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.

Rachel's Car

Rachel finally got a car. Yes, it's both of ours technically, but Rachel drives it 90% of the time, and we made sure it was small so she could handle these small roads better.
Special Thanks need to go to Car Hunt Chauffeurs Extraordinaire Dave and Martha for helping us funnel through a list of cars a mile long until settling on this Subaru.



So here is Rachel modeling with her
Subaru Impreza Outback Sport...yes, the most confusing car names that change dramatically annually belong to Subaru's. It's the size of a Toyota Matrix, slightly larger than a Honda Fit. Nothing fancy inside, but classic Subaru AWD, no turbo so we can run regular gas and use a lot less of it!



Yes, She loves it...more than her bike she commuted on for a while...even though she may not admit it. :)

Oh, and don't worry...in classic form of me this scene was immediately followed by "do you love your car? Yes, I know you do. Ok, we got the picture you wanted...now get off the car! You'll scratch it with all your jewelry and riveted jeans!"
:)

Holy...Something that isn't normally considered holy!

I can't believe this semester is over...and though I won't know anything about grades until likely February, I really couldn't care less. We survived what was all in all looking to be a pretty rough semester - formerly unemployed Rachel has a pretty sweet job, after a few months without a car there's a car, seemingly endless days and nights reading an endless supply of case law have ended, and a stress riddled finals week...and a half (yes, Stanford was done with finals Friday, but not the law school) that caused most students to stop eating solid food and survive on a crucial mix of caffeine and sleeping pills...has ended, and the list could go on. What this means is that despite the crazed looks of those few people left on campus walking by as the entire 1L class ran out the doors of the law school, greeted by a continuous volley of champagne cork pops facilitated by both the dean of the law school as well as the dean of student affairs and the equivalent of law school student body officers...yep, those looks were probably justified, but the celebration was earned...well, mostly. And then it was over. An hour later the courtyard was back to just empty tables covered in red fall leaves and tons of bottles/cans slowly being placed into the trash. Everyone started to feel agitated and said they had things they needed to get done...

So what this means is that I can now begin checking items off a to do list that will likely consume my time as much as law school that I began making some time ago.

First on the checklist - Watch the 49ers play on Monday Night Football...Check
Second on the checklist - Write something...anything...on the blog...Check (probably not the something, more the anything)
Third on checklist - prioritize the rest of the checklist...not going so well.

The only issue we have now is a sick Rachel. Don't worry, she's not too sick, just enough to make my finals celebration a little more quiet.

Oh, now I've started looking for my Constitutional Law, Property, Federal Litigation, International Conflict Resolution, and Finance Law textbooks...sounds like another semester...er...quarter stuffed to the brim.

So we are now 1.33L's instead of 1L's...and the souvenir shot glasses from the dean remind us that we're only 1/9 of the way done...thanks dean. That makes me feel SO much better.

And now Christmas can begin!

Rob
PS - I didn't edit this, wrote 15 pages in my criminal law final this morning, and have pretty much no mental capacity left in the tank...any funny or sincere comments, I meant those...any offensive or strange ones, are accidents. :)

Dear Law School Finals...

You suck...but you'll be over in 1.5 weeks, and then I only have 8 more finals weeks to go before being done.

Let's keep it in perspective boys and girls!

Dog Days

As many of you know, I will be starting to work full time next week. I decided I needed to start leaving our dogs outside for most the day while I am home to see if I can trust them outside while I am gone. Periodically, I will peer through the windows to see what they are doing. Sometimes they are sitting in the sun, sometimes chasing the squirrels, sometimes barking at the meter-reader... I feel I can always count on Hanna to spend the majority of her days sitting by the back door waiting to come inside. I've been more worried about what Elvis will do, until I found him spending most of his days laying down with his head through a small hole in our fence.



The other side of the hole in the fence happens to be the front yard of our next door neighbor... his house is in a small "cul-da-sac-like" group of houses, so Elvis has a good view of people coming and going from our neighbors houses. Thankfully, he's really good about it and doesn't bark... he just stares. I decided to go get a picture from the other side of the fence as I was curious how much of a nuisance his staring might be to our neighbors. I laughed when I realized the hole is only big enough for his eyes and nose... can you spot Elvis?



I feel better knowing this is how he'll spend his days while I'm gone.