Monthly Archives: July 2009


Chinese Chicken Salad

Home } Food } Chinese Chicken Salad

I thought about writing some sort of “pros and cons of B-field” post, but honestly, I don’t know the town well enough yet. My list thus far:


Pro: We’re getting used to global warming way before our pals back in the Pacific Northwest.
Con: By the time they experience global warming, we’ll look like Raisinettes.


Pro: Thanks to the heat, women show a lot more skin here in B-field.
Con: Thanks to the heat, women show a lot more skin here in B-field.

Yeah, that’s all I have. That and Chinese chicken salad. This stuff . . .

Chinese chicken salad, the standard interpretation

Chinese chicken salad, the standard interpretation

Or is it this version?

Chinese chicken salad, all farfed up.

Chinese chicken salad, all farfed up.

More below the cut.

(more…)

, July 11, 2009. Category: Food.

It’s alive!

Home } eConfusion } It’s alive!

We have internet access, little thanks to AT&T. The start-up software kept gagging and it seemed like we would have to call AT&T tech support — *shiver*. Then Karen had the bright idea to click on Firefox and voila, we have access. It’s a mystery what the AT&T software was trying to do.

So we’re back, hooked into the ‘net, and yes indeed it’s an important thing. I think we first went online back in ’93 or ’94, and I can remember yucking it up over Mirsky’s Worst of the Web, Slutboy’s Home Page, Ninevolt’s HatePage, and a lot of other relics. Back then, the internet was a source of entertainment rather than information. Few businesses had an online presence. The Yellow Pages still mattered, and we needed paper maps to find our way around a new town.

Our GPS crashed two days ago, so without the GPS and the internet we’ve been limping around Bakersfield like somnambulists. The GPS is still down, but of the two, the ‘net is more important.

Work starts Monday, a solid week of orientation. Wish me luck 🙂

D.

, July 10, 2009. Category: eConfusion.

Still no internet

Home } eConfusion } Still no internet

We’re in Starbucks, the three of us, taking turns doing our essential internet. Karen’s trying to figure out what went wrong with our Garmin GPS (I think the company is trying very hard to commit corporate suicide . . . we suspect they yet again screwed up everyone’s GPS with downloaded code most foul); Jake had to catch up with his Mafia Scum bbs, and I’m letting y’all know I’m still alive.

Internet access was supposed to start today, but something got screwed up. I blame AT&T. Somehow, they ended up with four separate purchase orders for internet access, only one of which was workable (the others would have required rewiring of our apartment’s phone lines, which I doubt would have gone over well with out landlords). That’s set for the 10th, so we’re only two days away. Frustration quotient very high since I had to call AT&T ten times to find this out, which means I had to navigate their phone tree ten times. Tenth time is the charm, and I finally got a woman who clearly knew her shit. Thank heavens. And it could have been worse; two of those purchase orders were set to trigger service on the 14th.

Meanwhile, I’m waiting for next week to come. I have a whole week of orientation. Real drag since it feels like I just did a week of orientation (last December) and I really don’t feel the need for remedial orienting. Do you suppose I could bring a book and read it during these interminable talks about safety and risk management and electronic medical records?

I’m feeling dread for the job proper. No matter how many different venues I practice my trade, whenever a new venue comes along I find myself wondering if I’m up to it. I never said this was a rational fear.

What’s new with you?

D.

, July 8, 2009. Category: eConfusion, The Barbarous Craft.

We’re he-ee-ere!

Home } eConfusion } We’re he-ee-ere!

. . . And the mercury’s been pegging 107F each day we’ve been here. I’d like to smack the cheery smile off those folks who feel compelled to point out, It’s a DRY heat!

We have limited internet access until Wednesday, when our apartment finally gets hooked up. For now, it’s the $2/hour thing at Starbuck’s AT&T WiFi (or as our GPS’s British voice calls it, Wiffy!) and I don’t know when I’ll make it back.

