yell or trolley

it's officially official. right now there are keys to my shiny new place sitting on my living room floor, my realtor tossed them through the mail slot a few hours ago. i won't be home until maybe 11 tonight (a's v. tigers courtesy of justin's generous ex-boss)...this is killer. moving tomorrow though with the help of lots of friends, though only a few have really confirmed that they're showing up. as long as dan's there we'll be good, word is he's been working out. i'll have plenty of pictures to share after the weekend!

next week i might be commuting by trolley! woot!! i'll probably just walk though, i like my morning walk.

redip spider

like rachel and her dad always say, don't mess with texas.
some texas spiders built a crazy web. i'm not messin.

AAAAAAA!!

received a lovely gem this morning from a former coworker...someone i haven't seen in years, and not-so-subtley avoided when he contacted me last time he was in town. maybe this is creepier if you know him, maybe it's creepy enough without knowing him. either way, i told him he creeped me out. plus, he's married and has babies, married 40 year-old people with babies shouldn't send emails to 26 year-old former coworkers.

"Oh Tara my o my, you squeeze my heart and then you let it fly"

I heard this song (The Knack, Get the Knack)this morning and it made me think of you. I don't think you realize how beautiful your smile is, it is a dangerous thing.

Sorry if that further establishes me as your creepy old guy friend, but the song and memory cought me off guard.

To futher dig my self in, you've got pretty hair too....

I hope all is well in your world.

-jim

if i was a wi-fi

wi-fi is a "word" that has bugged me for years. i couldn't figure out what the heck it stood for. i thought i was dumb for not just knowing. wireless...finternet? why the heck is there an f?!? ugh.
well, i just remembered that this word bugged me and i looked it up on wikipedia. it means nothing. it's a word some techy made up because the real name of the technology was just a bunch of numbers.
that's annoying. lame techies making me doubt myself. no more doubt, i'm just as rad as ever.

wow

the hotness that is af.
look how frickin big and burly he looks! he's a crazy muscle man.
and it took me a while to convince myself that he didn't just use his fancy computer to draw his beard away. excellent shaving, staging, and self portraiture.

decay aced

overwhelmed at work. stressed and sad and funky at home. blargh.
here's the past few weeks:

proposed furniture layout in my new place (i know). i'm so excited to move. i've started packing, a box or two a day should keep the job easy. i need to find a good taqueria in nob hill...i might be out of luck. the other people who are buying with me seem cool enough. they elected me treasurer of our HOA. i get to bring my plants and my backyard furniture because nobody else has any, that makes me happy. and i've got a bunch of hotties helping me move so i don't have to hire two irish guys and a truck afterall.

ptown farewell
it was sad and echoey. we slept in sleeping bags on the floor and ate new york pizza for mom's last time.
goodbye to the train (a picture for mom).

chip's favorite nap spot. he doesn't have this anymore. we were pleasanton homeless as of august 10, though the huneke's have graciously offered their couch.


went rafting with lori, jeni, and z. it was tons of fun but i want scarier rapids next year! none of us fell out enough. lori and jeni proved to be much more skilled than steve and i...unless steering us to the bushes was part of z's very clever plan to show his chivalry by throwing himself on top of me to protect me from evil branches...hmm. z lagged on the way out there, but we budgeted time for a lag so we still arrived early enough to set up our tent before the hayride up the canyon. seriously, 12 people in the back of a pickup truck, windy narrow roads with naked dudes in the way, and tons of hunters marking the opening of deer season. the water was warm, everyone wore life vests (which put me at ease), hot dogs for lunch courtesy of brilliant lori, a dry hot late afternoon while we waited for dinner, hilarious pictures of people on the river, shooting stars, black cherry vodka sodas, carob raisin blob.
cash creek casino is ridiculous, we just drove by but it's surreal, huge. and a cemetery side bar for lori on the way home. "sooo, this guy's sleeping in your tent tonight...right?"


kilowatt...a night as the wheel. taxi driver alex got us there safely, he was nuts and had a name almost as long as colette's. that was the highlight of the evening, which was fun aside from the scary guy at kilowatt who hit me on purpose with a pool cue. i wouldn't have taken it so personally if he hadn't hit me four times really fast and hard thirty minutes prior. felt like maybe i needed to get out of there so i left earlier than the rest. and it sounds like i should have taken miss co with me.
i chose this one because my head looks the biggest.


