[ here kitty ] Vacaville had a reported sighting by a few people at a park. Maybe the cat was sizing them up.

My current desktop.

[ 8.1 quake ] Penguins escape huge earthquake. What would you yell out to the fleeing Penguins, "Run Penguins Run!" or "Slide Faster Penguins!" ???

Auto Makers To Create Car-To-Car WLAN By 2006 | NetStumbler.com

[ water humping ] The Elephant Seals are lounging in their favorite place. Fun to watch them, it is. This is BTW their mating season.

[ small towns ] I used to live here, Mantoloking, NJ. A fun place with good surf, nice people and beautiful weather. And now I live here, San Jose, CA. Compared to Mantoloking, San Jose is further from the surf, 35 minutes, has nice people (b/c many are imported from NJ!), beautiful weather and with only a 4 hour drive to the mountains we get some great skiiing. So instead of driving in the snow, we now drive to the snow ;)

[ no morals ] Now that China has presented the world with the first Miss Artificial Beauty contest, I'd expect the "wonderfully gifted screenwriters" of Hollywood to bring us a Reality T.V. show of the same. Everyone and their mother, literally, are having surgery to "improve" themselves for this contest.

[ What's wrong with a pouncing pet Lion? ] Some people just amaze me! If you had a young pet Puma living with two young children, and two Bob Cats what do YOU think would happen if left in the same house for extended hours? Unsupervised!

[ Hole me not ] Nuts! Just when you thought it was safe to go outside.. recently scientist "discovered" that I am living by a new fault. A hole, a crack or whatever you want to call it, the fact is it is active. How do they come across such cracks? It's not like a "car down".

[ cool app ] I found this app not too long ago called Konfabulator. It allows you to place modules anywhere on the desktop, modules like weather, clock, Wi-Fi notification, song lyrics, CPU monitoring, etc. And each module supports Opacity, way cool! My favorites are Picture Frame and iTunes Companion. I liked viewing my pictures but the algorithm was shady. So to view more photo's I copied Picture Frame twice in the same directory and renamed them in order for me to lunch three versions of it. Now I point each "Frame" to a different directory. The result is my personal rotating gallery on my desktop. The iTunes Companion takes over as a mini player for iTunes and displays the album cover of each song played, local or streaming. Way cool!

[ Stumping out the report ] I don't get it. If you remove the equation, the report is inadequate. Remove the variable and you have no equation.

[ Mtn Lion sighting - Oakland Hills ] Coming in from all directions, they are. East side, West side, the South. You better run Rodney, run run, Cats are in the Hood! LOL

[ Was just talking about that ] Another Lion was spotted in the Palo Alto area, this time at the Stanford dish. I was having a beer conversation just the other night about that area and lions. Funny we thought, well me, that the lions were passing through this area to get into the neighborhoods. This area I speak of is of classic California rolling hills/ cattle/ horse ranches. "Easy" food for a lion the horse or cows would be. And th person was disagreeing with me stating that a lion wouldn't eat those. The comment if I recall was, "a bull is too large". Well we're talking horses and cows, not bulls. An average 3 to 5 year old cat at 100+ pounds could take a horse or cow. No problem. Anyhow, this is all assuming as we don't know if this is their path into the neighborhood. I use "theirs" b/c my theory is there is this particular area. I believe the Mom cat brought her young in here once and now they continue to use their path through the neighborhoods. It is logical but can only be proven ... hhmmm, I do not know yet how it can be proven. Buckle up!

[ XP Services ] I disabled some XP Service in the attempt to cut down on background processes and now I can't install apps. nuts, it's always something :) I get my Services 411 z123 and some info from The Elder Geek.

[ Task Mgr replacement ] This replacement is a kickass for obtaining more info on and locating rogue processes. Recently I picked up a "WDFMGR.EXE" and could not figure out which application was kicking it off and it was killing my explorer shell. So I searched my old XP System bookmarks and relocated this app. It's worth having this bookmarked or installed as a resource!

[ Mtn Lion interest ] USA Today wrote an interesting story about Mtn Lions in the news, sightings and some stats. A good read it is. In this story they note a David S. Maehr whom reported on Puma's in Florida. After some Googling I was able to find Maehr's research in the Wildlife Society Bulletin but unable to read it as it costs $25. Nuts!

[ Google Ads ] I'm thinking of doing this for my site.

[ Police Beat ] This new movie sounds interesting.

[ Omega-3 ] So it is suggested that we should have a diet of Omega-3, not supplements, as the preferred human absorption of n-3.

