Strawberries or Double Chocolate Chip…

Starbucks makes good coffee. I know they are everywhere in the U.S. and have recently opened in Dublin. I can’t think of anywhere that I’d rather to go to read my copy of ‘No Logo’ by Naomi Klein than Starbucks. My favorite tipple from Starbucks at the moment is the ‘Frappuccino’, either double chocolate chip (with crème), or Strawberries and crème, depending on my mood. The debate in my head goes something like:

Me: Strawberries or chocolate, strawberries or chocolate, strawberries or chocolate, strawberries or chocolate, why can’t they mix the two? Maybe I should just have a tea? Can’t decide, brain hurts…

Starbucks guy/girl: “Can I help you sir?”

I know that people give out a lot about Starbucks and their coffee buying, GM milk, chocolate practices, and that they close down lots of smaller independent coffee houses. Have a look here. My point is that if you want a good cup of coffee, with great customer service then Starbucks is a good choice. I’ve been to other coffee houses and the some of the staff are just rude and I sometimes feel that I’m bothering them by asking for a coffee.

So as long as I get the service I expect and a great coffee / Frappuccino then I’ll keep going to Starbucks.

Andrea has gotten four of her five exam results back. She has gotten A / A+ in all so far. She's chuffed with herself (and rightly so). I wonder if I should treat her to a Starbuck's Frappuccino, chocolate or strawberries, chocolate or strawberries….

Listen to the sound the waves make…

I asked Andrea if she had ever tried meditation. She told me that she had, however couldn’t settle her mind enough to fully enjoy it. I downloaded a meditation Podcast the other day and had a go yesterday at about 2:00pm. I think my first attempt was quite good.

I sat down turned it on and listened to the sounds. I had a feeling of my mind starting to empty, and I started to ‘drift away’. A couple of hours later I ‘returned’. I was a little sluggish at first however I generally felt refreshed. While I was sitting when I started, I was lying on the floor with my arms spread out when I came out of the meditation and I had drooled onto my shirt too.

I also experienced that I was ‘transcending’ time and space, because I remember images and odd situations while I was in deep meditation. I think I’ll have another go later on today.

Has anyone else had any similar experiences while meditating?

The Fleet

 

I started work at the Ruben H. Fleet Science Centre based in Balboa Park on Thursday 23^rd. I worked with the marketing team for the day. For the first part of the morning I was scanning paper / magazine clippings that mentioned the fleet, as it’s commonly known, and measuring the column inches. It reminded me of working with communications in Dublin a few years ago. When I started with a new team I was doing something similar, instead of measuring column inches I was helping to make a notice board with news information. The new PR manager, Jeremy, is new to the organization and the column inch measurement thing is something he wanted to implement. His idea is to show the details to management team of the fleet how many column inches they are getting in a month, and how much this would represent in advertising dollars (if they were paying for the column inches).

After that I looked at some PR tapes for the new IMAX film, Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France. This large-format film explores cutting-edge brain science through the dramatic story of the centenary Tour de France, a grueling three-week test of mind and body. Then I was given some cycling magazines and asked to find upcoming events, and my task was to call the organizers and ask if they would like vouchers for the IMAX file, that offers a 20% discount, for their registration packs. Essentially I was making cold calls for the fleet.

 

On Friday I was back in the fleet in the afternoon with the education team. There was a community day on Saturday and on Friday we were putting together welcome packs for the kids arriving on Saturday. The education team are a really nice bunch of people, isn’t that always the case?

Get LOST!

Andrea and I don’t have a TV in the apartment. Andrea has never been too interested in having one. She told me that she would prefer to read a book than sit in front of a TV.

LOST had been shown on RTE for some time during 2005 and teasers and adverts for it looked interesting I never bothered to sit down and watch an episode.

I was lucky enough to get a gift of a 20GB video iPod in late 2005. I was on iTunes to see what was available and while the Irish catalogue was limited for video; apart from Music, TV shows or films don’t exist. The American situation is different. When I got the iPod there wasn’t much in the way of TV, I can’t remember what the limited offering were except that LOST looked the most interesting, so I downloaded season one. When I decided to move over to SD, I left my iPod at home with my brother (who gave me cash to get a new one), and I didn’t watch LOST.

When I got the flu a few weeks ago I started watching LOST on my Thinkpad. After two episodes I got hooked. So I pretty much watched season one over seven days or so. In one early episode, while looking into the back story of the Korean couple, the husband goes to deliver a message to a government official. I don’t want to go into detail, but in the background the TV is on and the TV shows another LOST character on the TV. I thought that was odd so checked again and sure enough there was a central character, of the show, on the TV in a flashback of a Korean character. Hmmmm what was that about? Now if you are an avid watcher of the program you might be thinking, Duh, of course, well I was only getting into it. The show is full of this stuff, and now I’ve been spotting references to ‘the numbers’ all over the place. For example when Hurley was running through the airport in season one he passed a group wearing sports shirts with certain numbers on them, and it goes on and on. So I was telling Andrea about this and that I was really enjoying the show, and I suggested that she check it out.

