Author: Benjamin Trotter

Close Calls!

Whew! So today, I got a call in the morning from my landlord saying they were coming into change a light fixture I had asked to be changed. However, when I asked it to be changed, I was told by the nice super that he would let the electrician in. Well, the landlord (mean) said he was going to be the one to let him in. So panic set in as I tried to devise a plan on what to do with Naisho. (If you don’t know who Naisho is, search for his mention in my blog by using the search tool up there.) Since I couldn’t get in touch with Andrew and Matthias had an exam, I was left with thinking that I would have to leave work to come home and find a place to put him. As I went down to the garden, I let him out and he disappeared, so I thought, whew, great. Then, the super came down and said that the landlord checks the garden to make sure everything is ok, so I shouldn’t have him down there. Of course, I couldn’t control when Naisho would hop out of the bushes and dart across the garden. So, I was at a loss. What was I going to do?? It was almost time for the landlord to arrive, and then Mike called.

Mike said, ‘You won’t believe how close I just came to not being able to go to Australia.’ Well, the Passport agency sent his passport to his parents, and not him, and his parents don’t know his departure date, so they went to the post office and sent it certified mail. Which takes 7-10 days from Canada. As soon as he heard the message from his mom, he called the post office, and spoke to the person who did the certified mail, and through supervisor through supervisor, got them to change it from certified to over night. Also, they close at 5, so it was like 10 minutes to closing when he called them. Fortunately, he was able to pursuade them to send it overnight and it’s done now. But just think, had he just waited til tomorrow, he wouldn’t have gotten it in time!

Back to Naisho, after speaking with Mike, I asked him what to do, and he remembered that Naisho liked sitting in the refrigerator, so he suggested that. As crazy as it sounds, when the landlord knocked, I snatched Naisho up and threw him in the fridge. All his goodies were in the shower behind the shower curtain (food, water, litter, etc). So, about 3/4 the way through the lighting exchange, I heard a crash. Naisho and pushed open the fridge and came out. I ran to the fridge to put him back in, but he’d had enough, and started to meow. So I started coughing and turned on the sink and threw dishes in there to clank around while he was meowing. (Don’t worry, before you call the human society on me, my refrigerator is practically used for storage, and it’s barely even cold–I only have a brita water filter in there, and chocolate.) Finally, I heard them finish, and he left, and I let Naisho out. All was good, and now he’s sitting in the window, warm in the sun watching the birds :)

Welcome to the new globetrotter.us v 7.0!

Welcome to the new design of globetrotter.us, v 7.0! After a couple of months, I have finally completed the site with a new color scheme, directory architecture, and Moveable Type 3.11. I also used a little bit of flash for some animation to give the site a little more energy, and updated my galleries and travel logues. This site is the most dynamic one I’ve had as many files are driven by PHP includes. Please let me know any comments if any on the new site, and again, thanks for visiting!

Voting in San Francisco

So this morning, I went down to the little french church to vote. Upon arrival, I was handed a huge envelope with 4 sheets of ballots worth of referendums and such. I wanted to just focus on a few topics, so it didn’t take me too long. When I started to make my vote, there was an arrow and another end of an arrow that you have to connect with a black marker. It was really bizarre, given the fact I’m in a) California and b) one of the most cosmopolitan areas in the US. Why wouldn’t we have electronic ballots?? Anyhow, I hope to see an amazing turnout of voters this year–get out and do your duty!

DVD Writer and supplies, GONE!

I walk into work this morning and to my dismay, my brand new DVD writer had been stolen. What was funnier was the fact that there is no one in my area except for workers that are constructing cubes all around me, and like a squirrel, the thief left me a thuggy, nappy knit cap on my desk. So, while the others were working around me today, I simply said, ‘Hey, did one of you guys leave a knit cap behind?’ ‘Yah, Mark did, he was here yesterday and the only one–you have it? I had a flash back of the Apartment Surveillance hookup I did back in TN when I suspected someone coming into my place–and caught him RIGHT ON VIDEO!

