Merry Christmas everyone! It’s hard to believe that this year is almost over. Here’s to a safe, peaceful holiday and a good start to the new year!
Archive for December, 2004
Merry Christmas!
Saturday, December 25th, 2004Posted in General | 
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Boo
Friday, December 24th, 2004Comments won’t work on this site for a while… I’ve been hammered by comment spam and it’s driving me crrrazy.
Update: Okay, they’re back. Installed new version of MT Blacklist; let’s see what happens.
Posted in Website |
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Violizzle
Friday, December 24th, 2004You know that violinist in the video for “Celebrity Overnight”? Yeah, the one who kinda looks like Sandra Bernhard? Well apprently she is Miri Ben-Ari, “The Hip-Hop Violinist.” Trippy. Coulda been me!
Posted in Entertainment |
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Homeward Bound
Tuesday, December 21st, 2004‘Sup fools. I’ll be back in Albuquerque tomorrow afternoon. If you’re in town, hit me up, yo.
Posted in Travel |
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Liar!
Monday, December 20th, 2004A word of warning: if a chiropractor asks you to wiggle your toes while working on you, watch out! She’s about to crack your neck!
Chiropractors are sneaky.
Current fundraising amount: $4673
Posted in Fitness |
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Warm House
Monday, December 20th, 2004Saturday night Mariel and I had our Second Annual Sha/Mariel Housewarming Shindig. Because of my temporary insanity, I didn’t get home until mid-afternoon, leaving us pretty pressed for time. But Cheryl came over to help, and Mariel’s sister was staying with us, so we had a couple extra pairs of hands. Instead of the standard fare, we decided to try some new foodstuffs and ended up with Swedish meatballs, little pizzas (recipe courtesy of Queer Eye), crab puffs (by Myra), cucumber/avacado/cream cheese sushi, chicken adobo, sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, and various purchased dips and things-to-dip. Mariel also bought a bunch of yummy tamales.
Around 20-25 people came, which made things pretty crowded, but it was great to have everyone together before the holidays. As Marc pointed out, I realized that I generally put my friends into one (or more) of these three catagories: Work, School, and Association. Try to figure out which one you belong to. And now that I think about it, Home should be its own category as well. Anyway, I liked that everyone was together and could finally meet each other.
Fun was had by all (I hope) and it again reminded me yet again that I have Super Awesome friends. I definitely couldn’t make it without them. Thanks to everyone who came!
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Soooooooo………
Sunday, December 19th, 2004………
I ran 20 miles yesterday.
And boy are my arms tired! I mean legs.
But what about your knee, Sha?? What indeed. I’ve been going to the chiropractor pretty regularly, and I did a couple of short runs this past week. My knee was feeling all right, but I was fairly sure I wouldn’t be able to do the full 20 miles, so I decided to shoot for 10 miles. The course was very similar to our 14-miler, which I was happy about because I really like running around Lake Merced. The weather was beautiful too, and we were all it really good spirits. We knew we were up for a long run, so we tried to amuse ourselves with 20 Questions and I Spy. That lasted all of 5 minutes or so.
So fast forward a couple hours, and we’re approaching the 10 mile marker. Up to that point, I had been having a bit of pain in my left knee, but I was really starting to hit my stride (ba dum bum). The pain was occasionally there, but it wasn’t intense like it was at the start of the 17 miler. We reached the 10 mile marker and I was still feeling good so I thought, “What the heck” and kept going.
A couple hours after that, my pace group was really starting to struggle. We were starting to get spread out, so we switched to a 3:2 run:walk (from 3:1; we ran 2 minutes slower for this run) but it was getting tough. We were achey, hungry, and oh-so-tired. But as we approched the last mile marker, I got a huge “I-just-ran-20-miles” adrenalin rush and actually sprinted to the finish.
That night I was sore but not “I’m-going-to-die” sore, which I’ll take as a good sign. Today I’m pretty sore, but I’m going to ice my knee and do my stretches, and I already have an appointment wtih my chiropractor scheduled for tomorrow morning. Hopefully I’ll be as good as new soon.