Now I have created a LOST monster. Andrea started to watch season one and has in the last five days (I think), watched the whole of season one. Andrea tells me that she hates the show because some of the characters have the same expression all the time, e.g. Kate – check out her furrowed eyebrows and concerned look ALL THE TIME. It could also be that she has been watching episode’s back to back day after day that she is annoyed. So we watched the last episode of season one and because we were left with a bit of cliff-hanger we needed to do something.

We have now downloaded and have started watching season two (we also stocked up on junk food, beer, wine and some healthy food). The other evening we sat in and watched the first episode of season two. I was hoping that they were going to resolve some of the odd things that are going on; fat chance. We have watched four episodes, and I have to say I’ve lost some of the motivation to watch the show. I was wondering about this and I think that it might have something to do with group dynamics. I said this to Andrea and she looked at me like I was barking mad. Well I may be, but that won’t stop me presenting my mad idea to a wider (although not that wide) audience.

We had gotten used to the original group, Kate, Kate’s eyebrows, Jack and all the gang. Now in season two we are being presented with new characters and their back stories and while some of the original characters are with this ‘new group’, I’m finding it hard to ‘like them’. I think it is because I’m comparing them to the ‘old gang’. I’m emotionally tied into ‘old group’ but not the ‘new group’. I also don’t particularly like the acting style of Michelle Rodriguez, who plays Ana-Lucia. Her back story is a bit lazy too, and this has annoyed Andrea, who tells me the writers are getting lazy.

I know I’m being nerdy about this so I decided to see what other nerds might be out there. I did a Google search on the number (4 8 15 16 23 42) to see what I’d get. I entered the numbers into the search bar and got – (Results 1 – 10 of about 740,000,000 for 4 8 15 16 23 42).

Andrea has told me that she is ‘over LOST’ and could care less if she sees any more episodes. That’s when I suggested my (weak) group theory.

Anyone else watching the show? I’d love to hear comments about it.

 

 

 

 

“WELCOME TO THE ROCK”

On Sunday March 12^th Andrea and I started our drive to San Francisco. A couple of weeks ago Andrea knocked out the fuse from her car radio with her foot. As a result the car radio is looking for the code before it will spit out any tunes. Andrea can’t remember the code and has not had time to go to a garage to get the code. I have forgotten many times to do this for her. So we started off on the six hundred mile drive without a radio. I brought my iPod Nano so one of us was going to be okay for sounds

We traveled about three hundred miles and decided to stop off at Santa Maria and stayed at a Radisson hotel. Nice hotel beside a small private airport. The bed in the room had a mattress that raised or lowered via a remote control. What fun! We got to San Francisco on Monday afternoon. We dropped off our bags and went for dinner with Michael (Andrea’s dad) and Maura (Michael’s fiancé).

Later that evening Andrea and I went to see a movie, ‘The hills have eyes’. I won’t bother going into the plot (because there isn’t much of one) except to say that there is lots of obvious slashing and cutting and going into rooms that can only lead to death, plenty of gore just not much of a plot.

On Tuesday we went to Alcatraz and that was really excellent. I kept saying to Andrea in my best Sean Connery accent “WELCOME TO THE ROCK”, and it never got old. We visited Chinatown too and did some shopping. Andrea visited H&M because the store is only in the U.S. and she really likes their clothes.

Wednesday, we started the drive back to San Diego. We made a stop at the Winchester House. Now this is an odd place. It was built by Sarah Winchester. Who? She was the wife of the creator of the Winchester gun company. Sarah Winchester stood a mighty four and a half feet tall and had an interest in the occult. Construction on her house continued every day until she died. The odd thing about the house is that there are doors that open to brick walls, stairs that lead nowhere etc. The reason, Sarah wanted to confuse the spirits of the people who had been killed by the guns of her husband. The house is massive and the woman was loaded and two cans short of a six pack.

We stayed at the Madonna Inn, located in San Luis Obispo on Wednesday night. This place is cool. I recommend it anyone. It is great fun. It’s hard to describe, every room is different. We stayed in the Wilhelm Tell room. The room had a rock waterfall shower. Need I say anymore!

