kris

When is the warranty up?

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After watching Gone in 60 Seconds, Kris turns to me to ask, "When is the warranty up for our car?"

"Which one?"

"Your car."

"It's already expired."

"It's already expired?"

"Yeah. We bought it in October 2000. It's now 2005. The warranty expired."

"Cool. We should install nitrous in it now."

Blink.

"Yeah, just what I need to enable my 'safe' driving. Even more power in my already too powerful car. Yeah, let's do that."

"But just think, Doyle will be willing to drive more. 'I can drive. Look, I brought an extra gallon of nitrous!'"

Whoa.

Blog
Kris drove the two of us up to the City today to participate in the second annual San Francisco Digital Photo Rally, organized by Shawn Yapa. Basically, it's a photo-based scavenger hunt for 50 items on a list provided by Shawn at 1. At 4:30, everyone returns and we all review the photos, assigning points for each photo - highest number of points wins.

We drove my car up to the City. At one point, Kris was in a driving jam and had to decide between braking really hard or accelerating away from the problem.

He chose to accelerate.

After a short moment, he smiled.

"Whoa. Acceleration. I never thought I'd feel it again!"

The Red Pant-a-loo-nes

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I own a pair of red pants that I'm particularly fond of. They're warm and comfy and well-fitting and stylish. Everything pants should be.

I wore them recently, and this morning wanted to wear them again. So, post-shower, I looked around for them in the bedroom.

Huh? Where'd they go?

    "Kris, do you know where my red pants are?"

    "No. Are they in the bedroom?"

    "I can't find them."

In case Kris had dumped them in the laundry sorter, I started pulling clothes out and putting them into piles (dark colors, light colors, whites and dark but need to go into hot water anyway). I sorted all the clothes, and still no red pants.

Hmph.

After a few moments, Kris showed up in the bedroom and, looking at the piles, started looking for the red pants, too. He looked on the dresser, in the clean clothes basket (clothes just waiting to be folded), the folded clothes piles (clothes folded, just waiting to be put away), and the other clothes basket.

No pants.

    "Did you put them away?"

    "I can't believe you just asked me that."

    "Why?"

    "When's the last time you've seen me put away clothes?"

    "Good point."

We continued to search for another few minutes. Damn it, the bedroom just isn't this big! Not in the closet, not in the bathroom. Red pants! Why have you forsaken me?!

    "I'm going to check the guest bedroom."

    "Okay."

My dresser is in the guest bedroom. It's the only place in our tiny bedrooms to add another dresser.

Kris opened the guest room door, and, what do you know, red pants!

He turned to me, and said, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever's left, no matter how improbable, must be true."

Hmph.

Is it okay to be afraid of the ball?

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I was at the (ASA) gym today. In the slow pitch alley was a gaggle of little kids and a few dads teaching them how to hit.

Now, whenever you have a gaggle of anything, you can rest assured that 90% of your gaggle is not paying a lick of attention to what the leaders of said gaggle wants them to be paying attention to.

At one point, one of the dads pulled a boy aside (and, yes, it was the kid in the back - the one goofing off the most), and starts to coach the kid.

At first I'm thinking, "Dude, he's just spent the last 20 minutes cutting up, what makes you think he's going to pay attention to you now?" But whatever. So the dad was still ccoaching the kid when I walked by a few minutes later. What do I hear?

"It's okay to be afraid of the ball."

What the? It's not okay to be afraid of the ball! If you're afraid of the ball, you can never hit it.

But I did start thinking, maybe I'm wrong. Did I miss something? Is it really okay to be afraid of the ball?

Or maybe it's about choosing what to be afraid of?

It'll be the topic of my next Letter to my Children, to be sure.

I talked to Kris about this later, and he totally agrees with my initial impression, for many reasons.

  1. Fear causes you to tense up.
  2. Fear causes you to focus in the wrong place.
  3. Fear gives your opponent an advantage.

Kris said, "Sure it might hurt, but bruises heal."

And then revealed to me, "At one point, I think I led teams in hit being by the pitch."

"You have to look at what's going on. Is the pitcher trying to hurt you, or is he trying to get you out? If he can get you out with intimidation, that's a huge win. You can't let him have that advantage."

Yeah.

No intimidation! Come on, ball!

Wildflower Triathalon 2005

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Kris, Ben and I drove south Saturday night, for Ben, Kris and Kyle Smith to run the Wildflower 2005 triathalon as a relay.