and a simpsons quote:
how wide is the web?
world.

dump mud

some fellow engineers and i took a trip to one of our distribution reservoirs. after years of debate between the university of california, the united states geological survey, and us, we finally decided to drain the reservoir and trench the bottom in search of the hayward fault, which seems to get lost somewhere in the area. it looks like the fault actually follows along the base of the hillside and not under the reservoir, but there definitely appear to be strong fault traces under the reservoir, which will get in the way of our future plans for the site (one to three new storage tanks rather than the existing open-cut reservoir). so far they have dug three trenches and found three traces, two more trenches will be dug this week, with the anticipation of finding more traces. here's what we saw:
obvious surficial signs of movement, this curb was straight when it was repaired a few years ago, now it's separated and slipping to the right
the flags mark the fault traces, they can be located by a distinct change in geologic conditions
another trace
and a third trace, this one is the most distinct
a crack in the bottom of the reservoir happened as a result of the '89 quake
the inside of a concrete lined, roofed, open-cut reservoir
buried treasure

bon nob

the bad news:
i got my test results...i only passed half of it, i'll be studying again for the next few months and trying again in october.
bummer. big time bummer. i feel like i let everyone down, including and especially myself. i'm sorry i'm not quite as smart as my friends and family like to think i am.

the good news:
i made an offer on a house in nob hill this morning....
and this afternoon i found out they accepted my offer.
woot!!! it's just a small one bedroom place, but you can see pictures here:
my new house
i could be moving in the next month or two if everything goes as planned.

minnannim

rob's birthday painting party was thursday night fun.
i didn't stay as late as i would have liked, i was tired from a rough week and just couldn't hang, plus claire still wakes me up at 5:15am everyday for breakfast...
but rob deserved all the help he could get, he tirelessly helps all of us paint when we move, and he does so with outstanding work ethic and a smile on his face.
good luck to rob and his new roommates, i'm excited to get the fun times rolling again at the sunset house.











colette's mockmarina dance party birthday was the fun of choice for friday night.
we took over an art show and pretended it was a dance party. sunglasses at night are key for letting people know who the cool kids are in the room.
again, i'm sorry i ducked out a bit early (though it was almost 1:00am, not that early really), but i had an important meeting saturday morning...(cliffhanger)

ball lab

went to the a's/tigers game with my bros on monday, a present for ry's birthday.
shannon of course rooted for the a's.
ryan wore an a's hat on the way to the game, but switched to tigers once we got to the stadium...though it was a green tigers hat so he was sort of incognito. he rooted for both teams.
i wore an a's sweatshirt (sorry af) and rooted for both teams.
the tigers won, but the a's won the series.
and there was a funny moment:
we're all sitting there enjoying the game, laughing about something, when one of the guys sitting further down in the row needed to get out to go to the bathroom. mid inning. mid batter. i hate standing up while someone is batting, i'm afraid i'll get yelled at, but this isn't hockey so i stood. ryan and shannon stood too. we were still kind of laughing about something, but once we were eye-ish level with the dude we saw he was wearing a red sox hat. the laughter stopped. RED SOX. (sorry meag and piz). we all looked down, disappointed, shaking out heads. then we realized we all had the same ridiculous over-reaction and started laughing again.
that's all.
ryan had his signature malt, but again not a lucky one with chocolate goo at the bottom.

work row

gwen gem
gwen: you looked skinny yesterday.
me: thanks! i haven't been able to get to the gym this week so i'm not feeling so skinny.
gwen: oh. it was probably just because you were wearing tighter jeans.

old man bill: how's life in the big city?
me: good. i might be moving soon.
omb: oh yeah? well, depending on the weekend, i might be able to help, i have a truck.
me: wow! thanks bill.
omb: jose [senior engineer in my department] and bill [department manager] have trucks too, we could all help.
me: wow. sounds like a party. i'll order the pizza.

and this:
The Death of Trace Contaminants
By Michael J. McGuire, Publisher

August 1, 2007 will be remembered as the beginning of the "Death of Trace Contaminants." An editorial was published in the New York Times on that day entitled "In Praise of Tap Water." In it, the editors decry the high cost and environmental damage caused by bottled water. High cost has always been an issue with bottled water. Water utility folks have always known that bottled water costs about 1000 times more than tap water. A Los Angeles Times Op Ed article today calls bottled water users "suckers."

