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Numbers

• Exercise more
• Travel somewhere in Europe and Asia
• Hike Half-Dome
• Invest some money in the stock market and mutual funds
• Ride up Old La Honda in <30 minutes
• Redesign this website
• Upload my old photos on to my Picasa account
• Volunteer
• Figure out what I’m going to do in the next 5 years

Post from: Read Reid's Blog

Some Resolutions

• Monday and Tuesday have been jam-packed with meetings.  Tonight was also the GoogleDance, where I got a pretty awesome flip-card with some co-workers and demoed Webmaster Tools for an hour.
• Tomorrow, I’m attending SES San Jose and going out to dinner with coworkers.
• On Thursday, our team is heading down to the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk for an offsite.
• And on Friday – well, it’s Friday…

I’ve been having some trouble sleeping due to irregular weekend hours + some ill-advised naps.  I suppose I only have myself to blame.  So this morning I came into the office at an hour I’m embarrased to divulge here, and stayed until 10PM.  Since I’m so exhausted my sleep schedule should be back on track.

Post from: Read Reid's Blog

Exhausted

This is partially true, except the whole part about moving all your things is that it’s a royal pain in the ass.  At least in my case, this was due to a series of unfortunate events.

As some background, I moved into 2265 Pulgas Ave last June, slightly desperate to find a place to put my things before I headed off to China and Thailand for three weeks.  Some of my friends had been living off-campus at said house for the past year, and were on their way out, just in time for a few people in the same situation as me to move in.  We all knew at least two other people in the house coming in, and upon meeting each other, agreed it would be a good living situation.  There were four of us, who will now go by Amy, Ben, and Clyde.

Throughout all of last year, there really wasn’t any drama.  Since I had the master bedroom, I sort of kept to myself, and with free food at Google, I never cooked.  I’m probably being overly dramatic about a lot of this, but here’s the rough outline:

• Amy doesn’t have a job and stays at home playing my Guitar Hero game or doing whatever else.  To help pay rent, she pulls in her friend, Darma, to foot the bill of one room.  No problems there, except it was frustrating to see her fail Freebird on Medium.
• Amy then decides to accept a research position in Yemen and leaves a month later, leaving Darma responsible for the room’s rent.  I slightly suspect Darma is miffed by this.
• Landlord turns out to be utterly useless – water goes off in the house for a day because she forgets to pay the water bill, the front lawn is just dirt, and we have a rat problem for a few weeks.  I also think the toilet was running in the common bathroom for over a month.
• Ben graduates a leaves the house a month before the lease ends.  He pays rent for the month he’s not there, but…
• This week, with the lease ending and needing to completely move out, it’s up to Clyde and I to do everything.  Darma lives nearby but with no car and no picking up her cell phone, she’s not there to help.
• As Clyde and I quickly found out, our kitchen, laundry room, garage, and closets were full of random, useless, broken shit left not only by Amy [now in Yemen], Ben [now in Sacramento], but also the former housemates who moved out last year, and some of their random friends.
• For example, when cleaning out the garage, I found over 300 CDs of a Stanford a capella group.  Who the hell put them there?  I emailed my housemates, got CC’d to Amy’s friend who put them there, emailed him, who never responded, and finally emailed the group’s alias after looking on Stanford’s website with an ultimatum that we were gone on Thursday.  That got their attention, even though the person who picked up the CDs told me the original person CC’d got the email, but didn’t feel the need to respond.  Bastards.
• Additionally, over five large garbage bags of random clothes were found in the front closet.  Get this: they were apparently a former housemate’s [now in the Midwest] former housemate’s before she moved into this house in EPA’s clothes.  I guess they never got around to picking it up.  Those were donated to charity.  But, along with that find, I also found a bunch of high school yearbooks.  So, Angelica (yes, this is a real name now), if you’re looking for your high school yearbooks, they are sitting on the sidewalk outside of this house, under the wire coat hangers and cardboard boxes.
• As you may also suspect, Amy, who went to Yemen, did not take all of her things.  I think she had the most random shit left over in the house – a typewriter (seriously), a motorcycle battery jumper cable pack, and one of those hats Chinese people wear out on the rice patties.  We also had to throw out a random armchair from the living room that she happened to have picked up off the street in San Francisco.  Again – if you want any of this, go outside the house.
• Our old housemates were also kind enough to leave their crap behind.  It would have been nice to have a Magic Swiffer, a plug-in heater, and a wooden clothes drying rack, except it was just the boxes!  Oh, we did have a broken heater, a cassette car stereo system, and a 50 ft long cable cord for the non-existent cable TV we had.  There was also a lot of random tupperware, a wooden dresser, a bookshelf, and heavy-metal filing cabinet to take care of. If you want any of this, you know where to go.
• So, to top things off, it was only me and Clyde who ended up cleaning this mess up tonight.  Instead of moving my own stuff out, I think I handled the accumulated junk of 10 people.  To make matters worse, the vacuum we had was clogged from the crappy carpet (remember – crappy landlord = crappy carpet), so we spent about 30 minutes unclogging it.  This meant fishing out some wire hangers (thanks random people who left those in the closet) and poking at a horrid bundle of dust, hair, and who knows what else.  The vacuum tubes were also clogged, so I did have a moment of genius where I swung the tube around (centripetal force!) to move all the dust to the end of the tube to get out.  Is this what you learn in Applied Math?