[ SF Mtn Lion continues ] More news on the South SF Lion sighting. Here was another sighting at Moss Beach the same day. This same article talks about an unconfirmed sighting near Sugarloaf Mountain Open Space on Nov. 21st. This park is on the ridge of a high class Bay Area suburbia.

[ Mtn Lion sighting SF ] A sighting in the South SF area, hmmm, could have been a dog or Bob Cat, but ya never know!

[ Mtn Lions ] Here are some recent sightings back to Oct. Mtn Lion shot AZ, 2 Mtn Lion sighting San Mateo, 2,3,4,5,6 Other Mtn Lion sightings: Los Altos, Pleasanton, Paso Robles, Riverside & Las Trampas Regional Wilderness Old San Diego fire areas seeing a return of wildlife.

[ Mtn Lion sighting 11/13 ] I just heard about this one in ">La Canada. La Canada is located off HW 210 North, NorthWest of Pasadena, CA. Also close or at the base of Mount Wilson. I am very surprised local authorities did not shoot the lion, which is my perception of their policy in the L.A. area. In other areas, a cub was rescued from a trap. Why are these traps still being used? Why? I found another site that list recent Lion attacks. This site has some gruesome pictures so be careful. I still have not found a site that posts sighting/attacks/killings on a consistent basis. Maybe I'll think of doing that. Interesting perspective from a mountain biker on Lions and Humans.

[ Browsers ] My left navigation bar was too shallow with FireFox. Should be fixed now. FireFox? Yes, Firefox is a replacement browser and using such would secure your computer, simple as that. As you know the default browser that comes with Windows is called MSIE (Microsoft Internet Explorer). Not to confuse you too much but Microsoft has three separate built in functions called "Explorer". We'll call them functions for now for sake of clear communication. The three functions of Explorer are 1)Internet Browser, 2)File System Mgr and 3)Shell. Microsofts goal was to create, for the user, one interface of these three functions. The sad part is that people lose an understanding of their personal system. One does not know the difference of the file system mgr versus browsing online. Maybe that is what Microsoft wanted to create? With that... Explorer allows malicious actions to happen on your computer like unwanted Ads and Spyware. You know those annoying little windows and web sites that come up on their own when you either turn your computer on or launch your Explorer. Say launching your Explorer to check your Hotmail account. Well thank those to Explorer! An interest article about problems with using a Hotmail account. If you need to clean your system I'd suggest the following applications; Ad-aware Spybot - Search & Destroy FireFox Absolute StartUp Tweak Now

[ South America you are rolling! ] South America, at this moment has a 0% packet loss and only 161ms ICMP Response! Those gamers down there must be stoked!

[ The Rat Patrol ] In search of that old show The Rat Patrol, I came to recall that my brother is named after one of the actors, Christopher George. Wowa! This guy was born in front of the camera! CG holds HollyWood in one hand with a stunning 44 movies and 27 TV shows/appearances. Holy cow, he must wear acting makeup like 24 hours a day! Bro, being named after such an acclaimed actor, do you feel like you got it in ya? You got game for the TV? ;)

[ Here kitty kitty ] Yet another Mountain Lion sighting in Palo Alto. I bet the next time they hear an animal walking on their roof at night, they won't be thinking it's just a Raccoon!

[ IE? Why bother! ]  Using EI drives me crazy. It is slow, has too many lame features and therefore not very useful to me. But like Aron Ralston, I am stuck.

[ another issue ] Now I notice that IE is not displaying the pages, due to a HTML coding issue. Avant is displaying with no problem. So 1) IE has source issues and 2) the recent blogs are not posting.

[ errors ] I am receiving errors with my recent post. This error has caused problems in the archives and the front page. I'm still working on it.

[ Engagement! ] I posted a few pictures of my proposal to Catherine on September 12th 2004 on top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. I still need to get the backpacking pictures uploaded.

[ sleepy ]  One of those mornings. Tired, early morning and I pour my oatmeal into my coffee cup, spill my water on me and all over the counter and then pour my Tank into my oatmeal bowl. Where did the coffee go? I know it needs to go in me real soon! ;) Thought of the day.

[ SLACKER! ] True it be. I have slacked on updating the site and blog with family news and events. Not to remove the happiness and joy that comes with them, I've just been swamped. Once I get home from work I'd rather just veg out and relax and stop my head from spinning. I'll try really hard in the next week to update the site. Expect to see blogs updates, pictures and book reviews.

