life is holistic

Everything totally ties to everything else! It can be so cool to realize that every new skill can be applied to everything else one does. The analogy of looking up at a crashing wave but knowing you have the skills to paddle through it so helped me the other day when I "looked" up at a crashing wave of work about to fall on my head, knowing that I'd be able to cope with it with the skills I've learned earlier. Then there are all the aikido analogies that have _really_ helped me in management (no, I have not actually thrown anyone while at the office). The fact that, in aikido, if you push someone, they automatically push back, thus making things a contest, has exact parallels in dealing with people who try to push someone into a way of thinking only to find that, since it's a push and not a joint redirection of energy, the other person will resist automatically.

That was my revelation of the week last week. It made me smile.

lessons learned

When kayaking for 4 hours, one has time to really think about things. Things like "was that a harbor seal?" or "is my paddling technique good?" or even "what does it take to get a comfortable sports bra???" (that last one was particularly of interest). Yesterday my sweetheart and I managed over 11 miles through a marshy marine preserve. We didn't see another person for hours, but we did see an array of sea birds, many basking seals, and we got to play a bit in the bay. We both did a roll, just to say we could. The new boats handled beautifully! That's been our longest paddle yet.

Another thing I had time to contemplate was the concept of food-as-fuel. I've been getting pretty darn tired in the afternoons lately, and after due consideration I'm thinking I'm not eating enough. This whole eating thing really gets boring, particularly since I do NOT like to cook and so the food is always bland. I am just going to have to get over that, however, and start treating food as necessary fuel and not worry about the tastiness of it. It's hard to work up enthusiasm to another batch of stir-fried veggies, tho', lemme tell ya. I may see about going to a nutritionist so I can do this most efficiently - have you ever noticed that the advice out on the 'net can be somewhat contradictory?

I like being out on the water with my sweetie, watching the marine life, thinking about whatever pops in to my head. I wouldn't say it's a zen experience, precisely. It's more just settling in to a new routing. Yay for moving out to California and taking advantage of what's here!

They're here, they're here!

The kayaks are finally here! Yay! My sweetheart's boss (officially known as Sweetie-boss) sent my sweetie off to go get them when he heard they were in. I owe sweetie-boss a beer! Or some sake. Or a bottle of wine. :-)

Now for the really hard part - how to wait patiently through the afternoon before I can pet my own boat?!

You know, I haven't actually updated my blog much, since I figured folks would eventually get bored hearing about kayaking all the time. But since last I posted, my sweetheart and I have successfully completed two days of Surf Zone classes, found we could do rolls on both sides the first night we tried (which is apparently amazingly rare - our instructors were rather taken aback. It was fun!), and got through a perfecting the forward stroke clinic. From here, it's just lots of practice!

We will celebrate this weekend by going to paddle in Half Moon Bay and catching dinner and a movie (Airplane 2) with a friend.

Life _is_ good.

A short word to the wise

This post is not about kayaks. It's not about my cats. It's not even about the wonders of living in California.

No, this is a short post reminding people that Names Are Not Unique. I mean that. No, really. In an online world, you must remember that the "Judy" you're getting an IM from may not be your buddy "Judy" from down the street.

Yesterday I got an IM confession from a coworker who had just confused another person with the same name in the organization with me. He was horribly embarassed. She had started the conversation totally expecting a work conversation, only to be greeted with "Hello My Little Pagan Minx!"

When I saw this, I cried I was laughing so hard. But you know, he's darn lucky she has a sense of humor too. That could have been grounds for harassment.

So, the moral of this story - which is not about kayaks, cats, or California - be _sure_ you know who your IM's are from, who your emails are going to, and what your audience might let out.

Signed,

the Little Pagan Minx

The Kayak Choice

After yet another fantastic weekend of kayaking, this time just inside the Golden Gate Bridge, my sweetheart and I have found The Kayaks. We didn't exactly expect to, but we tried a new place to rent from and voila! we were amazed and astounded. Since we started back in early May, we've tried around 10 different makes and models of kayak. There are certainly more to try, but these will do nicely.

