Archives for January 2005

So much going on…

January 28, 2005 filed under: fun!, this and that

Oh well… this is a hard life. I signed up for a newsletter to get the latest snow reports from Lake Tahoe… they had more than 10 inches of snow since last weekend and it’s just killing me not being able to go. I was thinking about going this weekend, but I don’t think that is a good idea, because the weather has to be kind of stable to drive up to the Sierra with our Saturn. Otherwise we might get stuck without snow chains…which would NOT be GOOD :(
Besides, J and I are expecting visitors next week, so we probably enjoy a nice and relaxing weekend. We were thinking about going to the Zoo or Miniture golfing – it depends on the weather. It’s been pouring all day and I don’t know what to expect for the weekend.

Then on Monday, J’s brother Chris is coming up here for a few days. He’s home from China for a couple of weeks and J hasn’t seen him for a while – and neither have I. So I am really looking forward to seeing him!
Also, my friend Ilka is planning to come and visit from Wednesday to Friday. She’s seeing friends in Arizona right now and definitely wanted to stop by and see me. I am so excited. So this will be a busy week.

Tonight we’re having our book club meeting. I am really looking forward to it. We read a really interesting short story (see below) and I am eager to talk about it. I never thought talking about literature can be so much fun (I always hated it in school! ), but it really is!
So, what’s up for the weekend? Any plans, guys?

@ Sanna: Thanks for calling last night! It was great talking to you! Have a great weekend! ;)

Short update

January 25, 2005 filed under: this and that

Yay :) it’s Tuesday again and that means… Sex and the City is on tonight!! That’s really what I need right now. I had a crappy night and the day wasn’t better, because I have PMS, well actually without the “P” *lol* and I definitely need NOT to move tonight and lie on the couch with my heat pad and a blanket.

Yesterday work was pretty frustrating, because there was one problem in the software that I am working with and I just couldn’t figure it out. And that sucks. I get so impatient and really frustrated and just want to go home. They changed one feature from the earlier version to the newer version of the software, but the Reference Guide hasn’t been updated yet, so it was really pointless trying to find a hint on what to do in the manual.
Today though, I figured out what to do and it seemed so easy… oh well.

Anyways, I better finish up, because J’s picking me up shortly. Take care!

The weekend

January 24, 2005 filed under: this and that

Hey there,

it’s Sunday evening, and I just finished cleaning the kitchen and the oven, which is always a pain in the a**, and I rewarded myself with a hot chocolate and I think I am going to go to bed soon. The weekend is already over again!
Friday night we finally met again with the book club and I really had been looking forward to that. I thought it would be kind of weird, because Alicia wouldn’t be there for the first time, and it was… somehow it felt like we weren’t complete, but I enjoyed it.
We met at Silke’s place and she had invited another girl, Antonia, to the book club this time. She’s one of my friend Sheila’s roommates.
Our piece of literature was a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle this time called “The man with the watches” – a short mystery with a surprising end. It was fun to read and everybody – except Silke – had managed to finish it by last Friday, so we gave her a quick summary and let her guess about the resolution of the mystery.

Saturday we slept in (as Saturday is our day of catching up on some sleep ) and then went to the movies in the afternoon. We watched “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” – the new Jim Carrey movie. It was a dark fairy tale-like setting and J and I enjoyed it very much. I must admit, although I am not the biggest Jim Carrey fan and some of his comedies are just kind of stupid, I really do like his acting skills. At first, I almost didn’t recognize him, but then his very typical gestures and way of speaking revealed him.

After the movie, we decided to have an early dinner at Bakers Square since they have these great deals where you get a salad, a main entreè and a piece of pie for $8 it was delicious and we really had a good time talking and enjoying the dinner.
We had this great talk about how we would raise our kids being strong and independent people, well-read and appreciative of literature and films.

Then we went home to play a game of “Monopoly” which always ends the same way… I lose all my money and I am wondering WHY in the world I am asking J to play that game with me over and over again?! I mean, not even the old German saying “Glück im Spiel, Pech in der Liebe” (which means “If you are lucky in gambling, you are crossed in love”) doesn’t even make sense… because that would mean, he’s crossed in love and that would contradict me being lucky in love, wouldn’t it? :) Kinda confusing – Anyways, we had a fun time… I guess.

Today we were pretty lazy as well… I slept till 11:00 a.m., had some cereal for breakfast and then had a little chat with my aunt and cousin who happened to be online. That was fun. I hadn’t talked to both of them in a while. I don’t even remember what I did in the afternoon, but J and I cooked a great dinner later and watched “Summerland” and the “Simpsons” afterward. A nice and lazy Sunday!
Now it’s time for me to go to bed, because it’s 10:00 p.m. and I should start going to bed earlier again, so that I won’t be so tired by the end of the week. I should learn a lesson from J who is in bed already and I should probably go and snuggle up to him – good night everybody!

