All Shook Up

For those who were wondering, last night's earthquake was long! As
in, it took me at least a few seconds to figure out it was an
earthquake, I jumped up and turned off my stove and moved my pot of
near-boiling water, and still managed to ride out the last five
seconds bracing myself in the doorway to my bedroom.

It was pretty cool. Speaking of which, my last post is formatted
horribly because I experimented with forwarding an HTML email directly
to blogger, but it does not change the fact that the reign of Little
is ovah! And how EXCITING that Joe Torre make take the job: the man
has tons of recent experience managing huge payrolls and not going
anywhere in the post-season, just how the Dodgers like it!

Also, please buy Burt's Bees products.

Grady Little and Dodgers part ways

STATS  |  SCHEDULE  |  NEWS  |  ROSTER  |  BALLPARK  |  FAN FORUM  |  COMMUNITY  |  FANTASY MOBILE  |  SHOP  |  TICKETS  |  MULTIMEDIA Know someone who would like this e-mail? Forward it to them now » Little and Dodgers Part Ways The Los Angeles Dodgers have announced the resignation of Manager Grady Little. Little became the 25th manager in Dodger history on December 6, 2005. In his two years Little led the Dodgers to a 170-154 record, including one postseason appearance. According to Little, "This was a mutual decision that Ned and I decided is the best direction for the Dodger organization to take." Read more on © 2007 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved. All Major League Baseball trademarks and service marks used herein are the property of the applicable MLB entity. All other marks used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Please review our privacy policy: http://mlb.mlb.com/la/help/la_help_about_privacy.jsp. You received this message because you registered to receive commercial e-mail messages from dodgers.com. If you no longer wish to receive commercial e-mail messages from dodgers.com, please unsubscribe. Postal Address: dodgers.com, c/o MLB Advanced Media, L.P., 75 Ninth Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011.

Juliedelphia goes legit (temporarily)

OK I didn't actually get to do any blogging from there, but I was in
Philly! For two days! And it rained a lot. And I got to do
recruiting, which (guess what?) is completely less stressful when
you're the one hiring instead of the one begging for a job.

I had an absolute blast catching up with the head writers, telling a
new generation of first years they're not funny, and randomly catching
up with a bunch of people from my class who happened to be in town
doing their own recruiting. I also got to bond with some of my
co-workers, who continue to be very cool to hang out with. The
weekend was filled with more non-stop fun such that my cab driver last
night, upon hearing my hoarse voice, gave me medical advice the entire
ride up from SFO.

I have to admit to feeling a pang that I'm not on the east coast, even
as I remain convince that my decision to come back here was the right
one. It was funny catching up with my friend Nisha (my China
sidekick), who went through a similar decision process and chose NY
over the Bay Area. She kept saying she already feels like she made
the wrong choice, and given how many of my friends who became so
important to me over the past two years are now in NY, I could say the
same thing. But the thing is, I think my peer group is just
hopelessly dispersed, and there is no right or wrong choice of where
to be any more. I wish I could force everyone I love to move to the
same city (I think real estate is really cheap in Des Moines), but
it's not meant to be. I only hope that this year will be filled with
many visits to New York, Austin, Chicago, Houston, Orange County,
Philly, and who knows, maybe even Kentucky.

In the meantime, I'm back in SF. And t-minus four days til my parents
have to give me my dog back, if they haven't fled the country with
him.

SoCal's Burning

I was in Southern California for most of the weekend, and so got to
enjoy the 50mph winds and the smoke-filled views. I keep doing a
double take looking out the windows in my building because it's so
amazingly clear here, and Sunday in Orange County was almost like
being in a fog bank, except it was smoke.

On Sunday night, I had the great pleasure of watching the Red Sox and
the Broncos (quite excitingly) win big games while I was on Jet Blue.
It's pretty funny when 75% of the plane is watching the same sporting
event and so people yell when things happen. It's nice that in
today's atmosphere of fearful flyers that a well-timed RBI can have
people throwing their arms up in the air and yelling "YES!" at the top
of their lungs. It was also awesome that the woman sitting next to me
was rooting for the Steelers, and that I probably elbowed her a bit
doing my 'seated cabbage patch' when Elam nailed the field goal for
the win.

Now I'm living Satchel-free (for almost two full weeks!), and I must
say the apartment feels empty.

Back to School

OK guys, I'm done with work.  Student life is far superior.  And I found the Bay Area institution I want to enroll in to become a student once more.

 

http://www.cheeseschoolsf.com/about/index.html

 

 

Bad Company

I don't know what Satchel is doing with his free time when I'm not home and he's not in playgroup, but some recent news leads me to believe he's up to no good.  Kevin Federline, Britney Spears, and Satchel have all come down with pinkeye at the same time.  Given pinkeye's highly contagious nature, I can only assume they've been in contact.  I shudder to think what they're up to.

