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...