20 January, and my dearling Rachelle turns a million today.
Well not a million, just 40. Ok, not 40…she’s less than 40, but not by much.

Anyway…

Here is a photo montage covering the last 12 years of my life with Rachelle…give or take a few years. She’ll hate this I’m sure, but she never reads my blog anymore so…

Let’s start with the oldest picture of us that I could find…from 1999. Gosh I was so much thinner then…but don’t we look all cute at work.

Next up…2000 and Halloween. Don’t we look goth? Did I mention that I was also going to be in some of these pictures?

Next up…2001 and Rachelle has braces and bleached hair.

In 2002 we were completely washed out at Buca de Beppo.

2003 and she had a grand time playing dress-up for Halloween…

In 2004 we took one of my favourite pictures of the two of us.

2005 and 2006 and 2007 were a blur…

And here’s hoping for many more years of this wild and crazy woman…Love me some Rachelle…

In celebration of Blog Action Day, thousands of blogs around the world have chosen to write about the environment. The topic is open, as long as you discuss ways that we can protect the precious planet we live on. Here is my submission.

When David and I got home the other day, we noticed a back of plumbing parts hanging on the front door. Apparently the plumbing fairy had stopped by the house with his bag of goodies - and I hadn’t even put an 0-ring under my pillow the night before…

Inside the bag we found two sink aerators, a new shower head, and a big blue plastic bag that sort of looked like a hot water bag you might use if you weren’t feeling well…or if you were constipated perhaps. But I digress.

Opening up the bag we discovered an assortment of inexpensive (and incompatible) goodies. We had the two faucet aerators that I just mentioned, one for the kitchen sink and one for the bathroom sink. Unfortunately, they did not fit. Apparently we have non-standard faucets, even though they are relatively brand new and from Home Depot. Is it wrong for me to assume that Home Depot would carry products with standard fittings?

So as we tried to save the environment in Sacramento, the score started out in the negative. Aerators - useless.

On to the shower head. Miraculously, the shower head fit just perfectly. It has settings for massage, and normal, and because it’s a water saver, it actually gives us more force in the smaller amount of water it sends out -so we don’t even notice that it’s low-flow. This one is a win, score one for the shower-head. Plus, it’s a very good brand - Niagara. That stands for waterfall, so you know it’s going to be good.

Next up, the toilet tank bank. I don’t know why they call it a bank, but the front of the bag says “deposit and save water and money”. I’m not sure if they wanted us to put pennies or water into the bag, but we opted for water, even though the pennies would be put to better use sitting in our toilet tank than at any retail store.

The big blue bag is now full of water and hanging inside the toilet tank, reducing the amount of water in each flush. Another win for the City of Sacramento Department of Utilities. (a quick update - David actually removed the bag after a few flushes because it kept getting caught inside the tank - note, if you have a relatively thin watertank on your toilet, this product wont’ work for you)

Toilet Tank Bank - useless.

If every person in the neighborhood actually uses some of these products, it should go a long way in reducing water consumption in our area - and I am all for it. My part of town isn’t metered at this point, so these products won’t save us any money on our utility bill, but they will help save our environment and provide more water to those who need it (and pay for it).

Courtesy of: Barbarism Begins At Home

Last kiss: David.

Last good cry: October 1.

Last crush: Someone at work maybe?

Last alcoholic drink: I made a red wine sangria for dinner with Rachelle and Toni the other night.

Last phone call: I really don’t like talking on the phone, but I think it was yesterday afternoon, while David and I were at Bonn Lair, and it was Rachelle.

Last text message: I asked David when he was coming home.

Last TV show watched: I watched the last four episodes from Season 1 of the new Doctor Who. Now I’m ready to start Season 2 and Season 3.

Last CD played: I only play CD’s in the car, and I think it was a remix of Madonna, Jump.

Last book purchased: According to my amazon.com history, that would be Air Apparent (Xanth) by Piers Anthony, which ships in 3 days.

