in May so I could get a bigger equity payment, I got it! 

Um, if all that seems completely stupid to you - ie that my hire date and anniversary date aren't exactly the same - I have to completely agree. Welcome to HR at the CSU! I'd call them to inquire if they really meant to give me this much equity money, but that didn't really work when I called about my SSI, so I'm going to skip it this time. But you can bet your last dollar that I'm going to experience some low-level anxiety over getting a call or email in the future from HR letting me know I owe them thousands of dollars. Because remember, at the CSU the employee pays for any mistakes made by HR (I'd be curious to know if HR ever even apologizes for some of the whopping huge mistakes they make - I'm skeptical).

So I'm going to gobble my cake while the eating is gooooood! Mmmmmm!

Yippee! All the trip photos are up! They're mostly in chronological order. And looking back, there were a million things I didn't photograph. Be happy. Be very, very happy about that. You can go ahead and blame adagiobreezes1 for all the ones I did post. I believe very strongly that pictures are worth a thousand words, but I still plan to get around to writing the main points/highlights down. Just, you know, not today. 

Oh, and better enjoy those pictures with my tour mates ASAP, in about a week I'm going to friends lock the ones with people whose permission I don't get to post. 

 

I woke up at 1:20 pm for the second day in a row. I even went to bed at 1:00 am but I just couldn't fall asleep even though I think I was tired. We had our patio party so I even had some beer in me (which usually helps me sleep). I can't wait to see if I wake up for my 7:00 am alarm tomorrow. 

In other happy news, while paying my bills last night I noticed my equity pay had been deposited in my account on Wednesday. Yay! This means that the vast majority of Japan spending craziness will be paid off before long. Yay! I also checked my Capital One transactions online and saw that not only did I get a decent exchange rate (well, as decent as can be expected at a time like this) for my purchases, they did, indeed, not charge me any currency conversion fees. Put this one down in the record books, I'm actually happy with one of my financial service providers. 

Finally, I posted two shots to tide you over until I get the energy to do more. Ok, I'm just waiting until I get to work tomorrow where I have access to smoking upload speed ^__^

I'm back! My brain may have been left somewhere over the Pacific Ocean and my body would like to know what time it is because my internal clock is screwed beyond belief. But I had a wonderful time which I'll write about much later :) Once my brain makes its way back to Sacramento. Until then, sayonara!

Oh, I tried to update when I was in Tokyo but I was defeated by the symbol in my password. And perhaps the underscore in my username. Deadly combination, I suppose. 

Oh, and I sent postcards. Yay! But I think I paid roughly seven cents per stamp, so don't expect them for a couple months ^__^

Just a few bits of information about the tour before I dive into the second day. There were about 28 total people on the tours. [Heh, I almost called us victims.]  We were mostly from the United States representing various states like Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, New York, Hawaii, and California (of course), but there was also a Canadian, a Brit, two Germans, and a couple from Australia. There were probably some I forgot - sorry! I called bad memory long time ago! To guide us through the days were Ben, Shiori and Masa. Guess which ones were Japanese expatriots? We ranged in age from 30s (I was one of the tour "elders" - Yay!) to 15. Don't ask about that, please - my eyes might get stuck permanently rolled towards the ceiling (yes, I'm old and cranky, I admit it!).

You may have noticed I said "tours" up there in the first paragraph, well I think most of us thought that while two tours were going to be going on concurrently - the Tokyo Darkside aka Gothic Lolitas and the Fujoshi Paradise aka Yaoi [that's which one I was there with, of course] - they would be doing their thing and we'd be doing our thing. You know with a hotel and flights in common. Um, not so. It was essentially all of us together except for the one day set aside for each group. You could elect to do both "special days" if you paid extra and met the age requirement (yaoi tour only ;) I elected to do the Gothic Lolita day because wateriswine was going (yeah, I was too chicken to wander by myself in Tokyo all day. bawk bawk bawk :) This was the first time Pop Japan had done either tour [see reference to victims in the fist paragraph], and if I dare say so, I suspect it will be the last where they combine such disparate groups. Let's also just say there were plenty of "learning opportunities" for the Pop Japan people... but I'll save that for my end summary ^__^ 

Any questions before I get into Day Two? No? Heh, you're hardly here to ask :) so let's get started on the first full day in Japan!!

I thought I'd better get around to writing up ye olde vacation activities before I forgot every single thing that happened. Heh. Not that somebody with a memory like mine would ever forget everything :) I debated themes or day by day? Hmm, while I think I'd prefer to write themes, I'll probably be inclined to leave out less if I go day by day. Oh, and that's your big hint that this is going to get long (I'm going to cover traveling days too) and I'm going to cover the petty, small details. So sit back, relax and let me take you to Japan for a week of shopping, walking, train riding and general touristing... Or just skip it ^__^

Can you all feel the excitement in the air? I'm leaving for Japan in four short days! Woot! I think I've bought my last new pair of jeans, my last new "mall goth" outfit, and my last new pair of shoes. That just leaves laundry, packing and packing. I think I'll leave both of those until Thursday night ^__^ Now if only work would just speed by (and my busy schedule is basically making sure that happens!).

I had a delightful spring break day off yesterday. I took a one-day road trip with my friends to Redding for another visit to the Sundial Bridge. If y'all remember, I went last summer on my roadtrip, but it was soooooo hot I wanted to go back so I could really enjoy it. Anyway, it was a gorgeous day - perfectly sunny and in the 70s - and the bridge was as nifty as ever. Debbie even packed a marvelous picnic - mmmmmmm. 

After a couple hours at the bridge and environs (we saw the Picasso ceramics exhibit - I had no idea Picasso did ceramics!) we headed to the hills to see the Allen Telescope Array. This was sort of a last-minute decision thing (which I was the one who made the final decision to go) and boy did the lack of research show. A co-worker said she went and that it was 20 miles outside Redding. Ok, so when we asked at the bridge, they said the array was 50 miles but we said, um ok let's go anyway. But we had no idea it was really more like 60 miles away, over a mountain pass about 6000 feet above sea level (covered in SNOW!!!!!). Heh, when we finally arrived at 5:00 pm, we were met with gates declaring visitor hours were from 10:00 - 3:00. Ooops! It was a lovely drive, but I really, really wanted to see all those telescopes! I wanted to marvel over the taxpayer money going towards looking for extraterrestrial signals in space. *sigh* Yet another instance of I'll have to go back later. 

It was a lovely day nonetheless. And I even started getting to know my digital camera. *groan* And I mean started, because I couldn't even find half the settings I was looking for. I found them like five minutes after I got home. You can enjoy the few pictures that survived the cut here.

Ugh, it's spring break here at Sac State and you know what that means! Invasion of the really boring conventions (although, I would love to attend the session I allude to in my subject line). The library is also deader and a week old corpse. Finally, I can't seem to stay awake. But I did find a translation for a Danish song I've been obsessively listening to. I think it's even creepier when you know what the lyrics mean. [Ok, so I don't fully understand them, but at least I have more of a grasp.]