Life in and around S.S.F.

It’s been a week since my last posting and I can’t think of anything big that happened this week. Probably the best thing is that a woman at work might be coming to the S.F. Women’s Day event at church. I’ve asked her to come to stuff before but something has always come up. She talked about bringing a few other people with her. That would be pretty cool.

For you non San Francisco Bay Area people. A fast food restaurant chain called Wendy’s had a lady plant a 1 1/2″ piece of human finger in her chili. She tried to sue for damages. Her story started to fall apart and now she is under arrest. So many regular people have been impacted by this. Especially the daily workers. They had hours cut back because customers stopped going. Now that the story has turned out to be a hoax they want the customers back. They are giving away free Frosty ice cream. So we are going as a sign of support.

I’m going to order a large chili and a baked potatoe with chili!!!!

The family is doing fine. Sarah did great in school this week. All her papers came back with stars. Even her math is on pace with the class. Her reading is a few grades ahead as usual. Erica is still going to curves and being diligent with healthy meal preperations. Pork, the other white meat, is easy to prepare with varying tastes. I’m very proud of her shopping duties. She takes the weekly ads and makes decisions on what to buy while still at home. She has been pretty good at denying those impulse purchases.

Mom, tell Gil I shot a 91 and 92 at Poplar Creek. That’s the course he walked. Yesterday, I was playing really well. For holes 2 thorugh 9, I was 3 over.

I went to bed at 10:30pm Thursday night and woke up at 2am. Tossed and turned till 3am and finally got out of bed. Went to work and left at noon. That’s how I’ve been able to play the last two Fridays in a row. If the rain holds off today, I might go play nine holes at Cypress. I haven’t played there in a while so it will be interesting to see how I do.

Erica checked her email Saturday morning. There was a message that my new nephew was heading into surgery. WHAT!!!! Not to worry, he was having difficulty getting food into his stomach and need a muscule to relax. Appearently his dad had the exact same surgery when he was the same age. Jenna went to Alan the dog sitter, Sarah and Abby went to Poppa and Nannas house. Erica and I drove out to Oakland to sit with Mike until baby Michael was ready to head into surgery. Well, we ended up staying till 10pm. Two hours after visiting hours ended. He finally went into surgery around midnight. It took only about 2 hours and he is already starting to eat again. Poor guy had to go about 36 hours with out any food so his stomach would be empty. He fussed but I think he ended up loosing strength and slept most of the time.

The important thing is that everyone is doing fine at this hour. He will be in the hospital a few days to recover and finally go home to be with Matthew again.

Jenna was gettin pretty funky so we took her over to Barks and Bubbles. It was pretty busy so we walked down to Mike and Bernies house. Same stuff going on down there. Hangin out in the garage drinking Bud. Stayed for few minutes and walked back to the dog wash. There was a lot of activity so Jenna was a bit timid. We wet her down, scrubbed her with shampoo, rinsed, washed with conditioner, towel dried, then blow dried. The whole experience was pretty stressful because Sarah and Abby kept wandering off to see the other dogs. I was concerned that they would try to pet one and get nipped. Next time I will just go by myself so I could focus on Jenna.

See pictures here.

I was up a little late doing some work from home. I checked email for a second and there was an announcement from the CEO that a phase III study was cut short because it was already a success. They wanted to submit the data with the previous study. Avastin will be approved for not just non small cell lung cancer but breast cancer also. They still want to try it for kidney, overian, and pancreatic cancers. I told Erica the stock is going to pop up tomorrow and I want to cash in my excersicable options. She agreed. Well, I got a sell price of $68 a share. Six years worth of options turned into paying off our second mortgage. God is good!!! I’ve tried to live life at work the way the Bible teaches and it really pays off, literally. Now we can start planning to redo the kitchen.

