CluePhone

Look Officer, No Hands!

jajosatt — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:05:32 +0000

As some of you may or may not know, we now have a “hands-free only” cell phone law in place for when you are driving your vehicle here in California. It went into effect on June 31st. This, to me, is like a gift from baby Jesus. With smiley faces. My commute to and from work is 25 miles, each way. And it’s all on the freeway. You may think you can drive just as well while chatting on your cell phone about your new haircut or the color you’d like to paint your bathroom, but you’d be wrong. It never fails, you’re driving down the freeway and suddenly there is somebody in the 2nd lane from the left, going about 50 mph. Inevitably, they are either elderly, or talking on their cell phone. Hopefully not both. Personally, I do my absolute best NOT to be talking on my cell phone while driving, because although I can multitask with the best of them, “driving” is not one of the skills that fit into that category for me. Plus, I drive a manual six speed. The couple of times I did talk on the cell while driving, I would occasionally have to holler “Hang on, I have to shift” and then I’d throw the phone on the passenger seat.

Before our big road trip, I had a stereo upgrade installed, including a bluetooth device that displays the call on my stereo and works like a charm. The sound comes through the speakers, the stereo mutes itself, YAY gadgets! (Well, it works like a charm for ME. Not so much for the people on the other end of the call.)

Anyway, I have been very pleasantly surprised with the decrease in the number of idiots still holding the phone up to their ears. So, the point of this whole story? Remember that funny picture that was circulating awhile ago, about the “Cheap Version” of a hands-free device, with the guy and a cell phone taped to his head? Yeah, well, I’m on my way to work, stopped at a stoplight. I look over, and the guy in the car next to me has his cell phone RUBBER-BANDED to his head. And he’s chatting away. I just about died. Hey, it’s hands free, right?

Bully for him!

Whack-A-Toe

jajosatt — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:00:58 +0000

I had a really fun 4th of July, at my friend’s house. She always has an awesome barbeque with fun friends and great food. When it was time to go, I made my first trip to the car and noticed how very dark it was outside. Dark as Pitch, it was. Her development doesn’t have any streetlights. Very nice for the ambiance, not so much for the actual moving about. As I was returning to the house, I forgot that they also don’t have sidewalks, and rammed my foot into a curb something fierce. I went down. It’s very scary to be falling and not know what you are about to fall on, except for maybe that curb to the right. I got up, seemingly, mostly unscathed. As I hobbled back to the house, I realized that my big left toe was hurting something fierce. (In hindsight, I totally had second thoughts about wearing open-toe sandals before I went.) Then I felt the blood. Damn. So, I hobbled back to the car and got a napkin to wrap my toe with, before getting the last load from my friend’s house. She has white carpeting and everything. I don’t think the nail is going to fall off, although I did crack it about a half-inch down. Even with the gauze and bandages, I’ve wrecked two pairs of socks. (Don’t worry, it’s not bleeding anymore. Really.)

The fireworks I felt at the end were not enjoyable, at all.

Vrooom vrooom

jajosatt — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:47:51 +0000

So, I ended up going to NASCAR up in Sonoma the other weekend. I had no intentions of going, as the whole “racing” thing has never meant that much to me. But my friend called, and there was a VIP ticket that someone couldn’t use. This meant getting my tired-ass to the Walnut Creek BART station parking lot at 6:30 am. On a SUNDAY. Plus, we had been having an incredible heat wave. The “Con” list was growing. In the end, I decided to go. And I’m glad I did! They were VIP tickets, after all. We had access to a hospitality tent and everything. We even had two of the drivers come to our tent to talk, which was awesome.

[Edited to add]
I guess I really didn’t talk that much about NASCAR itself, so here we go. It was more fun than I imagined it would be. As my co-worker (who’s also not into NASCAR) said, “It’s like one big, giant left-hand turn.” That may be true usually, but at Infineon it’s a Road Track, or whatever the official term is. Plus, they drive clockwise. For some reason that seemed odd to me. Anyway, we were rooting for Montoya (he’s a cute little fella) but he got messed up at about lap ~70. At least he made it back into the top 10! Our official seats were on turn 2, which I understand is a great place to be. You see a lot of passing, etc. on that turn. Another thing I learned was how hot it got inside the race car itself. Apparently, with all their gear and stuff, it can be pretty uncomfortable. For 110 laps!!! The only thing that is a slight drawback about seeing it live is, sometimes things happen where you can’t see them happening. (Like when Montoya got ROBBED on that turn!) Bottom line, it was awesome, which I’ve probably already said.

