Random surfing - this had me laughing...
http://gadgetize.com/2005/11/christmas-gifts-around-20-part-1.html

Just venting here. But!! Systems Paving, a fairly large company, has some issues. If you are seriously thinking about using them. Think again. Here's my issues with them:

The estimated time from start to finish was about 1 week. In the end, it took 6 weeks - and they still aren't done. They still have to pick up a pile of pavers in my front yard. My neighbors have been complaining.

1) One of the sitting walls they built for me is not straight up and down. It leans back and looks badly.
2) The crew doing the work doesn't read the job information fully - they used the wrong color pavers in one of my paving areas (I have 1100 sq ft of pavers installed.
3) They didn't order enough pavers to complete the job - had to wait 3 weeks for new pavers to be delivered.
4) The lights that I paid them $150 each to install looks badly. The face plates are all scratched up and looks badly. Now I have to order new face plates - these lights cost me $60/each on top of the install.
5) They havn't picked up the remaining pallets of pavers in my front yard.

My current actions:

1) I've called my credit card company to dispute the final payment. I think with corporate seeing a dispute for such a large sum (more than what I paid for my first car) will hopefully be noticed.

They took my credit card information at the start. They billed the first third when they start the demolishion work, second third when materials are delivered, and last third when the job is done.

2) I started calling corporate offices and letting them know of the situation. I also inform them that I'm disputing the charges.

3) I've called the regional office and left notice of the situation and me disputing the charge on my credit card.

Actions taken so far:

1) One phone call to me from some random field office rep saying the order to pick those up was called in a long time ago. SO!! Big deal, i still have pavers in my front yard.

I'd post pictures with this, but I don't have any at the moment.

WOW! Imagine being able to change the body of your car in about 30 minutes. Get tired of your current model? Just change the body part, not replacing the engine and under frame.

The engine, fuel tanks, and hyrdogen power cell are all contained within about the first 7 inches of the car (from bottom up).

So far so good. However, the installers are careless about my stuff. They damaged my nice refrigerator pulling it out. I don't know how because it takes two fingers to move the thing - it's on nice wheels. Regardless, the flooring is looking nice.

Went to San Francisco a few weeks ago. Had lots of fun partying, and hanging out. We hit club Dragon on Friday night, it was okay. Went to Twin Peaks Saturday day, even though it was cloudy, you could still see the bay. Surprisingly, it wasn't windy up there! First time for everything I suppose.

Saturday night, we bar hoped around Castro, which is where I met some cool peeps - although I only keep in touch with Harrison, when we're not crazy busy, since he's a cool guy.

WOW! The yards are being completely transformed. Here's some pictures to give a brief status update.

Front yard:

Back yard:

Side yard:

The sitting walls are still being built. Hopefully should be done in the next couple of days - if it doesn't rain!

So, I've been doing documentation review at work. Here's something that made my head spin on a document a few years old. This particular document was reviewed by multiple people in multiple groups and across several departments, including tech writers which ensure all the text is clearly understandable by the lay person not in our field. Bonus points if you can translate this. This is talking about server requirements.

Flat Stanley is a little boy who got crushed by a billboard one day. Ever since that fateful day, he's been traveling the world. Since he's flat, he can be easily (e)mailed to nearly anywhere. Flat Stanley came to my office Friday morning. Here, I showed him my cubicle at work.

Flat Stanley came to me the same weekend Albert and I were to head to San Francisco. Since we couldn't change out SF trip plans, we took Flat Stanley with us on our adventures around SF.

Here's some maps of our travels.

Here's a map of California showing our travels.


Here's a regional map.


Here's where we started from.


Here's a map of SF area.

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After work, we were off to San Franciso. There were three of us - Myself, Albert and of course, Flat Stanley. While on the road, Flat Stanley was playing around with the GPS system to find the fastest way to get to San Francisco.

Once we got to SF Friday night, we checked into the hotel before we headed out for dinner.

After a quick dinner, we met up my friend Steve. I introduced Flat Stanley and took a picture of them.

After an early night of socializing with friends, we headed back the hotel to get a good night's rest.

