In the meantime, spread the love - it's Valentines day, 65 degrees and sunny!!!

The domain for this site is up for renewal this month and I have decided not to extend it. After seven years, I've grown tired of the this is what I did over the weekend type posts and I feel that it's time for a clean slate and a new blog. Since I would like to maintain some level of anonymity on the new site, I will not be revealing the new URL here.

That's all.

Today was my day off from work. And it was a good day. I:

Got up at 8:30 and watched reruns of Golden Girls, Frasier, and Will & Grace all while computing and slowly getting ready.

Opted to boycott the bus (for the day) and took a long walk over to Mindy’s for a visit and lunch. Dutch is nearly full-sized and incredibly well behaved now. Props to Mindy and G for some great puppy rearing!

Walked up to Market and Powell for some hooray-I've-got-a-job-now-so-I-can-afford-to-buy-stuff-again shopping. My "thing" is decorative tights and I found a cool pair on clearance at Urban Outfitters… good times.

It started to rain (big surprise) so I stopped by the pub for my favorite pick me up: Irish coffee.

Ended up meeting a newly married couple from Ireland visiting San Fran on their Honeymoon… shared a few rounds and conversation with them. Good craic!

Walked back out in the rain with a nice warm Irish coffee buzz on… then spent too much money on soap at Lush.

Found a new pair of boots, for cheap.

Went out to dinner with my favorite person.

And now I'm fresh out of the shower, dressed in clean-dry-warm fleece, drinking Merlot, and watching TV. Happy to be dry, happy to be seated next to my favorite person (shhhhh, he fell asleep!) and happy. Best life ever.

Today (Thursday) is my day off from work. Kind of weird to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday then get a day off then go back in on a Friday (or, at least for this week: only work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday) but until I’ve proved my worthiness as an employee (that, or a win a spot for a Friday or Monday – mental note: get some co-workers fired) then Thursday it is. How can I complain though, a day off is a day off!

And what did I do on my day off? Well, I had a whole list of tasks that I needed to tackle, and I managed to complete some… but the big "to do" was go to the freaking eye doctor. I’m normally very good with getting my eyes examined once a year (I wear contacts), but since I lost my eye coverage (along with my job) last year… I’ve been putting it off until I have better insurance again. And that worked well for me, until I tried to order a new box of contacts last month and dammit, my eye doctor (in Rochester!) refused to validate the prescription without an exam. Darn it all, they’re just contacts!

My new health coverage doesn’t begin until 90 days after employment, and I’m now down to my last 2 lenses. Oh what to do? Well, I’m quite particular about who looks at my eyes, ever since I was about 5 years old and a terrible infection nearly blinded me in my right eye. While I can see pretty well out, there is visible damage. So yeah, I get a little nervous about just anyone looking at my eyes. Then I gave it so more thought, and after 25 years without any eye issues (aside from needing corrective lenses so I can see beyond 1 foot) I realized that I’m too vain to be wearing my glasses in public for the next few months, so I scheduled an appointment with a chain eye store.

Well, I must this chain eye store had some lovely, friendly people working there. They took me in at a moment’s notice and quoted me a reasonable price for the exam since I’d be paying out of pocket... and off we went!

I’m not typically dilated for a contact lens check up, but they insisted that I get photos of my retina taken since it's been 3 years since my last "big" eye exam. I agreed and the drops went in. Having your retina’s photographed is a pretty cool experience, because the retina can tell a lot about a person’s overall health. That, and I love to see pictures of my insides. While working on my degree in biomedical photographic communications years ago, my concentration was in ophthalmic photography… where I learned about every possibly disease that can effect the eye, and what it looks like. More importantly, I worked with special big expensive cameras that focused on the fundus, through a dilated pupil and exposed the image onto film (yes, film). And only after the film was developed (typically slide film) a doctor would closely examine the images and provide the patient with a diagnosis. And while we did use some digital technology at that time, it was still a big song and dance.

And after paying $$$ to learn all of these severely underutilized skills (aside from being able to diagnose my own eye), today, I had a mere eye tech effortlessly smooch my eye up against a plane of glass and asked me to press a button once properly aligned. Within one second – my retinal images were on the computer screen. The whole experience made me realize that leaving my 4 year degree in medical photography to pursue a now 8 plus year career in web development and multimedia was a smart move. Nowadays, a monkey could photography your eye (oh the hilarity). I often wonder why my previous major even still exists.

Aside from the newly discovered astigmatism in my left eye (I only had it in my right before) everything is grand in the vision department - and that makes me happy. As for the rest of my day off… useless. I couldn’t bloody focus on anything and my dilation made me feel all wonky. So I took a 3 hour nap, which after consuming a plate of huevos rancheros for lunch... not a good idea for the tummy. Anyway, groggy and acidic or not… V just popped in to tell me the Sabre's game is on so I’m off to see if I can focus on the TV again. Good day off.

No worries, it's a good thing!

Anyway, M an I both had Monday off so we spent the long weekend up North, exploring both the Russian River Valley and Mendocino county. Our trip was fantastic, and since I can no write… here’s a summary in pictures.

Did a lot of driving:

Saw lots of big trees:

Enjoyed breathtaking views (this is from the deck of our room in Guerneville):

Drove along some wind-y, kinda nauseating, but very scenic routes:

Played in ze' ocean:

Then returned to our hearts back rainy, cold San Francisco (where's the heat!?!?!)

What's next, Google Maps XRAY?

I still don't know what to do in the event of an earthquake though.