Thursday we continued our trip back to SD. We stopped off in Los Angeles, Andrea showed me the location where she used to live (you can see the Hollywood sign from the gate). I thought that was cool. We got stuck in traffic in Los Angeles, at one stage we moved about 2 miles in an hour. What a city for traffic, turned me right off LA. Imagine the M50 in Dublin with five lanes; nice. Now image those five lanes full of cars not going anywhere; not nice. I decided to sing ‘Convoy’ to Andrea to help ease the pain of the traffic ‘…we got a great big convoy trucking through the night, oh yeah, we got a great big convoy, isn’t that a beautiful site…’ I relly wonder sometimes how Andrea puts up with me.

We got back to SD Thursday evening and got our gear ready for Friday morning and our day at the Field.

My camera has not arrived from Dublin yet, so I bought a disposable camera for $6.99 (good value for a 35mm, I thought), to take some pictures. I did get them developed and have to scan them. I will add pictures from the SF trip soon.

Hot Stuff Coming Through..no seriously this food is hot!

San Diego held its St. Patrick’s Day parade on Saturday March 11^th. The reason is that March 17^th is a Friday and city officials can’t close off the streets on a working day (Friday). When March 17 falls on any other day than Saturday the city holds the event on the Saturday before. March 17^th, 2007 will be a Saturday so the parade will be on the correct day. The weather over the past two weeks is more typical of Dublin than the West Coast of America. The day of the parade saw a hard rain, the type of rain that really soaks you, not the light summer type rain that people like to dance in (or write songs about dancing in), no this was the “there is no way I’m going outside in that rain” rain. Someone should write a song about that type of rain. David Bowie would be a good choice.

I was working at the Field as a bus-boy for the day. This involves cleaning up the tables after people leave and getting them ready for the next set of customers. The bus-boy takes all the dirty dishes etc down to the kitchen for washing etc. Some of the duties include:

• Take out trash
• Wipe down tables
• Bring bus tubs to kitchen for washing when full
• Ensure toilet (men) is clean
• Replenish cutlery tubs
• Bring up bottles of beer to bar when needed

I performed my tasks well and lost a pound or two in sweat. I have a new level of respect for the servers in this industry. This bar is very busy. The servers move deftly around with trays of food above their heads while the space in which they move ever dwindles.

I think I did a good job for the reason that I was due to be security on the 17^th but was asked to be bus-boy again. Since the 17^th was as Friday and Andrea was on Spring Break the bar asked her to work as a server (she worked there last year). She said yes because she would have fun with me (bossing me around), “where is that bus-boy, this table needs a cleaning” sort of thing.

The bar was very busy from the get-go. I started at 9:00am; Andrea at 9:30am. The local news channel was in talking to Tom, the head chef, about Corned Beef, Potatoes and all things Irish. Another crazy busy day, I lost more pounds in sweat (seriously it isn’t funny how much moisture I lose). It’s like a good work out at the gym. I was in the zone. Early on in the day the owner Daniel asked me to clean up the store room beside the main office. He said to me, “I have a job for you and it will only be you doing it”, he showed me the room. “I need you to tidy this up remove boxes etc, etc.” Little did Daniel know about the store rooms that I had been looking after in work in Dublin, this room was offered no challenge, I looked him squarely in the eye and said “give me twenty minutes with this room, and I’ll give you back some real space” like a police interrogator might say before he went to work. Okay I didn’t actually say that, I said “okay I’ll get on it”, but I was thinking it. I think he knew this because he knew better to say anything other than “okay, get to it” sort of thing. Twenty minutes later I was in the midst of a mess, but twenty seven minutes later I had everything under control. I was happy with my work and happier still with the pounds I was losing through hard work.

All hands were on deck because the day was so busy. The owner’s wife was on had to do some serving too, which is good to see, everyone helping out making sure that the customers are looked after and that the experience was great for everyone. She asked me at one point “What’s your name, Liam is it?” I said “Alan”. She said to me “ah well they’re all the same”. I’m not sure what she meant by that, and again my mind flashed to a conversation I had with a colleague about Dale Carnegie and 'How to Win Friends & Influence People', essentially that people's names are important. If you want to succeed – remember the name of the person you are talking too.

We finished up at about 5.30pm and came home changed and went out to the local bar for some drinks.

I’ve more to say, I just can’t put it online now because Andrea phoned and asked me to bring over her copy of Oprah to her. The restaurant she is working at must be quiet tonight.

Thursday March 9th 2006

Boy did I get the 24 hour bug estimate wrong. I mentioned in the last post that I woke up in the early hours of Sunday Morning feeling awful. I stayed in bed for Sunday and Monday I thought I was getting better. I couldn't have been more wrong. Lack of energy and head-aches were the main symptoms that kept me house bound for the last few days.

Its exam time for the good folk of SDSU and Andrea has been doing her bit, rising early heading off to college coming home having some dinner and then going over to work at Sanfilippo’s Italian restaurant. I’m impressed by her ‘sticktoitivness’.