Wednesday Night Football Announcers

FSN replayed the Stanford SC game for the millions of us who don't have the "Versus" network as part of our cable lineup.  So this was the first time I actually got to see the game.  Unfortunately for the announcers, they don't get to edit what they said live for the rebroadcast.

 

When Stanford scored that fateful last touchdown, the announcer actually yelled, "TOUCHDOWN USC!!!!"  Then after thirty seconds of silence on his part as we listen to the shocked bedlam in the Coliseum, he said, "I mean Stanford."

 

OK, I'm done writing about the game now. 

What's new....

I didn't buy a house (that's house number three I haven't bought-- quite a collection of real estate!)

Satchel has pinkeye (from hanging out with Scott Baio)

Despite two years of no dental exams, I have no cavities and my teeth have been proclaimed in great shape (thanks, genetics)

I realized on BART this morning that I have an entirely new lingo about simple grocery store items from just five weeks of working here (I had to bring in 'product' when we were out of a specific 'sku'.  Who talks like that?)

I am completely addicted to Chanel Vamp for my manicures (though dark colors are unforgiving, it chips less than my bargain neutral shades)

At the end of the 4th quarter, Stanford came back with a miraculous drive and scored on 4th down to upset the number one college football team in the country, winning 24-23 (OK, not really 'what's new' so much as 'what's still really exciting')

 

Still Jim Harbaugh 1- Pete Carroll 0

Here are my favorite Pete "Good Sportsmanship" Carroll quotations from last night:

"It happened in classic fashion for Stanford. Jim had them ready to play, and they just waited, and waited, and we made enough mistakes and they capitalized. They just waited us out."

Waited them out? Or took down the 41 point favorites on their home turf where they had been undefeated since we beat them in 2001?

And this one kind of sounds schmucky to me, but it's so unintelligible I can't really tell if it's bad or not:

"I've been around the block, and I've had my wins and losses," Carroll said, talking faster and faster as though if the words came out fast enough he could stop thinking about them. "But I just don't accept it (losing). I don't know where to put it. I have no place for it. I'll find a way to put it off for awhile, but I'll have it forever."

Jim Harbaugh 1- Pete Carroll 0

Happy 1st Birthday!

Satchel turns one today.  As a prequel to this, he graduated from Good Canine Citizen classes, where he went from being the biggest disruption/problem dog on day one to the teacher's pet on the last.  Not only were we asked to demonstrate what we were doing for one of the biggest things we've learned for the entire class, he was selected to be the dog she taught a trick to in front of the entire class.  Of course, as soon as the graduation 'ceremony' began, he became barky and hyper once more.  But any worries that he would be remembered as the troublemaker of the class at its conclusion were relieved when another dog crapped in the middle of the classroom at the very end. 

 

Happy birthday, Satchel!  And please-- no gifts.

Odds and Ends

When they say they clean out the contents of the work fridge once a month, would you ever imagine they'd throw away a full can of Diet Cherry Coke I had left in there over the weekend?  I can understand tossing the containers of leftover lasagna, but clearly my DCC had not gone bad.  Needless to say, I am grumpy this afternoon.

 

I don't think I shared the story about my BART ride home last week when a man who smelled like he had just taken a bath in gin sat next to me and then tried to use my thigh as a handrest for two stops.  I kept scooting closer to the window, he kept inching his arm our and curving his hand closer.  It was disgusting.  Fortunately, just as I was about to leap up, we reached his next stop on his pub crawl and he disembarked.

 

Satchel had quite a little project on Saturday attempting to retrieve his hairbrush from the increasingly harder to reach surfaces I put it on.  First it was on the coffee table, when he suddenly remembered after weeks of not noticing that his hairbrush handle is his favorite thing in the whole world to chew on.  I tolerated it for a few minutes, and then remembered how expensive all dog-related products are, so I confiscated it and put it on the TV stand, which is probably about five feet high.  Undeterred, he quickly realized that his crate was right next to it and that he could probably jump on the crate and reach the brush (note: he has never jumped on or stood on top of his crate).  He had a little trouble reaching the brush through the leaves of the aloe plant on the edge of the TV stand, but he got there eventually.  Impressed though I was, I still didn't want him destroying the brush, so I put it on the kitchen counter, which is roughly the same height of the TV stand but without the obvious stepping stool of the crate next to it.  It is, however, only about four feet from the couch, and so wonderdog climbed up onto the back of the couch and assumed his crouch position as he deliberated whether this was a good idea.  I had visions of him hitting his head on the countertop, and so ended the game by taking him for a walk.  Oh, and to add to the entire scene above, he makes this little whining sound which almost sounds like a bird call when he can't reach the brush, so I had a little soundtrack to enjoy as well.

 

As for work, I am currently in the midst of putting together presentations on things I don't understand, and am fairly certain I am the dumbest person ever to work here.  But it will all come together in time, right?