Sunday, April 24, 2005
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
I'm sorry, Mom and Dad
Dear Mom and Dad,
Please forgive me for all of the times you took me to your office and I made a big long chain with all of your paperclips so that when you went to pull one out they would all stick together and need to be unhooked from each other.
Today, at the copy machine, I realized the error of my ways, and I am deeply sorry for what I am sure amounted to hours of tiny annoyances.
Please forgive me for all of the times you took me to your office and I made a big long chain with all of your paperclips so that when you went to pull one out they would all stick together and need to be unhooked from each other.
Today, at the copy machine, I realized the error of my ways, and I am deeply sorry for what I am sure amounted to hours of tiny annoyances.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Rent the movie
For those of you interested, they have cast for Rent the movie and are filming….it will be released this November (well, that is the current plan…) Interesting to note…they cast someone for the role of “Alison Grey.”
And Look! Most of the Original Cast! Isn't that refreshing?
And Look! Most of the Original Cast! Isn't that refreshing?
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Last day of vacation
So...we woke up and packed...always a fun time... and checked out of our wonderful Marriot room.
We headed down towards San Jose, stopping to eat at Fudd Ruckers, which reminded me of Flakey Jakes, where Betty used to take us.
Anyway, Grant gor an Ostrich burger and I got a cow burger, and we loaded our fries up with nacho cheese sauce...plus I got a strawberry shake and Grant got a kona coffee shake and it was one of those perfectly heavenly meals...
We arrived at the Winchester Mystery House early in the afternoon and we did the estate tour. It was really quite interesting...for those of you that don't know the story, here is my brief summary...
Sarah Pardee married the guy who owned the Winshester Rifle Company (his father started the business and he continued it, and improved it, particularly by making a quality repeating rifle...)
Sarah Pardee Winchester had a daughter who died 20 days after she was born, and many years later her husband died of Tuberculosis.
As the story goes, she was deeply grieved for the untimley losses of her family, and went to see a psychic. This psychic told her that her family was being haunted by the spirits of all of those whose lives were lost by the Winchester Rifle, and if she wanted to live (and not fall to the curse) She would need to travel to where the sun touches the sea (west) and build a house for the spirits to dwell in. Here is the kicker, Sarah interepreted this to mean that as long as she continued to build the house, the spirits would not harm her...
So sarah came out west and bought a farm house, and began building. For the next 32 years, she had carpenters build the house non stop, 24 hours a day, adding rooms on to rooms, building new rooms around existing rooms, and creating a mansion with all sorts of oddities...Tiffany stain glass windows built into walls with rooms on both sides of the wall so that no sunlight touched the room, staircases that go into the ceiling, a window in the floor, a chimney that travels four stories up and stops just a foot and a half below the ceiling (there is an old myth that spirits enter and exit the house through chimnies, so perhaps Sarah was trying to confuse them...?).
Sarah held nightly seinces to talk to the spirits, and these talks led to her hand drawn plans for the carpenters to build the next day. As such, there are no blue prints and no formal apporvals for anything in the house.
Other interesting things...Sarah had a fascination with spiderweb designs, as evidenced in many of the stain glass windows. in addition, she was obsessed with the number 13...many staircases had 13 stairs, there were 13 bathrooms (and 13 windows in the 13 bathrooms) She had 13 palms lining the front driveway...oh, yeah, and another old wives tale says that if you install a post upside down in ahouse, it will bring you good luck. Every post in Sarah's estate was installed upside down.
(By the way, besides the large sum of money she recieved as being the heress to the Winchester fortune, she recieved revenues from the companies stocks and bonds which amounted to $1000 a day. ..in case you were wondering how she could afford this!)
In any case, there are so many interesting things, it is definatly worth checking out!
