Season's First Rain

I woke up early at my friend's place today, and hadn't been home since the previous morning for various reasons. I left around 5:30am. The instant I walked outside, I felt the cold morning. It has been a long time since the last cool morning because our area had a very hot summer that ended abruptly just yesterday. As I walked to my car, the season's first rain started. A few tiny sprinkles landed on me.
On the drive home, the rain picked up a little bit. The wind shield was fairly dirty from a long road trip two days ago. The wiper fluid isn't persistent enough to really get off much of the built up road grim, so the rain was allowing me to really clean my wind shield with my wipers.
When I got home and stepped out of my car, the aroma of the seasons's first rain hit me. I filled my lungs with the sweet, rain fresh, crisp morning air. It's been too long since the last of such experiences.
I really enjoyed the long hot summer. I appreciate it more because it is going to allow me to enjoy the relief of a shout cool fall.

Dear Lord!

I just realized how busy I am this week. Some how I have to find time to move funds around for the purchasing payment on the rental property I'm buying, get my car's oil changed, be at work for important clients, go sign the paper work to finalize the purchase of the rental property (4 hour drive to and from), go out with friends friday and Sat evenings, and Sail in sailboat races up north outta town on Sat and Sunday during the day. Dang it, I just realized I need a hair cut to look good for the client and the weekend. arg This will likely be my last entry till next Tuesday.

49er's Vs. Bucs

Ok, I was casually checking out the 49er/Buc game in the fourth quarter this weekend. First thought in my mind when I saw the score of 21 to 7 was, "Eh, big deal." Most of my life, the Bucs have sucked ass. I know they are now a great team, but my instinctive feeling is still that they suck. Also, I don't pay much attention to football til about the 8th game in the season. So, here I was, for a good half minute thinking the 49ers where beating a lame team, so the game didn't matter much. Then it hit me. This is Gruden's Bucs! Last year's Super Bowl champions! Damn, what the hell was wrong with them? So, they had a bad day. Now the 49er's are all confident again. It won't last, of course. They aren't a first or second tier team right now. You can prolly call them King of the Third Tier Teams. lol If they make it to a Super Bowl in the next few years, they'd prolly lose it. So, let them build up into a better team, then get back to the Super Bowl as healthy as possible. 49ers are the only team to win 5 Super Bowls without losing a Super Bowl. Ok, this entry is done cuz I'm starting to ramble.

Trouble with Democracy

The trouble with Democracy is that an idiot's vote counts that same as a smart person's. LOL Just kidding.

Reggie Jackson Tried to Steal my Cab!

So, did I ever tell you about the time I met Reggie Jackson? This was back in the mid-1990's. He tried to steal my cab late one night at the Monterey Peninsula Airport. I had gotten in on a red-eye flight. I'm tired as hell. After getting my luggage, I walked outside to wait for a cab. Others from our flight did the same. After waiting about 15 minutes, I figured sumfin was up, so I went to call one of the cab companies to come on down. Within 30 seconds, three cabs show up. Apparently, the airport had a rule against cabs waiting for passengers, so they waited to be dispatched from a just a block away. Anyways, I let some elderly couples take the cabs. This left me stranded. I had to wait for the cabs to return, so I sat and waited. While I'm waiting, another flight gets in. Reggie Jackson comes out of the airport building and sits down a ways over from me. Finally a cab returns, and what does that Reggie try to do? He tries to steal it from me. He saw me waiting with my luggage, but he still walks right up to the cab and prepares to load up. I walked right up to him and looked him square in the eye with a rather unpleasant look on my face and just said with attitude, "Is that your cab?!" Well, he matches my look for half a second, then tries to play it off with something like, "Oh, this one's yours?" I'm like, "Yeah." LOL So, the cabbie recognizes him too and gets all excited. I load up my luggage and get in. The cabbie tries to get Reggie's attention to ride with us to, and I'm like, "Alright, fine, ask if he wants to share." Reggie goes to sit back down. At this point, I know he's not coming in this cab, so I tell the cab to just go. I didn't have all that far to travel, so riding with him woulda been pointless, even on better terms. Who knows, maybe the cabbie got back in time to give him a ride before another cab showed up. Whatever. I wasn't going to let anyone steal my cab that night.

Well, the recall election is today

I've done voted via absentee last week. My mind hasn't changed, either. I'm still not happy about having to vote over the recall, but oh well. I think the law should allow counter-petitioning (or would that be counter petition or counterpetition?) during the petition collection process. Actually, that's not a bad idea. That would mean that any petition would need to collect a more reasonable number of signatures instead of letting a very small percentage of the population trigger something like a recall.

Some week off this has been

I had intended on doing nufin for a couple of weeks in the evenings, to just relax and veg. This is cuz last month I was soo busy. Well, it's not shaping up that way. I've gone out Friday, Sunday, last night and today, plus tomorrow and Friday again. I'm having a good time, so I'm not goin to stop the spontanious flow of activity. I'll just need to make sure I take it easy this weekend cuz I'm goin to need to catch up on sleep.