Meanwhile, I’ve been making daily trips to Target to stock up on supplies, trips to the grocery stores, etc. Not much else to do when you don’t have cable TV or the internet. And it’s really, really creepy to be cut off from the world like this. I only just found out that Sarah Palin will be resigning as Governor some time this month. I feel so cut off. Yes, I know there are these things called newspapers, but they’re so yesterday.

I’ll be very happy when all of the various shopping chores are done and I can hole up all day long in an air conditioned room.

See ya this Wednesday.

D.

, July 5, 2009. Category: eConfusion.

It all fit!

Home } Mishpucha (mi familia) } It all fit!

I didn’t get to sleep until after 4 AM. Kept thinking about space-filling with irregular units, each shaped like file boxes, luggage, backpacks, computer components, and assorted Sta-in-Pet tarantula cages. Oh! And don’t forget carriers for the cats and ferrets. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine how it could all fit into our Camry, not unless I stuffed things to the ceiling, and that can’t be good for visibility.

And I had to wait most of today to get down to business. Couldn’t load up the car in the hot sun, so it had to wait until past sundown. We had dinner at a French bistro in downtown Santa Rosa called Rendezvous, had a decent if pricey meal, then came home and I got down to business.

Surprisingly roomy, these Camrys. I might even be able to fit Jake’s gaming computer, though that might be pushing our luck. I’ll see how things look once the rest of our bags are in the car, come morning.

The plan is to be on the road by 9, which means B-field by 2:30, 3 at the latest. Then we need to hope that our landlords for temporary housing don’t spot me loading up the apartment with about 20 Sta-in-Pet carriers containing arachnids of various temperaments. Karen likes the nasty ones, what can I say.

So begins the next phase of our lives. I miss the cool weather of the North Coast, and I’m even going to miss the relative cool of Santa Rosa (we’d have to move to Vegas or the Mojave to find something more hellishly hot than Bakersfield). But I like the idea of being able to retire by 65 which, sad to say, probably wasn’t going to happen back in Crescent City*.

Now, if only I can get this idiotic tune out of my head . . .

D.

*There’s a reason why solo practitioners are a dying breed, and it’s called $$$. Or should I say, .00000$$$.

, July 2, 2009. Category: Mishpucha (mi familia), The Barbarous Craft.

Logistics

Home } Mishpucha (mi familia) } Logistics

It was worse moving from Harbor to Santa Rosa.

Then, we had to clean out a 4000-square-foot mostly-but-not-entirely-empty home and a stuffed-to-the-gills 1300-square-foot medical office. We had two cats, two ferrets, two degus, nine poison dart frogs, and about 30 or 40 tarantulas. We were moving to three locations: our rental home, a medical office, and a storage facility.

Now — lucky us! We only have to move from two locations (a home and a storage facility) to two locations (a home and an office). There’s a whole lot less to move to the office, too: no heavy exam chair, no operating microscope (we donated both to Kaiser), no autoclave. I got rid of a lot of junk in the last few weeks. Our degus and dart frogs are gone to the great beyond, and a lot of the male tarantulas have died a natural death, too. We’re down to less than 20 tarantulas.

But this is still a pain in the ass, particularly since we want to move a minimal amount of stuff down to a furnished apartment in B-field (temporary housing until we close escrow). We have a Camry and a Miata. So, as far as storage space for moving is concerned, we have a Camry. Into the Camry goes a carrier for the ferrets, a carrier for the cats, all the tarantulas (each in separate sta-in-pet enclosures), our luggage, our printer/fax machine, assorted files, assorted backpacks with laptops and other goodies we can’t live without, and last but not least, a desktop computer.

Yeah, I don’t see it happening, either . . . not unless the Miata’s trunk turns out to be a lot larger than I’m thinking it is.

Karen and I just did a count: this will be our 12th move together as a couple. Twelve moves in 25 years of marriage just doesn’t seem fair. Whatever happened to settling down?

D.

, July 1, 2009. Category: Mishpucha (mi familia).
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