[ Slacker revisited ] Yes, I am wearing the Slacker Hat! I jave SO MUCH to post! So much has happened in the last month. Coming soon...

[ test ] Testing the Blogger plug. The plug-in was tested with IE 6.0.2 SP2 and Avant 9.0.2.101. Works good so far as it's perfect for quick posts. Quoting Napoleon Dynamate, "Sweeeet".

Google Toolbar Installedtesting google blogger access/

[ SDF ] I rode in the Soquel Demonstration Forest (SDF) this past Saturday morning with a few buddies. Let me just say, that trail has got to be one of the best loops in Northern CA. We rode about 12 miles in this loop and I think we only had a 1200 foot elevation gain. Once we reached the top of the mountain, Nisene Marks State Park, we dropped into the single track called "Braille trail". Oh my! That was a blast. I must have fallen about 3 times, broke my computer, have black & blue marks all over my thighs and broke blood on just one leg. All good fun! I was only averaging 11 mph down that single track while Anthony and Rich were doing about 20 mph with their Downhill bikes! On one steep hill that I took a fall on, my bike and I started sliding down with my bike about to be pitched over the cliff! Luckily we were under the trees for the better part of the ride. On the fire road back to the truck the heat was really getting to me. I had one GU left and about 3 gulps of water. The truck temp gauge read 99 degrees. Not cool. Next ride: If the temperatures are expected to be up again for the next ride, I think a 8am start time is best. I might bring leg and arm guards too.

[ slacker ] I've been slacking on the updates. Work has been all too crazy as I've been swamped swamped swamped! Throw me a life line!

[ QOS - signature verification ] All too often I hear and see retail store clerks are not verifying the credit cards used for purchases. That being signature verification, ID check or other. Mine says "Please see ID" and is not signed. Everything starts with the individual, so I started taking action instead of standing by and complaining about it without acting on it. I have contacted REI Corp for the Fremont and Saratoga locations. Both offices were notified of the concern. REI Corp informed me that the concern has been forwarded to the individual store managers. Thank you REI for listening and being a concerned business. Next on the list, Up & Down Truck Center.

[ coffee ] This morning I ponder whether to bring instant coffee of real coffee on my next short backpacking trip? Coffee offers so much emotion and feelings with the clear and crisp air of the early morning hours in the mountains. Oh the memories! The smells, the taste, the anticipation! All this comes from "real" coffee, the non-instant type. I think instant coffee offers only one advantage, weight. In my search for a "good" cup of instant coffee I came across a coffee ordering house with some very reasonable prices.

[ sign language /thank you/ ]  I have decided to teach myself sign language. I figured it shouldn't be too hard if I took one sign, one day at a time. So the first sign will be thank you.   (-All credit to Basic Dictionary of ASL Terms -)

[ Getting lost ]  AutoZone is using a locator service called Know-Where System on their web site. This provides customer with driving directions to their local AutoZone. The problem is Know-Where doesn't know where AutoZone is! I live by Campbell CA and the service provided me the correct address of the store but the map doesn't display Campbell CA.  Here is the incorrect map and here is the correct map.

[ "...for awhile..." ]   Been too long since updating the BeansBlog. Work has been crazy busy and that has pushed my time outward and away. You know, sometimes you have to go away, in order to come back. ;) The pictures of Mom's surprise birthday party are posted. That was a terrific weekend! Classic was the surprise though, Dad had picked up Catherine & I from the airport and were in route back to the house. Mom was on the same highway, about a 1 mile ahead, she had left work earlier than expected. In front of Mom was Chris & Jorie! They were just driving into CA from AZ and was about 1 mile ahead of Mom! All three parties driving to the same location with the middle party not knowing! Awesome! I have a couple sets of pictures to roll up from past hikes and bike rides. I'll do those late next week. I'm taking a spontaneous road trip in the next few days. I'll journal the trip with pictures and will blog those. Spontaneous, that word seems almost foreign to me. There was a time in which I was spontaneous with everything. I think my Dad called it, laziness. I think spending so much time at work has caused me to lose track of that. The only thing I was "spontaneous" about was falling asleep, after a long work day, on the couch with my dinner plate in my lab! LOL! I need to get spontaneousness back into my life. Hopefully, this road trip will do it. Now let me tell you about the road trip. We going to drive....[brakes]... wait a second here... talking about the trip before it happens would be planning it and would not be SPONTANEOUS! Oh my! See you in a few days!