The next morning we got some breakfast at a Vietnamese restaurant. All of us get some really good hot soup since it was a cold day in San Francisco.

After breakfast, we make our way to Twin Peaks, right in the middle of San Francisco. Up on twin peaks, we can see San Francisco and the bay area fairly clearly, despite it being chilly and cloudy. Surprisingly, it's not windy like it normally is on sunny days.

Stanley points out Market street. On this street there are three levels of transportation. On top, are cars, busses, and electric trains (not the cable car). Under that, is underground electric trains which service many parts of San Francisco. Under that is BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) which services the bay area. It goes under the bay bridge to bring people from the other side of the bay to and from San Francisco.

Looking (almost) north, you can just make out the Golden Gate Bridge. Alcatraz is hidden behind a mountain.

To escape the cold, we visited a few stores on Haight street between Divisadero and Stanyan. This is a nice relaxing area to hang out as there are lots of little stores and parks around. Stanley found a few things that would have liked to purchase, but there is no way he could take them with him in his envelope to his next location far away.

Flat Stanley wanted to buy a lunch pale with his favorite cartoon, but couldn't take it with him on his next trip. So, he decided not to buy it.

He also wanted to buy a mad libs comic book to keep his mind in shape.

After shopping, we met back up with our friend Steve for dinner at "My Tofu House" on Geary street in San Francisco. The food here is really good. Despite the name, most dishes were not comprised of tofu. However, we did order some and it was extremely good.

After dinner, we met up with some additional friends:

I introduced Flat Stanley to Kent. Kent thinks he's a doctor, but we wouldn't trust is doctor advise.

Harrison is a great guy, and is actually a doctor. We would trust his advise.

After a long day, we get back to the hotel. Stanley enjoys a glass of cranberry juice.

The next morning, we hang out at the Castro street fair.

After the fair, we head home. After some time, you can see Sacramento off in the distance - a sign we are getting close to home.

A neat sign on the freeway coming into Sacramento. This is on interstate 80.

After almost 3 years without a backyard in my new house, I decided to hire a landscape architech. After meeting with her to go over what i wanted, she drew up plans on redoing the front yard, and get the back and side yards done too. Even before hiring the designer, I already knew I would be ripping out the grass in the front yard, and redoing the courtyard.

Before...

Me removing grass, with Albert's help.
Step 1: Cut -

Step 2: Roll -
Step 3: Haul away (no picts, but thanks goes to Lance for helping with this and using his pickup.
After grass is gone: (That's a chalk outline of the pavers - ran out of spray paint)

Remove Front court yard boring concrete. For this, I left for Chicago and couldn't get any pictures. But, here's the crew showing up just before we left for Chicago.

I'll try to post more pictures in the next couple of days.

Yet another month went by when we didn't go to SF. Here's some random pics from our August trip. We left for SF directly from Regina's Labor Day BBQ party.

The first night, we stayed around Union Squar in SF, and partied in Castro. I've been finding that I've been enjoying The Bar on Castro (TBAC) more than in the past. Perhaps it's my older age, but I've been quite enjoying that place. Midnight sun seems to be dead everytime I go there. I've lost interest in The Cafe. Badlands is just too packed - can't even dance there it's soo packed. It's hard to move around, much less strike up a conversation with someone since everyone is constantly looking for the next best thing.

Anyways, TBAC is a nice place to meet new people. They are friendly, easy going. Nice relaxing, but energetic dance tunes (sounds like a weird combination of genres - perhaps better described as "chilled house/techno") . It's a great chill out bar. My friend Lance and I learned one night, that to get the night started, order a tall long island ice tea - you'll see why when you do.

The second night (Saturday), we went out to Club Papi. Meh. It's okay. I enjoy a good latin tune here and there, as well as a latin feller once in a while, but I couldn't personally enjoy the music too much. I'm not dogging their song selection since they cater to latin guys, but I couldn't take the "same" music over and over. To me, it sounded pretty much the same the whole night, except when they played the occasional english singing diva song. For me, I'll have to pass on future Club Papi events. I enjoy myself at TBAC or the occasional friday night at Dragon when I want to put on muh dancing shoes.