Petaluma
I spent the past 2 days with Meghan's family in Petaluma. I had a lot of fun while I was there.

First I took a bus up there and had a two hour lay over in San Fransico. I walked around the Financial District for a bit, taking a couple of pictures. Meghan picked me up from the bus stop in Petaluma and gave me a quick tour of the historical side of the town. Then we went to her ranch.

It was so beautiful up there. Wow. Just so open and pure, it was nice. She lives in this lovely, original 1930's house. Meghan got her brother Zack to remind her how to drive the four wheeler and then she took me on a tour of the actual ranch. There was just so much there! 75 acres is what she said and later when we were driving to a restuarant, her dad said they used to own a lot more, like 150 acres. Huge! Meghan also showed me some of her favorite spots on the ranch. For dinner, her family took me to Washu House (I probably butchered the name) to get a "local feel." It's the oldest roadside tavern or something to that effect in the state. It was a bar and a resturant. The bar was fun because back in the day people pinned money to the ceiling with a picture or business card in case they needed some more money for a drink. I had chicken a basket, pretty good chicken. Meghan, her mom and her dad all got rib eye steak while her brother got some shrimp thing. We watched some Buffy over the course of Wednesday and Thursday. We went to bed kinda early on Wednesday.

Thursday, Zack made pancake batter and Meghan made scrambled eggs. Then Meghan took me to Armstrong woods. Huge ass trees! I think the last time I saw trees that big was when I was in Yosemite in 8th grade. And they were pretty much all redwoods. Meghan was able to answer my few questions being a forestry major and having been trained to be a docent in the forest and all. We spend nearly an hour and a half walking around in there. I loved the serenity of it. Then we went to this town who's name I can't remember except that it started with an H and ended in a berg upon Meghan's mom's suggestion. We walked around there for about an hour but we weren't impressed. Lots of expensive art stuff. We watched some more Buffy and talked until her mom came home with some really good pizza. Then we read in her living room for a bit then her mom joined us and they watched Survior. I read through it thus keeping my "reality" tv virginity. After Meghan's mom went upstairs we watched some more Buffy but I beghan to drift off so went upstairs to go to sleep. I ended up staying up for another hour and a half reading. I finished my book.

Today Meghan packed up all her stuff in her car and her dad's truck. Then she took a couple of pictures of me with the pretty shell I bleached the day before with her ranch in the background. At first there were no sheep but then they were outside so Meghan took another picture and then the sheep went back inside. Then we came back to SLO. Meghan's a good driver, she was always staying within 5mph of the speed limit. Drove me, a speed demon, nuts though. But anyway, helped her unload and stuff and then actually cleaned up my own room. By rearranged some things I actually picked up about half a drawer's worth of space and some extra space in my small drawers on my desk.

I was just starting to fall asleep when I was awoken by some banging and I thought it was someone at my door so I woke up with a start. It took me a few moments to realize that it was my new neighbor Kelly putting in some nails. It gave me such a fright.

WOW, day 2 (aka "AHHHHHHH!")
Well set up today went a lot faster and a lot more smoothly today. Probably because we actually knew what were doing today. That smoothness was ruined by the fact that the Cal Poly servers were down due to maintaince until like noon (we opened at 9). So we couldn't do any account activations and told people to come back at like 11 which was when we though they would be back up. So it was wireless forms, more wireless forms and, uh, wireless forms. Matt and I tried to process the 25 forms we couldn't get to yesterday (but Matt managed to process 50 of them yesterday, go him!), but PH was also down so we couldn't look up the students and the Remedy search wasn't very good. Over the course of the day, we did manage to process 23 forms.

Around 12:30 or so we ran out of our coverage maps so I went to make copies since Jim was out getting us food (*such* a good boss). I went to the UU but everything was closed. I went to Tenaya and made 30 copies there. When I got back, Jim was back and we were kinda closing for lunch. I say kinda because the wireless side closed but since accounts was back up, they kept going while the rest of ate and then we relieved them so they could eat and then we opened up again. I took over accounts for a while. I was doing extreme multi-tasking while Andrew was eating and Terri was out. I was helping two people set up their accounts and also making our handouts. Then Terri discovered that the Password Manager wasn't working properly so we had to stop doing accounts again. So then we had to explain to everyone what to do on their own time.

