It's Been a Year!

Talk about time going by so fast...it has been one year that I have been married. This is the longest I've ever been married! Ok, this is my one and only marriage.

Married life has been great. I'm not just saying this because my wife reads this blog, I'm actually being truthful. Yes, there have been a couple of turbulent times...who said this would be easy? It does take time and adjustment when living with someone, especially when I have been a lazy and sloppy bachelor for so many years. Ok, I'm still a bit lazy and sloppy but, hey, I'm not a bachelor anymore! Yeah, I've improved in my ways of keeping the place clean. Do I have room for improvement? Sure I do...don't we all? At least now, I don't leave a sink full of dishes until they get crusty and offer a bountiful buffet for the local roaches and ants anymore.

My wife has been great and so very understanding. She's the more thoughtful one in buying a Valentine's gift and anniversary present. Me on the other hand...let's say I feel like the village idiot when it comes to gift giving. My poor excuse is I really never had to buy gifts for people during my years of being a recluse. Why she still likes me, I haven't got a clue. I guess I should just get a gift of whoop-ass from her instead of the kindness she has expressed to me. Yeah, I need to get with the program and fast.

I am not totally a bastid in which I do cook some gourmet meals for her from time to time. I have been getting into the French kick a bit. Yeah, those guys can lose wars really badly but they made great contributions in food. By getting into French style cuisine, I don't mean French fries but the real stuff like berre blanc sauce, wine reductions, and other artery clogging but oh so good stuff...oui, oui! I've gotten on the French bandwagon because of some of the books written by Anthony Bourdain. Yeah, he's the crazy chef from Brassiere Les Halles in New York City and can been seen on the shows No Reservations on the Travel Channel and on A Cook's Tour on the Food Network. A few weeks ago, I made a French inspired dish of Braised Short Ribs with Carmalized Wild Mushrooms and Demiglaze Cabernet Sauce. The other night was Steak with Cabernet Reduction, and on another night, the classic Steak with Compound Butter. The wife really loved the short rib dish. I think I need to make it again soon. The only problem I have is that I do not have a written recipe for any of my dishes. I tend to experiment and toss a few thing here and a few things there. I kind of remember what I put in so I guess this time, I should write things down. I have to agree with the wife that the short rib dish was fantastic. The meat was so tender and fall off the bone, seasoned throughout the meat. The carmalized wild mushrooms added depth and intense mushroom flavor and the sauce just tied everything together. Mmmm...getting hungry just thinking about it.

What's with the Spam?

I was going over some of my archives in this blog and found so much spam in the comments. I could not believe I had to delete close to 150 spam comments. Of course they try to make it like it is a legitimate message but when you see the same comments by the same people over and over, you have to be living under a rock to not notice that these messages are pure bull crap. I look at those that send spam as being totally desperate to get attention. They need a freaking life. Actually after wasting my time deleting junk out of this blog, I think of those who send spam as things lower than the primoridal gunk that crawled on the earth.

To help prevent spam from reoccurring from this blog, I have made a few changes in the settings. You will have to type in letters that appear to prevent automatic postings by these spam idiots. I appologies in advance for any inconviniences but I had to take measures to prevent spam from occurring.

Don't get me wrong, I do like Spam, the canned meat product. I despise the other type of spam.

The City of the Govenator

Ok, now that it is the weekend I think I feel a little calmer now. Not like the raving, forehead vein popping, near heartattack lunatic I was on Monday. No, you could say that I sort of mellowed out. Probably a result of being beaten down by my work during the week. Kind of like a wild horse getting broken.

This past Tuesday, work called and I was sent out to the City of the Governator...Sacramento. The place where the home NBA basketball team is the one I hate the most. Though, I have to say Sacramento is a nice place to visit and a stark contrast to LA. The drivers in Sacramento are courteous unlike the "get the hell out of my way" attitude of most LA drivers. Downtown is clean and traffic is manageable. I had to laugh at their so called rush hour traffic. 20 minutes driving 10 miles in downtown is not rush hour unlike the parking lot called the San Bernardino freeway in downtown LA.

Work in Sacramento was a bit hectic but in a way, it mellowed me out a bit. I was a bit pissed off because I had to leave town with very little notice to fix a problem that was intermittant. It turns out that this trip actually calmed me down a bit especially when I felt the victory of repairing everything that I was sent out to do. I love the feeling of fixing complex and intermittant problems. I do hate the process of figuring it out but I do like the accomplishment of fixing problems.

Fixing these complex problems feels like as if I was a general winning a war. The going was tough, time consuming, heartbreaking, frustrating, and tiring, but the victory is oh so sweet.

Getting back to Sacramento, I find the city a bit facinating where it is a mix of urban and city life. Surrounding Sacramento are a bunch of farms and waterways of which there are massive problems with flooding in recent weeks. Everything around the city is so nice and green. There's a nice feel to the city and people seems to be more mellow. It is as if I visited another state. I really did not feel like I was in California. I mean, I had to check my watch to make sure I was even in the same time zone.

Don't get me wrong, I do like living in Southern California. I guess sometimes the grass seems greener on the other side.

