Zinc and Headaches

This week has been mellow.
Well, except for the headaches.
I've been getting these things almost every afternoon since I was really sick several weeks ago. It totally sucks. I've gone through the normal reasons and I can't really figure it out. (Lack of exercise; probably, lack of water; unlikely, lack of sleep; not so much these days, lack of zinc; of course!) Ok, it didn't really go quite like that, but I was researching these weird horizontal valleys in my nails and I found suggestions of a zinc deficiency. The nail issues are new, so are my daily headaches... coincidence, possibly not. So I started munching sunflower seeds and I didn't have a headache for a couple days, and then I ran out of sunflower seeds and the headaches came back! I suppose I should go buy some more sunflower seeds. Or figure out how to swallow vitamins (I'm such a wuss.)

My honeypot and I are leaving for Florida tomorrow morning. His grandmother organized a big family gathering and we're off to meet the family. We're also bringing his 7 and 9 year old nieces with us. They're pretty cool kids, but I imagine traveling with them should prove useful for birth control.

omg - I just looked at the flights for FL and this is what I saw for tomorrow's direct flight from SFO to Orlando: Total Travel Time: 9 hrs 53 mins.
This has be really 6 hrs 53 minutes because of the time change, right? I really hope so.
After all it was 10 hours or so when I flew to Frankfurt, Germany.

Urban Exploration - University in Berkeley

It occurred to me that I rarely do here what I do in a new place when I'm traveling or exploring. Basically, I just wander along for hours looking at everything I pass.
On Saturdy, a friend and I explored University Ave from Shattuck down to 4th Ave by foot.
It was utterly fantastic! Here's what I discovered:

• Everything Spanish Tile - I found the coolest little store that was filled to the brim with hand painted spanish tile. They had a variety of sink bowls, and everything else you could image painted in that spanish tile style.
• My friend brought me to this great little store filled with a large variety of cool screen print clothes. (I bought 3 T-shirst here, it's that good.)
• I discovered that this art store has a large variety of pre-stretched screens, and lots of ink too for screen printing. Don't forget Blick Art - they have good screen printing supplies too. I hope to one day get it together and throw a screen printing exploration gathering.
• I found this cool store with an Indian textile and jewelry import angle. They have a wide variety of things - specifically a good selection of bling stuff (jewelry and such with sparkly elements), lots of colorful scarves, metal vases, and homewares (like place mats and napkins in every color). This is a good place to browse.
• I also found my new favorite Indian grocery store. Nuff said.
• I found this huge everything Indian import store. Complete with the ornate chairs used in the big traditional Indian weddings and spices I haven't seen anywhere else. The upstairs book section was the best. They had every variety of Indian cookbooks that you could imagine. It's a lot like being in a store in India.
  

In finding these new places on Yelp, I'm surprised at how few reviews there are. These were well traveled stores, yet they aren't given much attention on yelp. I take that as a good sign. They're secret gems hidden in the University coridor of Berkelely. When I was asked Karma how long the store had existed, they said two years. The owner even mentioned that a neighbor came in recently and said she hadn't noticed the shop. And this shop has almost an entire warehouse worth of space, though you can't tell that from the store front.

Hi, Here I Am

I feel really displaced. There are a number of reasons for that. Like the fact that Dylan is gone and then he's leaving again for another trip. Also, I was really sick for a while, and sleeping for ~4 days and then working from home for several more caused me to be displaced from my office. Then there's the fact that we have a lull in the projects we're working on. I see the work load coming, but I don't have it yet. Not only do I not have it yet, but I don't have enough specs to pre-emtively strick either. So I'm in this holding pattern.
In other news, check this fuel efficient new car out. It starts out as the car I wanted to buy a used version of anyway, just for the mileage. Though it looks like they had a bad year or something. So maybe I'll try and get one of these. I'm all for supporting new technology, if I can afford it. What do you think something like this goes for, anyway?
Let's see if I can find it. I found one blog that mentioned it would be over 25K, but I can't reference it right now. I'm feeling too lazy to get the link, though I admit that it is possible to find it.

A Truck Ran Over Me

So, It's official. I have caught whatever horrible illness that Dylan had last week.
Last night things started to go south for me, and then the symptoms started. I couldn't get warm (shiver, shiver), my head was pounding, and then there was this interesting delirium. At about 4am last night I attempted to make it to the bathroom. Well, I made it there, but not until I was so violently shaking that I was worried about falling over. I grabbed a thermometer and indeed had a temperature of around 99.5. Fevers can be fun, don't get me wrong. It's an altered state that's interesting because it's different. The best symptom of all is the runny nose. I don't just mean a runny nose, I mean a watery running nose. Is this more detail than you ever wanted? Sorry.

I slept all day, and am just now realizing that I haven't eaten one thing today. I'm not hungry either.

Jetta Love, 255992 miles, and Germs

I sold my jetta (mentioned here) on Sunday. As the purchaser was test driving the car up 24 and I was describing the various details that gave the car character, I realized how much I'm going to miss it. I love that car. I love that I was driving around with the cars behind me smelling french fries or potato chips. I love that you have to turn off the windshield wipers at the exact correct moment, otherwise they'll get stuck in the middle of the windshield. (This is because they don't have enough juice to make it to the bottom.) I love that there's no power steering (except when I'm trying to get out of a tight street parking spot.) I love that if you attempt to drive immediately after starting the car, the brakes don't really work. They work, they just don't work easily for about a minute or less. I think it's because the vacuum has to get vacuumie, or the compression has to get compressed, or some such thing. I love that it had 255,992 miles and I was the second owner! (I love that a lot.)

In other news we've been pretty sick around these parts. It all started with a crowd of people who showed up last weekend to celebrate our friend's birthday via webcam. The group had many children, several of which were sick. I remember Christy walking in and leaning to Heather and pointing to Marley's eye and saying "Do you think that's pink eye?" It's also quite possible that it wasn't that gathering that caused the illnesses considering how many of my coworkers have been stricken with similar things. My honeypot had been basically bedridden for enough days that I was starting to get worried about him (He fell ill last Wednesday.) Today, when I got home from work, he was out of bed and looking pretty spunky. I, on the other hand, went to work today and came out feeling like crap. I was sick at the end of last week, and was doing better, and now I feel like a truck ran me over. Yuck!

Here's to the Jetta, and being sick.

Riding the Bull

Hi Soli!
Last weekend I went to the Saddle Rack for a friends birthday; complete in a bus. It's a country themed bar, and it was different.
I haven't seen so much tight 80s clothes for decades.
My favorite people watching target was this woman who was wearing a bikini top and tight jeans, complete with a necklace that had a string of shiny stones that hung down between her breasts. It was very classy. This is her riding the bull.

We also had a webcam date with a friend in RI. I haven't really ever played with webcam technology much, so it was new to me. I can see how it can be a really great way to keep in touch with folks. But the delay between the video and the audio makes it really difficult to carry on a natural conversation. I think we also might have exceeded the recommended maximum number of people on one side of a web cam. There were so many people that it was hard to carry on a conversation. It was nice to see everybody.

That's it for now.