Sep 29 2008
I turned 23 this past week…. I know, I’m old!! I had a great birthday with my husband and friends. We went to Bible study, and our hosts gave me a card, balloon and German chocolate cake. We shared the cake, and it was wonderful!
My family sent several packages of birthday gifts. First, they sent a package of ICE CREAM! You can’t get Blue Bell ice cream in California, but Blue Bell will ship it out here. They shipped 4 cartons of ice cream in a big cooler full of dry ice. Matt and I played with the dry ice…. and we’ll be enjoying the ice cream for months! Also, I received some scrapbooking materials, with Hawaii-themed stickers and China-themed stickers!
My friend Danielle came in for the weekend. She’s been a good friend since elementary school, so we always have a GREAT time catching up. We went out to dinner on Thursday evening, and hung out at my place with Matt afterwards. On Friday, we went shopping in downtown San Jose, then out for Italian food for dinner. We spent Saturday in San Francisco. Matt drove us up Highway 1 into the city. We went to Fisherman’s Wharf for shopping and seafood. Danielle found several souvenirs, and Matt bought some posters to decorate his office. Matt grilled for us on Saturday night, and listened to our humorous old-school stories… he was a good sport for the whole weekend 
I dropped Danielle off for an early flight on Sunday morning. I’m sad to see her go, particularly since I won’t see her for a while. It was so fun to have her for a birthday visit!
Throughout the weekend, I received Facebook messages and phone calls with birthday wishes. I also received several cards from family and friends, so I felt special for the past few days. Thanks to everyone for making me feel special, all the way in California
Sep 14 2008
My motorcycle is still broken. When I finally got around to doing the oil change I cracked the oil pan. I was tightening the drain plug and heard a pop and felt the wrench slip. However, the bolt was still really tight, so I thought maybe it would be fine. However, the next morning I had a 2 foot puddle of oil under the bike.
After pulling the bolt out and inspecting all of the threads I knew it was not stripped, so I tried putting it back in with a crush washer and tightening it to the specified torque. Maybe it would just magically fix itself. Ten minutes later, I saw a drop of oil on the floor. ARGH!!
So, this hairline crack in my oil pan is going to set me back a decent amount of money and even more time lost without my bike!
Sep 14 2008
We had a game night this past Friday with several of Matt’s co-workers. The evening began with extreme bowling at the AMF lanes. Matt and I are pretty rusty, but we managed to do ok I had a couple of spares, and Matt even managed a strike! One of the guys bowled three strikes in a row on the 10th frame, and he finished with a score of 120. The high score of the night was 149 on the second game.
After bowling, everyone came over to our place to hang out. We decided to play Scattergories, which always turns into a fight for answers. The game is played by rolling a dice that shows the letters of the alphabet. The game comes with lists of different categories, from cities, to hobbies, to items at the beach. After rolling the dice, you have about 1 minute to fill out the categories with words that start with the letter shown on the dice. At the end of the round, everyone shares their answers, and receives points for unique answers. The fights begin when there is a dispute over the validity of an answer. For instance, one round produced several variations of “Kissy…” for a nickname that starts with a “K”. Another dispute arose about “Mission Blvd” vs. “Mission St.” And, of course, the room full of computer programmers insisted on settling all disputes using Google!!! It was all in good fun, and we ended up playing several rounds.
At the end of the last round, someone mentioned that it was getting a little late…. it turns out it was 3 am!! Everyone headed home at that point, and Matt and I sat down to do our usual end-of-evening debrief. We accidently fell asleep on the couch mid-conversation, and woke up around 6 am to head to our real bed. Game night was a lot of fun, and we are definitely planning to do it again!
Sep 10 2008
Well, not to consume, but to make. We have an espresso machine at my office and although I have been interested in learning how to use it for a while, I never made time to ask someone to show me the ropes. Plus, the drip coffee machine we have makes freshly brewed Starbucks coffee, one cup at a time, which is quick and easy way to obtain quality coffee. Anyway, today I bumped into a buddy of mine making an espresso for himself, and after a few minutes of teaching, I successfully created my very own espresso!
I guess it’s not that exciting, but I imagine I will be drinking much more espresso now that I know how to do it. It is considerably better than the drip coffee machine. Oh, and with about 5 times the caffeine!
Sep 09 2008
After running a command in Unix, the status of the command (usually a simply success or failure, 0/1) can be found by echoing the $? environment variable.
Of course, you can do this in Windows too, but I guess no one really does because it is hard to find searching the Internet. So, to determine an application’s exit code from a Windows shell, first run it, and then echo the value of the environment variable %ERRORLEVEL%. This should give you the same information as the relevant command in Unix.
C:\Documents and Settings\mfaus>dir doesNotExist
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is F08F-730C
Directory of C:\Documents and Settings\mfaus
File Not Found
C:\Documents and Settings\mfaus>echo %ERRORLEVEL%
1
C:\Documents and Settings\mfaus>dir NewDirectory
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is F08F-730C
Directory of C:\Documents and Settings\mfaus\NewDirectory
09/09/2008 04:39 PM
C:\Documents and Settings\mfaus>echo %ERRORLEVEL%
0
Hope this helps someone out there!
Sep 02 2008
Not the spice, but the movie. Ashley and I went to see this movie Friday night as a part of the “Summer Cult Series” that a theater near my office is running. I read a little bit about it online beforehand, and figured I would have to use a touch of trickery to get Ashley in there with me. She’s not a big fan of anime or subtitled films, and this one happened to be both. Luckily she never asked exactly what the movie was like until a few minutes before we got to the theater! However, I think she will agree that it was totally worth it.