We took so many wireless forms today, oh...my...gosh. Easily a hundred of them. Maybe two. So in between calls, guess what I'll be doing tomorrow? More wireless forms! Yay! [/sarcasm] My throat is a little sore from all the talking I was doing. Especially when I was talking about the accounts. These past two days is not something I want to experience again anytime soon.

I can't believe that some people thought that we would LESS busy today. I was telling Terri that I believed we were going to be more busy today and I was right. Not everyone moved in yesterday and not everyone we told yesterday that they needed their laptops came back yesterday. And most of the people early in the day we told needed their laptops came back today because they wouldn't be able to do it until next week because of WOW.


Completely changing subjects...

On my way home I noticed that there were suddenly a lot of cars around the apartment complex and I noticed people moving in and decided that now would be a good time to go around introducing myself. I met quite a few people: Amy, Jill, Rob, Jeff, Mary, Kelly, Chris, Matt and Gene. Just 18 more people to meet. Well 19 if you count my roommate, Julie. Yay me for actually meeting some of my neighbors this year!

On a some what related note, one person's laptop I was pulling information from had a note in it saying "Don't forget to converse with real people!" Thought that was kinda interesting.

WOW, day 1
I was on campus at 8am today. Why? Because the freshmen were moving in and WOW was starting. Therefore we had a booth out for them to activate their accounts and sign up for wireless access.

We were setting up from 8am to about 9:20 or so (we were suppose to be done by 9, but eh). The first couple of hours were pretty slow. A few people here and there, some wanting to activate their account, the rest wanting to sign up for wireless access. Although we didn't actually sign those people up because they didn't have thier laptops with them. So for about the first 3 hours, we were telling everyone to bring their laptops down. So then from about 1 to 5 that's exactly what everyone did. Plus more people asking and then more laptops. We had some crazy lines at some points. We had a guy from IAS, Derek, who had a clipboard filling out wireless forms in the line. One good thing though was that because of our two banners, people segregated themselves into "Activate your account" lines and "wireless access" lines. That did help with the wireless forms because people choosing passwords took a while (damn rules). Also, we had chairs on the other side of the table for the account activaters cause, well, they spend a lot of time. It worked out pretty well. In the end, we had Dan, Terri and Jim doing account activations, and Me, Derek and Taylor doing wireless forms (and activation if need be) while Matt entered the wireless forms into Remedy when he could. I'd say that he got about half of them. We'll probably have even more tomorrow. There will be more people moving in (I moved in on Sunday 2 years ago), plus we turned away some people around 5 and I know there were some people who did not come back to register their laptop.

I will say that some of the questions were answered once I wrote "e-mail" abouve "accounts" in our "Activate your accounts here!" banner and when I wrote "free" above "wireless" on our "Sign-up your laptop for wireless access" banner. It never crossed any of our minds that people would think they would need to pay for the wireless access on campus. We were not expecting so many wireless. Jim had me make 50 copies of a map of our wireless coverage yesterday. We had to send him to make more. A bit later, we sent him to make more copies of the form because the 75 I made yesterday wouldn't be enough. The nice thing about (almost) all of our handouts is that we can over produce because they are things we use all year long (I say almost because one handout got reproduced wrong and had our WOW time on there so we can't use that after this weekend).

Think I'll head to bed soon. You know, so I can get my 5-6 hours in before I wake up at 3am ;-P.

Three days until Petaluma! :-D

6 nights and counting
So, yeah, last night marked the 6th night in a row where I've woken up around 3am. The first one had a purpose but the other 5 don't. I don't like it. Usually I sleep very heavily and don't wake until my alarm goes off. Or at least around 7am as my body has now been conditioned. But 3am just doesn't make sense. I'm starting to get concerned.

Games, Games and More Games!
I went to a little Game Night at a friend of a friend's house. Her name is Lisa and I first met her through Dave when she came to Meghan, Annie and me's April party. Matt G and Andrew also know her. Anyway, she had stopped by the Service Desk while I was in the bathroom to invite Matt (and Annie) and Andrew to her house to play cards. Matt told me he wasn't going but asked if I wanted to and gave me Lisa's number to call her and ask if it was okay. Which is what I did when I got home from work.