What is new is the focus on the environmental cost of producing the billions of plastic bottles and squandering our fossil fuel treasures to transport bottled water from glaciers in Alaska, the French Alps and islands in the South Pacific. Other news articles have begun to list these costs and call into question what we are doing in a society that drags a product weighing 8.34 pounds per gallon half way around the world when there is a perfectly acceptable and safe alternative as close as the nearest faucet. We are finally beginning to ask questions and understand how our actions affect the global environment and climate.

Over 26 years ago, I wrote an opinion piece called the "The Age of Trace Contaminants." In that article, I predicted a continuing emphasis from the public, the media and regulators on controlling smaller and smaller concentrations of trace organics, radionuclides and microorganisms. A lot of regulations have flowed over the dam since 1981 and tens of billions of dollars have been spent to enhance drinking water treatment and distribution system infrastructure. There is no doubt that drinking water quality in this country has improved as a result of regulation and hard work by dedicated drinking water professionals.

The editors of the New York Times would not have readily recommended tap water if there were lingering questions about the quality and safety of that resource. I guess all of the trace organics are gone. Wait a minute--they're not gone, but I guess they are not as important as they were in the 1970s and 80s when the same news media scared the public by publishing the latest stories on the drinking water detection of 2,3-methyldeath (or my favorite, sodium baloneyate). People were frightened about tap water and rushed to find an alternative-bottled water. They did not rush out and buy expensive bottled water so that they could become "smarter" or "super-hydrate their tissues."

I published an article in 2002 entitled "Trihalomethanes in U.S. Drinking Water: NORS to ICR," which chronicled the significant decline in the exposure of consumers to trihalomethanes (50 to 60% decrease in 24 years). Trihalomethanes are not gone; they are still with us and always will be because of the need to safeguard the microbiological quality of drinking water. As the Stage 2 Disinfection Byproducts Rule kicks in later this decade, trihalomethane concentrations (and other disinfection byproducts) will continue to decrease.

What is remarkable about the recent news articles is that global climate change has trumped parts-per-billion. Perhaps now we can focus scarce public resources on those drinking water system issues that really improve water service and protect the public health. We certainly do not need to start chasing parts-per-trillion levels of personal care products and pharmaceuticals that have shown up in some supplies.

We are still, as I said in 1981, faced with complex challenges. It looks like we are starting to put trace contaminants in drinking water into their proper perspective. The debate will continue now that the news media is grabbing the public's attention once again.

Well, maybe the trace contaminants issue is not dead, but it is surely on life support now that the "newspaper of record" for the U.S. is praising tap water.

we dew

one of my first friends from pleasanton got married last weekend to one of my favorite pushers ever.
the mitchell katz winery was a fantastic place for the ceremony and the followng dance party. they had special food for rach and i, stuffed bell peppers on a bed of the creamiest hummus ever...so good! i will be trying to replicate.
here are some pictures of the fun:

why we were almost late

chris and rach

party favors

beautiful bride

nate gettin down

me and rod

rachel getting all sacramento on us

the enemy...dunkley knows.

jen and the boys

gigawatt ottawa gig

i bought a new knife set! woot! mom and kev bought me my first henckels a few years ago for christmas, and last weekend i bought 12 more to go with them, and got a "free" block. sweet. the box they came in didn't even have any pictures of meat, only veggies, i knew we were made to be together. i made salsa a couple days ago, sliced through tomatoes like butter. yeayeah.


oh, and this gem from paul rudd (shared by marissa):
"God, I hate mustard. I don't like condiments. Condiments in general I find unsettling. I don't like ketchup. I don't like mayonnaise. I didn't have salad dressing until I was in college, I swear to God. I wasn't ready. When I was a little kid I wouldn't eat cucumbers unless my mother cut out the seeds. That behavior should not be tolerated, first of all. My mother did a horrible, horrible job. Thankfully I can now eat a whole cucumber."