SF Auto Show

When we lived in Utah, Rob and I would go to the Auto Show every year. When we heard about the auto show in San Francisco, we decided to go. We found it was a little bit different... better cars, better food, and interactive activities (you could sign up to drive a Land Rover through a small dirt course or a Nissan Leaf around the city.)

 My future car...

My favorite part about the Aston Martin's was the lady demonstrating how you could easily fit your bike into the back... who are these people?

Rob's future car... ha ha

Our future future car...

Really?

 All I could think about when I looked at this car was how sad it would look if you got a flat tire...

Batman's car?

My Blackberry

Rob and I were up for our "new every 2" at Verizon a couple months ago. I told Rob I thought it was about time I get a smart phone since I wanted to organize my life. Rob recommended a Droid, but I had to go the conservative route and get the Blackberry because it was free after mail in rebate (I blame you for this mom and dad -jk-). After having the phone for about 2 months I was going to meet Rob at school one night. Rob had dropped me off at another function about a mile away from campus earlier that night. It's getting dark earlier and it wasn't long before I realized I was completely lost in the middle of Escondido village on Stanford campus. I texted Rob and told him I'd be late since I didn't know where I was. He texted back saying "why don't you pull out that smart phone of yours and ask it where you are..." It then occurred to me that in the 2 months I had my phone all I ever used it for was calling people and texting people periodically. This isn't because I had no use for all the other Blackberry functions, but because Blackberry's are the most user-unfriendly electronic devices in the world. That's when I decided I needed to learn how to use it... starting with the GPS. Today I learned how to take pictures and upload them to my computer. Here you go -- uploaded from my phone ~ my dogs daily hour of liking each other.

(oh and for those of you who do follow this blog... there are more Japan posts coming :)

GO Giants!

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series today. I'm just sad that I can only say I've been a fan for a year. It'd probably be much more exciting if I'd been a fan my whole life... like the Jazz winning the NBA title. The Giants went to the World Series in 2002 but haven't won the world series since 1954. Go Giants! On the plus side, Rob and I have a big bowl of candy to celebrate with since we only got 3 trick-or-treaters and I bought enough for like 100.

No Longer Private

In case you actually are still trying to check our blog and didn't get permission to view it, you're in luck, I've de-privatized it.  I actually made it private because in today's economy there are a few jobs for many candidates.  Because of this, they have to look for anything and everything to rule people out...this sparse record of Rachel and I's dealings isn't a poor reflection of us, but it's a reflection nonetheless.  Oh, and my grammar is sloppy, sometimes intentionally so, and not a representation of my legal drafting skills...but you know a few people would've pulled out a printed blog post in an interview and said "so how can I hire you knowing you'll be professional in all you do when your blog entry contains a run-on sentence and you mixed up 'there' and 'their' Mr. Poulsen?" And yes, there are a few people I interviewed with that I'm sure would've said that, using finger air quotes and all...

All that mental meandering aside, the long of the short, or short of the long, is that our blog is public again for all to enjoy, mock, ridicule, stalk, and vicariously live through...although I don't know why on that last one, our lives are pretty typical, fairly boring, and overly busy.

Japan! Day 2: Kyoto

Our second day in Japan we woke up at 3:00AM ready for lunchtime... until we realized it was only 3:00AM. 4 hours later we got out of bed and headed to the train station to catch a bullet train (shinkansen) to Kyoto. The hotel we stayed in was located next to the Ueno train station which is just two or three stops from the Tokyo station. We needed to first get to the Tokyo station to catch the bullet train. Monday morning at 7:30AM... let's just say we weren't the only ones trying to get to Tokyo. As we left our hotel, we followed a sea of people all dressed in white, off-white, or light blue button up shirts and black slacks. Once at the station, everyone catching the train to Tokyo got into two single file lines leading to the platform. Once to the platform everyone picked a door and lined up in two single file lines waiting for the next train. Once the next train arrived the two lines split to allow people off the train and then one by one people filed into the train. It was really crowded so they would turn around and push backwards to allow as much room as possible. I couldn't believe how many people they would squish onto the train. We saw one girl (the last person to get on the train) push back as far as she could, allowed the doors to barely close in front of her, and then fell forward onto the door once it closed all the way. As Rob later learned, these doors aren't forgiving at all. If you're standing their way when the doors close, you could lose a hand...


Once in the Tokyo station, we had some time to spare and decided to find something to eat for breakfast. There were so many little shops to buy snacks and treats... I ended up with a donut and a vitamin water (I know... haha), and Rob ended up with some sort of fish sandwich and tea juice (he tried to order a tuna sandwich and fruit juice.)
The ride on the shinkansen was great... it went over 100 mph and we purchased the best snack ever... Chip Chops! They are these chocolately chips filled with chocolate. I'm not usually a a big chocolate lover mostly because chocolate is so sweet... but these were amazing!