I got to Lisa's around 8 or so. The people there (Pauline, Ben, and Brian) were finishing up dinner. Then we went upstairs to play cards. First we played King's Corner which is like multi-player solitare. Then my RA from freshman year who lived in the same apartment complex came over. Then we played Egyptian Rat Slap. We then played Gumpsh. It's where you try to get four of a kind and then signal to your partner that you have it and get them to call Gumpsh on you. Fun game, I kind of remembered it from the one time I played with Jenny, Shannon and Sari in 6th grade. By the time the game was over it was around 10:30 or so, I think. Neva had to go but then Andrew showed up. Lisa taught us all a new game, Maow. It's where the Gamemaster (Lisa in this case) dealt cards and you went around the circle putting down a card and the Gamemaster told you when you were breaking a rule. So basically, through observation and trial and error, you have to figure out the rules of the game. The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards. If you do then you become Gamemaster for the next game and get to add another rule.

For my reference, the basic rules are:
-written somewhere else. So ha!

After the first game of Maow, Ben, Brian and Pauline had to go. It was close to 12 at that time. Andrew and I stayed and we played some more Maow, until we had added 5 new rules. It was around 1:30 then. But we wanted to play some more. I had brought Taboo and Hoopla with me. We then played two games of Hoopla. After that, it was about 2:45 and I decided to head home.

I had a really really fun night. I'm glad Matt invited me and that Lisa said it was okay =)

Recent Events
Went home for the weekend for doctor appointments and such for the most part. It was pretty good. My mom said that it looked like I had lost 10 pounds but when I went to the doctor, we found out that I had gained 4 pounds since my last visit in late March. Whoops. I got the standard I need to change my eating habits lecture from my dad before that though. I got another lecture/concern talk from my mom hit a wall of reality recently when one of her friends was diagnosed with cancer. She wants to know that I'll be alright if something happens to her. Blah blah, it was basically the same thing I've heard numerous times from both parents before. At least she kept up the tradition of giving me the emotional health talk on the last day of break ;-P.

Some of the more happier highlights of the weekend: saw 4.5 movies: Freaky Friday (really good, highly recommend), Uptown Girls (ugh, we overpaid for that one. Granted the tape was bad but I don't think a better copy would have helped), Out of Time (good suspense film. recommend seeing it once it comes out in theaters), and the .5 film was Bowling for Columbine.

Oddly, what I did Saturday is kind of escaping me. I know that at night I watched TV while working on my quilt. I have the second sheet done, now I need to sew them together.

I saw Freaky Friday with my mom and her friend Rema and her daughter Marisa on Sunday. We then went out to lunch and my mom and I went into this new (to me) store in the mall called Passion for Fashion. They had some cute stuff in there. I got these classy looking black pants that had a built in scarf around the waist and a nice top to go with them. Then Ashley came over. I was watching Bloodwork on TV when she came over so we watched the end of that, ate some pizza, talked about the bad old high school days (particularly how much the English classes suck), and watched half of Bowling for Columbine. About half way through she called her parents and asked to stay later. They said to be home in 15 minutes so we had to raincheck the rest of the movie.

I saw Uptown Girls and Out of Time with my parents on Monday night. During the day I worked on the DVDs. All I left is pulling Jessica's scenes from about 5 productions, and my parents childhood. Those will be fun to watch. Tuesday was two doctor appointments and celebrating my parents 32nd anniversary. I wore my new outfit to the resturant, and if I may say, I looked good.

Wednesday was another doctor's appointment. I also went to a couple Barnes and Noble that were sorta on the way home to see if they had any of my favorite authors' new books (they didn't). Came home and had lunch with my mom and then we went to pick up my car (it had gone to the mechanic on Tuesday to get an oil change and to get my trunk fixed). Then we played Scrabble (Mom kicked my ass). Dad got home relatively early so I could have dinner with them and then I picked up Randy and came back to SLO.