Next week is spring break for most students. We are taking a trip up the coast to San Francisco. We’ll head off by car on Sunday afternoon from San Diego and drive about half way and stop for the evening, its about a six hundred mile drive. We’re aiming to arrive in San Francisco on Monday afternoon. Andrea’s dad and his fiancé Maura have kindly offered to let us stay at their place for a day or so.

The St. Patrick’s Day parade is on the 11^th of the month. I don’t know what the reason is for the date perhaps just a schedule conflict or something. The parade runs down 6^th avenue and that’s good because it is right outside our front door. I won’t see it though; I’ll be working at the Field as a ‘bus-boy’ for the day, another first for me.

On the 17^th I’ll be back at the Field working on the door. Andrea worked at the Field this time last year and they have asked her to come back for the day. She has decided to do it because:

1. Apparently it’s a laugh working on Paddy’s day
2. I’ll be on the door so she can mess with me during the day
3. We’ll have the evening off.

On the 23^rd I’ll start at the Fleet science center helping out in the Marketing department.

24

I managed to catch what looks to be turning into a 24 hour flu-like bug. The early hours of Sunday morning I woke up freezing. My head was thumping and all my joints ached. I spent all day Sunday in bed, only rising in the early evening to have some toast, a cup of tea, a bath and some flu medicine which was all supplied by Andrea. Then it was back to bed for me. It’s now Monday at 12:30pm I woke up about half an hour ago and have given myself the following check up:

Move head: any sign of ache or dizziness? Nope all good.

Joints: are they aching? Clear.

Sweating: appears to have passed. Recommendation to self, have a shower!

I am feeling much better now which is why I’m assuming it is only a 24 hour thing.

A sock full of door knobs…

Ash Wednesday. I’m sitting on the balcony outside the apartment. It faces out onto 6th Avenue in San Diego. It's been cooler the last few days, still warm but you would wear a jacket to go out and about. Our neighbour Steve hangs a US flag off the balcony every day. He tells me that he puts it between 4.30am and 5:00am every day and takes it in at 16:30 every day. I asked one day why 04:30? He told me that his cat Maggie wakes him up at that time, so he gets up and puts it out. He doesn't go back to bed, instead he starts to cook food or potter around the apartment; his not ours. Yesterday was Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras depending on how you want to say it. I worked at The Field. The security quartet consisted of Steve, Jersey, Shane and myself. Normally there are only two security people on, however they expected more people because of the occasion, so the plan was to have two people checking IDs at the door and two walking about inside the bar. I worked the door at the start of the night, however I had to give up my position because I was 'new guy', so it was up to Shane and I to work inside. The first thing I noticed about Shane was that he could be related to my friend Shane from Dublin. I was a little taken back when I met him, same size, same walk, same overall look even the same name, what are the odds? Anyone? My hope of being inconspicuous in the bar disappeared when I got my yellow security jacket with 'SECURITY' in large letters on the back and smaller on the front. Still if anything was to go wrong I would be able to find the other guys easy enough, unless I got pepper spray in the eyes or kicked in the face and dragged around like a rag doll. The manger told me that if any girls started flashing I should ask them to leave. I honestly tried to keep a straight face. I imagined the conversation Me: Excuse me, can you put those away and now I have to ask you to leave. Hot Girl: Why? Me: Because you are flashing. Hot Girl: Its Mardi Gras, this happens. Me: I know, so please put them away and let's go. Anyway the night was a boobless encounter. The whole evening passed without any significant incidents. Some people with too much to drink who had to go etc. No puke to clean up which was nice. I decided earlier on in the day that I was not going to be a stereotypical bouncer in a bar. I decided to find a balance, somewhere between Patrick Swayze in Road House, Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard and Steven Segal in anything. I think it worked okay for me, I gave some polite but stern (K.C) looks to some people and warm with a hint of understanding (P.S) and if you mess with me I'll crack your head with a sock full of pool balls (S.S) to different groups of people depending on my mood. It was fairly hot in my yellow jacket; I think I lost a couple of pounds in sweat. I had to change kegs and take out the trash, and clean up the bar at the end of the night. I think I worked fairly hard and pretty much enjoyed it. I got $10 dollars an hour for my efforts. At the end of the evening the bar manager was leaving and said to me "thanks for your help Andrew". "Andrew indeed", I was going to give him my Steven Segal look, but opted for my polite yet stern KC look instead.

Our neighbour Steve Name: Steve Martin Age: around 63 Likes: Getting up early, his cat Maggie, cooking and telling me stuff. Dislikes: the person who lives above us. Who is Maggie? Steve's Cat. Age: around 8 Likes: Sitting in a brown paper bag. Waking Steve up at 4.30am Dislikes: Moving around or leaving the brown bag. Steve sleeping in.