Japan! (Day 1)

Hi all~ as promised I am going to blog about our trip to Japan. Day 1 wasn't too exciting. It started off with a night of 4 hours of sleep due to lack of preparedness, a 10 hour flight and a 2 hour train ride. We left at 11 AM on Saturday morning and arrived at the station in Tokyo Sunday evening at 6pm. Here is what I saw when I stepped out of the station in Tokyo... keep in mind it's 6pm. It got dark really early.




We stayed in a private room in a hostel. The mattress felt like a table top... but after a mile walk with a 40 lb pack from the station to our hotel in a very humid 90 degrees and a long shower, the bed was a very welcoming.




Check out the size of the bathroom~


Look! We even had a small TV in our room... all I can say is the Japanese really love their game shows.

"Ummm...Do you have something you need to tell me?"

Checking the mail is a pretty boring affair normally nowadays.  It seems like we only get bills, advertisements, and coupons that only appear to save you money, but are actually just advertisements cleverly disguised as coupons to play on our need to save 50 cents if I just buy 25 of those boxes of mac & cheese.  A few days ago, I found a box in the mail...it was shocking enough that I felt I needed to snap a photo of it and post it online.  Funny at first, but then...as I couldn't get a hold of Rachel...I started to get nervous.  Was she trying to tell me something? Was somebody playing a cruel joke by sending this to us? Maybe someone was trying to send a happy sentiment, someone that already knew about it, but Rachel just hadn't told me yet! AHH!

Much ado about nothing.  No one fessed up to sending it, and Rachel has sworn on my life that there's no bun...although I'm still skeptical because there's still an oven!

So it started funny...got a little edgy...and now is funny again. 

Finally - why is it that good habits are hard to develop, while bad ones are easy? The answer is laziness, but the point is I posted something this week.  Field of Dreams style now...

Ah...Summer

Now that school is out -- Finally! -- I figure I have fewer excuses than before to not be the one writing the blogs.  Rachel is now officially busier than I am, and the delta keeps getting larger.  She's getting busier at work because they love her so much (and because she loves them so much).  I'm running out of things to do since I've been unemployed for a week (you can only clean for so many days, I've been going to the fruit stand and market to stock up the house, and I did a few informational interviews).  So far though, I'm not complaining - having a little bit of time off after the hurricane that was 1L is a good feeling.  I'm actually sleeping, and even if it's not for 8 hours it's much more effective.  I've even started to catch up on our TiVo que!  Needless to say, I'm happy for the break.  All things considered though, I'd rather be working.  This is the first summer I'll have had substantial time off in years (I think pre-Texas, though I don't know that delivering plumbing supplies for a summer counts, so I'll go with 2005).

So, here's how I spent last week...at least  until about 11AM (I drop Rachel off at 9AM first).

Don't worry...I've re-banned Elvis from the couch so that I don't get sucked in to snuggling comas anymore.  Plus, it's been about 90 degrees and we don't have A/C...he's worse than a heated blanket on those days anyway.

We've had a lot that's happened since the tick post...shudder...so hopefully I can get this thing moving again.  I really don't have many excuses left not to at this point.

Also, I will hopefully get to the point where they aren't just stream-of-consciousness posts - then you may actually enjoy what you read...assuming we have anybody still checking our blog (Thanks Jim for having us on your reader... :) somebody will at least see this!).

A New Number One

So I have a new number one un-favorite thing. In fact, this is sooo un-favorite that it may be reason enough to leave the entire state of California. The new number one is...

Rob and I thought it would be nice to go on a hike today with some new friends. It's always great to take our dogs hiking because it wears them out! As we were going home, I noticed a really small bug crawling around on Hanna... and it was a tick! When we got home, we searched our dogs... 5 more on Hanna, 2 on Elvis. We then bathed our dogs... 5 more on Hanna, 2 more on Elvis. Most of them were just crawling around, but two were embedded in Hanna and one in Elvis. I helped Rob take out the one in Elvis (on his eyelid) and it was the absolute most disgusting thing I have ever seen. It took almost 10 minutes to pull out and it's little legs were moving all over the place... I'm sure we've missed some. Oh and to add to the gross-ness of ticks, if you pull them out and they leave their head in you, they can grow a new body. Ew!

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Rob finished winter quarter finals last week and as a double celebration of his finals being done and my birthday last week, we decided to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It's about an hour and a half away, and about 3 days pay to park, but it was totally worth it! Rob liked the sharks, but wished there was a great white we could look at. I really enjoyed the otters, and the sea rays. They had a pool of sea rays in which they removed their stingers so you could reach in an touch them. They felt like velvet :-)

The jelly fish and sea horse were so intriguing. I could have looked at them for hours. I've lost my camera cable to upload pics, but I was able to find some online of our favorite parts.

