Warm Weekend and Santa Cruz

Well, just when I finish writing all my backdated entries from my vacation (which you can read in the 28 May, 31 May and 3 June pages) but I take the week off from writing new entries!

This past week I spent being mostly preoccupied with my new job on Project Builder. Anders did a good job of giving me some bugs to fix and guidance on where to start to fix them. I managed to figure out the other details mostly myself (except where I ran into snags involving issues not previously anticipated), and wrapped up everything by the end of the week. I've got another list of prospective projects for next week, which should get me familiar with even more of the system. Fun!

I also received an Amazon.com order, including the new Ken MacLeod novel, Cosmonaut Keep, which I'm looking forward to. Of course, right now I'm reading - not very enthusiastically - Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Hopefully I'll finish it this week and move on to more fun things.

I also bought the new edition of Programming Perl, since they've added a lot to the language since my older edition and I want to make use of an HTML parser module to add some stuff to my Web pages (and this journal). I figured it was time for a new copy.

Plus I picked up the extended 2-CD version of one of my favorite albums, Marillion's Clutching at Straws, which has some interesting additional tracks. A pretty neat purchase.

I feel like I didn't get a whole lot done this week during the evenings. Went to gaming on Wednesday, but several people were very late (like, over an hour), so by the time things got going I decided to bow out because I like to leave not much later than 10 pm. (I'm not the night owl some of those folks are.) Friday night I played Quake with my former WebObjects cow-orkers, then went to Borrone where I worked on some crossword puzzles (finished one! My fourth completion, I think) and met up with Lucy and Trish for an hour of chatting.

Yesterday, Debbi came down and we drove down to Santa Cruz. I figured since it was supposed to get up over 90 here, heading to the ocean would be a good way to keep cool. Although I'd had thoughts of hiking in one of the redwood forests in Big Basin, instead we ended up shopping downtown. We dithered for quite a while about where to eat; surprisingly there aren't many good eateries on Pacific Ave. I mean, there are a few, but not a lot of selection. We eventually spotted a Hobees and decided that that seemed like the ticket. And it was.

Debbi it turns out had never been to Santa Cruz. Now, I've only been two or three times, which means I had to consult the map pretty closely to figure out where downtown is (I ended up checking the newspaper for addresses of movie theaters, since I remembered there was an artsy one there). But we found it without any trouble. After eating and shopping we drove over to a state beach by a small lighthouse and watched a couple of dozen dogs romp around and play together. "A wet dog is a happy dog!" I said several times.

We walked back and forth on the beach, and suddenly got solidly splashed by a large wave that we hadn't foreseen! Our shorts both got pretty resoundingly soaked, but fortunately it was sunny and warm so we made progress drying out fairly quickly. It was pretty silly. Debbi blames me for it.

After we'd had enough beach I suggested we drive up Route 1 to take in the scenery, and to head back to Deb's place so she could change clothes. It was just about a perfect day out - maybe even a little too cool by the ocean, which was a bit better than the too warm it was around my apartment - with sun and just a little haze, and since Debbi was driving I got to take in more of the scenery than I usually do. After she changed, we had dinner in Redwood City at an excellent taqueria and then she took me home.

I've been having a lot of trouble getting to bed on time lately. As I've mentioned before I tend to sleep more than the average bear, sometimes as much as 9 hours a night. I've been sleeping less the last couple of years, maybe because I'm in better shape than I was back then, but still, a whole week of 7-to-7-1/2 hours a week, as I had this past week, leaves me pretty exhausted by the end of the week. And I can't catch up on the weekend because I still take up around 8:30 in the morning! So I still have to go to bed on time!

Last night I finally got myself to hit the sack well before midnight, and I got up a bit earlier this morning, getting out of bed (for a change) before 10 am. And boy, suddenly I felt like I had a lot more time during the day! By noon, I'd done a load of laundry, read the newspaper, and finish the week's crossword puzzles. (I seem to be doing crosswords regularly for some reason. I blame my Mom.)

The day was otherwise unremarkable, mainly involving errands I had to run, and reading much of the aforementioned Perl book (maybe "skimming" would be more accurate). But I'm pretty happy that I actually got a lot done that I needed to do! Including a couple of things I've been putting off for a while. Yay!

Of course, this doesn't include make an appointment to talk to a mortgage broker. Sigh. I think I need to put up a piece of paper at work listing the reasons I need to buy a house, to motivate myself when I feel trepidatious. Stuff like, "More space. Better location. Closer to friends. Finally buy that couch. Get out of the rental market." I gotta stop dragging my feet. I'm not sure why I'm so hesitant.