[ Goooood Morning Ethan! ]   I have known Emoney for the better part of 2 years. We play hockey together, party, mountain bike, backpack, camp, hike, etc. Not once I have ever told him "Good Morning Ethan". Today I have, as he woke up before 12pm. I just had to blog this :) 

[ Hiking Coe ] CMG & I hiked in Henry W. Coe State Park this past Saturday. My second time there and CMG's first. We hiked a 11 mile loop to China Hole, in 4.5 hours over an elevation climb of 2300 feet. It was an awesome hike out to the river but coming out was not. We were rushing due to make a 6pm Engagement party and opted for the fire road versus the trail. The difference is that usually a fire road take you, in the quickest path from point A to B. Whereas a trail would switchback back up the mountain and even around the sides. A fire road is faster and harder. We took that fire road and found ourselves going up hill for about 3.5 miles. CMG was not wearing good hiking shoes and kept slipping on the steepness of the hill. We also ran out of water. Yes, this is the second time I have done this in a years time. CJB & I ran out in Highland Parks over toward the Nevada state line. Anyway, we made it back and in relative good spirits :) Along the way we had some beautiful views of the eastern park peaks and ridges. We saw some wild Turkey, about 20 feet away and some large wild pigs. The pigs thankfully were about 120 yards away. We did come across some Mountain Lion scat. This is the exciting part as it's my first find. CMG actually spotted and proclaimed, "THAT is from a Mountain Lion!" That's my girl! Sure enough it was. Absent minded, I did not measure it nor did I take good pictures. Either way we had a blast !!!

[ Backpacking Coe ] EW and I backpacked out to Henry W Coe State Park this weekend. Here are some pictures. My camera batteries died so I was short on the pictures taking. A bit tired tonight so I'll have to get back to more Coe info at another time.

[ coffee ] This is too freaking funny!  

[ running wrap up ]   I never did update my running blog, sorry about that. Well that was a tough run. I had a good steady pace up to mile 8. Prior to that I was getting bored running in circles in the park, I never thought I'd get out of there! :) We hit the beach and what a site for sore eyes. That was a good uplift, until I felt the wind. It was cold, rainy (light) and windy. My legs were numb. Onward I went, slowing, ever slowing around mile 9ish, I think I was bored. I have never run past the 9 mile mark, even in practice, so now my body was asking.. WHY!? WHY!? WHY are you doing this to me? I had no answer. My mental state was that of "get me to a warm couch". But I finished and that was my goal. I finished. I finished the hardest event I have ever taken on. Well, I think the hardest was trying to walk after the race! :) But I think I could have done better, in fact, I know I had more in me. The following weekend I ran a 3k for a charity. That was fun but again very cold. Time to take a break and maybe consider running a 10k in March, on the mountain trails off SkyLine Blvd.

[ hangup ] Something Confucius should have said, Always check your phone to assure proper disconnect. Some people be clowning and we be hearing it! 

[ google me ] Google ROCKS, that is all I have to say today. 

[ running ] I am running my first half marathon today. The Home Depot Half Marathon up in the city. It's 5:23am. I run at 8am. I'm drinking my coffee, strong coffee and eating whole wheat toast with peanut butter and bananas. I have the TV on, not sure what's on, I just need that white noise going on in the background. I have my water bottle filled. My gel bottle is filled with PowerBar Power Gel, Strawberry Banana flavor, with caffeine. My clothes are laid out, running shorts, shirt, socks, shoes, belt, watch, hat, wind breaker. I have packed my shades, 1 advil, breather, 1 Tumms, lip balm. Check. Needs some tunes too, so I'm bringing my Sont walkman for the ride up. Need some tunes. My legs are already bouncing. Need more coffee. I need to hop in the shower. Shower felt great! Weather wise, it looks like rain. I love running in the rain. But up in the city the rain will bring wind and cold and we'd be out in the open. Hmmm... rain is no longer my favorite. I have butterflies.

[ Our Military .... II ] Just received this from the war front. If you do not like to view war killings, then skip this please. 

[ Quote ] I loved this quote so much, that I had to share it. "Don't walk behind me I will not lead, don't walk in front of me I will not follow, just walk beside me and be my friend." - Unknown

[ Space, I need space! ] The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of warranting 14,000 acres to the California tiger salamander. So my first question is, why do we need such an expanse of land for this species? Last time I saw a salamander it was not crawling, it was as still as a stick. The time before that, still as a stick. Now that I think about it, I have never seen a salamander crawl. Hmm, do they the fly? ;-) All seriousness folks, why do we need 14,000 acres for a species of that size? I think the conversion of acres to mile is 640, so that would be 21.8 square miles. That is larger than the Town of Whiting, Vermont. The fact that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife is possibly beating out the land developers for this piece of parcel is also beyond me.

