Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Who says commuting in the Bay Area is no fun?

So if I were a race car driver I'd probably look something like this:
If Jeanna were a race car driver, she'd look something like this:

If I had a race car, it would look something like this:
Her car would be more like this:
But the truth is, neither Jeanna nor I are very aggressive drivers, though we do a lot of it! Her commute is about 100 miles each day, and mine is about 65 miles. She travels up the East Bay, while I head up the Peninsula. Then at the end of the day we meet back at home in the South Bay.


Most days, the commute is just a drag-- traffic, slowness, nothing on the radio, wanting to get home.... but yesterday it turned into a drag race!


You see, we often talk on the phone while driving home from our respective jobs, and yesterday we discovered that we were going to get home at pretty much the same time.
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All of a sudden our conversation changed from the usual questions like, "How was your day?" or "What should we do for dinner?" to more pointed questions like, "So where are you now?", "How fast are you going?", "Now, where are you?" As we were getting closer and closer to home, the tension was building, until we both exited the freeway from different directions, and came speeding towards home, and then.....
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...we nearly smashed into each other at this intersection:

It was actually great timing, and pretty funny!
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Jeanna was where the van is pictured above, making a right turn, while I was flying through the intersection, trying to make the green light. Jeanna later said she should have cut me off.
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But I told her, if we crashed I would have to totally sue her. And I think I would win the lawsuit too... because I'm pretty sure she didn't have her blinker on.
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But had we actually crashed it would have looked something like this:

(Notice, no blinker! Just like Jeanna.)

Needless to say I won the race! (Though to her credit, Jeanna tried to edge me out just a few blocks from home, by sneakily passing me while pretending to listen to me on the phone, as I was telling a story.)

If this were a real race, my trophy would probably look something like this:
But my real prize is having such a fun friendship with my wife. She makes life fun for me. Even the normal stuff, like driving home from work.

NOTE: this post is not a solicitation to race, neither a recommendation or encouragement for racing activities. Racing can be hazardous to your health, (and/or marriage), and must only be done in times of emergency or extreme lateness, hunger, or having to use the restroom. Please drive responsibly and obey all laws and traffic signs.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

We live in an amazing world!

So I was listening to the radio again (I have an hr commute each way so I have some time on my hands) and they were talking about all the amazing things we have these days, like technology, ease of travel, luxuries and just modern conveniences. People would call in and talk about all the things that they think are amazing if you really stop and think about it. Here's the clip from Conan that inspired this radio discussion. Its pretty funny! Check it out. Are we this generation?? (Sorry for the link but you tube took off the embed code for some reason)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus


What I think is amazing: (and some things mentioned on the radio).
  • cell phones


  • checking email on your phone


  • email


  • airplanes-I am amazed every time I fly that 1-we get off the ground because its a huge plane for crying out loud! 2-I have a heavy carryon, 3-it works every time

  • the roads we drive on-not every country has the great roads that we do-even if some of our roads do have an occasional pot hole or two. And not to mention the huge overpasses and bridges.


  • grocery stores-the fact that we can go into almost any store and get any produce or food item we want at any time. (many grocery stores are 24hrs)


  • web cam-yes we have reached the Jetsons time period...almost except for flying cars :)


  • the internet


  • indoor plumbing and electricity


  • cameras-not just digital, even old wind up and shoot, using film


  • TV/DVDs/DVR-This probably goes more along with cameras but we watched some old VHS videos from Jason's college years. Wow technology has sure improved not to mention the fashion and hairstyles.

  • Regular Land line phones- Is there really a telephone pole with a wire going from my house to any house I want to call??

**Please excuse my ignorance on some of these things, but I am glad that there are people out there a lot smarter than I am who figure these things out :)

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

How many have you read??

A few weeks ago, one of the radio stations here was talking about the BBC's top 100 list of books to read. I thought it was interesting. The "BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here". I've only read 8 but I'm sure many of you have read a lot more. I tried not to count the movies-although I wanted to.

My favorites were:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Kite Runner
Count of Monte Cristo

I used to belong to a book club in Mesa and really loved it but since then my leisurely reading has really taken a dive. This list motivates me to be a better reader. Sooo how many have you read? What are your favorites? and what other books have you enjoyed??


Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (I've seen the 6 hr movie, does that count?)
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Bible
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
(seen movie)
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
(seen movie)
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Emma - Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (seen movie)
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (seen 6hr movie)
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Germinal - Emile Zola
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession - AS Byatt
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
(seen movie)
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web - EB White (seen movie)
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
(seen movie)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Watership Down - Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (seen movie)
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (seen play)

Monday, March 2, 2009

Quick Post from email...

I wanna test this "post-from-email" thing out to see if its cool or no.

The photo above is from some of the snaps we took when went snowboarding recently with Mindy & Barrett and some of their friends. It was a really fun trip. Jeanna was starting to really get the hang of carving, and I'm always just super happy being on the snow. It was a good day, great weather, awesome friends ...and after, we ate some tasty Mexican food.

I’m ready to go again!!

Here’s a link to some of the pics: http://200902snowboarding.shutterfly.com/

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Happy 34!

Jason's birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, his busiest day of the week. Here it goes:
5am, get up

5:30am, leave house

6-7am, Seminary

7:30-4:30pm, Work

4:30-5pm, get quick bite to eat

5-6pm, prepare for class

6-9pm Teach college class

9:45 pm get home

9:50 have birthday ice cream sandwich,

9:55pm open present (empty box with picture of favorite shoes that had not arrived yet)

10:10pm crash and go to bed to get ready for the next day


Happy Birthday Jason!






We did get to celebrate his birthday better on Saturday in Gilroy. Jason is quite the busy guy these days. He's such a hard worker and never complains. Thanks for all you do Jas, hope you had a good birthday. I love you!