I’m Meeeeelting!

jajosatt — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:15:35 +0000

A bit about the weather I’ve experienced lately. During our Road Trip, we had intense wind at our first impulse stop, which we dubbed the giant pit. It was a historic site of an asteroid impact, (that was a link, sorry, I don’t have the patience to try to figure out how to underline it. I just went with Italics & Bold, since there were buttons and everything) and it was VERY windy. There were repeated instructions to “Hold onto the rails. If you fall in, we can’t come get you.” It was still fun, interesting, and totally the reason for doing a US road trip. Plus, they trained NASA astronauts there, because it’s so much like the moon!

Then, we went to sunny Santa Fe, where we got a bit too much sun. On from there up through Colorado, across Nebraska, and up to South Dakota. While in SD, we had a tornado “scare,” since those of us familiar with this type of weather know that the broadcast news has to exaggerate it. (Poor Lisa. Me, mom and stepdad were all “Well, let’s go meet your sister and her friends.” Lisa was like, “Oooookay, I guess you guys know what you’re doing.” They said that it was a warning intil 8:00”)
I just said, “We’ll just wait till eight. It’s only quarter-til.”

On to the Black Hills, but the next major weather change was the Grand Tetons / Jackson Hole / Yellowstone. It snowed, rained, and then snowed again HARD while we were arriving and there. Driving. (We cursed a lot at the other tourists, in 4WD SUV’s, stopped on an INCLINE because it was snowing.) We made it, but they closed the road after us for 4 ½ hours.

Now, I’m back home in the Bay Area. People, we have had a heat wave like you wouldn’t believe. When I got back home to the loft this evening, it was 91.5 degrees F. It’s now crept up to 92.6. I don’t have AC. So, although the title of the blog is misleading, I am not a Green Witch from the West, and I would totally appreciate a bucket of water being thrown on me, at this point. Screw the ruby slippers. I got awesome cowboy boots in Jackson Hole! But not the “ruby” pair (they were Black Cherry) because they didn’t have them in my size.

Sometimes, I’m mean

jajosatt — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:59:36 +0000

I guess if you start a blog, you should actually, you know, blog.

The other day at work, my coworker/office-mate started choking after taking a drink of water. Not “Heimlich maneuver” choking, more of the “went down the wrong pipe” kind of choking. I’m not totally heartless.

Anyway, as he started to clear up a bit, I said “Hey, doin’ okay over there?” and he chokes out “Yeah. Still can’t breath water yet.”

I’m only human. This prompted me to respond, while he’s still sorta choking, “It’s good to check that every now and again.” Followed by “Yep, gills still aren’t working yet.”

Maybe if I’m fast on the camera, I can get a shot of the “Welcome to Hell” sign. He really started choking more at the end, there.

I was also mean to my younger sister, when we were home at my dad’s. I was poking fun at her, which is normally okay with us, but I was ignoring and forgetting the fact that her emotions were a little raw at the time. I’ve apologized, and everything is good again.

I hate feeling like I’ve been mean, when all I initially intended was humor. I figure it’s the price you pay for having a comeback, when it might not be witty on the receiving end. Live & Learn!

Blogging, 101

jajosatt — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:00:13 +0000

Here we go, I’m trying to write a blog. But in my own time-honored tradition, I’m doing it in possibly the least effective way possible. I’m the IT guy, so I get it. But every so once in awhile, if you’re not freakin’ Einstein or Bill Gates, things can get a bit frustrating. This way (composing the blog in a document processing software) somewhat assures me that I can at least cut & paste the damn thing into the blog.

We will not speak of the hours I spent trying to get my website to publish. I think it’s Monday, now, but I’m not sure. My friend Lisa and I went on an awesome road trip recently. You should be able to find it on my site. I think. Well, here are the direct links just in case:

http://cluephone.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/road-trip-part-one/

Part Two, if I did it right.

http://cluephone.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/road-trip-part-two/

Road Trip, Part Two

jajosatt — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:52:47 +0000

This is the second half of our Road Trip.

Road Trip, Part One

jajosatt — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:28:00 +0000

Some pictures from our awesome road trip.