This movie could seriously be one of my new all-time favorites. It tells a story of a hospital that invents a machine that allows therapists to enter patients’ dreams to explore their psyche. The movie continually switches between dream realities and physical realities. Later the machine goes off on its own, but I won’t ruin the story for you. The utilization of anime to make this movie was incredibly helpful in pulling off the bizarre dream sequences. Working with real people and props, even with computer aided effects, would not have achieved nearly the same effect. Sitting in a theater also enhanced the experience considerably, since the director used a lot of surround-sound acoustics to augment the feeling of disorientation.
If you loved Donnie Darko, go check out Paprika!
Aug 31 2008
I wanted to take a post to brag on my friends and family. I have been catching up with everyone since I got home from China, and I’ve heard some exciting news!!
One of my girlfriends announced her pregnancy!! She and her husband have been trying for a while, and they were able to hear the hearbeat for the first time this past week. She is also about $100 away from her goal to raise money for the Susan G. Komen walk in October.
Several girlfriends have started their careers, one in teaching, another in nursing, one in the Navy, and another in theatre. One of my girlfriends is finishing up her Senior year in Computer Science, and opening a franchise in her hometown mall! They are all putting their college degrees to use, and I am proud to have such successful friends! To top it all off, I found out that one bridesmaid will be able to visit us on my birthday, and another will be joining us in CA for Thanksgiving!!
My brother, Jay, will be leading at Westmont University in several capacities. He’s on the activities council, and leading the campus worship services as well. My sister, Brianna, made A Capella Choir. She’s also taking AP courses, and getting ready to apply for college. I’ve been really proud of her, as she’s thought and debated about her college and career choices. My brother-in-law, Ben, is attending the Honors College at Baylor University. He wants to go Pre-Med, so he’s got a tough course load ahead… but he’s still making time to post pictures My brother-in-law, Andrew, made the top theatre group at his middle school!!
I am incredibly proud and excited for my friends and family! Everyone has been so supportive of me and Matt, and I want to make sure that you all know that we support you too!!
Aug 28 2008
I haven’t ridden my motorcycle since I started the maintenance that I talked about nearly 3 weeks ago and it is really starting to agitate me. I still need to do an oil change and possibly change the battery, but I’m ready to get back on it this weekend!
One difficult thing about having a motorcyle in California is getting a license plate. I took my bike to the DMV to have them inspect it and issue me a plate, but when I got there the inspector looked over my bike for like 10 minutes and could not find the “engine number”. Apparently, I have to disassmble my bike (so the engine number is visible) ride it to the DMV in this manner, and point it out to them! I took the bike apart and looked up the location of the engine number, but I still cannot find it. I’ll take it to them in the morning and if they can’t find it, I don’t know what I will do. Ugh!
Anyway, hopefully I’ll go riding this weekend and post up some pics of the beautiful countryside around here!
Aug 27 2008
Aural skills ARE valuable!! Matt and I recently began attending Berryessa Valley Church. It’s a small church, with a laid-back feel and theologically sound preaching. We were excited to find this place, since several of the other churches we visited seemed to be putting on a show. Matt and I are excited to get involved here… which is happening sooner than we thought!
Before we left for China, I asked about joining the praise team. The church is growing rapidly, so they are moving to 2 services at the end of September. I figured I could start coming to practices to learn the songs and get a feel for the band, and start singing in September. I attended my first rehearsal this past Saturday night… and started singing the next Sunday morning!
I have a musical background, so I can pick things up pretty easily. The kicker is, I am singing Alto! I normally sing Soprano, but since the team already has several Sopranos, I offered to sing harmony. It’s been a while since I’ve done harmony, and my ears are rusty!! It’s exciting and challenging to get back up to speed, and I am hoping that I’ll be able to pick up the harmony faster as time goes on. It’s also interesting to work with completely new people. I think it will be really cool when I am completely comfortable with the songs, the harmony, and the band!
It’s good to find an outlet for my singing habit To all you people that HAVE aural skills… KEEP THEM UP, YOU’LL NEED THEM SOME DAY!!! (Dr. Flora at OBU would be happy with me right now)
Aug 19 2008
We attended some cool, and often under-publicized events at the Beijing Olympics. A few highlights from the Games:
- Watching Mongolia win their first medal in the history of the Olympics! They took Gold in one of the Men’s Judo Events.
- Hanging out in the suite at Trampoline Gymnastics with my mom and sister! Those athletes get some insane height with each bounce.
- Attempting to find Handball…. for 1.5 hours in the Olympic Green!! Matt and my dad were just SURE they knew where it was, and the volunteers under the blue umbrellas had the English words “right” and “left” mixed up! (note that we did, in fact, get to see some handball)
- Watching the medal ceremony for the Women’s 100m Dash, swept by Jamaica. We also saw the USA take Gold in Women’s Discus and SWEEP the Men’s 400m race! We saw the coolest finale! At the end of the Track and Field events, we were able to watch the Russian girl break the Women’s Pole Vault world record! The whole stadium cheered for her, and it was awesome. The Olympics really do show that we aren’t that different, and we can all come together and recognize the achievements of these athletes!
I also saw synchronized swimming, which is a little weird. The USA held a medal spot for a while, but she was knocked out by the end of the event 
I also saw several basketball games and Women’s Judo. Check out the picture gallery!