I left work and went to play Poplar Creek, I shot a 91. I was so close to breaking 90. No birdies but a few pars kept me close. There was a threesome teeing off when I walked into pay. The starter made them wait so I could join them. I didn’t want that but that is how he did it. I felt bad for making them wait so I didn’t warm up at all. I teed up, did my preshot routine and got set. It was a perfect drive right down the middle. Probably 240yards or so. I knew it was going to be a good day. On the 14th, 529 yard par five, I had an average drive. There was a pretty strong wind at my back so I thought I could carry the hazard on my second shot instead of the normal layup. Well, my three wood got it up in the air and it was flying. When it came down it bounced super high, then it bounced really high again. I thought that was kind of strange. I wonder if I hit the cart path. I actually hit the cart path twice. I went 529 in two swings. I was pin high but had a little trap between me and the hole. Guess how many strokes it took to get in the hole? Six, yep six. I ended up with a triple bogey. Two swings, 529 years, six swings 10 years. What a crazy game…

I ended up winning two ebay auctions for a total of four tickets. The A’s got there butts kicked by Toronto 10-3. Still, I had a great time with my brother Rick, Jeremy from work and his girlfriend. We had seats down close to the field, row 4. To bad it wasn’t a better game. The couple next to us were friendly and we joked a lot as the score got out of hand. Towards the end, when the A’s were at bat, I would stand up and flap my wings like in the movie Angels in the Outfield. It got a pretty good laugh from the few people left in the ninth.

The Big Dogs taste especially great on opening night. I also had the hot pastrami sandwich. I won’t do that again. I couldn’t pick it up to eat because the bottom piece of sourdough was dissipating in the grease. Kind of like those starch packing peanuts with water on them. I had to eat the meat using my fingers. Jenna liked that when I got home though. She licked them clean.

The A’s will have another great year. They will terrorize the National League during interleague play. Then come screaming down the stretch. It’s just a matter of who the competition will be. Angels? Rangers? Mariners? Bring ‘em on…

I’m sure Barnes will be traded, it’ just a matter of when. Late this year or during the next off season. It doesn’t matter. The triple A club always have fresh young players looking to take someone’s spot. I actually kind of hope the big money players do leave. It keeps the game real, prices down, and real fans in the seats. Not like Pacbell. Every seat is filled but nobody is watching the game until Barry comes up. Without him, the seats would be empty. Maybe even more so than at Oakland.

Michelle Malkin links to a story about our “advanced” European friends in Belguim. There is a place called Flanders that nearly half of the premature babies were killed by their doctors. See her blog story here. I am so grateful to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our son Paul was given every available treatment and test available in the hopes he would be kept alive. At some point towards the end, his doctor told us that if he learns to breath on his own but never obtains a conscious state he could live at a full care facility in Cambell. We would have been able to visit him there. If we lived in Belgium, it’s a 50/50 chance the doctors would have given a lethal dose of painkillers and he would have been murdered. Praise God for the U.S.A.!!!!

OK, it’s officially done. Here is what it looks like:

It’s great but painful too. My brother sent pictures of his twins. They look great and are doing fine. At the same time we have some friends that got to go pick up a newborn at an Oakland hospital. They will foster him until the parental rights are severed from the birth parents. I don’t know why they gave the child up but the child will be well loved and taken care of. It’s hard to keep these events compartmentalised. It reminds us of Paul a lot. We miss him terribly.

I was able to get my hands on a hammer-drill. Some people call it a roto-hammer. It took a whole 15 seconds to drill the last stuburn hole. I also drilled holes in the stucco for the other post. Applied some sealant to the screw anchors to prevent water intrusion. I finally feel like I completed a project completely and correctly. The only thing I didn’t do is put the tension wire at the bottom. I’m going to return it and get my $18 back. The fence is so short the bottom doesn’t really move. If it appears to be a problem, I’ll go purchase the wire and install it later. The wife says it looks great. I think it looks pretty clean myself. I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.

The girls are doing great. They seem to be really enjoying life. Swim class, ballet class, arts class, kindergarten readiness class keep them and us busy. I feel really blessed by God to have such a wonderful family. Who knows how they will turn out but for now, they are incredible. I just have to continue to show them how obeying God and his word produces a quality life. Not to obey to have one, but that it’s a by product of loving God.

Jenna/Sporty is loving life. She’s great on-leash. Right now she’s curled up on a blanket half asleep. It’s pretty cool having a friendly, obedient dog that doesn’t stink to much. She does need a bath though.

 

 

I was really hoping to have it fully installed by tonight but it didn’t happen. I got two posts installed, a third set up, and the last has three holes drilled. It takes about 15 minutes to drill one hole through the concrete.  The gate was up yesterday. It looks great. When I was drilling the last hole for the last pole, the rain started. Went into the house for dinner. Then a squall hit. It was a torrential downpour. I quit for the day. Maybe after work tomorrow, I’ll get the last hole finished. Here are some “work in progress” pixs.

This is a good look at how we come in and out.

See how wet it is on the ground? That was just a few minutes of rain.