P.S. One thing I’ve noticed a few times now and I always forget to mention: Have you ever seen these guys standing at the corner of a huge intersection with a huge sign for new leases for apartments (or whatever!) and dancing to the music that they listen to on their disc-men? I think that is the most stupid job in the world. Whenever I see these poor creatures on the streets (especially when it’s raining), I want to pluck them from the jaws of “self-humiliation”, throw away the sign and send them home. Oh well…

TV

January 21, 2005 filed under: this and that

I think I am addicted… no, I am pretty sure I am… Or I am just crazy. I watched the two Sex and the city episodes this week TWICE…!
My regular SATC night is Tuesdays and then TBS re-runs the episodes again on Wednesdays – and I just couldn’t resist, since I was home alone with nothing else to do! It’s just so funny and relaxing and some of the dialogs just crack me up

Also, WB is running Summerland – First Season again on Saturdays and in February the new episodes will start. I am so excited!!!

What else is new? Gerald and Michelle are still on vacation, so it’s pretty quiet around the office – but I actually like it that way (although my Dad always asks when he calls me, if nobody’s there because he can’t hear any noise in the background!)

Yesterday after work, I went shopping (J didn’t come because he took a three-hour (!) nap) and then I cooked some dinner and we watched the NBA. The Sacramento Kings are doing awesome! They’re winning every game right now and that’s due to their great abilities to play basketball as a team! Sometimes it’s not about buying the most valuable players, but also to have players who can actually play as a team! And the kings?can!! It’s just awesome to see them play. J and I definitely want to try and get tickets to a game this season.
During the commercials we switched over to “You got mail” with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks… it’s such a cute movie and I can watch it over and over again.

Have a good weekend everyone and take care!

Our skiing trip

January 20, 2005 filed under: fun!, this and that

Oh well… what a chaos weekend.
Saturday morning we had a big breakfast at Bakers Square and then went shopping for our ski trip. J needed some ski gear and we had to get snow chains for the tires. We went to Sport Chalet in Sacramento where we found pretty much everything and we also got a great deal on ski rentals. The guy who rented out the equipment was Asian and I just mention that, because he told us that he is a professional ski instructor and that he had done heli-skiing and stuff like that. It was kind of surprising for me, because I think as a European I am just not used to seeing Asians ski. It’s funny, because this guy was a 100% American and besides, China and Japan have big ski resorts. However, it’s kind of unusual for me to imagine Asian people on skis.
Anyways, he was really nice and when I told him that I’ve been skiing since the age of 4, he told me that he would get me some really good skis. He kept talking about “volcal” skis… and I was like “What the hell are “volcal” skis?”, but I didn’t say anything and pretended to know exactly what he was talking about. I didn’t want to appear stupid or anything. When he finally returned with the skis, it dawned on me… he had been talking about “VÃ¶lkl” skis, a German company, and he just couldn’t pronounce the name correctly

When we finally were home, we decided to try and put on the snow chains, because we were told that we should definitely try to put them on in dry and light conditions. So I got out the Saturn handbook, only to read that our Saturn can’t take chains. It said that only the small tire size can take chains, and since we have pretty wide tires (that we just got replaced a few months ago), we couldn’t use chains. J called the Saturn Service Center to ask what to do and they told us that normal chains would damage the suspension and that we have to get “spider spikes”. That’s a device that put on your tire like a hub cap and that puts spikes around the half-width of your tire. Unfortunately these things cost over 300 bucks.
So we asked if they rent them out and yes, they do… but it was 5:30 pm already and the Service Center, which is in Fairfield, about an hour away from here, closes at 6:00 p.m. and of course they are not open on Sundays.
Of course, there is no other Service Center closer to Sacramento and we couldn’t find any other place that would sell, let alone rent out “spider spikes”.
I checked the weather conditions and it seemed as if the highways were all snow free – but the problem was that snow chains were required for the last 5 miles from highway 395 to Mammoth.

We really didn’t know what to do, but decided to wait until Sunday morning and check the road conditions again. Unfortunately no change. Even if we could have made it to the Mammoth Exit on highway 395, we still would have needed chains from there and it still would have been a gamble, because we didn’t know if we would make it back to Sacramento.
So I called Michelle and told her that we were really sorry, but couldn’t go to Mammoth with them. I felt really bad about canceling our plans on such short notice, but it really wasn’t our fault. We really didn’t want to spend $300 on these spider spikes, and we couldn’t find a place that would sell them anyways. Who could have guessed that from all the cars in the world we would own the one car that can’t take snow chains?

We eventually decided to go to Lake Tahoe for a few days. The road conditions seemed ok andÂ it hadn’t snowed for over 1,5 weeks, so it was safe to go up there. We decided to go to Heavenly, one of the bigger ski resorts on South Lake Tahoe and about 2 hours from Sacramento.
Since it was a three day weekend and most people would go home on Monday, we decided to go Monday morning. There was no problem finding a room right across from the gondola.
According to the Website you could also get discounted lift tickets at Albertson’s, so we stopped there and picked up two day tickets on our way to Tahoe.