Totally Pissed Off Day

Have you ever had a day where it started off bad and it just keeps getting worse? Today has been one of those days. A day where I would have been better off sick in bed, fighting off some food borne illness than to wake up and have things piled up, one atop the other that makes me feel so enraged by the end of the day.

It started off where I get a service call from a customer where a simple test to see if there was an actual problem could have been done. It seems that other parties were not doing there job and it was handed out to me to go out and drive through traffic just to find out there was no problem at all.

On the way to the site, I get cut off by some yokum changing from the slow lane to the fast lane, on which I am traveling on, continuing to go on the same slow speed he was traveling while in the slow lane. Of course this idiot is talking on the cell phone while driving and totally oblivious to what is going on on the road. Of course I had to tell him that he is number one with a single digit of my hand as I pass him.

Then as I am going to another customer site (of course late because of my previous stop where I found nothing wrong with the system), I get cut off by another graduate of the K-tel driving school of Southern California. This time it was some asinine blond with her head up her butt driving a mini-van again talking with a cell phone.

What is it with these people talking on the phone while driving? I mean, I do that but I concentrate more on my driving and I make sure that I'm at least traveling the posted speed limit and I'm aware of what is going on. This chick in the mini-van was making expressions with her hand that should be on the steering wheel and writing stuff down while she's driving and talking on the phone! Get a clue people!

Continuing on, as I get close to my destination, the wife calls and starts asking me about stuff. Of course while driving and talking and trying to remember where this customer is located since I haven't been there in almost a year, I miss my turn. Now I'm really pissed.

The wife called about going out on some Saturday where I think I'm on call but I can't verify it since I don't have my schedule in front of me...as if I have a desk and computer in the front seat of my car. She asked if I want to go see a musical on a day that in the back of my head might be the day I need to be available in case any service calls come in and I have to provide technical support over the phone, let alone hop on a plane to another state and do service work. Of course, this just pisses me off even more when I have to make a decision right then and there without even time to think about with my wife to a musical or not. The damn musical costs $75 each and I'm not going to make a spontaneous decision to go if I'm on-call and most likely have to answer phones. The whole thing was just adding more gasoline to my already raging fire.

On my way home from my last customer for the day, I again get cut off by a classmate of the above mentioned mini-van driver. And of course, chatting away on a cell phone. I just yelled at the guy, "Turn off your fu*$#@g phone and drive you moron!" But as they say in those Ronco commercials, "But wait, there's more!" I encounter three more K-tel driving school graduates. By this time, I've had enough of these moronic drivers on our freeways.

Right now, I am so pissed off at everything and don't want to even associate with anyone out of fear that I will go postal on them. It has been a long time since I've been so angry...my chest is tight and my head is pounding in a rage of anger. I'm actually surprised that I can blog at this moment. I figured that by blogging this out, it can be a form of release from all of my pissed-offness...I know, that is not a word, but ask me if I care at this moment. And if you do care about it, that's good for you and you can kiss my butt.

I need to go and take care of this anger. Hopefully the next time I blog, I will be in a much better mood.

Crazy California

With the type of work I do, I have to travel all over warm and smoggy Southern California. Typical day covers about a 100 miles or so. There are times when I have to drive for four straight hours to get to a customer site. As a result of all of this driving, I encounter so many disfunctional drivers!

I encounter people driving slow in the fast lane, people who cut me off and then slow down, drivers who change lanes and almost side swipe me, the list can go on and on. There are some days when there are several close calls. I call those days "Dumb Drivers Day".

I wonder, where the hell these guys learned how to drive? I mean you might as well let Mr. Magoo drive on the already crazy California freeways. And it seems to be only in California where I encounter such asinine driving practices. I mean, I've driven in New Jersey, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Texas, Oregon, and Florida. I never experienced Dumb Drivers Days there. Only in California.

You know, I wonder if California is cursed. I should say Southern California. We've had riots, flooding, earthquakes, brush fires, smog, drive by shootings, freeway shootings, taxes up the yin yang, ridiculously priced homes, hospital closings, illegal aliens running around, political corruption, Hollywood, tree hugging liberals, kids skipping school to protest on rights for illegal aliens....ugh!

But you know, I love it here even with its problems...I guess I'm just insane.

It's Been a While

Hey, look who's back! Yeah, it's me again. I know that it has been almost a year since I've blogged. I thought I could do it all...marriage, work, blogging, video gaming, etc. Well, at least I say the marriage, work, and video gaming has been active but yes, the blogging was left behind, dead on the road. My many appologies to what I am sure now my former readers of this page.

I guess my video game playing is what kind of took over my time on the computer and thus really neglected my blog. I have been sucked into the World of Warcraft, better known to all of us computer game geeks as WoW. Yes, I have been living the fantasy land during my escapes of reality into the role playing world of Orcs, Taurens, Elves, and Dwarfs. I figured that I should just turn my head into mush playing those games during my spare time.

Life has been good and very busy but I cannot come up with a good excuse for my non-existent blogging. I could say that I was mentally deranged...no I was like that since I was a child...yes, I know, I was distracted. Nope, can't use that one. Okay, here's the truth...I got lazy and didn't feel like it. Ok, that's better. In other words, I have no excuse.

I cannot make any promises but I will try to get back into the blogging habit again. So, yes I am back in a kind of sort of way. Until the next blog, Aloha.