September 2005

That is all.

No, it’s not. Go see the Big Damn Movie and love on it a little bit. You know you want to.

Bryan and I were in Mountain View a few weeks ago. (Was it that long ago already?) Anyhow, we’d had dinner at a little ramen place called Maru Ichi, and the best gelato at Gelato Classico. Then we went into Books, Inc. to just look around. I saw a book I was interested in, but they didn’t have a copy that was in good condition. The other day, I remembered to look it up on Amazon. I couldn’t remember what it was called, but I knew that it was about Elizabeth I and espionage in her court. So I searched for:

When I got my search results, I was totally prepared for the first two. The second result was actually what I was looking for. The third? Well, you can see for yourself.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Sarah is feeling replaced. No, really. Apparently she has not appeared in my blog enough of late, and told Amanda that she’s feeling slighted.

Sarah: You’ve replaced me in Darla’s blog!
Amanda: What’s a blog?

Ah yes. As Amanda is not as internet-vain as Sarah, I have promised to dedicate an entire blog post just to Sarah, She Who Shall Not Be Named. I forgot to bring home the tea lid that she wrote upon, which I’m sure she will determine is a complete disregard for her feelings and blah blah blah. But I will say it here, for all seven of you to read!

• Sarah is the best ski and snowboard repair person I know.
• Sarah writes the best messages on my tea and coffee lids.
• Sarah can whine and complain like no one else I know.
• Sarah understands why grammar and spelling are important.
• Sarah is under the mistaken impression that people read my blog.
• Sarah, why do you make me hate you?!

Here endeth my Ode To Emmmm, Sarah.

The image is a little blurry, and also rotated, since I took it looking down, instead of trying to be overly fancy and take it with the timer and try and get back to the right place etc. Too much work for a blog post.

Physical therapy was good. Matt, my PT, went to the same school as me, which is sort of neat. We talked about the school, and about how uninspiring the city of Stockton is. The tape on my knees will stay for about two days (along with Amanda’s message of “I <3 Darla” written in ballpoint pen), and I’ve got some exercises that I need to do three times daily. Lots of boring technical stuff about my knees (boring to you all, I mean, since I personally find it really interesting), but ultimately I’m going to need to strengthen my quads in order to get the kneecap to try and glide in the proper direction. So currently the patella goes diagonally from the inside out, but I want to get it to move as vertically as possible. Le sigh. My ultimate goal is to be able to have a good snowboarding season, where my knees aren’t bothering me and I can ride harder and longer.

[Bonus points for not being x136 but still getting the reference.]

I’ve had my doctor’s visit about my knees. The verdict? “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that you don’t need surgery! The bad news is that there’s no surgical procedure.” So my knees just suck, and there’s not much I can do about it. It was suggested that I could try lubrication shots. Which are exactly what they seem like they might be: a giant needle put under my knee to insert “grease” and help the inner workings of the joint glide more smoothly. Um, no. So I’ve opted for physical therapy, which I begin tomorrow. I’ve got four visits lined up, with “homework” to keep up with it so I don’t have to go every week or what not.

Also, I’ve found the coolest website. Check out Streetsy for daily updates, featuring sweet photos of street art, graffiti, and other pseudo-defacements of public property. I only wish that the site had an RSS feed.

Rain, thunder, and lightning today. A rather humid, early start to the fall, and just in time to match up with the changing seasons at work. Normally, we change seasons too early. Well, too early for California at least. But this year, the weather here is cooperating with us, and we’ve got a good solid week of fall behind us to go with yesterday’s truck.

Oh the truck. We receive two deliveries per week, with the first truck always being larger than the second (for complicated reasons involving terms like “pick day” and “OUTL“). Yesterday’s truck was huge. So huge, in fact, that it came on two separate trucks. 980 units. Which included about 100 pair of skis, the same number of snowboards, one of nearly every size for 45 different styles of ski boot, 1698 pieces of ski and snowboard clothing, and probably 300 hats. I won’t even start on how many gloves we received. It came out to be about 12 pallets, plus a few pallet-sized box piles. Ugh. Today I cleared about 1.5 pallets on my own, but it hardly looks like I made a dent!

Thus I’m quite happy to be off for two days. It required lots of planning to ensure that things were done in my absence, but it was worth it. Tomorrow I see a doctor about my knees…

Yup, today was a good day. =) Work was nice. We’re back to having three managers in my department, and one of them is back from vacation as of this afternoon. Hooray for not being the only one any more! I got a lot of stuff done, and had a good time doing it. I even got to make a customer happy though he was previously unhappy.

After work, I happened upon Amanda, who invited me to go to Gilroy to shop at the outlets. We went to several stores, and just walked around a bit. Good fun. I got a few shirts, which will replace some old shirts I’ve already got…time to retire them. Then Amanda took me to her favorite Italian restaurant out there, called Joe’s. Mmmmm…so damn good. I had handmade ravioli, filled with eggplant, bell pepper, garlic and pepper. Amanda got crab and shrimp ravioli. Oh so amazingly tasty. Then Joe brought us two desserts, because we couldn’t decide on just one. Homemade chocolate cake (three layers!) with just a hint of mint. Two servings of tiramisu. My pants don’t fit as well as they used to, but Bryan should be pleased, as I brought leftover tiramisu home for him.

That damn bee. His knees are much better than mine. That bastard. Between working out and work, my knees have reached some sort of critical mass, and have begun making a new creaking/popping sound. It’s not really as exciting as it seems. Despite taking my glucosamine and chondroitin daily, the knees have not plateaued. Bah. Next week I’ll be seeing a specialist, and hopefully receive a fix that is more than a band-aid. The last time I saw a doctor about my knees (granted, it was Kaiser, who likes to postpone anything having to do with knees), he prescribed 800mg of ibuprofin and nothing else. Thanks, man. Stick another finger in the dike.

Also, I’ve received my Lost DVDs, in addition to finally getting Finding Nemo and pouncing on the new release of the Astaire and Rogers Collection, Volume 1. Since I’m so gimpy, I guess it’s a good thing that I’ve got DVDs to watch!

Having followed as much as I could stand of coverage of Katrina, I don’t have anything to add. Please read Salon.com’s coverage, as it’s been spectacular and interesting and tragic. Catch up with blogger extraordinaire, Jacob Appelbaum as he covers his efforts to bring tech relief to the folks at the Astrodome. As always, Wikipedia’s coverage has been insanely thorough.

I am lucky enough to work for a company who will match my donation to the American Red Cross. We were able, as a co-op, to donate gear (new and used gear), money, as well as offering matching employee grants, whereby employees can apply for a $300 gear grant from the company to get supplies to assist in relief efforts. We’re also able to accept in-person donations from anyone who wants to contribute either while in the store or shopping online beginning tomorrow (hopefully).

Please insert the obligatory (and true) comment about the government not being worth the shit it eats.