I'm heading out to the East Coast next week. I'll be in Boston Wednesday, Nov 4- Friday morning, Nov 6. I know most people are at work, but let me know who's free when so I can see everybody (this includes Ben, Muffin, and Squeaker)!
Also, for anyone in NYC, I'll be there 11/6 (Friday) - 11/11 (Wednesday).
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| Date: | 2009-10-08 12:45 |
| Subject: | Much yay-ness |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  excited |
I got accepted to Seattle PD!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!
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For those of you who don't know Oakland, many people, especially racial "minorities" (I think they're actually the majority here) believe that Oakland PD uses racial profiling to the extreme and is unnecessarily violent and abusive towards minorities. Indeed, in much of Oakland, the police are reviled.
What really concerns me is that it is a common belief that a group like this is necessary in Oakland and that the police bring more trouble with them then they solve. Unless, of course, you're white..
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| Date: | 2009-05-03 19:34 |
| Subject: | Obsession |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  amused | | Music: | Every Breath You Take- Sting |
Obsession so doesn't suit me
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| Date: | 2009-04-23 19:21 |
| Subject: | Seattle PD |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | excited |
I got a call the other day from a Seattle detective who was just assigned my file! Who-hoo! Which means that my application hasn't died, it was just buried for... three months.
We played phone tag a bit, but I got a hold of him today. He had a few questions, needs a few copies of some documents, and will commence calling my references, a thorough criminal and background check, etc. Assuming I pass all of that, I'll go up to Seattle for a few days and go through a battery of more tests. If they choose to hire me, it will probably be in the fall.
The detective asked if anything had changed since I was up there in February and I felt obliged to mention James. It's odd when you're at the beginning of a relationship (I've been going out with James for... what? a month and a half now?) to have to put it down in what seems like a rather formal setting. Like I know where this relationship is going... I also got asked "if this relationship turns into something serious, and we offered you a job, which would you choose?" Very strange question to try and answer at this stage.
But all in all, quite exciting!
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I know, I know, it's been forever since I've posted. So, here's a general update.
I did my taxes a month early and decided that I deserved to impulsively spend some of my refund by going to NYC for a few days to visit friends. Had a lovely 4 day trip visiting Sara and Becca, who live in East Village. It was all-in-all rather crazy. I feel like I walked pretty much every street south of 63rd St. Sars did her best to get me drunk, and a good time was had by all.
I'm currently in South Lake Tahoe with Molly. We originally planned to go hiking, but it turns out that there's still some snow about, so we edited that to skiing. We ended up going up to Reno yesterday instead since Miss Molly wasn't feeling great. Since we were driving by the capital buildings in Carson City, we wandered around (why not?) and were reminded that East of the Mississippi people don't put dates on all their buildings. We wandered around the casinos in Reno, which were rather overwhelming. I could understand how people end up staring at machines for hours because looking away just makes you dizzy. I found myself wondering how the security people patrol the casinos as well as they do. Not sure what we're going to end up doing today besides eventually heading back to the bay area.
Besides that, work is work, still haven't heard back from Seattle, but after three months my brain has moved on to the next thing. I'm keeping an eye out for departments in the bay area hiring, but not too many of them are. I might just look at putting myself through academy and eating the cost of that so it will be a lot easier to get a job.
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"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. All you do is leave behind a lot of noisy baggage."
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| Date: | 2009-03-08 10:32 |
| Subject: | |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  surprised |
Day Light Savings time started today. I knew that... sure I did...
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| Date: | 2009-02-13 12:09 |
| Subject: | RIP Lylah-Boos |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  sad |
RIP Lylah
11/1992-2/12/2009
The best dog my family could ever have.
She lived to be over 16 years old, the equivalent of 114 in human years, and had a good life full of rope toys, traveling the country, rawhide bones, and a family that loved her.
What happened: my dog has been living in Maine with cousins since my dad died since he died up in Maine and Lylah was too old to bop around the country again. I got an e-mail from my cousins a couple of weeks ago saying that she was not doing well. She couldn't stand, was significantly dehydrated, and wasn't eating. She rallied for a couple of weeks until yesterday when she started showing signs of being in pain and my cousins had the vet put her down.
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| Date: | 2009-02-12 22:18 |
| Subject: | Happiness |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  chipper | | Music: | So Close- John McLaughlin |
Roberto came over for dinner and RoboRally at my insistence and now life is much happier. Extra bonus: I got to win! And by "got" I mean that I am just that talented. GO ME!