After our tour, we had some time before a flight, but we headed to the airport anyway, to see if we could fly Standby on an earlier flight. We got on (the flisht had about 20 empty seats) So after being subject to a polite but thourough body and barry on baggage search (yup, we got pulled aside...probably becasue we switched flights...) We got on a plane about 40 minutes after dropping our car off at the airport, and even got to move to the emergency row becasue nobody wanted to sit there. Sweet....
All in all, it was a great trip...have I mentioned how much I love traveling with Grant?
Other interesting things about the house...
We headed down towards San Jose, stopping to eat at Fudd Ruckers, which reminded me of Flakey Jakes, where Betty used to take us.
Anyway, Grant gor an Ostrich burger and I got a cow burger, and we loaded our fries up with nacho cheese sauce...plus I got a strawberry shake and Grant got a kona coffee shake and it was one of those perfectly heavenly meals...
We arrived at the Winchester Mystery House early in the afternoon and we did the estate tour. It was really quite interesting...for those of you that don't know the story, here is my brief summary...
Sarah Pardee married the guy who owned the Winshester Rifle Company (his father started the business and he continued it, and improved it, particularly by making a quality repeating rifle...)
Sarah Pardee Winchester had a daughter who died 20 days after she was born, and many years later her husband died of Tuberculosis.
As the story goes, she was deeply grieved for the untimley losses of her family, and went to see a psychic. This psychic told her that her family was being haunted by the spirits of all of those whose lives were lost by the Winchester Rifle, and if she wanted to live (and not fall to the curse) She would need to travel to where the sun touches the sea (west) and build a house for the spirits to dwell in. Here is the kicker, Sarah interepreted this to mean that as long as she continued to build the house, the spirits would not harm her...
So sarah came out west and bought a farm house, and began building. For the next 32 years, she had carpenters build the house non stop, 24 hours a day, adding rooms on to rooms, building new rooms around existing rooms, and creating a mansion with all sorts of oddities...Tiffany stain glass windows built into walls with rooms on both sides of the wall so that no sunlight touched the room, staircases that go into the ceiling, a window in the floor, a chimney that travels four stories up and stops just a foot and a half below the ceiling (there is an old myth that spirits enter and exit the house through chimnies, so perhaps Sarah was trying to confuse them...?).
Sarah held nightly seinces to talk to the spirits, and these talks led to her hand drawn plans for the carpenters to build the next day. As such, there are no blue prints and no formal apporvals for anything in the house.
Other interesting things...Sarah had a fascination with spiderweb designs, as evidenced in many of the stain glass windows. in addition, she was obsessed with the number 13...many staircases had 13 stairs, there were 13 bathrooms (and 13 windows in the 13 bathrooms) She had 13 palms lining the front driveway...oh, yeah, and another old wives tale says that if you install a post upside down in ahouse, it will bring you good luck. Every post in Sarah's estate was installed upside down.
(By the way, besides the large sum of money she recieved as being the heress to the Winchester fortune, she recieved revenues from the companies stocks and bonds which amounted to $1000 a day. ..in case you were wondering how she could afford this!)
In any case, there are so many interesting things, it is definatly worth checking out!
After our tour, we had some time before a flight, but we headed to the airport anyway, to see if we could fly Standby on an earlier flight. We got on (the flisht had about 20 empty seats) So after being subject to a polite but thourough body and barry on baggage search (yup, we got pulled aside...probably becasue we switched flights...) We got on a plane about 40 minutes after dropping our car off at the airport, and even got to move to the emergency row becasue nobody wanted to sit there. Sweet....
All in all, it was a great trip...have I mentioned how much I love traveling with Grant?
Other interesting things about the house...
Saturday, April 02, 2005
SF Day 2
We leave tonight! Back to the real world of work and school and writing papers...sigh.
But, let me tell you all about yesterday!
We drove into the city yesterday...(Yes, I actually drove around the city...up and down those steep, scary hills...I can't wait until Grant can do the driving.)
We had lunch at Round Table...they delivered Grant's pizza relly quick,but mine didin;t come out for 20 more minutes, by which time we had finished Grant's and i made two trips to the salad bar. So only a quarter of my pizza got eaten, so we gave the rest to a bum sitting outside and went on our way.
