Gratefulness Journal, 28/Feb/08

Today, I gave my 2 week notice at work and am about to embark on a new phase in my life! This has led me to musings of what I am grateful for today.

(1) I am grateful for handling this entire work resignation with the utmost maturity and smarts.

(2) I am grateful for having my best interests at heart, and listening to my gut when I realized that it was time to leave my place of occupation.

(3) I am grateful for the bravery and self-confidence I've displayed recently. I am still looking out for my best interests, even with an offer in the bag. The direction that my life is about to take is at stake, and I need to make the right decisions. If this means making bold decisions, so be it.

(4) I have just recently learned that I am more outwardly impressive than what I think of myself. For the number of years of experience that I have, I doubt very many others have as many successful products under their belt, for the amount of money paid. I should keep this in mind the next time I am feeling down about my abilities.

(5) I am grateful for the 2.5 weeks (almost weeks!) that I have off between jobs.

Gratefulness Journal, 25/Feb/08

I am keeping a gratefulness journal, because sometimes, I gotta stop and smell the roses.

Today, I am grateful that:

(1) I get to laugh at, and with, my fiance... almost like clockwork every morning when I awake, and every evening after work.

(2) Today was a glorious, sunny day. I was even sweating a little in my t-shirt dress.

(3) I am grateful for the chirpiness of my yoga instructor today during yoga class.

(4) That life is not boring, and is actually a bit stressful lately.

(5) That I am appreciated at work enough to land an interesting project.

(6) I love my Mini Cooper convertible, and the reaction that it received today on the street, with my CD player at full blast.

(7) I had a couple of cups of really good unsweetened Chai tea at the yoga studio.

Hillary Clinton's Senatorial Record is more Substantive than Obama's

In this blog entry, I aim to compare Obama's senatorial legislative record versus Clinton's senatorial record. In it, I will counter the argument that the hundreds of legislative acts that Obama supposedly authored during his 3 years in the Senate actually show that Obama's legislative record is more substantial than Clinton's. Through the following blog entry, I will show that the opposite is actually the case.

It appears as though Obama was an author of quite a few acts, however many of these, were never passed. I, personally, am most impressed with the alternative fuel acts that Obama co-authored or sponsored. However, none of these were ever implemented, such as:

American Fuels Act
Biofuels Security Act
Alternative Diesel Standard

When you look at the acts that Obama co-authored or sponsored that did end up passing, these acts were much less substantive in nature, and actually don't follow much of a direction or theme...

Obama's "Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act" ended up passing. This act does sound very impressive, but what it actually means is that the US government will be forced to post their budget online so that everyday Americans can search through it (thus transparency). Okay, so it means post the budget online... this is much less impressive and substantial than it sounds. The same inconsequentiality applies to Obama's "Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act".

Another current in Obama's legislative acts is lead-poisoning and mercury poisoning. This has also been a strong theme behind his senatorialship. Again, this sort of legislature is easy, palatable, bubble-gum fare (who's going to say no against restricting lead content?). And once again, his legislature doesn't really follow a cohesive direction. No wonder Obama hasn't been specific about what he stands for... because his legistation doesn't stand for anything specific either.

Hillary Clinton on the other hand, although she hasn't authored as many acts as Obama has, has been pivotal in passing substantive law that does get implemented. Also, these laws are consistent with issues (healthcare, women and children's issues, education) she has always championed as a young lawyer, as a first lady, and is championing now as the central message of her campaign. I have quoted her website:

Healthcare:
*Hillary passed legislation to track the health status of our troops so that conditions like Gulf War Syndrome would no longer be misdiagnosed.

Economy:
*She helped pass legislation that encouraged investment to create jobs in struggling communities through the Renewal Communities program

Education:
*She has passed legislation that will bring more qualified teachers into classrooms and more outstanding principals to lead our schools.

In this argument, I have not included all of the legislature that Clinton authored, but which did NOT pass, something which Obama supporters are so willing to tout for their own candidate. Nor have I included national legislature that she authored and implemented as first lady, such as the "State Children's Health Insurance Program", which has provided millions of children with health insurance, and the "Vaccines for Children Program", both of which she designed and championed. Finally, I have not included the disastrous health-care reform program that she chaired as first lady, which, although a failure, was a much more substantive effort than any Obama has ever launched.

All in all, there is something to be said about Clinton being more substantive than Obama, an opinion that is echoed in the official New York Times endorsement of Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president.