However, while I'm sure you're thrilled for us, you'd probably like to know which kayaks we chose, and, more importantly, WHAT COLOR??!! That color question was a hard one, let me tell you. To go with a complementary color for my purple dry suit and red PFD, or a bright vivid clashing color so as to be seen....

So - drumroll please!

My kayak is the Valley Avocet: http://www.valleyseakayaks.com/avocet.htm
Color choice = yellow, white trimming (similar to what's in the picture on the website; difference is that has black trimming)

** UPDATE! Turns out if we can get our kayaks a whole bunch of weeks sooner if we get red for me and yellow for my sweetie! So, yay! I like Red. Still need to figure out how to pimp it out, tho'...

My sweetheart is getting the Valley Aquanaut LV: http://www.valleyseakayaks.com/aquanautlv.htm
Color choice: Pacific Blue

His kayak was a _very_ close second choice for me, and vice versa, so we'll have fun trading kayaks now and again.

There's only one problem. These kayaks are made in England. You know, across that other big ocean on the other side of the country. Which means, since the dealer didn't have any in stock, we're looking at August for a delivery date. Bummer. We'll get free rentals out of the store while we're waiting, but it's still a bummer.

Ah, well. At least this gives me time to answer the next important question: how shall I pimp my kayak?

Wine Country

Being in the Bay area of California, it is a requirement that one goes to see the wine country north of the Bay. It's not far at all - just about 50 miles from San Francisco to Napa. I just got back, having spent the weekend there with my mother and her husband.

Believe it or not, wine country doesn't just have fantastic wineries! We also got to see one of only three "old faithful" geysers in the world. That was cool - I'd never seen an honest to goodness not-on-tv geyser before. There's also a petrified forest up there, a really old cemetery, and other historic things. But then, of course, there are the wineries. We're talking everything from warehouse to castle to chateau.

I think in terms of pure ambiance, the Castillo di Amaroso was my favorite. It's been under construction for 14 years, and has just opened 2 months ago. The wine there was some of the best we tasted, but you can't buy it in stores. Just onsite or on the Internet. There was actually a fair amount of wine in the area like that - definitely made it worth it to go explore. The Rubicon, Francis Ford Coppola's winery, was also on the "A" list. I most definitely need to increase my circle of local friends to help me drink the wine I brought back!

I did perhaps have a bit _too_ much wine on Sunday, but I maintain I would have been fine if we hadn't then on Monday decided to follow the GPS route to some of the other wineries, this time in Sonoma. That route took us through twisty windy mountain roads, with poor me in the back seat. I mean, I get a bit carsick under normal circumstances, so that was just a recipe for great discomfort. Michael, mother's husband, said I was green. I said I was fashionably pale, but they didn't go for it. Mother, as she realized how peaked I was feeling, developed a new fondness for the word "puke" and had to use it repeatedly. Witch. I told her I never liked her anyway.

I do hope to get back there again soon. We didn't actually get to tour the castle, and there's a lot more to the Rubicon that I want to see. I will, however, wait for the, um, car sickness to wear off. Couldn't be a hangover, really.

A pirate story

So there we were, cruising across the ocean (well, kayaking across a protected harbor), minding our own business (a.k.a., staring at all the boats and wondering at the names), when the pirate ship rushed in, ready to Pillage (or was it Burn? I never quite remember). We, of course, defended our ships successfully, tho' not without cost. One lucky pirate - the captain, of course - managed to get in a lucky hit, leaving me with a long cut across my forehead which bled forever and stung like the dickens.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I do have the scratch to prove it, and never mind the innocent-looking kitties over in the corner who would probably tell you that Kipling was messing with Blake at 3-in-the-frickin'-morning and when leaping to get away, Blake managed to catch me with one of his sharper claws right across my forehead.