[ Yummies ] March is right around the corner. You got it, Girl Scout Cookie month!!!

[ Our Military ROCKS! ] These pictures require no words.

[ Lions and Bears ] In this recent article by Yellow Bird I find it interesting that YB says Lion attacks are on the rise, to four a week. I almost fell out of my chair when I read that. FOUR! Holy Leaping Cats Batman! I wonder where that data comes from. All those times where I found myself alone in a forest, investigating a recent deer attack, I might have been closer to a Cat than I thought. Wow, chills are riding my back but the excitement has me jumping!

[ Gilroy Lion Sighting ] SJ Merc reported, "A mountain lion was recently reported behind Gavilan Community College on the west side of Gilroy." They also state "Wildlife experts estimate that there are between 4,000 and 6,000 adult mountain lions in California. But attacks are rare. Just five people have been killed in California by mountain lions in the past century. Reynolds was the first fatality since 1994." Which we all know there are thousands of Lions in CA. Sure, attacks are rare but on the rise they are along with sightings. So the nature theory is if sightings go up so will attacks and killings.

[ feelings, oh woo oh feelings... ] The Pocket PC is a handy tool for coordinating everyday life schedules. I have been a PDA user since Palm's second generation. A great work horse it was and I continued to use Palm up to their model V. So I had three of their units and was pleased. Low and behold, I was attracted to the Pocket PC, mainly for the integration with MS Outlook. So off I went researching and I purchased the Toshiba e740. This was their top of the line at the time with nice color, size, weigh and best of all a built in NIC. What attracted me to the Toshiba's offering was the built in NIC. What best to download news items while sitting in a meeting or the library. Well, that was my thoughts when I left three generations of Palm to my dusty old desk draw when I switched to the Pocket PC world. What a mistake! I thought the integration with Outlook was key for staying on top of, well, life. Remember that at one time, Palm could sync with Outlook out of the box. A third party app was needed, for an extra price, and when it did sync up it was testing the Chaos Theory. Did I mention how wrong I was for switching over? Purchasing this expensive POS, the Toshiba's e740 pocket pc was clearly one of my biggest mistakes in life. And trust me, I have made many many mistakes! This POS has been repaired three times and going on the fourth. Since that third return, I now have to reformat the unit at least three times a day. For some reason the unit will just not turn back on! So you all know what that means? I have to resync everything from scratch. This happens about 4 times a day. So I called their tech support and asked to open a ticket so that I can get some resolve with this matter, like asking for a replacement because clearly this is a lemon. The tech support guy laughed at me. I kid you not. I pushed the issue further and he finally escalated the ticket for me and wished me luck. That was four weeks ago. Since then I have not heard back from tech support. This POS is now a paper weight and on some days I use like I would a Stretch Armstrong toy.

[ Cats, cats everywhere ] A Mountain Lion was spotted yesterday at Coyote Creek Trail.

[ the challenge ] How fun does this sound! I think I hear a challenge.

[ a little bit of off-whites and BAM! ]  Talk about laying down some cash for a nice gift. Ebay just took it to a new level by offering a set of Pearls via a private collector.

[ fog ] Fog fog go away, come back another day... PLEASE!!! Those days when work is so busy and you can't get outside for a lunch or a break of any kind and the hours are building and building and the and your only hope for a slight reprieve from the office is a glance out the window and all you see is fog fog fog fog..... oy! I am having one of those WEEKS!  

[ Holy Shakin Bakin Batman! ] Well, it has finally happened. Scientists can now predict earthquakes. Great job to you all!!

[ Mtn Lion sightings ] Somewhat recent sightings: Kansas Colorado El Dorado, CA Colorado (not so recent) California Arizona Pennsylvania Iowa Iowa

[ Confronting a Mtn Lion ] If a person happens to be confronted by a mountain lion he or she should: - Stop, stay calm and refrain from running. - Talk loudly and firmly to the lion in a low voice. - Face the lion, but avoid direct eye contact. - Back away slowly if they are able to do so. - Attempt to make themselves look as large as possible by raising their arms or holding a jacket or backpack above their head per Colorado's Division of Wildlife (DOW)

[ A Perspective ] This is sad yet so true and all too common place. Maybe this is why people do not want HMO's?