New Three Piece Suit

Yep, not your typical "night with the big wigs" kind of suit. I got a wetsuit. My water lesson for kite surfing is scheduled for this Saturday, so I figured I needed something to keep my warm. I picked up the Mutant from O'Neil. It's a 4mm/3mm suit. Meaning it's 4mm in the chest and back and 3mm in the arms and legs for mobility. The seams have what O'Neil calls a "Fluid Seam Weld" meaning they stitch it once, then slap a bead of rubber over the seam, purportedly making the suit more flexible than the standard of stitching the seams twice and leaving them exposed.

They call it the Mutant because it has two "tops", one is the hood I have on in the picture above. The other is a super sleek collar. The hood is intended for cold weather, help retain body heat even more, and keeps the wind off the ears.

I thought I wanted a 5/4 instead of a 4/3 when I walked in. There was a 4.5/3.5 that I considered, the Psycho Phreak. It's a little different in construction. The neoprene has air pockets injected into it. I'm told it's warm as hell. It's also an extra two hundred bones more. So I got the Mutant, but I was uncertain of my purchase. It needed testing.

So for 15 minutes I stood in the coldest shower I could get out of my faucet. Didn't shiver once, got kinda bored, so I let the tub fill up. I soaked in cold, cold, water for another 15 minutes with the jets in to keep it moving over and around and making sure the water didn't just stay in the same place and get warm. After the soak I was still warm and totally satisfied. I just dug up some numbers, tap water is anywhere from 45-65 degrees. The surface temp in the Bay is currently shown to be 64 degrees. I am no longer afraid of the water temp. Now if only I didn't look like a baby seal... *CHOMP*

Chop Chop Haircut Master

I went to a salon. Juju cut my hair. I asked for her to keep it the same length it was on top. The clean up the back and sites, get it off my ears. She did it well. It feels weird to have my hair flop around on the tips of my ears like this. It was weird at first. It's growing on me.

Yahtzee!

http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.tolley/MemorialDay07/photo#5072041892879321266

'nuf said

I Love It

Go sign up on OkCupid. It's the most fun I've had in a social site. Oh and it has that dating thing too.

Final Glass Class

I picked up my stuff from The Crucible today (last class was Wednesday).

From The Crucible

SO what you're looking at is two icicles and a lattichino marble. The interesting thing is that both types are made almost the same way. First, make a paddle of stock glass about the size of a fifty cent piece. Then put some strips of color on the glass. The icicle on the left has three blue stripes. The marble has five stripes (black in the center, two white, two blue). If you're making a marble, sandwich the color between another paddle.

Next, get the thing all melty warm. Then twist. If you want a marble, let it gather into a ball with the flame. If you want an icicle, pull apart as you twist. To finis 'em up, put a loop on the top of the icicle (the icicle on the left was a rush job at the end of class so it doesn't have color or a loop). If it's a marble, you pull off some glass form each end as you twist the marble so the color comes down to a point.

My marble is exceptionally round. I should say it's it comparatively round to my other marbles. It has one little flat spot (you can actually see it in the picture on the top of the perimiter) where the punty (aka stick of glass that keeps me from having to put my hand in the flame) was. I argue that it gives the marble a nice spot to rest as it perches on your desk.

Glass Catch Up

Well I've been through four of five classes.

From The Crucible

In week two I made a pear shaped pendant. It's got some diachronic glass (which gives it the sparkle). Then the back is decorated with a brownish color to give the sparkle the yellowish color. A pendant is made the same way as a marble, but you smush one side flat while the glass is hot, then put a loop on it.

In week three I made two pieces. One was an implosion that ended up as a pendant. The idea is that you blow a small bubble, decorate the outside, then head it up and it draws your decorations in through the clear glass, stretching it out. If you ever see "coral" or some kind of seascape, it's done with this technique. I used a white glass that boiled and bubbled a lot and was really hard to work with, and my implosion didn't work so well, so I smushed it and called it a pendant.

The last piece is another marble. This one much more round than the one I made two week before it. Also diachronic glass for the sparkle, but then I put clear glass on top to make a lens that magnifies the sparkle. A little coloring on the back makes it look like a professional third grader might have coughed this one out.

Then this past week I made something that should turn out really cool if it doesn't crack. I can't wait to get pictures of it. Next week is a free for all. I hope to crank out a marble with some spiral thing going on inside.

Blog About the Dickersons

I realized I haven't blogged about hanging with the Great Dickersonians since their wedding. I feel kinda bad because I have a blast hanging out with them and it's great having top notch friends just two hours away. They came down to SF for my birthday and slept on an air mattress just to see me. They took me out to a really nice Italian restaurant and we had some awesome gelato afterwards.

And then I was up there two weeks ago for a going away party for one of Matt's coworkers. I won about $30 in cash and got to see a girl jump into a retention pond wearing significantly less clothing than when she joined the party. That girl never called me that she was supposed to give my number to, oh well.

And there's always Settlers of Catan. All kinds. They have all the standard sets and we've taken to mixing and matching to the point that there's so much going on that I fail miserably to take action at the right time. But it's still way fun and they're notably improved at just treating it like a game. We also discovered that boiling rubber can fix a toilet.

But above all, they listen when I just need to bend an ear. And it's great to talk to them both because they have different perspectives with this common ground they draw from. Next weekend we're going car camping with some people they know. I can't wait to be a lazy bum the way nature intended: with good company at hand.

A Fine Visit

True, I only got to hang out with them for a few hours, but it was really awesome to see Brittany and her boyfriend Jeremy. She kinda brought with her a piece of my history, some of it newish, some of it seven years old.

It was the first time I'd met Jeremy though. He strikes me as a good match for Brittany. They were off to a weekend in Napa paid for by one of Jeremy's clients (he does some kind of web related work). I can't even score a free pair of shoes from Zappos, so I was kinda jealous that they got a weekend getaway for the price of airfare.

But we went to he beach, no one went in the ocean even with just their toes. There were a shit-ton of kite surfers out, then the wind died on all of them, which was sad to see them all self-rescue back to shore. We had a nice dinner at a place on Bay St. and Taylor, then we rocked out the basic version of Settlers of Catan. By then they were pretty dead, having been up since like 3 am and being another three hours ahead. SO they partook in the new furniture (sleeper sofa mostly). Then I saw them for a little bit this morning before I had to take off for work and they had to head for Wine Country.

Good Times.

Evidence: Part II - Opposites Attract

Along the lines of needing to be needed, there's the age-old saying "Opposites attract". Anyone who has ever taken interest in another has probably experienced this before. You meet someone who is nothing like you, you have zero common ground, and yet you find her to be the most fascinating person. Maybe you go out a few times, somethings work really well, some things don't seem to work at all. You each fill a need for the other - stability, enthusiasm for life, financial savvy, or creativity, but there's no common ground to start from.

I believe we need that kind of opposite in our life. It validates my character, my choices, my weaknesses, my strengths and gives them all a meaning, a purpose.

Evidence: Part I - Divorce Rate

Because I feel a need to convince myself that what I believe is true, I was thinking about the divorce rate. In previous generations, there were gender roles. The wife did the cooking and cleaning, and the rearing of children, the husband went to work, fixed the house, and managed the grill.

Today, both genders do everything. I have nothing against women in the work place or stay at home dads, I think this is a fine direction for our culture to take. There is a drawback to all of this and my point is that we're all a lot more autonomous. Our society has changed and we no longer need the other gender as much as we once did. When you've got the skill set to do everything that life requires of you (but maybe not the time), it is a lot easier to cut ties and move on to something else and find someone new who needs you.