B**ch is the New Black

This week's Saturday Night Live was hilarious, with Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live's former head writer, giving a scathing, and smart attack on the media's blatant favoritism of Barack Obama over superior presidential candidate (in my opinion) Hillary Clinton.

The opening debate was a mockery of the debate in Texas (which I did not watch because I was in class), with the media giving Hillary impossibly harsh questions, which she could do nothing against but answer in an ingratiating fashion. In contrast, the debate moderator chose "Obama Girl", from the audience to ask Obama a question. "Obama Girl", a real life fan of Obama who admits to having a crush on Obama, serenaded Obama with a sultry, "I have a crush on Obama" song.

So what was the media response to this scathing attack from the late night comedy show? Nothing of course. They will give no positive news regarding Hillary Clinton. A Google search for "Clinton SNL" yielded nothing from the official media. The only sites found were from blogs. When Oprah Winfrey endorses Obama, the major news networks are all over themselves to report the event. However, when Saturday Night Live, which is as famous a TV show as any, endorses Hillary Clinton, there is not a peep.

Speaking of Oprah Winfrey, Tina Fey delivered a funny-as-hell rant fully in support of Hillary, and making fun of Oprah. It was from this rant that I get today's blog title, "B**ch is the New Black".

"And finally, the most important Women’s News item there is, we have our first serious female presidential candidate in Hillary Clinton. And yet, women have come so far as feminists, that they don’t feel obligated to vote for a candidate just because she’s a woman. Women today feel perfectly free to make whatever choice Oprah tells them to.

And maybe what bothers me the most is that people say that Hillary is a bitch. And let me say something about that: yeah, she is, and so am I. And so is this one (pointing at Amy Poehler). And you know what, bitches get stuff done. That’s why Catholic schools use nuns as teachers and not priests. Those nuns are mean old clams, and they sleep on cots and are allowed to hit you. And at the end of the school year, you hated those bitches, but you knew the capital of Vermont. So, I’m saying it’s not too late Texas and Ohio. Get on board. Bitch is the new black!"

Drysuit in the pool

I just wanted to write down a few first impressions of what it's like to dive with a drysuit for the first time in a pool. Mark and I joined a Blue Water Aquatics class a couple of nights ago. Putting on my DUI CLXse (see my Nov. 3rd post) drysuit was a lot easier this time around. Randy, the Blue Water Aquatics store owner, quickly criticized the half-assed cuts that I made on the latex seals on both mine and Mark's suits, and said it was going to be an expensive mistake. Typical Randy. I don't know if he's a little miffed we didn't buy the suits from his store or not. There is still a tiny bit of room on the seals to cut some more, so I am not worried. (Nicks on a latex seal are stress risers and will quickly shorten the life our one's seal.)

I wore a total of 18 lbs (including a set of 1 lb ankle weights) coupled with a 47 cu. foot tank. I was a little underweighted because, I had to open my exhaust all the way to keep a little negatively buoyant. I'm going to try the 18-20 lbs to the ocean because the added weight of the high-pressure steel 80 tanks that I own should compensate for the additional buoyancy of the sea water.

I think Mark had the most dramatic experiences drysuit diving in the pool. He has not yet read the drysuit course manual, despite the fact that we are supposed to go to the ocean tomorrow. He was pretty surprised about the suit squeeze at your feet when your feet are lower than your chest, and by the effort of maintaining the position of the air bubble in the drysuit. He was also surprised by being instructed to not use the BCD to maintain neutral buoyancy underwater. He asked me if this was what the PADI manual instructed, and I was a little flustered to answer him in the affirmative, because he really should have read the manual.

My own impression is that drysuit diving doesn't feel much more removed from the water than wet suit diving. Also, I didn't feel like I had good trim at all. The air bubble wanted to float my feet up, despite the ankle weights. I found myself naturally frog kicking instead of flutter kicking because frog kicking naturally bends my legs, restricting the flow of air into my legs, and also the trajectory is slightly head up, keeping the air bubble in the torso area instead of the legs. I am looking for solutions for maintaining good trim, other than putting heavier ankle weights on because I don't think I want to convert to frog kicking permanently. Theoretically, frog kicking would mean converting to blade fins from my Apollo split fins, which is undesirable (split fins are so efficient in the water when flutter kicking).

I agree with Mark when saying that drysuit diving forces one to pay more attention to trim in the water than wetsuit diving, which isn't such a big deal once you gain experience, but for now is added mental tasking that wouldn't exist as much with wetsuit diving. Drysuit diving forces you to dive like the sluggish, perfectly horizontal cave diver, rather than the acrobatic wetsuited tropical diver. Not to knock cave divers or tech divers, who are beautiful underwater, but I would rather be able to do sea lion acrobatics if I wanted to.