Bus Ride to Violin Repair Shoppe

My parents brought my violin out with them when they visited after having it restrung and such. However, it fell out of tune on the transit here, so I brought it last week to get it tuned and fixed up. I found a place in the Haight that did this. On Tuesday it was ready for pick up so I took a bus over there. Bus #21. About half way through, I see commotion up at the front, and hear people yelling, so I take off my headphones to discover this:

An elderly woman had asked a young black girl to get up and give her seat to her, and when she said no, she must have tripped over the black girl’s foot, but she went toward the floor and ran to the bus driver. She was yelling that the girl had kicked her, and everyone said that the girl had kicked her. We sat there stopped on the street as these two people were yelling back and forth about who kicked who first, until the passengers started getting riled up. Despite all the yelling and commotion, the passengers practically turned on the old woman, (granted, she sounded a little crazy), and yelled for her to get off the bus so we could leave. Eventually we all had to evacuate the bus and wait for another one, because a policeman on a bike came to settle the despute. The funny thing about this, was that throughout the entire fighting kicking and screaming that went on, the black girl still had her cell phone to her ear the entire time!

Family visit to the Bay Area

On Thursday, my parents and brother all flew in from the South to visit me in the Bay Area. We did the entire tourist thing, walking around China Town, going to Fisherman’s Wharf, the night tour of Alcatraz, driving up and down the hills of SF, Twin Peaks, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, then driving down to Oakland to see my work place, then back over the Bay Bridge to SF. We had a great time, and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.

The Top Dog

So Joi and I went to the joint called Top Dog over at Oakland City Center for just a snack mid afternoon. As we ordered our top-dog, I looked on the floor, and on top of the black mat that all the cooks would walk on, was a dirty spatula. This spatula sat on the floor abandoned for our entire order, until the cook noticed it, picked it up, and placed in with the other spatulas used to cook our hot dogs and buns. Question: When did our young society learn to not regard others with consideration?

Russian RIver Weekend

This weekend, my friend Mike and I wanted to get away from the city, so we went up to the Russian River. It’s an area kind of like Palm Springs, that’s resorty, and near a river. I was wearing my great sandals that I bought in Singapore and had finally broken in. We stopped at Target to get a float for the river, so I was really excited to swim! Once we got there, as I started to get out of the car, I was looking for my right sandal. It was NOWHERE to be found! How could that be? I got in with them at Target, and took them off on the drive up, but we went directly there.
—-HOW CAN ONE LOSE ONE’S SANDAL IF ONE DOESN’T LEAVE THE PLACE IN WHICH IT WAS WORN?—-

So, I had to put on my tennis shoes, and wear hot sneakers for the whole day instead of my nice sandals. More than disappointed about this loss, I was just dumbfounded.

We asked around for the best place to set up on the river for swimming and such, and ended up at Monte Rio. There were a lot of people kayaking and canoeing, but not so many swimming. It was pretty shallow too, and when we started edging out into the water, the amount of algae and debris in the water was quite unappealing, so we opted to head back to the resorts with pools.

Once back at the resorts, it was almost too crowded to swim, so we tried to squeeze in just to relax in the sun. By that point we had already spent most of the afternoon trying to find a place to set up camp.

We then found a good pizza place for dinner, lazily strolled the streets and chatted with people we had met at the pool earlier. That night, we went to a few bars to mingle and then to the main club in town that was putting on a foam party. As fun as it sounded, we went to look and, for $20, you could just in a small caged area with foam. I don’t know how this podunk town was able to charge $20 for entrance, but people sure were paying it. I don’t even pay that much in San Francisco!

After that, we went back to one of the ranch cabin style resorts that had a bonfire. We sat around the bonfire, and chatted and kept warm–the night got a little chilly! After the bonfire, we walked around a bit and then headed to our Bed & Breakfast for sleep.

The next morning, it was a family style breakfast where we sat at a table with all the other occupants. We met some really nice people–they were all from the Bay Area, and we talked about various things while eating bread pudding, coffee cake, fresh strawberries & raspberries, ham and orange juice. Quite the odd combination of breakfast foods, but it filled us up to be on our way back to the pool for another day in the sun.

We got back to the ranch style place for the pool, and met some more nice people and chatted, had lunch, and started to round up our stuff for heading back home. Even though I didn’t really get to swim, it was really nice to basque in the sun and feel like I was in summer weather! As Mark Twain once wrote, ‘the coldest summer I ever spent was the summer in San Francisco.’