Pacificapocalypse

Jury Duty
I’ve never had Jury Duty before; could be interesting, and seriously, the odds of me being selected for a jury for a criminal case, are pretty darn slim (if you know my history, you *know* what I’m talking about). And it’s a long shot crap shoot anyway, right? I get the notice that says ‘possible’ Jury Duty on Tuesday, August 25th. Says to check online Monday night to see if you have to actually show up. That’s the first cut.
Tuesday morning; crap I have to go.

So they stuff 80 or so of us good citizens into the basement of the Redwood City Superior Courthouse… fill out some paperwork… and wait. Nice lady says there may not even be a need for a jury today. That’s the second cut. 10:15 and she says yes, there is a case, it’s a civil case (civil case? boo!) and she will call 60 randomly selected names. There’s the 3rd cut. I still figure my odds are pretty good of not having to serve, but it’s all still interesting to observe from a distance sort of thing. Dammit, she called my name.
That’s the 4th cut.
59 of us and my self shuffle off to the 7th floor, Courtroom 7B. Take a seat and see what happens. Nice cross section of humanity here, everyone is well represented.
I’m still optimistic.
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Random recent picture of me and Court in her studio.

Jeez, it’s barely 2009 and I’m swamped it seems.
Work + busy = job security. Which in these clichéd uncertain times is saying something.
Did I mention that I proposed to Courtenay? Yes, yes I did. So we’re working on wedding plans; looking like it’s going to be fun.
A Fantastical Pirate theme.
On a sailing ship on the Bay.
I shit you not.
Holidays over and done for another year. No major fall out from that I think… (pause)… yeah nothing I can think of.
I got a new camera (thanks Archie!)
Court got a nekkid kitteh. (not quite yet… he’s still baking)

What else?
World is in turmoil both locally and globally, but that’s nothing new unfortunately.

I got my teeth cleaned yesterday.

So yeah, everything is going swimmingly.

More soon.

Stopped by the Ocean of India last night, didn’t feel like cooking, and Farz whips up a mean Chana Masala Karahi and Saag Paneer.
While waiting for our dinner, I glanced through the pass through window and saw an absolutely beautiful whole leg of lamb waiting on the kitchen table. All lovely fresh oxygenated blood muscle red and fatty bone white. If you’re a vegetarian, that’s the kind of thing to send you into a weeping fetal ball.
But if you’re a meatatarian like us, it’s a thing of transcendent beauty, all lamby and delicious.

On a hunch I asked Farz if the lamb was Halaal. He seemed sort of surprised and pleased that I knew the term and said that yes it was; all the meat and poultry he uses in the restaurant is Halaal.
I think that’s nice, makes me feel good to know he’s using quality product.

I need to stop watching Kitchen Nightmares…

Ok so I’m watching Good Morning America and Chris Cuomo is interviewing the former CEO of AIG, Hank Greenberg, and he’s talking about how the government bail-out is a necessary thing ( side note – did you know that we just bought an insurance company? By ‘we’ I mean every tax paying American… for the bargain price of $85 billion. Now try and wrap your head around that number for a moment. That’s 85 followed by nine zeros. Here, take a look: $85,000,000,000. That’s more dollars than there are people on the planet by several factors. If every single living man, woman and child on the globe gave $10 that still wouldn’t get us to $85 billion. ). His rational is that if AIG goes under there would be a domino effect of financial firms that would go tits up.
Me, I’m thinking, ‘hey, how about a bailout on a more personal level? I could use a couple thousand dollars. That’s not even a worthy of notice when we’re talking billions.’
So Greenburg then goes on about how the downturn in AIG’s fortunes have effected him on a personal level, but he then says “but don’t worry, I’ll be alright.”

He’ll be alright.

Did you hear that? The man has a net worth of $3.2 billion, but he wants us to know that AIG’s misfortunes, are also his misfortunes. That this has effected him on a personal level.

But he’ll be alright.

fucker.
I swear to christ, someday I’m going to be rich and famous for inventing a machine that let’s you stab someone in the face over television.

</rant>

And I think I saw a tumble weed blow by.
Ok seriously it hasn’t been that nothings going on (re: the lack of recent post activity) but that I’ve actually been otherwise occupied. First I had a nasty summer cold that I’m *finally* seeing the last of, then while that was going on I made a lateral move from one department in my company, to another, and have been relatively busy training and such.

Much more later.
Promise.

Yeah that’d be the town of Pacifica.
Weird isolated fogbank rolled in over the state beach yesterday afternoon and blanketed Linda Mar for about an hour before rolling back out again. And I think I saw Jamie Lee Curtis.

Click to embiggen.

Sure we do!
Caught the first two episodes of The Cleaner last night on demand. Looks brilliant, great cast, smart dialogue without being too clever. Benjamin Bratt is easy on the eyes as is Grace Park.
The premise is a little shaky:

“The Cleaner,” inspired by the true story of a real-life “extreme interventionist,” stars Benjamin Bratt as William “The Cleaner” Banks, who, after hitting rock-bottom from his own addictions after the birth of his daughter, strikes a tentative deal with God. Now along with his unconventional team, he helps people get away from their addictions by any means necessary.
So kidnapping people off the street is now considered intervention? Isn’t anyone going to notice? Future plot points? Probably. Anyway it looks good and dammit ( SPOILER ALERT!) I shed a tear during the first episode when Micky OD.
That really sucked.

This sucks.

Gezi the momma giraffe at the SF Zoo died today. She just gave birth to lil’ Babro in February. Not too sure what happened, but it sounds like an infection of some sort. This is actually making me very sad; Court, Kaitlin and I just saw her and the babies a month ago.

Doing a little tweaking of the site settings, theme and CSS.
You may feel slight pressure on the roof of your mouth until the final tuning is complete.

Please stand by.