Any thoughts, suggestions from those of you who remember wetsuit diving?

Also, my BARE thinsulate undergarment kept me toasty warm in the pool, which does NOT bode well for the ocean. I expected to be overheated in the 80 degree pool. I will probably wear the extra high performance fleece that Divetank threw into the package underneath the Thinsulate undergarment. Funny, Richard at Divetank swore to me that the BARE Thinsulate Hi-Loft undergarment was what they wore up in British Columbia. Dammit, I should have gotten the BARE Super Hi-Loft, which wasn't available at the time.

Once done with the pool dives, our first time unzipping our drysuits at the surface was pretty dramatic. Mark and I both let out audible exclamations as we felt the onrush of air on our bodies. We both felt like we had just come out of vacuum sealing. Upon unzipping, we both realized we had slight leaks up to our elbows. We were told that we needed to push back our wrist seals back further. Even more reason to get DUI drygloves once we rip our seals due to my poor craftmanship!

Birthday Biking - Stage 1 in Sausalito

It was President's Day, and my birthday, and despite the fact that we were still in town, and not on a far flung vacation, I had a blast.

Mark and I got to observe Stage 1 of the 2008 Tour of California, which began in Sausalito. The peleton took 3 slow rounds around Sausalito downtown before taking off full blast for Santa Rosa, 100 miles away. To our pleasant surprise, the riders, including our old friend Paolo Bettini (see previous post) were giving low 5's to the fans as they slowly rolled by.After catching the enthralling race beginning, Mark and I biked from Sausalito across the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. This was another activity that I can now cross off my life's list. As I am not much of a climber, or a bike handler, the ascent up, and the descent down were physically trying. But the end view was well worth it. Notice the "Let Levi Ride" t-shirt on me, and the Peet's jersey on Mark.

After a wonderful, sun-soaked caffe latte and hot dog at the "Warming Hut", we rode back across the bridge into Sausalito where I observed some interesting marine mammal behavior. Below, you can see sea lions and harbor seals pilfering fish from the fishermen's net. Unlike dolphins, who can't wrap their minds around jumping over the nets, these seals and sea lions repeatedly glided over the net and casually ate the silver fish that lay within. Below, a sea lion(?) is about to swim over and into the net. These mammals went in and out of the net so often, it almost seemed like they were mocking the situation.
In the below photograph, you can count 7 seals or sea lions feeding within the net, with sea gulls dive bombing their heads from above.

Tour of California - Palo Alto Prologue - Brushes with Greatness

For the third year running, Mark and I are closely following the Tour of California race. Mark is a big cycling fan. As a result, I have a very good working knowledge of rider's faces, cycling team gossip, and even racing strategy. This year showcases the best cycling talent to come to California since the inception of the race. And due to the relative unpopularity of cycling in America, we got unprecedented access to the world famous racers.

The following photograph was taken at a private cycling event, "An Evening with Levi Leipheimer and friends" in Palo Alto on Valentine's Day (am I the best fiance ever or what?). Levi, left, who is the 2007 Tour of California champion, and the 3rd place finisher in the 2007 Tour de France, looked he could have blended into the crowd with his back turned hat. He and the ever entertaining and witty Chris Horner (left) both got a kick out of signing a photograph that we took of the both of them warming up together at last year's Tour of California.

Mark (center) with super-domestique, Chris Horner (left)

and Tour de France 3rd place winner, and 2007 Tour of California winner

Levi Leipheimer

Mark, with 2007 World Champion, Paolo Bettini,

who obligingly allowed us, and many others to take photos with him

Before the Prologue in Palo Alto, we checked out the cyclists before the race. Paolo Bettini, who is a superstar in Europe, allowed a small group of fans to take pictures with him while he discussed intricacies of his bike set up with coaches and mechanics.

Mina, with France's darling, Thomas Voekler, who fended off Lance Armstrong from obtaining the yellow jersey for an unprecedented 10 days in 2004

I practiced my rusty french when I asked if I could take a picture with Thomas Voeckler, who looks pretty handsome in this picture. Thomas Voeckler, by the way, is one of the most famous French riders in the world.

Familiar faces and voices to American cycling fans, (from left) Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen, and Bob Roll, kicking back on Palm Drive at Stanford UniversityFinally, a shot that could have been taken in Italy, but wasn't. Here was our breakfast before the Prologue at Cafe Del Doge on University Ave. in Palo Alto.