Absence Explanation
Whenever I'm away from the blog for too long, I feel I owe my reader(s?) an explanation. Here goes:
On Thursday the 22nd I flew out to Phoenix for the weekend. My plan was to fly back to San Jose on Monday morning, but then return to Phoenix on Wednesday the 28th because Ladan's parents were flying back to Iran on Monday April 2nd - but out of LA, which meant we'd have to drive there over the weekend, return to Phoenix Monday night, then I'd fly back to San Jose Tuesday morning.
On Saturday the 24th, Ladan, her sister and parents and I drove north first to Sedona (where I managed to rip off the driver's side mirror on Ladan's Golf while backing out of a tight parking spot past a tree) and then on to the Grand Canyon, where we spent the night at the El Tovar Hotel. Sunday we toured the South Rim, then headed back south, stopping first at an interesting former mining town called Jerome, built into the hills about 80 miles north of Phoenix.
Ladan's parents had bought two laptop computers the previous weekend, and as I began my usual cleanup job on them (removing all the trial anti-virus programs and other pre-installed crap), I discovered what a memory hog Windows Vista is. After removing everything I could, on bootup Vista was still sucking up 340MB of the machines' paltry 512MB, making them sluggish at best. I decided to shift both 512MB sticks to one machine and buy a single 1GB stick for the other machine, but ran into a roadblock when no matter what I tried, I just could not get the screw holding the memory slot cover to come off one of the machines.
By Sunday night I'd decided that taking care of the computers, car repairs, and preparing for the trip to LA (which we'd planned for Thursday the 29th) required my presence in Phoenix more than my work in San Jose required me back there. So Monday morning I called my boss and let him know that I wouldn't be back until Tuesday April 3, a solid six work days out of the office. He was OK with it, but we'll see if my cube's been cleared out when I get back.
On Monday I spent almost the entire day working on the laptops - I ended up completely stripping the head of the screw and, after much hassle, finally got Best Buy to remove it for me. I popped the new RAM I'd bought from Fry's into the second machine and the performance significantly improved.
On Wednesday I got the Golf's side mirror replaced, at the cost of suffering through a few more hours at the Scottsdale Tool Shop and being squeezed for $433 - yes, just for a frickin' mirror assembly.
Thursday we piled in a friend's Jeep Cherokee and drove 4 hours west to Palm Desert, CA. That night we met my father and his wife for dinner, as they own a timeshare out there - 'twas the first meeting between my father and Ladan's parents, and went well.
This morning we drove to San Diego, where we'll be staying at a friend's place for the weekend. On Sunday we plan to drive up to LA/OC, and hopefully meet Bharath for Iranian kebabs at some point. Monday afternoon we drop Ladan's parents at LAX, drive back to Phoenix, and then I fly back to San Jose Tuesday morning.
So it's been a crazy week, as well as a jarring removal from all the things I'd been thinking about the week before - composing various blog posts that I'd been mulling over dealing with current events, politics, economics, and commentaries on recently read books and journal articles, starting to prepare more for The DC Move, all the gaming goodness I'd recently been partaking in with Rainbow Six: Vegas, Test Drive Unlimited, and (for one night, at least) STALKER - and in a way I feel that I really have two separate lives going here: one in Phoenix, with my family, and one in San Jose, doing all the things I do when I'm alone. At some point in the not-too-distant future, I'm looking forward to having these two lives merge again, if for nothing else than to relieve the nagging feeling that I'm always neglecting one or the other.
On Thursday the 22nd I flew out to Phoenix for the weekend. My plan was to fly back to San Jose on Monday morning, but then return to Phoenix on Wednesday the 28th because Ladan's parents were flying back to Iran on Monday April 2nd - but out of LA, which meant we'd have to drive there over the weekend, return to Phoenix Monday night, then I'd fly back to San Jose Tuesday morning.
On Saturday the 24th, Ladan, her sister and parents and I drove north first to Sedona (where I managed to rip off the driver's side mirror on Ladan's Golf while backing out of a tight parking spot past a tree) and then on to the Grand Canyon, where we spent the night at the El Tovar Hotel. Sunday we toured the South Rim, then headed back south, stopping first at an interesting former mining town called Jerome, built into the hills about 80 miles north of Phoenix.
Ladan's parents had bought two laptop computers the previous weekend, and as I began my usual cleanup job on them (removing all the trial anti-virus programs and other pre-installed crap), I discovered what a memory hog Windows Vista is. After removing everything I could, on bootup Vista was still sucking up 340MB of the machines' paltry 512MB, making them sluggish at best. I decided to shift both 512MB sticks to one machine and buy a single 1GB stick for the other machine, but ran into a roadblock when no matter what I tried, I just could not get the screw holding the memory slot cover to come off one of the machines.
By Sunday night I'd decided that taking care of the computers, car repairs, and preparing for the trip to LA (which we'd planned for Thursday the 29th) required my presence in Phoenix more than my work in San Jose required me back there. So Monday morning I called my boss and let him know that I wouldn't be back until Tuesday April 3, a solid six work days out of the office. He was OK with it, but we'll see if my cube's been cleared out when I get back.
On Monday I spent almost the entire day working on the laptops - I ended up completely stripping the head of the screw and, after much hassle, finally got Best Buy to remove it for me. I popped the new RAM I'd bought from Fry's into the second machine and the performance significantly improved.
On Wednesday I got the Golf's side mirror replaced, at the cost of suffering through a few more hours at the Scottsdale Tool Shop and being squeezed for $433 - yes, just for a frickin' mirror assembly.
Thursday we piled in a friend's Jeep Cherokee and drove 4 hours west to Palm Desert, CA. That night we met my father and his wife for dinner, as they own a timeshare out there - 'twas the first meeting between my father and Ladan's parents, and went well.
This morning we drove to San Diego, where we'll be staying at a friend's place for the weekend. On Sunday we plan to drive up to LA/OC, and hopefully meet Bharath for Iranian kebabs at some point. Monday afternoon we drop Ladan's parents at LAX, drive back to Phoenix, and then I fly back to San Jose Tuesday morning.
So it's been a crazy week, as well as a jarring removal from all the things I'd been thinking about the week before - composing various blog posts that I'd been mulling over dealing with current events, politics, economics, and commentaries on recently read books and journal articles, starting to prepare more for The DC Move, all the gaming goodness I'd recently been partaking in with Rainbow Six: Vegas, Test Drive Unlimited, and (for one night, at least) STALKER - and in a way I feel that I really have two separate lives going here: one in Phoenix, with my family, and one in San Jose, doing all the things I do when I'm alone. At some point in the not-too-distant future, I'm looking forward to having these two lives merge again, if for nothing else than to relieve the nagging feeling that I'm always neglecting one or the other.
posted by GregP at 11:33 PM
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