So, I guess that’s about it.  I was moved out yesterday, but spent about 6 hours of my life cleaning a crappy house to begin with and the taking out trash that wasn’t mine.  One thing that made some of this worth it, was my neighbors kids – 6 of ‘em, who were playing outside when we were cleaning.  They’ve always been friendly with me, asking about my car or bike whenever I come home, but today, they were especially interested, with all of the things we were throwing out.  I brought a random chair outside and one of the children, around 8, had the courage to come up and ask if he could take it.  In my mind I thought “well, this was going to be all consolidated into things for Ecumenical Hunger to take, but seeing as how they’re located on 2411 Pulgas, and we’re at 2265 Pulgas, it’s going to go to good use.”  So, the children had a good evening, rolling a chair up and down the street, playing monkey in the middle with a wiffle ball we found in the backyard, and taking some random photos, books, and boxes (for their dog to play in).  I’m at the very least happy that some of our (and whoever else owned these things), went to some use and not a landfill.

Well, that’s about it.  Clyde and I still have to do some follow-up work – as we need to make sure all of the crap outside our house gets disposed of properly.  Ecumenical Hunger is supposed to pick up the four mattresses on the front porch and who knows what will happen to the boxes of things for free and if all of the trash will get picked up next Monday.  Guess I’ll need to make a few extra trips to the house to check that out.  I also need to drop off the Comcast modem at their store in Mountain View tomorrow morning.  I hope that all gets squared away – their so-called 24 hour on-call system is only applicable to questions on how to upgrade service or troubleshoot your connections.  If you want to cancel, you must call during normal business hours.

Sigh, well, it is nice to be in my new place, although almost all of my things are still in boxes or bags.  Except my clothes.  Gotta have my clothes :)

I guess that’s it for now.  I think what made a lot of this situation less than ideal is that I moved entirely in the evenings of this week, since I didn’t want to take a day off.  Work has been tiring enough so coming home to do some packing and moving sucks.  Oh, but another good thing that came out of this situation was that my old dorm fridge, which had been collecting dust (and fungus), in the garage for over a year, is now the beer fridge at work.  While I don’t condone the placement of Miller Lite in the fridge, I’ll put up with it, since the alternative would have been the sidewalk.

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Movin’ on up

Note – besides my immediate family, I have never met another Yokoyama.  I grew up in St. Louis, so finding another Japanese person was rare to begin with, but at Stanford and while working (where there are tons of Asians), I haven’t met another person who shared my last name.  I guess my brethren (can I call them that?) were smart enough to stay in Japan, while my great-grandparents were foolish to come over to America.

Anyway here’s two Yokoyama’s I discovered:

Ken Yokoyama appears to be a very popular heavy metal rocker.

Koji Yokoyama is a world class Yo-Yo-ist. Is that what you call an elite yo-yo-er? Watch this video – I can’t believe you can successfully yo-yo at such speed/angles.

There’s obviously more Yokoyama’s out there, but these two were at the top, and their videos are entertaining. I suppose the Yokoyama’s are full of unique and strange talents. I think I’m definitely bringing down the clan of side mountains, so I’m currently open for odd talents to develop.

Post from: Read Reid's Blog

Famous Yokoyama’s (according to YouTube)

One year ago, I packed for a trip to China and Thailand.

Two years ago, I moved into my new dorm room and went through RA training for Summer Research College.

Three years ago, I went with Jenny down to Santa Cruz and hung out with some dormmates from Freshman year.

Four years ago, I played DDR, performed with a quartet at a local St. Louis University Dermatology banquet and ate at Cheesecake factory.

Five years ago, I rehearsed with my Strolling Strings group for an upcoming trip to Europe.

Is it me, or is my life getting more boring each year?

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5 years of June Twenty-fifths

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Thursday’s the New Friday?

1. Get an eye exam (duh…)
2. Purchase the required number of boxes of contact lenses (obviously)
3. Attach the following: Dated sales receipt – Please CIRCLE LENS PURCHASE AND DATE OF LENS PURCHASE ON RECEIPT. (capitalization for emphasis)
4. Cut out two (2), four (4), eight (8), twelve (12), or twenty-four (24) end panels with prescription information (varies by purchase quantity and product). (why do they need to put the # in parenthesis?)
5. Mail everything to some random P.O. Box and wait 6-8 weeks.

WHY??????