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| Date: | 2009-02-10 18:21 |
| Subject: | And in other news... |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  absurd | | Music: | sweet cacophonous music |
Blabber blabber walkey walkey
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| Date: | 2009-02-09 10:42 |
| Subject: | Seattle |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  satisfied | | Music: | the humm of the computer |
For those of you who don't know, I've been in Seattle for the past week testing/interviewing with their police department. Well, the testing was this weekend, the rest of the time I've been spending with my family up here.
My time with the Seattle PD testing has been rather fun. The testing itself and all of the background stuff has been ok. The fact that I can run at a decent pace saved my butt since my sit-ups and push-ups weren't much above the minimum requirements for the physical testing. Still, one guy lapped me twice on the long run. I called him a show-off :-). I was surprised at how many people failed the physical test. I can understand if you passed everything but didn't have enough total points, but a surprising number of people didn't finish the run in time! We had 14:30 to run a mile and a half. I found it pretty easy especially because it was so cold outside, my body just became numb- made the pounding of feet easy to tune out.
There was a multiple-choice mostly memory-based test which was pretty fun. The memory section was quite easy, but the spelling was a pain! Also, they wrote the wrong time for my meeting with a background detective on my scheduling sheet, so I was almost an hour late! Thankfully, it snowed here overnight (just a dusting), so my aunt got me up early and shoved me out the door almost an hour earlier than I had planned. I was still late, but when the detective called me to find out where I was, I was just walking up to the building. Small blessings.
I met some really interesting people while I was there and I find myself hoping that we all get in. While I know that's highly unlikely, doesn't stop me from wishing. I did feel bad for some of the out-of-towners who came (one all the way from Florida!) and didn't pass the tests.
I am disappointed that it only rained one day out of my trip. It's been so dry in Oakland that I was really looking forward to some good rain. My cousins however have thanked me for bringing the sun and relative warmth with me.
Besides that, my trip has been pretty low-key. My cousins and my aunt have at different times been sick, at work, or otherwise occupied. Cousin Beka did take me on a thorough tour of Seattle, which was fun. I'll admit that I've been pretty bored. I've been filling up my time with reading and working-out, but since I'm dependent on others for transportation, I've been pretty tied to the house. I've not slept very well either due to the testing/interviews I've had and also because my family here is noisy at night.
I'm flying back this evening, so back to work at the gym with me tomorrow.
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The best Bush-isms compiled by BBC.
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For anyone looking to read BBC's list of 100 things they leard this year including the official word for misheard lyrics and how bees act the same as psycho killers, check out this.
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| Date: | 2008-12-16 15:39 |
| Subject: | Seattle |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  contemplative | | Music: | Heads Carolina, Tails California |
I'm thinking about moving to Seattle... I know, I know, I just got back to CA not too long ago, but cousin Beka is there (and looking for a roommate soon), and it's a good dept from everything I've found. Thoughts?
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| Date: | 2008-12-12 23:10 |
| Subject: | Great Yelp Moment! |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | amused | | Music: | Sister Act 2 (Playing on TV) |
Here's a posting I found on Yelp about my gym. Fabulous part is the bolded section. And, yes, I'm the only white girl working there... well, excluding the new girl who started last week... Plus you can read about Emanuel, the crazy guy described ;-)
"Functional & clean.
Let's see...last week one kook who thought I was staring at him (where I was just sleepy and looking dreamily into space) yelled at me what was I looking at him for (duh, I wasn't.) He's the guy who uses the treadmill and shadowboxes with himself, has a lot of necklaces, several tatoos (one a Jewish star on his forearm- maybe we have something in common- not.) I think he got too riled up in his shadow boxing thing. The Gold's gym maintenance guy was near and told me to never mind the kook but I certainly debated telling the front & making them write up a report so if this guy ever does assault someone Gold's cannot say they weren't forewarned. I didn't and the tatooed shadowboxer actually apologized to me and said, "sometimes I lose my mind." Comforting, no? The front desk folks are useless, except the white woman. ..."
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| Date: | 2008-12-04 21:55 |
| Subject: | FSM |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | highly amused | | Music: | Everybody wants to go to heaven- Kenney Chesney |
I've decided that it is absolutely imperative that I convert and join the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Best part has to be reading their hate mail.
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| Date: | 2008-11-07 15:37 |
| Subject: | A Real Update |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  okay | | Music: | Everybody wants to go to heaven- Kenney Chesney |
I know I've not really said anything of any significance on here just about since I moved back home, so I figure to remedy that with this post. If I know myself at all I can guarantee that it will be LONG. I'm finally coming out of this anti-social stage I seem to have been stuck in for the past week or so. Maybe I'll get around to turning my cell phone back on in the next few days. It has been really quite relaxing and enjoyable to not have to worry about this little machine making noise. But I do apologise to anyone whose call I missed.
