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Framing SequenceFriday I picked up a couple of pieces of art I got framed, and oh boy do they look nice on my wall! One is a nice wood-carving print of a cat on a fence above a garden, with watercolors for accenting, which my Mom bought me a few years back. I put it with a medium green matte and dark green frame, and it looks very nice. The other is a piece I bought at WisCon two years ago with a group of prehistorical creatures marching from left to right, and a chimp walking at the right side the other way. It's a wonderfully rendered airbrushed piece by an artist named Kandis Elliott. It has a pretty light-sea-blue frame and it looks terrific hanging on the wall above my fireplace. My home is really becoming quite settled and colorful. All I really need is a new couch and it will be very comfortable.
 Debbi, I might have mentioned before, is into country music, country dancing, and rodeos. Not exactly a point where our interests meet. So Friday she went off to dance at the Saddle Rack, a country music establishment which just re-opened in Fremont, and I ended up hanging out with John, and another cow-orker, Matt. We had Mexican food in Palo Alto and then went to Cafe Borrone to hang out (and, in my case, freeze half to death). A good evening had by all. This turned out to be additionally good since my DSL switch-on got delayed, so my plans to fritter away the evening with my long-awaited high-speed Internet access were dashed. It's not yet clear when it will be turned on - apparently the folks who do the actual switching-on of the line need some additional equipment. Nothing to do with my set-up or my ISP. Arrgh. I'll call my ISP tomorrow and ask if they've heard anything new, like a new switch-on date.
Saturday Debbi and I went to the Rangers @ A's game, which Syd arranged. Turns out we should have gone to Friday's game, since Barry Zito pitched a shutout, 9-0. Woo! Still, Mark Mulder pitched a good game and the A's offense was on fire, and they won 12-2. The Rangers have to have been wondering what hit them. (Of course, they beat the A's today 2-1, so it wasn't a total loss for Texas.) The strangest point in the game came when someone threw a cell phone at Rangers right fielder Carl Everett. Which hit him in the back of the head! Now, Everett is by many accounts something of a jerk, but still, there's no excuse for that. Apparently other fans in the section pointed out the fan who threw the phone, and Everett's going to press charges. I think many fans didn't realize what had happened, though, as Everett was roundly booed by the stadium for the rest of the game. Everett did manage to do something I've rarely seen, though: He hit a home run his next time at bat, quieting the crowd for a bit. I was walking around the stadium and was near the Rangers dugout as he crossed home plate, and he got a high-five and a big smile from Rafael Palmiero. Quite a sight. The weather was beautiful Saturday, but it was overcast and often windy on Sunday, which was too bad since Debbi and I went bike riding today. We drove to the Sunnyvale Baylands to see what the riding is like there, and the answer is "not too great" if you're on a road bike and want to stick to paved trails. We got an hour or so of riding in, including riding through the tiny town of Alviso, but it was not a great ride. (Alviso, by the way, has a little marina, but is otherwise strangely divided between light industry, run-down buildings, and exotic residential homes in styles very unusual for the Bay Area. Some of them look like slightly cheerier buildings from a Charles Addams cartoon. Odd place.) And we rounded out the weekend by saute-ing chicken breasts and making a mustard-brandy pan sauce for them. They turned out surprisingly well, considering that I realized part-way through that I really had the heat turned up too high. Well, we'll try again sometime and I'll try to correct that.
By the way, I don't think I mentioned that last weekend Debbi and I went to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose. I remember driving by it, more-or-less at random, when I got lost looking for a comic book store after first moving to the area. I've had it tucked in the back of my mind, reminded from time to time because it's a block away from where I played ultimate for two years, and is also close to Recycle Books, one of my favorite used bookstores. Well, it was worth the trip. Although they only have one actual mummy, they have plenty of sarcophagi and artwork from throughout the millennia-long history of ancient Egypt. Admittedly, pottery and icons get a bit repetitive after a while, but the architectural designs, some of the beads and jewelry, and the historical details are worth a leisurely look. The tomb replica is also quite impressive.
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