CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Do you know anyone who's dated for 10 years? Greg and Holly started dating in High School. They made it through the long distance relationship when one went to Davis and the other to Cal Poly. After graduation, one worked in Sacramento and the other stayed in the South Bay. Through ups and downs, dips and valleys, they've worked through all the kinks of their lives. And on their 10th anniversary as a couple, Greg finally seals the deal and asks for Holly's hand in matrimony. May the Lord bless them with an abundance of grace and love.



On a different note, congratulations to me also!! Spent almost the entire weekend working on my shower. That's the problem with buying an old home. Everything is either broken or close to breaking. Most of the things are beyond repair. Some parts are impossible to replace cuz it's obsolete. And then there's just the old factor.

Started with Joycie asking me to unclog the drain and scrub down the walls. Then I realized that the drain cap was loose...the screw heads came off but the screws were intact. Greattttttt.... nothing like removing an unremovable screw. I asked the Home Depot guy how to remove the screw. His advice, "Sell the house. It'll be easier."
The faucet handles were leaking so I needed to work on those. There were so much grime and rust...most of my time was spent taking things apart! I got to a point where I was Repairing by Destruction. Bought a cobalt drill bit and started ripping everything in sight!! ARGH ARGH ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But alas...at 830PM Sunday night, the leaking stopped ,the drain was secured. And Joycie had a hot pasta dinner with salad waiting. Yet again, I'm convinced that my future offsprings will either be a doctor, lawyer or plumber.

WHOA!!!

Moments after I post about my troubles with 1941, I solved it!!! WOOHOO!!! Nexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxt............

down but not out...

My addiction to Freecell quickly became annoyance ie I got bored of it really fast. So then I did a search on Google to see what other people have written about it...and lo and behold, I find out that game #11982 for Win95/98 is UNSOLVABLE!!! and there are 8 games in 1 million deals for XP that can't be solve either.

Of the 1 million games, the following have been posted as being the most difficult:
1941
80388
617 and others.....

It's been a day and a half and I'm still stuck on 1941. I'm tickled pink at this new challenge, but at the same time, a little discouraged at how difficult it really is!!

Addiction

There's a term we used back in the 80's called "flipping a game" - which means beating the game, winning a game, killing the big boss, finish all the levels. In recent days, my Cuz from NY got me re-addicted to the simple yet mind-boggling game, Freecell. Did you know there are 1 million possible games out there? And each of the games have a solution, unlike Solitarie. And with Minesweeper, it's really hit or miss to have a good start; more guessing than skills, unless someone shows me a strategy. Back to Freecell, if I were to play 5 games (and win those games) everyday for the rest of my life, it'll take me 200,000 days. There are 365.25 days in a year....so it'll take me 547 years to "flip Freecell!!" If I double the games I play every day to 10, it'll still take me 273 years. Okay... I started playing Freecell since 1995 when it came out with Windows 95. Given the benefit of the doubt, I've played 1,000 games. That's still 999,000 games I have yet to play.

So starting from today, if I play 80 games a day, I'll successfully finish Freecell in 35 years. Great!! Reality!! But wait... 80 games a day??? On average, it'll take me 5 minutes to finish a game. That's 400 minutes or a good 6-7 hours! Which is a full time job!!

Maybe I can get Bill Gates to sponsor me for the next 38 years....

Calling pitchers and catchers...

Last year around this time, I wrote a journal entry on the dismal performances of the Niners and my longing for baseball season to start. This year the pain isn't as blaring, with the Warriors and Sharks showing signs of competitiveness and perhaps even a playoff run. Another two weeks of suffering through the 2006 season and we'll be in the Reggie Bush Bowl. Maybe that game will have the highest rating of the year when we go up against Houston for the worst record in football. Knowing the Niners, we'll probably win the game and hand the #1 draft pick over to the Texans. Or...if we lose and we get the #1 pick, Reggie Bush will decide to play another year in college. Boy am I glad I was cognizant during the 80's.

On a more wishful note...the Giants just signed Matt Morris to secure the #2 spot in our rotation. Is this it?? Will this be our going in position to the 2007 season? We bolstered our bullpen and strengthened our start rotation...but what about offense? Guess we'll be limping into Spring Training again...with all our hopes and riding on Bonds' shoulders.

Sigh, sometimes it just hurts to be a San Francisco Sports fan....

the little things in life...

Sometimes, those little things in life make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Went to Dish Dash with a coworker today. While we're in there, the Manager needs to move us to another table to make room for a bigger party. And she voluntarily buys us dessert. I would've rather her buy us lunch, but hey! it's free dessert.

Not really sure what she bought us tho...

Kenafeh
A sweet and special Middle Eastern dessert: Shredded filodough with sweetened cheese in stairated rose water with a garnish of pistachios. Freshly made, so please allow 10 minutes.

Then went over to a used book store to look for this out of print book. Perusing, perusing and suddenly, "BINGO! There it is!!" (VICTORY) But wait...d'oh!!! Same title, different author. Darnit!!!! (DEFEAT) Oh well...I guess I might just have to do what the title told me to do...wait till next year.

So if anyone reading this is ever in a used bookstore and come across WAIT 'TILL NEXT YEAR by William Goldman and Mike Lupica (not Doris Kearns), snatch it. I'll take it, even if 10 people get it for me. On Amazon, it's going for $400. On ebay, last checked, it was going for $85.