Google’s image shows reveals that others agree with this sentiment.  Here are three of my favorites:

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Mail-in Rebates are Stupid

1.  Relay for Life – thanks for Koklynn for setting this up! Koklynn, Nelson, Wysz, Charlene, and I joined Team Google for the 3AM to 6AM shift of the 24 hour walk to raise money for the American Cancer Society.  The course was a small oval around Roble Field, which was surrounded by luminary candles with bags commemorating loved ones lost to cancer or inspirational messages to all the walkers.  Since we did a late shift, there weren’t many people on the field, but we did some jogging around the track (Nelson did 1 hour’s worth), and at 5am, switched directions from walking counter-clockwise to walking clockwise.  All in all, a good time.

2.  Cheeseboard Pizza – went here for an early dinner/late lunch after sleeing in from Relay4Life.  Nelson recommended this cooperative pizza parlour if I ever made my way up to Berkeley, and it did not disappoint.  $2.50 for a delicious slice of “Four Cheese (Mozzarella, Asiago, Gorgonzola & Grana Padano Cheeses), Three Onions (Yellow, Red & Green Onions), Garlic Olive Oil, Basil” pizza was well worth it.  We even ordered 3 slices and ended up with an extra one when we unwrapped our pizza.  That definitely is the worker coop sticking it to the man!  Plus, we ate the pizza while drinking some Mumm Champagne and eating strawberries on a grassy field near the Lawrence Hall of Science.

3.  Found my old house – since Jenny and I headed to Sausalito shortly thereafter, we stopped in Corte Madera, where I once lived circa 1990.  I used to live at 40 Echo Drive, which has a wonderful view of San Quentin prison.

4.  Sushi Ran – this is apparently one of the top 5 sushi places in the Bay Area, so of course Jenny and I had to check it out.  Driving to Sausalito was kind of eerie, since the roads are incredibly narrow and steep, and there was hardly anyone out at night.  That all changed when we neared Sushi Ran, which appeared to be the only happening place in the sleepy downtown area.  As expected, the sushi did not disappoint – some of their fish comes directly from the famed Tsujiki Fish market in Tokyo, including some wonderful fatty blue tuna and octupus.  It wasn’t a meal that fills you up, and I don’t believe sushi should stuff you, but it’s a far drive, so I’ll be lucky to come here again.

5.  Gulzaar Halaal Restaurant and Bakery – Charlene organized a lunch here on Sunday, and her five-star review lived up to expectations.  I got the chicken biryani, which was just as delicious as you might imagine.  The neighborhood it’s located in looks right out of the 1970s, with a Babyland retro-looking store and old-school Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket outside of the KFC.

**News flash – this was a conversation we had at lunch about this – did Kentucky Fried Chicken change their name to KFC because of criticism that they did not use real chicken in their food?  According to Snopes, this rumor is false.  The decision was primarily marketing based – KFC wanted to offer a more varied menu, shorten their name like other businesses, and appear more health conscious to consumers.  The last point amuses me greatly.

6.   Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk – Jenny had been talking about going here for many weeks, and the weather finally cooperated.  The beach was packed and we went on the Great Dipper and Fireball, our two favorite rides on the boardwalk.  We also devoured a funnel cake (instead of the deep fried Twinkies at the next stand over).

7.  Some Highway 1 driving – with some beautiful weather, I decided we would head home via Highway 1 to 84.  The drive itself is quite scenic, and I would recommend driving on Highway 1 to whoever has not done so before.  Surprisingly, only 10 miles north of Santa Cruz, the clear skies suddenly become incredibly foggy and misty.  It was like we had entered another world!  The temperature had dropped almost 30 degrees Farenheit, according to my car and visibility lessened to less than 100 feet.  And, as soon as we headed east on 84, the skies suddenly cleared, as those darn clouds can’t make their ways over the mountains that protect the Bay Area.  So if you’re ever curious why there’s never any clouds in the summer, you know where the find them.

So that was my weekend.  Didn’t get much sleep, so I might just have to catch-up on some at work.  Just kidding!!!

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Action Packed Weekend!

1. My memory card for my camera finally came today. And to revise my previous post, I’m blaming UPS for the package mishap, not Amazon.com. I plan to take my camera out with me sometime this coming weekend to experiment with its functionalities.

2. Stanford basketball is on the up and down. The up? The women’s team, off Candice Wiggin’s amazing 41 point performance against Maryland tonight, is headed to the Final Four! On the other hand, the men’s team is losing the Lopez twins to the NBA. That’s bad for the future of the men’s program; next year they’ll have little inside presence, since Taj Finger and Peter Prowitt, the other “bigs”, are graduating.

3. I spent this weekend installing a Thule roof rack on my car. It’s much harder than it looks, especially when you do it alone, since nothing ever seems to fit correctly and forcing the locking bracket around my car was slightly alarming (for fear of scratching my car) and also difficult. After a few hours I was finished, but lo’ and behold, I found that my Aero bars were not compatible with the bike component. That means little to you, but I had to purchase the most random part from Amazon.com, since REI doesn’t even carry this adapter (they carry Adapters 2, 3, and 8, but not #9). Ridiculous. I’ll post pictures once it’s completed, perhaps taken from with my new camera (see point 1)!!

4. I need a vacation. Places I’m considering – Croatia, Hawaii, Brazil, and Germany.

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Snippets 3/31/2008