And after all of that, I drank a few Californian Pinot Grigios and listened to And They Know Us From The Trail Of Dead. Getting up (read: early!) to go to work is hard, but I'm happy to be involved with it again. Ahhhhh consistent paydays (and benefits... oh how I missed you!)

An amusing moment from the day occurred at the Westfield mall. While climbing up 5 flights of escalators to see what was playing at the movie theater, Matt randomly asked me if shaving off all of his chest hair would make him look as ripped as one of the Hollister Mannequins. I glanced over at the store and was taken aback by one of the Hollister Mannequin's pants that were so low, the top of his “ahem” manhood was fully visible. I wasn't sure if this was the new trend or if the poor guy was merely suffering from an unfortunate bout of slippage, so we stopped off the floor to check it out. Anyway, I went up to the mannequin and gently tapped on the jeans to see if they were slipping, and much to the amusement of those around us, the jeans quickly fell down the legs and formed a pile around his ankles. I, horrified, turned various shades of red, grabbed Matt's hand and promptly walked away from the scene, leaving the somewhat anatomically correct mannequin fully exposed to every mall passer-byer. Matt suggested that I should make it my thing to walk around various shops, depants-ing mannequins in hopes of snagging the title, “Mysterious Depants-er Strikes Again - Scarring Children and Horrifying Parents!” amongst the SF Gate headlines... but I just outted myself here, so I’ll just stick to the accidental depants-ings, as per usual.

Anyway, here are some pics...

Another Mission Dollar store gem: Booty Mugs!

We found a room at the Metreon that was filled with
these "grabby" games, but no people! Creepy.

He only beat me by 3 points (one ball)

Striking my infamous skeeball pose

Arty farty Irish Coffee shot.

Of course mine is empty...

No worries, I’m prepared!

The “severe storm” we experienced last Friday is still top news. The funny thing is, a “severe” storm like that would have been nothing to us on the East Coast. We call them storms, regular ol' storms. But I forget that this part of the world rarely experiences “bad” weather, much like when I lived in London and the whole city was in a panic because there was a thin layer of ice on everything. I woke up to this radio announcement, “Don’t panic, use a credit card to scrap the ice off your windshield!”

As for the holidays back East… pretty good, but while staying with my folks down in the middle of nowhere without my computer, I couldn't help but get a little stir crazy. Regardless, I spent about $120 in gas driving all around the Rochester area to meet up with whom I could during the holiday madness. I even stopped by my old stomping grounds and visited with co-workers who seemed genuinely happy to see me again and interested hearing about what I’ve been up to (well, the few that don’t read this blog, "hello!" to those that do!) It was the first time that I’ve set foot on the premises since the day after I was laid off on August 5th 2006 (read: laid off, not fired – for those that don’t understand the difference). It was nice to finally have closure.

And interestingly enough, I haven’t had a real job since. Well, a good paying salaried position with benefits, I should say. It’s amazing that I’ve been able to live off part time positions and freelance work for the past year and change. Alas, living just above the poverty line is not going to cut it anymore and I’m happy to announce that after 3 months of relentless job searching and interviewing, I finally accepted a position that I think I am going to really enjoy. I start next Monday and I’m fairly excited to join to ranks of the working class, once again.

Waking up in San Francisco on Saturday morning was a birthday present in of itself and I had the best day! Vinnie and Matty took me out to breakfast, I had a long awesome nap, then Matty, Vinnie, Vanessa, our friend Conor and I ate at a delicious German restaurant we live above. Stuffed with German comfort (potato pancakes, roasted chicken with apples and bacon, and a few Gewürztraminers) we voyage back upstairs to the apartment where some other folks joined in for drinks and the BEST BIRTHDAY CAKE EVER:

Gluten Free Whale Cakes made by
the best boyfriend and the best Adam ever!

Me eating the BEST BIRTHDAY CAKE EVER! and Vinnie's backside.

On Sunday, the birthday celebrations continued when Mindy took me out to Lunch at Weird Fish, and gave me a pair of the most amazing rain boots! I will have to take a photo for you all to see - and yes, they're also whale themed!

In conclusion, I’ve been terrible with posting… and I resolve to fix that now that I’m somewhat back on a normal schedule. Thanks for reading, I’ll be back sooner!

(sis boom bah)

And I have oh so much to fill you all in on, but first: CELEBRATION!

Rather than go into the detail of it all, it’s been good to be back. Matt ended up extending his stay an extra 2 days so drove all over Western, NY - meeting up with both our families and some of my friends. I dropped him off at the Rochester airport yesterday afternoon and received word that he arrived safely in San Francisco around 12:00am Eastern time. And now I get to miss him all over again (from this side of the country) until I leave for San Fran this Friday, my birthday eve!

Tomorrow is another new year and I’m simply overwhelmed by how 2007 turned out for me. When I think about where my life was 1 year ago today – well, let’s just say that I don’t like to think about where my life was a year ago because it was nowhere where it should have been. I never told much of the story of the day when I simply realized that I was tired of feeling stuck... when I ran, not walked, away from everything not up to par in my life and started over from scratch. My thanks to my family and friends that were an incredible source of support during that time, it wasn’t easy… but I made it happen. And here I am today: happily involved with a guy that takes my breath away, living in a city that I love, and being inches closer to accepting a job that I allowed myself the time to find. What’s the point in even thinking about the past, it’s over… and the present is just so amazing. OK, enough sap.

I’ve been taking a lot of photos, however I left my machine back in California (on purpose) and this Apple I’ve been using connects to the Internet at horribly slow speeds… In the meantime, Shelley took this picture of Matt and I at the Record Archive this past Friday:

And here's a camera phone shot of outside - it finally snowed while I was home!

That’s all for now. See you next year.