We had to spend Sunday recovering (can you just imagine a 3" cut like that in salt water? I can, so we took a rain check on kayaking that day), and Monday we drove around the Bay area looking for other places we might want to rent kayaks.

Damn pirates. They sure can change one's plans!

a week of good food and good company

It's a darn good thing I'm trying to put on a bit of weight to help me with the increase in physical activity, 'cause this week has been a Week Of Food. Food food food food. First it was Francis Coppolla's restaurant, 3 courses including some really good wine and some ice wine to finish off. I could hardly move for being full. Then it was sushi in San Francisco followed by beer at The Thirsty Bear. Mmmm, beeeeer. Their brown ale was tasty. I got the stout, which was good,but the brown ale was better. Tonight, it's Thai food at my favorite Thai restaurant, where I always eat myself silly.

And what's the occasion, you might ask? (Ask! Ask!) I've got friends in town! Yay for east coast visitors!!! So, while the food has been lovely, getting to see folks I haven't encountered in months is even better. There has been oodles of lovely gossip, tech talk, and just plain ol' catching up. I'll miss these folks when they go back home.

This weekend we're going to meet with our kayak instructor from last weekend after we have a day on the water around the Oakland Estuary. Guess what we'll do when we meet up? Eat! Being in the Bay area, catching up over good food is just too darn easy.

So, if you haven't come out to visit, whoever you are, can I interest you in some blackberry cabernet sorbet soon? Or perhaps some red curry prawns with pumpkin and coconut milk? What about some amazingly fresh sea food? You know you want to visit... ;-)

Starting a new hobby

A few friends of mine tell me I'm rather odd in how I go about picking new hobbies. Rather than just sort of acquiring them, or knowing someone who does whatever it is, I research. I think about what I want to do (get out more, get in more, get more fit, relax, and so on and so forth) and then I start looking at what activities meet my needs. This time, I decided I wanted a hobby my sweetheart and I could learn together, that would get us outside a bit more, and would get us both more physically active. Caveats include bad knees for both of us, and the fact he has more experience doing a variety of things than I do, so finding something he'd be _learning_ was no small criteria.

So, after some study (and mind you this was back in late fall 2006 that I started looking in to it) I decided sea kayaking would be just the thing to try. It met all the criteria and would definitely be different. My sweetie liked the idea too, but then we got side-tracked with the new job offer, the moving, the settling in...

But FINALLY, after dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, my sweetie and I took our first sea kayaking lesson. It was GREAT! We went to Half Moon Bay and ended up being the only people in the class. The instructor, a gent by the name of Matt, was wonderful, and we all had a lovely time. We even had some harbor seal supervision! We learned how to move forward, backward, sideways, and in small and big circles. We learned how to rescue ourselves if and when we flip over, and how to rescue each other.

The kayaking community is a particularly friendly crowd, so I think we've managed to find another thing I was looking for out here - a group of friends not associated with work. I very much like the people I work with, but it's hard not to talk shop with them after hours.

If you have any interest in trying sea kayaking, I definitely recommend it! Get some training in first before you just go out and see what you can do - you'll be more confident and less of a danger to yourself. :-)

Next on the kayaking road to nirvana, a dry suit for my birthday! Yay for me!

What do they put in the water out here?

I wonder if the reason things are so wonderful in California might be nice drugs in the water. It's Tuesday, and so far this week I've been abandoned by an account manager who forgot a meeting with me and a potential new client (I ended up running the meeting with lots of "I'll find out and get back to you" kind of statements), a project manager who didn't show up for his weekly project sponsor meeting (apparently another meeting ran over, and they don't believe in laptops in meetings so that he could have let me know), an aikido instructor who didn't show for class (I ended up teaching) and then the bus broke down before it got to my stop so I had to walk most of the way back from class, which was less than fun since I strained a muscle in my hip during training.