I drove down Lombard Street, which thankfully was NOT crowded. Next, we drove to the Exploritorium, which was really crowded...We spent a few hours there, and then left. We had reservations for thr Tactile Dome, but not until 6:45...
So we went towards Fisherman's Wharf, and lucked out by finding a spot the block abovr Ghiredelli Square...a free spot! We walked the 5 blocks or so to Fisherman's Wharf and took a bay cruise on the Red and White fleet. The had personal head sets to listen to the tour, which made it easier to hear then in SAeattle when they spoke on a microphone.
After out tour, we went back to Ghiredelli Square and had, you guessed it, Ice Cream Sundaes. This time, I had the Cable Car, which was a scoop of chocolate ice cream, chocolate chip, and rocky road, with Hot fudge and marshmellow topping. Grant had the warm cookie bottom sundae, which was a hot fudge sundae with a warm cookie...on the bottom (imagine that). You know what is so sweet about Grant? He always gives me his cherry.
After our sundae snack, we drove through the city again, therough the Italian districe and China town, and then back to th Explorotarium for our tactile Dome experience. The museum closed at 5 so unless you were going in the dome, you couldn't go in.
The tactile DOME is a labrynth that you climb through compleatly in the dark...pitch black...you use your hands to crawl, slide down and navigate your way through. It was very cool. We went through twice.
When we were done, we took the advice of the employees, and left our car there, and walked to Chestnut Street to have dinner. We found this place called Asqew Grill, just of Chestnut, which had different kinds of skewers. It was really good. Grant got balsamic Beef, and I got Thai BBQ chicken, and we got an appitizer of grilled asparagus. Yummy!
we walked back to our car and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and through Berkley to get home. it was a little bit longer, but we thought a new route would be nice. And it wwould have been, if one of the bridges we went across (not the GOLDEN Gate) didin't have work being done on it which slowed us down ALOT!
over all it was a very good trip, and it is not over yet! Today, we are going to the Winchester Mystery House! I'll tell ya all about it, later. But now, we must pack!
But, let me tell you all about yesterday!
We drove into the city yesterday...(Yes, I actually drove around the city...up and down those steep, scary hills...I can't wait until Grant can do the driving.)
We had lunch at Round Table...they delivered Grant's pizza relly quick,but mine didin;t come out for 20 more minutes, by which time we had finished Grant's and i made two trips to the salad bar. So only a quarter of my pizza got eaten, so we gave the rest to a bum sitting outside and went on our way.
I drove down Lombard Street, which thankfully was NOT crowded. Next, we drove to the Exploritorium, which was really crowded...We spent a few hours there, and then left. We had reservations for thr Tactile Dome, but not until 6:45...
So we went towards Fisherman's Wharf, and lucked out by finding a spot the block abovr Ghiredelli Square...a free spot! We walked the 5 blocks or so to Fisherman's Wharf and took a bay cruise on the Red and White fleet. The had personal head sets to listen to the tour, which made it easier to hear then in SAeattle when they spoke on a microphone.
After out tour, we went back to Ghiredelli Square and had, you guessed it, Ice Cream Sundaes. This time, I had the Cable Car, which was a scoop of chocolate ice cream, chocolate chip, and rocky road, with Hot fudge and marshmellow topping. Grant had the warm cookie bottom sundae, which was a hot fudge sundae with a warm cookie...on the bottom (imagine that). You know what is so sweet about Grant? He always gives me his cherry.
After our sundae snack, we drove through the city again, therough the Italian districe and China town, and then back to th Explorotarium for our tactile Dome experience. The museum closed at 5 so unless you were going in the dome, you couldn't go in.
The tactile DOME is a labrynth that you climb through compleatly in the dark...pitch black...you use your hands to crawl, slide down and navigate your way through. It was very cool. We went through twice.