It was kind of foggy and I feared that we would have bad weather up there, but the higher we got in elevation, the nicer the weather became and when we reached South Lake Tahoe it was quite sunny and there was snow everywhere. I think I haven’t realized how close we live to the Sierra Nevada – it looked gorgeous.

We checked into our room, changed clothes and then went to the gondola to get a half-day ticket. And then we were off on J’s first gondola ride ever and to make it even more unforgettable… on the way up we passed another gondola going down where two people were having sex! I am serious. I just couldn’t believe my eyes… J was cracking up and the couple was kind of shocked when they realized that we had seen them. But hey, what were they thinking? They were doing it in a gondola… of course, people can see you!!

When we reached the top, we had a beautiful view…

We started out on an easy slope and I taught J the basics. He did really great, I must say (although he got a little frustrated at times, because he was too impatient )… but he’s a natural!

After about 4 hours, we returned to our hotel room and took a little nap… J almost instantly fell asleep. I think the difference in elevation and the unfamiliar work out really got to him
Later in the evening we went for a nice walk and had dinner at “Applebee’s”. I had BBQ rips *yummy*

Yesterday we got up at 7:30 a.m., checked out of our hotel and then went out for breakfast at Carrows. That’s where I got my first official call on my cell phone from my Dad… he told me that the 01015 is also free for cell phones right now! That’s awesome! Besides, we had a really good reception… I think, T-Mobile seems to have a pretty good coverage!
At 9:30 a.m. were up on the mountain again and the view was gorgeous…

We had a really great day again and Jon really made progress. I was so proud of him. He really learned a lot in 1,5 days! We warmed up on one of the easier slopes and took some longer ones later.
It was so much fun!

In the afternoon, J let me take some more runs on my own and I tried some of the more advanced slopes… which was great! I was so happy to be back in the snow again!!!

At 4:00 p.m. we packed our stuff and drove back to Sacramento. Since it’s really close, we decided that we will go for day trips again in the future…
and today I went back to work. Oh well, that’s just the way it is, but I decided to work today and then take another day off, when my friend Ilka comes to visit.

We got a cell phone

January 14, 2005 filed under: this and that

Last night J picked me up from work and we went over to the FedEx Office to pick up our cell phone. Now we are officially “wirelessly available” although the plan is to use it for emergencies only! Since we’re going on our skiing trip this weekend, I am really glad we got it, so we have an emergency phone if we get stuck in the snow.
It snowed over 4,5 m since late December in Mammoth Lakes (that’s where we are going!) and that should be enough snow, I guess. I just hope it won’t snow too much while we are there. I’ve never driven with snow chains, let alone put them on the wheels. But I am excited, because it’ll be J’s first time on skis ever :) My co-worker, Michelle, rented a condo for the whole week and she had asked if we would be interested in joining them for a couple of days. That was the perfect opportunity and since Gerald is taking next week off, too, and I have already worked some overtime to make up for the hours, it’s really no big deal. We’re going to go from Sunday to Wednesday which should be plenty of time to let J get a feeling for skiing I hope he’ll like it, but most people do once they’ve tried it!
So, I’ll tell you all about it and post some photos, when we get back! Have a good weekend and take care!

Santa Monica

January 13, 2005 filed under: this and that

We’re going digital…

January 13, 2005 filed under: this and that

YEAH !!! we did it…
introducing,our new digital camera

It’s awesome! It has a 12x combined zoom (optical plus digital) and this really cool multi-angle LCD Monitor! I read the instructions last night and it has SOOOO many features I haven’t even dreamed about. And we got such a great deal (esp. if I calculate the price in Euros! ). Now I don’t have any more excuses not to post lots of photos, right? I took some “test photos” last night and the quality appears to be really, really good. I am curious what the actual prints will look like, but it’s promising!

So excited!

January 12, 2005 filed under: this and that

So here is what’s new…
Work is going great! The project I am currently working on is going to be put together for a publication… and my boss just informed me that I am going to be a co-author on this!!! Isn’t that awesome? I am so excited. I mean, this means that my name will appear in a scientific publication! OMG! I never thought that would be happening, but it is…

Also, J and I are seriously looking into getting a digital camera which will make life so much easier you know what I am talking about… taking photos, deleting photos, posting photos, sending photos… I can’t wait. We went to BestBuy last night and looked at some different cameras and it was really hard to decide, but I think we’ve settled for this ONE . We haven’t bought it yet, but maybe tonight.

Today I went out for lunch with my co-workers. It was Gerald’s birthday last week and the “birthday kid” always gets taken out for lunch by the rest of the group. So we went to “Chevy’s” – another Mexican place, because when we go out for a group lunch, it’s ALWAYS Mexican food. I had a Farmer’s Market Quesadilla and a Caesar Salad *yummy*
When we got our drinks, we raised a toast and that’s when the waiter somehow overheard that it was Gerald’s birthday… he came over with one of these “Mexican hats” and the whole crew (unfortunately all male *lol*) sang “Happy Birthday” for him and another “birthday girl” in the restaurant. Gerald was wearing the hat for the rest of our lunch and it was so funny :)