Today I worked from 8-5. I did go to Farmer's tonight. I saw quite a few people I knew while there: Joel from work, Matt's cousin Leigh, Justin and Amy, David and Jessica. I hung out with Jessica and her friend from work for quite a bit. We had dinner together and walked around until a little before 8 whereupon I split and went into Barnes and Noble to see if they had any of the new books. They didn't but I spent some time looking for new authors. I came out with 3 books after stopping to talk to Leigh for awhile. I went over to Staples to see if I could get the expandable shelves that I saw the last time I was there but I got there at 9:01 and they closed at 9. Figures.

Things I hope to accomplish tomorrow:
-catch up on my sit-ups
-drop off my perscription
-buythe shelves
-finish uploading the rest of my pictures to http://briefcase.yahoo.com/mathymandy@sbcglobal.net
-set up and put things on said shelves
-finish Hot Dog which I plan on starting tonight
*EDIT* -Figure out how to use a non-already-blank tape on my answering machine
-Cancel my voicemail

Political Phone Poll
I actually didn't hang up on the guy. I acutally sat there and answered the questions. In a way, it was informative. I learned what some of the city issues are. For example, fixing the storm drains to prevent local creeks from floods and revamping the police department. I wasn't opposed to the police department revamping (wasn't entirely for it either) but I am slightly opposed to the flood protection. I think there was only one day of heavy rain this past school year, and I remember that because the Valencia car port flooded, but that was Valencia's fault, not the city's.

I did find it funny when the guy asked about if I would be more or somewhat more inclined to vote on a meausre if it had an Ojectionable Bond or something as well and I asked him what that was. He said he had no idea so I told them that I had no idea. It was also funny when he was reading off the income level and he told me to tell him when to stop: [him] "$30,000 and under..$... [me]under!

But yeah, for about 10 minutes of my time (which also helped me put off studying sociology ]=) ), I got some idea of city issues. Granted I don't permanently live here but I am currently a voting citizen and I kind of felt like one tonight.

How somewhat depressing. I'm just starting to finish summer school and some people are going back for new year this week. Like USC. So much for any attempts to hang out with those people this weekend. I should e-mail Vanessa and see if she's back already.

Surprises
So last night, between my corn on the cob and my hamburger, I decided to make cookies. Then while I was letting the first batch cool (but after I ate my dinner) and watching Buffy, I heard a knock on the door. I open it up to find Annie standing out there. I was very surprised and happy to see her. She had come to pay me back. I offered her some of my cookies and then she invited me to go to Farmer's Market. I gladly agreed. I went upstairs to get purse and jacket and things but I had left Buffy on downstairs and Annie got into it. We stayed until the epidsode ended. Then she drove us back to her place. Well, she started to at least. She unfortunately ran out of gas 3/4 of the way there. We walked the rest of the way and she bought lemonade from some kids.

So we got back to her place but only to find Matt there. Annie called two Murray apartments but no one was home. A few minutes later Steve, Dave, Sun, Travis and Lisa walked up. We hung out there for a while: Travis and Annie playing video games, Matt studying for Physics, Steve helping Matt, and the rest of us playing with the cats.

After a bit, Lisa and Sun wanted to go to Farmer's. I wanted to join them and then we all sans Matt went. We walked around Farmer's a bit. I contemplated buying grapes but decided against it.

We then went to this Japanese resturant at about 8:30. I had half a side of rice. Although Sun tried to get me to have a California roll. It took me a while to convice her that I really wasn't hungry and was only having the rice to have something to do, and that I really didn't want to try it. She also said that the wasabi(sp?) tasted like sugar but I knew better. Anyway, a couple of funny lines from dinner below. There were more I just can't remember them.

[Lisa to Dave who had a Wells Fargo card in his mouth] Are you an ATM machine now?
[Sun] You're more useful now!

[someone says something about the fish eggs]
[Dave] I'm so full I have no womb.

After dinner we went back to Matt and Annie's. However it was nearly 10 and I was tired so I was going to head home. Plus I knew what would have happened had I stayed: I would have gotten absorbed into the video game world until it was nearly midnight, get home around 12:30 and finally fall asleep closer to 1:30 when I had to be at work at 8. I chose to not be grumpy this morning and was planning to walk home but Travis was nice enough to give me a ride back.

So that was my surprise for the evening. It was quite nice, being around other people off campus is good, I enjoyed it muchly.