When we were done, we took the advice of the employees, and left our car there, and walked to Chestnut Street to have dinner. We found this place called Asqew Grill, just of Chestnut, which had different kinds of skewers. It was really good. Grant got balsamic Beef, and I got Thai BBQ chicken, and we got an appitizer of grilled asparagus. Yummy!
we walked back to our car and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and through Berkley to get home. it was a little bit longer, but we thought a new route would be nice. And it wwould have been, if one of the bridges we went across (not the GOLDEN Gate) didin't have work being done on it which slowed us down ALOT!
over all it was a very good trip, and it is not over yet! Today, we are going to the Winchester Mystery House! I'll tell ya all about it, later. But now, we must pack!
Friday, April 01, 2005
Our Evening Downtown
Hi all! Well, last night, we took the Bart across the bay and the streetcar to Fisherman's wharf. It was packed down there! It was so crowded it almost wasn't enjoyable. In any case we walked through Pier 39, and over by the submarines where they had a tribute to the old sea side boardwalk carnivals, complete with about 100 old time machines, the movie flips, the press a button to see what your career would be, fortune telling machines and the like.
We got some fish and chips and clam chowder for dinner, and sat on a wall on a corner and listened to some street musicians play. After that, we went to Ghiredelli Square and had desert...Yummy sundaes for us from the Soda Fountain.
It was a nice evening, and we really enjoyed ourselves, but we were pretty tired.
When we got back we went to the Concierge Lounge, and had some snacks. The guy working it was having a lot of fun, this being the "eve of April Fool's Day" He put a sign on the door that said "Welcum to the Hilton Conseeerge. And he had "Centerpieces" on each table, for example, a jar of Olives or trays of Peanut Butter.
We went back to our room to plan the day and I pretty much just vegged in front of the TV. The bed is so comfortable...
Speaking of whcih, I wanted to describe our room for you, becasue it is oddly layed out becasue of its shape. The hotel shape is a long trapezoid. We have the second to last room so our room is shaped almost like a triangle. You walk in to the room and yo are in a short hallway, with the bathroom to the right and the closet to the left (this is like a rectangle attatched to the triangle) Around the corner, is the main part of the room. The wall on your left is straignt, like you'd expect, but the wall on the right is at an angle...making the base of the triangle. The bed is on that wall, so it faces at an angle instead of straignt. The TV is in the top corner of the room. At the opposite side from where you walk in, there is a chair and a little table. I don't know if that was a good description or not...somehow, I doubt it!
Have a good day...don't get fooled!
We got some fish and chips and clam chowder for dinner, and sat on a wall on a corner and listened to some street musicians play. After that, we went to Ghiredelli Square and had desert...Yummy sundaes for us from the Soda Fountain.
It was a nice evening, and we really enjoyed ourselves, but we were pretty tired.
When we got back we went to the Concierge Lounge, and had some snacks. The guy working it was having a lot of fun, this being the "eve of April Fool's Day" He put a sign on the door that said "Welcum to the Hilton Conseeerge. And he had "Centerpieces" on each table, for example, a jar of Olives or trays of Peanut Butter.
We went back to our room to plan the day and I pretty much just vegged in front of the TV. The bed is so comfortable...
Speaking of whcih, I wanted to describe our room for you, becasue it is oddly layed out becasue of its shape. The hotel shape is a long trapezoid. We have the second to last room so our room is shaped almost like a triangle. You walk in to the room and yo are in a short hallway, with the bathroom to the right and the closet to the left (this is like a rectangle attatched to the triangle) Around the corner, is the main part of the room. The wall on your left is straignt, like you'd expect, but the wall on the right is at an angle...making the base of the triangle. The bed is on that wall, so it faces at an angle instead of straignt. The TV is in the top corner of the room. At the opposite side from where you walk in, there is a chair and a little table. I don't know if that was a good description or not...somehow, I doubt it!
Have a good day...don't get fooled!