There's more, which I won't go in to. And with all of that, I'm _still_ cheerful and happy with my job, my garden, my new life.

yeah, it's got to be something in the water. :-)

One of the reasons I like cats

Don't get me wrong, I like dogs too! But cats have that special evil something that appeals to me. For example...

My mother just IM'd me to tell me her cat went missing yesterday. This is always a bit of a concern, since she's in Las Vegas, the cat is black, and it gets hot and dry there. Granted, not right now, but I still worry. The cat does like to wander, and she in fact found it as a stray... but I digress.

Anywho, so the cat went missing yesterday morning. It was found again this morning by the neighbors. Turns out he'd jumped in to the neighbors' car - the window had been open about 6 inches. The neighbors found him there as the wife was taking her husband to the hospital.

Think of it. You are about to go to the hospital. You open your car door. A big black cat springs out.

Now _that's_ evil. :-) Hysterically funny, to me, and definitely evil.

A suitable quote

If the world were merely seductive,
that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging,
that would be no problem.

But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world,
And a desire to enjoy it.

That makes it hard to plan the day.

-- E.B. White

a ramble about communication

One of the most common problems in the workplace is "lack of communication." I don't know how many times I've heard that, how many classes I've gone to, how many articles I've read about that subject. But what I want is the article that says: Communication is an act between two people. If only one person is really participating, it's just verbal masturbation. With witnesses.

Put in that light, I have to wonder if there is a Kama Sutra out there for how to communicate effectively. What a thought...

It seems that in order to communicate more, people are going for quantity versus quality. The number of meetings being had, the amount of email traffic, the presentations, the retreats, the training... My goal is to try for quality instead of quantity. The trick is - and I don't know the answer yet - is _how_. Still, it's a goal we should all strive for. I mean, do you _really_ want to keep witnessing the very embarassing moments between a person and their mouth? :-)

Day 1, still tired from the move

Once upon a time, moving across a continent was unheard of. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology (you know, the wheel) it's not so unheard of any more. Which is why I'm out here in California after years in North Carolina.

I am continually asked "So, is it different? how are you settling in?" That's from folks who haven't done the Big Move. From folks who have, it's more like "Yeah, it's pretty different. Don't worry, it'll only take a year or so for you to settle in." A year?! Yowza. A year of feeling like "wow, this place is cool, it's neat, but dang it it's not home"? Oh well. This is what I signed up for, after all.

But let's assume you reading this are one of the people who hasn't moved to a completely different area of the country. Yes, it's different, and yes, it takes bloody forever to feel settled. The trees are different, the terrain is different, the housing style is different... Heck, thanks to the eucalyptus trees out here, even the air smells different! If you have any observational skills whatsoever, you'll know, at all times, that you aren't in Kansas (or North Carolina, in my case) any more. It's interesting, but I sure wouldn't call it restful.

The job itself - the reason I moved out here - is probably the best thing about the whole transition. I recently explained to a friend of mine that you spend at least a third of your day as an adult (assuming no massive wealth or retirement) working. By golly you had better enjoy it! For the last 5 years, I increasingly didn't enjoy that third of my day. And that, of course, affected the other 2/3 of my day. No fun. So, I took a risk at a job somewhere else one more step up the ladder, and what a wonderful thing! I'm 7 weeks in to my new job and I'm still happy every single day about being here. It's sick! It's un-american! I mean, we all read Dilbert! (Well, I don't - it stopped being funny after too many episodes that were horribly accurate.) People are not supposed to _enjoy_ work. Suffering is cool, complaining is better. What a really sick society.

So, maybe I'm not quite comfortable yet. And maybe it will take a year to get used to eucalyptus instead of loblolly pine and big oak trees. But to enjoy every day? To have a chance to explore new things and take on new hobbies? To watch a whole new group of people be amazed by my cats? I wouldn't take back this move for the world. :-)