Mom is quite a fan of the show too.  While I will stop to watch if I catch it while channel surfing, mom actually has it on her schedule of shows to watch. 

While it was I who got my neighbor into growing fruit trees, I had to give it up the endeavor.  Almost all of the fruit trees I planted died due to wood borers (insects that drilled into the wood).  The few that are still holding on to life are weak and any fruit they produce are quickly stolen by the squirrels. 

 Mom was quite astonished with how loaded his persimmon tree was.  And his fruit were large and in very good condition.  He also had some lemon and lime trees in containers, again, full of fruit.  His wildly growing grapes are done for the season, but the kiwis vines still had fruit hanging.  My neighbor says the stray cats living around his yard keeps the squirrels in check.  The cats that I take care of at my yard hardly glance at the squirrels.  I guess mine are too well fed and domesticated. 

Most of the low hanging persimmons were picked off.  I had to use my neighbor’s step ladder to get at some of the fruit at medium height.  The best looking ones were way up and out of reach though.  My neighbor offered to get his tall ladder, but we’ve already picked over a dozen and mom said that was plenty.  She was quite giddy from her haul.  Mom said persimmons of this size and quality would probably have a street price of 2-for-$1. 

They are really nice though.  Even though it took in on the same tracks (like how couldn’t it?), it felt so weird.  These new cars were definitely quieter, but I’m not sure if that was because of better sound dampening or better greased wheels.  The extra windows at the ends really made the cars appear wider.  And kudos to the ceiling grip bars which is evidence that a major urban transit rider provided input to the design. 

I picked up a “Rider Report Card” survey last week which I hadn’t submitted yet.  I’m at a quandry now as to how to fill it out now since these new cars have altered my initial opinions.

Right away, my plans went awry.  We scheduled an early morning flight so that we could arrive in San Francisco around noonish so we’d still have a day to do something.  I got to my seat on the plane, it was the last set all the way in the back by the lavatories and flight attendents.  While the flight looked packed, all through the boarding, no one came for the other 2 seats next to me.  I thought I lucked out and could stretch out and sleep all the way.  Then a flight attendent led two little girls over. 

Apparently they were flying out to San Francisco by themselves.  They told me that they were going to stay with their grandparents for the summer.  The two kids were asian and, I guess, pre-teens, but their English was very good.  They didn’t even use any of the usual TV-inspired urban slang at all.  In addition, they were very nonchalant about traveling on their own.  Obviously this wasn’t the first time.  I was impressed by their sophistication.

They were nice girls, very personable.  But too active.  I had decided not to sleep before the flight since I’d have to leave for the airport early.  I didn’t want to oversleep or worst, try too hard to sleep and the feel like crap when I’m forced to wake up just as I do fall asleep.  I ended up babysitting the two girls.  I showed them how to use the LCD entertainment screen on the backs of the seats, I helped them with their headphones, and then they started to sing along with the music from the entertainment system.  They didn’t sound bad, but geez, they were fairly loud.  Anyway, I got no sleep.

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• Dueling Analogs

Starcraft was one of my most favorite strategy games.  I devoted a significant chunk of my life to it and I wouldn’t mind allocating more.  In fact, I still haven’t completed the Broodwar expansion. The third from last compaign completely owned me. I was only able to finish it once and that was by sucking in my pride and repeatedly using the cheat code to magically have more resources points. And even then, I was only able to win due to attrition, ie the enemy ran out of resources themselves and couldn’t retailate anymore. I have never been able to duplicate this feat even with cheating. The next mission kicked my butt real quick.

One of my most memorable feats in Starcraft was the mission where Kerigan got captured by the Zerg at the end. The setting was a fully developed Zerg colony on a raised level adjacent to your starting base and the mission objective did not allow any of the Zerg structures to be destroyed. After you defeated the Protoss, the Zerg would all pour down into your base.

I loved this mission just for that final Zerg rush. I always leave a little bit of Protoss around just so I could have the time to use every last bit of resource to build up a massive defense for those final seconds. I was once almost able to totally destroy the Zerg rush before time ran out with only minor losses in my forward Pillboxes and Missle Turrets.  Man, that was sweet.

I waited a while until Adobe released their new CS3 software suite and bought a copy of Illustrator CS3 to see for myself what she’s been doing.  It was as she told me.  The colors she used were the closest I could come up with too.  Even if I didn’t stay with that particular color scheme, I couldn’t get any other color combination that appealed to me.  Illustrator has a multitude of other color palates, but they all just sucked even more.  In the end, I just said “screw it” and started over.

On a side note, I was reminded of why I hate Illustrator.  It’s layout seem so chaotic that it makes my skin crawl.  I thought about designing my new version with it, but I just don’t understand it. 

I went back to using Fireworks, but decided to keep it simple and with a minimulist color scheme so it’d make the transition better. 

UPDATE:
I received the Breathe CD and it is good. I want to hear more from Blue Stone.