Driving stick

I've never formally learned how to drive a stick shift. I kinda-sorta learned it for a few days waaaaay back in the day, but I've never driven a stick shift on a "real" road. Until tonight.

Dennis is away for a few days on a biz trip to LA. Unfortunately, the zone where he parked his car is a ticketing zone, so I felt like I should move his car to a non-ticketed zone so that he wouldn't come home to a $50 parking ticket. Sounds like a great plan, except that Dennis drives a stick shift.

Hmm... Houston, we have a problem!

Oh well, it can't be that hard right? I find the keys, get into his car, stick the keys in the ignition, give it a good twist, and... NOTHING. The car doesn't come on. I don't know what to do. What am I forgetting? I call a friend and find out I need to put the car in first gear before I can turn on the engine.

With that little hiccup safely behind me, I find out that my stick shift skills are not THAT bad. I mean, they're still pretty terrible (I over-rev) but not abysmal (I don't stall).

After a painful 10 minutes of being stuck in traffic (they are doing work on the Bay Bridge and that always causes traffic congestion outside my apartment building), I finally find a parking space, park the car, and get out. All in all, I only stalled once in stop and go traffic. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

But most importantly, I moved the car, found a parking spot, parked it safely, and got back home in one piece. There ya go!

Got Hoodie!

I bought my first hoodie today from the Disney Store. Check it out! I mean, it's JACK (full name Jack Skellington) from the Nightmare Before Christmas!

Yeah I guess I'm still a big kid at heart if I'm still shopping at the Disney Store. :)

Hurtin'

My (ex) girlfriend just left for home (Israel) today. Deep down, I don't think I'll ever see her again. I've been with her for the last 3+ months ever since I met her in the mall. It's been a great 3 months and I'm sad that she's gone. She made me very happy, and I'll always treasure those memories of her. Even the dumb ones, like when she locked my keys in the apartment, and Vince and I had to wait until Dennis got home to open the door for us.

I'm sad but I'm also happy that I'm sad. I don't ever want to get to the point where my relationships fail to move me. For now, I'm going to just enjoy soaking in the sadness for a bit, then pick my butt off the floor and get on with my life.

I'm glad I brought something positive into her life. That's a gift she gave me that I'll treasure. And babe, if by chance you read this, I miss you.

Squirrels

So I was just reminded that I needed to be true to the "Sitting with Squirrels" name, hence this photo. Enjoy!

I'm officially cultured

I've never bought any art in my life as far as I can remember. Well, I passed by this one place and it had everything at 50% off. I couldn't resist, so I made my first art purchase. It is an oil painting, something weird and abstract. It's going over my bed. I like it.


And despite all appearances to the contrary in the photo, the painting is actually properly lined up. :)

Pimping Freeware

I just realized that I use a lot of freely available software (aka freeware). Since I don't pay for it, this post is my way of acknowledging all the cool stuff on the net that I use that make my day so much enjoyable to live through.

Pandora : Free internet radio that plays only the types of songs that you like. For further pimp-ness, wrap the Pandora player in a sweet Windows GUI using OpenPandora!

Notepad++ : A great notepad replacement with multiple document interface, syntax highlighting, macros etc.

SmartFTP : Free FTP client. The initial screen is a little annoying, but I can live with it.

EDIT 2/15: WinSCP : I got rid of SmartFTP. The "update now!" screen bugged out on me one last time and I gave up on it. I don't need freeware that nags me.

Firefox : This is the king of browsers. I have nothing to add that hasn't already been raved about on multiple review sites.

Trillian : I use various instant messenger clients - Yahoo, AIM, MSN, GTalk, and Skype. Instead of running all those clients, I just need one universal client, Trillian.

Plaxo : I've already raved about it here.

Taskbar Shuffle : Allows you to move the little tabs on your task bar around so that it "looks better". When you have a gazillion apps open, this is really useful!

EDIT 3/06: Mint: Free money/spending tracking website. Captures data from your bank, trading accounts, credit cards etc and puts it all together. Very cool.

Got Krav?

This weekend, I'm going to go check out a free Krav Maga training session at a training facility about a mile or two away from my place. I've heard really good things about how "realistic" this form of martial arts is, and how it is adapted to real life situations. I'm dragging along 3 other guys to check it out. It's gonna be fun!

That, plus I need to exercise more or else I won't fit into my clothes!

Keeping in Touch with the Many Sides of Me

There's various parts of my life that need to talk to each other, technologically speaking.

I use Microsoft Outlook at work to keep track of work meetings. I use Outlook at home to keep track of contact info and any social outings I have planned. I use gmail as my email client. All of these applications have information that I need. And I need all that information all the time.

In short, Outlook at work needs to talk to Outlook at home, which in turn needs to talk to gmail, and vice versa. Difficult problem to solve, especially if I throw in additional components to the mix, such as a potential iphone purchase.

Enter Plaxo...

Free service. Syncs all sorts of stuff (Outlook, AIM, gmail, iCal etc). Slick, non-intrusive interface. And did I mention that it is free...? Can't beat the price!

Installation of the Plaxo-Outlook client was a breeze, a quick download, restart Outlook, select what services you want to sync with, and BOOM you are up and running. Syncing is almost instantaneous, and the duplication detection was superb. Very awesome. Very highly recommended!