I'm still working at the gym and working out. Trying to get over that stupid wall. I was very unmotivated for a couple of months I think because I kept telling myself I'd work out right after work. The problem with that is that it's hard to work out when you know almost everyone and they are either chatting with your or competing against you. Thus I finally stopped pretending I was going to work out after work and started working out at night instead.
Roberto has had a lot of fun surprising me recently. One day i get back from work, walk into my room to find Flower (my bear) moving towards me in a flying glomp followed shortly by my brother. A couple of weeks later my mom comes back from the grocery store and asked me to grab the groceries out of the trunk of her car. I go up to the car, open the trunk and my brother pops his head out holding a bottle of wine. "Chardonnay??" I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. That was fabulous! Unfortunately his car broke down on the ride up here, so he was stranded with us for a couple of days. I didn't mind, but he didn't bring school work up to Emah's so he was chomping at the bit to get back to it.
A few weeks ago I went to the new Academy of Sciences with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) darkest_light and a friend of hers. The new museum is pretty cool... not like the Exploratorium or anything, but the Rain forest dome and the living roof are tres cool.
I've spent a bit of time on the peninsula. Not like I used to since gas is so expensive and it's an hour drive down there. Most times Roberto and I are down there we find a spot to play some mini golf. I must be improving since I was one stroke away from tying a game of 36 holes. Not bad. Last time I was down there Roberto and I went with diadem_chi, her husband and two Googlers visiting from Australia. I think it was the worst game of mini golf I'd played in a really long time but I enjoyed it.
The election on Tuesday was a lot of fun. I'm particularly excited that Obama won. While I know he's not going to be perfect, I think he'll make a good leader and I love people's enthusiasm about him. It's the first time that I can remember that people are eagerly anticipating a new president, not simply resigned. I was at the gym during Obama's acceptance speech and enjoyed listening to the horns honking, people shouting, whistling, and clapping with excitement.
I am really pissed that prop 8 passed. I can't believe how hateful some people are that they would refuse other people rights because they're... something. I don't even understand what their problem is past believing that their religious beliefs should dictate other's rights. Grr.
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Has anyone seen my brain recently? I last saw it about a week and a half ago. I actually unknowingly triple-booked myself a few days ago and then flaked on EVERYONE. Yep, all four people. Oy! I feel like such a putz! We'll see if my grandparents will ever forgive me.
In other news, someone apparently stole my credit card. Last I saw it was a bit over a week ago when I purchased gas in Colma. The funny thing is that whoever took the card, charged a total of $25 to the card (at the same gas station I purchased gas at). They must be pretty inept because there's $8,000 free on the card and they only spent $25! No big deal, but pretty amusing.
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WARNING: I have never been economical with words. This is no exception!
So, this homeless guy pushing a cart stops directly in front of the gym entrance. He stands next to his cart and starts posing in the stereo-typical muscle men poses. I'm thinking he's a bit crazy, but he seems rather benign at this time even though he's obviously very muscular. Then he turns around, drops his pants and moons us all, with this devilish smirk on his face. At this point, I know he's crazy.
I call back to my manager, who annoyingly enough doesn't answer the phone, thinking a muscle-bound manager was exactly what I needed at the front desk. Before I have a chance to call one of the other guys in the back, this homeless guy comes into the gym (I'm thinking CRAP), and takes a water out of the fridge. To my surprise he comes up to the front desk and pays for it. While he's at the desk he stares at me for a minute and asks "are you married?? are you a virgin??" followed by his muttering "don't disrespect me, no body better disrespect me". Thankfully I have this lovely granite slab of a front desk between him and me, so I was having more trouble not laughing than not being scared. Then he leaves his water on the far end of the front desk counter and walks back out to his cart, muttering and being crazy.
One of the sales guys from the back calls and asks if I need any help. I thought he was mostly gone, but figured better safe than sorry and had him come up. When the sales guy tries to take his water out to him and shoo him along, the crazy dude calls him a punk quite loudly, mutters more about "nobody disrespecting him". That sales guy comes back, and another tries to talk to him, followed by my manager, all with equal luck. Crazy guy is getting pretty worked up and looks like he's about to start a fight when Oakland Police (G-d bless OPD and their cruising tendencies!) pulls up and arrests him. The arrest is followed quickly by the arrival of the EMTs, who Crazy guy tries to bite. An hour and a half (or so) later, the crazy homeless dude is strapped down and shackled to a gurney and taken off in an ambulance.
How's that for a story? It really made my boring Friday morning much much more interesting :-)
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jubilant
cynical
dazed