Microsoft's Settlement Refund...umm, wow

This is turning about to be one strange turn-of-the-century. First, we start getting tax refund checks in the middle of the year without filing taxes yet. Now, Microsoft is throwing money at us too.

Basically, you get a settlement for any eligible Microsoft purchases you made during 1995 thru 2001. No proof of purchase is necessary if the total reimbursement is does not exceed $100. Microsoft even had two of my purchases already listed. The really really scary part about all this is that somehow, they knew to send the reimbursement form to my current work address. I've been working at the same company all along, mind you, but we've moved a couple of times since then. Well, it's a refund that I'm sure I deserve. :) Anyone else wanna give me some money? LOL

Updated Post, August 14, 2006

I finally received my Microsoft voucher

Updated Post, September 15, 2016
Microsoft Settlement Refund...umm, wow Part 2

My Vote

Besides the recall vote, there's two other items on the California 2003 special election: proposition 53 and Proposition 54. I've stated before that I'm a political centrist (as opposed to moderate). So here I am, faced with two highly political propositions. What's a centrist to do?

 
My viewpoint on Proposition 53 is that the last thing we need is more planned state government spending that takes money out of the budget. This proposition is giving our elected leaders no room to move when balancing the budget. I was very surprised to find that the Republican party of California is supporting this thing. Aren't these guys supposed to be against wild government spending? When I read the pros and cons, it just left a bad taste in my mouth to think this was even on the ballot. Yuk.

 
My viewpoint on Proposition 54 is that it is about time this issue is being addressed. I classify my race as American. Ethnically, that is what I am. It would be nuts to break down my family lines to choose just one of my origin ethnics as my own. The truth is that I represent none of these origin "races", or maybe I represent all of them. I am walking proof of the stupidity of claiming ethnicity. In a colorblind society, it wouldn't even matter. I am tired of being asked about my ethnicity by the government. I want this practice stopped. I read in the cons that this proposition will hinder health care collection of data. Well, it doesn't. Even if there is some loophole where this might occur, it would be fixed by the legislature next year anyway, so this is a moot point.

Economy starting to look to 1930's

Our country is running out of Economic Options. The policies of our government are running our economy the ground. Thangs are starting to look like the beginning of the Great Depression. I don't think we will have one, but we are being pushed in that direction more than we should because of some of the policies the current administration is perusing. This story by the USAToday says it well.

It is a myth that the U.S. has a Free Market Economy. We've never really have had a pure Free Market Economy. I'll rant more about this some other time though.

End of the Sailboating twilight Series

...And we lost Friday evening. We had a good start in the race, and were in the lead. Then another boat ran into us. No damage to the Spitfire, but it cost us 30 seconds. Our best competitor in the series caught up with us because of this incident with another boat. We did finish the race first, but with handicapping time, we still got second place by 19 seconds. That incident with the other boat cost us the race, and the series. Arg. Second place. Oh well. We finished the series with one 3rd place, three 2nd places and one first place finish. We got the winning gun three times but lost two of those races because our main competitor finished quickly enough behind us to over take us with handicapping.
It came down to the wire, so it was a fun series. Next time, first will be ours! :)

Rest needed

This is one busy week. This whole month has been busy, with the camping, Napa Valley trip, sailing, etc. Almost every non-working, non-sleeping period of time has been spent doing something or being with one friend or another in one way or another. It’s been great, but I’m going need a break. I’m just going to hibernate this weekend, I think. Maybe go for a drive somewhere. No wait, that’s doing something LOL.

Today is a strange day

Something wonderful happened today. Can't go into details.

Review of Chateau Hotel, Napa, CA

El Sh*t-toe is the term I overheard another guess use to describe the Chateau Hotel. It fits. The hotel looks good at first glance when you arrive, but in fact it is not well maintained. The rooms are old, outdated and not maintained. The dresser had one handle missing. The bathrooms were extremely simple. The beds mattresses squeaked loudly. The pillows were worn out. The bedspreads looked as though they had been in the room since the hotel was first built, decades ago. The A/C unit was horribly inadequate, and again looked to be as old as the hotel, yet added on as an after thought years later. The hot tub was a mess and its jets did not work in any useful manner. The carpets are dirty and old. The hallways where not cooled. The vending machines where out of stock for three days straight on the weekend during a busy season. The T.V. was small, appeared to be decades old, and buzzed very loudly every time a bright light was in the background of the T.V. show. The T.V. only had local channels and HBO, with no movie selections. The hotel is farther from Napa’s downtown area than suggested in the hotel’s description. On the plus side, they had a working ice machine. Oh, the staff was courteous, but seemed fully aware of the hotels issues.
Even at my discounted rate, the hotel is way way over priced. However, you couldn’t lower the price far enough to convince me to stay there again. In Napa Valley, I’ve spent much less on a room and received better, newer rooms and more services.

Napa Valley

Man, it was beautiful there this weekend. The weather was hot and clear. The only downside was the hotel. More like a glorified motel. Anyways, it was a lot of fun. Went to V.Sottui, Berenger, Copola, etc. Don't ask me to spell them right. LOL They are all on highway 29. Also, had a great lunch on Saturday at Fumé. Came back with prolly more wine than needed for the year to come. LOL