Yesterday’s run really drove home to me how much long distance runs are as much, if not more of, a mental challenge than a physical one. From the weather to encouragement from my awesome pace group to my being so psyched to be running at all, everything was mentally aligned to allow me to finish that run. It’s pretty amazing what your mind can fool your body into doing.
On a related note, yesterday I also got a cool AIDS Marathon roll-y luggage for raising over $4000. 
Update: Dood. According to some websites, I burned somewhere between 1600 and 1800 calories on Saturday. Crrrazy!
Current fundraising amount: $4673
Posted in Fitness |
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You’re Hired
Thursday, December 16th, 2004So tonight is the long-awaited finale of The Apprentice. All signs point to Kelly being the winner by a landslide. However, this being reality TV, I’m guessing that it’s more clever editing that’s making Jenn look so bad, rather than an actual huge difference between their performance. I also know that big surprises are a TV show’s best friend. Therefore, I’m making a prediction now that Trump will pull some tricky sh*t and hire Jenn.
There, I said it.
Check back later to see how wrong I am.
Update: Okay, I suck.
Posted in Entertainment |
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Damn the Man
Tuesday, December 14th, 2004Last night as I was driving home from work on the freeway, a police car came out from behind me, swerved around me, and continued on its way. Since it was going pretty fast, I sped up too. Eventually I settled in the left lane and he was two lanes to the right, and we were both going around 80. Suddenly, he started to slow down. Not wanting to go faster than him, I slowed down too. He slowed to 75, 70, 65, and even past 65, but I stayed at around 65, since I didn’t want to go below the speed limit. The police car pulled up beside me, and the officer inside turned on his spotlight, shone it directly in my face, stared at me for a second or two, then sped off.
Perhaps it’s just me being cynical, but if I were, say, a black man, would he have pulled me over? What exactly was he looking for? I have a friend who lives in Mississippi and he told me a story once about a time he was pulled over by the police. My friend happens to be a somewhat dark-skinned Indian man. When the policeman walked up to his car, he said, “Oh, I should have figured that it was one of you people.” Now I’m sure that there are many, many good policemen (and women) in the world, but in my experience, it seems like they more often harrass and annoy people than protect them.
Posted in General |
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Somewhere Only We Know
Monday, December 13th, 2004Another busy weekend in ShaLand. Friday night we had our annual company holiday party at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. I was automatic designated driver, as usual, so I drove up Rahul, Erik, Scott, and Nigel. The party itself was okay, but I knew only a handful of people there. I’d like to attribute that to the size of our company, not my relative lack of social skills. But you never know. I participated in food consumption, a little bit of dancing with Rahul “I don’t remember anything from my swing classes” Gupta, and gambling with fake money. They gave each of us 100 unspecified monetary units to gamble with, so I tried my skillz at the blackjack table. I was doing quite well (I was up around 50 unspecified units), but after the dealer called last hand, I bet it all and busted. If it wasn’t last hand, I would have pestered the dealer for the number of unspecified units I could get for my wristwatch.
Saturday I ran a few errands in Mountain View (got the dog washed, got a haircut, and washed the car…a triumvirate of cleanliness!) and had brunch at Hobee’s with Brendan and Matt. That night was dinner and Dave & Buster’s (or D&B’s as the cool kids say) for Barbara’s birthday. Matt, Walter, May-Ling, and I pooled together our tickets to buy Babs a little D&B’s goodie bag that consisted of a poodle/purse (imagine if you took a poodle, attached handles to it, and put a zipper down its back. It’s actually quite cute and not at all as gruesome as it sounds), 4 shot glasses, and a little elephant grabby head. The elephant was the cheapest item (in tickets) in there, so of course it was her favorite. We might have been better off ditching the other items and just getting her 28 grabby heads.
Sunday I had another chiropractic appointment, and then I went to Buddy’s so he could teach me how to drive stick in his car. Not to toot my own proverbial horn, but I am pretty awesome at it. We started out in a parking lot in Foster City and very soon thereafter, I was doing hills in Belmont and driving on the freeway. Go me. I think I’ve discovered another one of my sekret skillz.
(In case you haven’t noticed, I’m having a harder and harder time thinking of titles for these posts, so I’ve settled for quoting lyrics from songs that are stuck in my head.)
Posted in General |
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