Last book read: I just re-read Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code.

Last movie seen in a theater: I think this would be Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in IMAX 3-D.

Last movie rented: I haven’t rented movies since the early 90’s.

Last music download: According to my iTunes purchase history, that would be Fascinated, by Company B.

Last curse word used: Does butt-hole count?

Last beverage consumed: Coffee. Right now.

Last food consumed: 1 egg over easy, and 2 soy sausage patties.

Last item purchased: A late lunch yesterday at Bonn Lair - fish and chips, and a hefeweizen.

Last car ride: Coming home from Bonn Lair yesterday afternoon.

Last words spoken: “Hi Sweety. How ya doin’?” to Rowan.

Last annoyance: The fitted sheet on the mattress not fitting.

Last disappointment: David pestering Siobhan while she was trying to sleep. I teased him that I was going to cancel my trip out of town so I could stay home and protect her from him.

I realize this will be difficult to see, but take a look at the picture below that I snapped from my crappy phone camera today…

What you are seeing is a sticker that shows the twin towers, an American flag, and yes, a plane crashing into the tower on the right with a big yellow clipart star in front of it.

Since it’s difficult to see, I have attempted to recreate the picture using Powerpoint.

I really don’t know what to say. It just astounds me that someone would display this type of “bumper sticker”.

Early in the morning of 11 September 2001, I was making my way to the Sacramento airport for a flight to Austin, TX. I used to be the Diversity group contact for my company, and we did quite a bit of recruiting there at one point. I was heading down to Texas for a recruiting event, and to meet with some of the Diversity Club leaders - trying to build an ongoing relationship with the school.The plane was in the air for a couple hours when the pilot announced that the FAA was grounding all aircraft. No other reason than that, but that we were being diverted to the nearest airport which was in Salt Lake City. Within an hour, we were on the ground.

As I stepped out of the plane and into the airport, I noticed that all of the televisions had been turned off, and there were very few people waiting around. I was on the phone at this point talking with the company travel agency, who informed me that they were able to reserve the last available Hertz car (some huge tub of a vehicle) at the airport, and they had found a hotel room for me just south of the city.

I was not really all that concerned - I hadn’t heard the full details of what had happened on the east coast, and since we have a facility in the vicinity of SLC, I figured that I could get some work done while I waited to hear what was happening.

At the time - the only details that were available came from people around me who were on their mobile phones and relaying information from friends and family members who were apparently watching the news on their end. All I heard was that a plane had flown into one of the towers - at that point I don’t think anyone knew to use the word terrorism.

I found the hotel, then made my way to the remote office building, logged in, and opened the news. I seem to recall that most of the online news sites were having performance problems (understandably), but after a moment I was able to see the problem. There were a few voicemails on my mobile line, so I made contact with friends and family members to let them know that I was ok - just in a different part of the country than I had expected to be.

We cancelled the recruiting event, and for the next 4 days I worked from Salt Lake City, waiting for the flights to re-open so I could get home.

This sounds rather petty, but my first priority after getting there was finding a sushi restaurant. Don’t ask why. I don’t know. That’s just what I needed to do in order to feel comfortable.

Unfortunately, several days passed and I was not able to be rebooked on any flights - which were only just beginning to open up. So I did what I had done back in 1996 - got in the car and drove across the country. Except this time I was only driving from SLC to Sacramento instead of Raleigh, NC to Sacramento.

On my way out of town, there was a massive train crash in the area - I saw one of the pieces of train up on top of another piece of train, black and on fire. Since all the cops were busy with that, I drove to Sacramento as fast as I could, and made it in about 8 hours. That was the second time I have driven that exact stretch of road, and I hope that I do not have to do that again.

So that’s where I was on 9/11/01 - where were you?

In case you were wondering, this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me…um…uh…whatever.

Would you travel?

Would you immediately start looking for a new job?

Would you sell-off possessions?

Would you be happy?