The Leafy Sea Dragon:





Rob and I both almost missed this one. The sea horse section was amazing. Did you know the males give birth? ... They had almost every type of sea horse there. The leafy sea dragon was our favorite because it looked like a plant.



I still don't understand how the jelly fish breathe... guess they don't have to?

Of all the interesting things I learned about sea horses, jelly fish, kelp, sea rays, otters, octupus', sharks, etc. The most useful thing I learned at the aquarium was to stay far away from a penguin a few hours after eating... (this video was taken at the aquarium)



I'll upload our pictures when I find our camera cable.

Un-Favorite Things

I guess the title says it all... here they are

10. No Cafe Rio, Noodles and Company, or Mizumis
9. Palo Alto Safeway. The whole thing is refrigerated and they won't do plastic (which I need for trash bags and picking up poop-- not because I don't care about the environment)
8. $10 sandwiches are a good deal
7. Fleas
6. One way streets... and people going the wrong way on one-way streets
5. The DMV (pretty much an un-favorite thing anywhere, but it's especially un-favorite here)
4. No automatic car washes at the gas station
3. Mold
2. Traffic

And the number one un-favorite thing about Palo Alto is...

1. The squirrels. Really though, I was at first fooled by their cute little faces, but they are everywhere and they bury their nuts in all my plants and make these loud obnoxious chirping noises at 7 in the morning...

Favorite Things

Hi. I guess I need to start off with a phrase you are all familiar with but REALLY I'm going to try and post more often... even if it means no pictures. Things have been crazy lately and in the midst of all the craziness I thought it would be a good idea to take a minute and think of my favorite things about the bay area. And maybe it'll entice some of you to come and visit! :)

10. Recycling. It is so easy to recycle out here. You can recycle almost anything. The teenie trash-cans for regular trash were kind of different at first, but now I think they're kind of cute.

9. Trees trees trees. There are so many trees everywhere. It's great too because your neighbor can be all of 10 feet away from your backyard and you'd never know... giving you a false sense of privacy, but a feeling of privacy nonetheless

8. Caltrain. Except for when it's late, the caltrain is amazing. It takes me 6 minutes to get somewhere on the train that would usually take 30 minutes in a car. Seriously, that's the way public transportation should be.

7. Bike lanes. These are everywhere! They even have a street called "biker's lane" where you can roll your bike onto a small square in front of the traffic lights and it will detect that you are there and turn green. There are also a bunch of intersections which cars can't go through on "biker's lane" encouraging cars to use a different street. It's great.

6. The beach. What else can I say?

5. The diversity. There are so many different things to do. It seems like it could take a lifetime to visit all the various places. I also love the diversity of people. Every new person I meet has such a different life experience.

4. Running anytime. I love that I can run at any given time, morning or night, and it's not soooo hot or cold.

3. Humidity. I like being able to take my first breath when I walk outside without choking.

2. Ramen. And not like the ramen noodles you get at the grocery store. There are a lot of real ramen places out here where you can get a large bowl of noodle soup and meat and veggies in a yummy broth. It's the perfect dinner after a long day when you don't have time to make dinner and you don't want greasy fast food.

And my number one most favorite thing about Palo Alto is...

1. The smell! Seriously, I love going for a walk or a run and smelling the fresh air. The trees aren't even blooming and it almost smells sweet outside.

Selective Circumstancial Fresh Starts

Sorry, I needed a good excuse to post up some pictures that we had taken with the Jolley's over Christmas break.  Though we should have some posts coming soon, I'll keep this one short. 

Rachel and I did some future planning (which I actually think is one of our few strengths) and decided that after 3.5 years of marriage we could effectively chalk some decisions up as good, others bad.  This is nothing to do with our relationship in case you were wondering, rather, these are the normal life decisions either anticipated or happened upon which occur during this marital/life time period.  And we've set a goal to use this hindsight to right the ship in a few places if it is still A) not already sunken and B) right-able and C) worth righting.  Once completed, mathematically speaking we'll be back at zero (if only life was a simple number line fixed around zero and spanning pos/neg in either direction).

Just food for thought in case you wanted to know what our conversations of late have seemed to center upon...well, that...and the aficionados in growing penicillin on our walls with all this moisture we've become. 

 Maybe I'll divulge some of these thoughts later on.  Probably not.

Notice how when you get older that B/W photos seem to make you look less aged? Some irony there almost...

 

Only thing to notice here is that we don't tan even though it's warmer here, and that my left hand apparently was swapped out with Frankenstein's.

This seemed like a good, typical family photo to me at first.  Then I realized something makes it unique and somehow "cool-er" than normal.  Grandpa's red tie seems almost drawn on CGI-esque.  I like it.