Tragically, Ben's flight was cancelled, so we were unable to drive down to the hotel early in the afternoon on Saturday as planned. We drove down late in the evening, leaving around 6:45, arriving in King City for the night late, and meeting up with Kyle, who was at the hotel already.

Fortunately, everyone wanted to sleep, so we were able to go to bed early. We all woke up at 6:30, to drive to the race, which turned out to be a good thing: we missed at least 4 turns on the way to the race.

On the way south, we were looking for gas for Kyle's car. We turned off 101 and took a tour of San Ardo. Population 501. One gas station. Barely. It was one of the itty bitty towns that is sort of lost in time. We asked the gas station/convenience store attendant for directions to Jolon Road. The guy tells us, "Hold on. Hold on." When we didn't stop and immediately look at him, he started raising his voice, "Hold on! HOLD ON!" Whoa, hold on buddy. We're not going anywhere.

His eventual answer? "Jolon Road is just south. I think. I haven't been there in 10 years or so. I don't get out much."

The road was five miles south.

Not getting out much, indeed.

Turns out, Jolon Road loops along 101 South. We could have driven the 20 miles along a narrow, winding road, or fly along the freeway, and take the short part of the loop.

We took the short loop.

We had a few other mishaps along the way: Kyle forgot to put on the chip that tracks his movement when he's racing. 2 minutes before the race started, he realized this. Kris ran the chip down to Kyle, so they were able to track him, just fine.

When the top level swimmers came in around 18 minutes, Kyle predicted he's swim the mile loop in about 21 minutes. After 22 minutes, we started to get worried when he didn't come out of the water. At 25 minutes, we figured we missed him.

Kris and I ran over to the transistion point, to see Ben standing there, What? What? Where's Kyle?

Turns out, Kyle swam a 28 minute swim. Kyle always breathes to the right, which means he drifts right when he swims. He had lined up on the right side of the swim area, because all the turns were to the right. Well... since there are no swim lines, Kyle swam out of the course, then had to correct back into the course, then back out of the course, then correct back into the course. He thinks he might have swum 1.1 miles.

Ben cycled really well: he pedalled a 1:43 race.

Kris didn't run as well as he wanted, running a 45 minute race. Not too bad for someone who was horrible sick two weeks before.

The race was really well organized. Seeing Kyle again was great. The three of them are already planning on swimming/biking/running the race again next year.

Oh, the torture

Blog
Kris, sick, was sitting on the couch this morning. As I was leaving for work, I kissed him, rubbed his head, and nibbled on his nose in a way he hates.

Me:   "Oh, how I torture you."

Kris: "Yeah, pretty soon I'll have two cones around my head."

Me:   "Ooooooo! Or maybe a yogurt cup?"

Kris: "Yeah. That, too."

Mikado, in all its glory

Blog
So, we went to see Mark and Megan perform in the Mikado.

The show was in downtown San Jose, where I had worked when I worked with Bharat and Jamie at Fusion One. I didn't work particarly long at f1, but I worked as long as I could,Given my lack of interest in the product and hesitaation with the company buyout of Sinia.

We were suppose to meet up with Keith and Katie and carpool to dinner with them, but we arrived at K & K's place too late. So off to the show we went, Kris driving. Tragically, we didn't know where we were going for dinner. I called up Katie, but she didn't know either. So, they promised to call when they arrived.

Turns out, where we went was a familiar lunch spot for me when I worked at F1 - the House of Siam on Market (there being two locations, the other being the VA Software Thursday night drink night dinner location). Even Kris recognized the place.

After dinner, off to the show. It was done in the original format - the choreography and music of the forst opening show. It was so poorly received the first time it opened that it immediately closed and was rewritten and re-choreographed to be shorter and, presumably more entertaining.

This production was 3 hours long and, well, I'm glad Mark and Megan were in the show so that I had something to focus on.

Yay, Mark and Megan!

First full game!

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Me:  "How are you doing in the standings?"

Kris: "I dropped to eighth. But today is the first full games of day."

*pause*

Me:  "Uh huh."

Baseball season starts today.

Blog
Great.

Much to Kris' excitement and anticipation, the 2005 MLB season starts today.

Boston vs NY Yankees.

Oh joy. Must... contain... excitement.

Not.

How many?

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Me:  "You know, I know our houses are exactly the same size.

From the garage:

Kris: How many?

Huh?

Me:  What did you think I said?

Kris: I didn't hear what you said.

Me:  Then why did you ask, how many?

laughing:

Kris: It sounds better than," (in his best granny voice) "What?!? Wha? What?!"

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