McViking Everything Feed

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:41:00 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:40:37 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:39:21 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:37:31 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:08:47 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:08:12 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:07:24 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:06:49 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:05:18 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:04:24 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:03:27 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:02:37 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:01:24 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:57:21 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

Peace Love Zazzle

hikingviking — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:56:49 -0800

Peace Love Zazzle
by hikingviking

We'll miss you Uncle Raymond

Diary of an irish woman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:52:00 -0800

My Granny, God rest her was one for the last word and bigger and better. When my aunt Sharron commented on how good of a drying day it was out and the boys jeans had dried so quick outside in 2 hours , Grannys comment was that sure she had hand wrung Raymonds jeans and that they were bone dry half an hour later. My Uncle Raymonds faster than a heartbeat retort was sure that was nothing and hadn't he hung out jeans and they came back ironed.. You'll be missed Uncle Raymond. You made us all smile and you were so good texting your family with the daftest comments and jokes making us all laugh out loud.

Baby

Diary of an irish woman — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:20:00 -0800

Feeling like i should get a medical degree or at least special pregnancy badges like a girls scout at this point. Seriously. Like a vest with badges for AMA, SPD and GD

Now there's a new one. Its too long to fit on a badge though and Bit more troubling as means two stress tests a week and weekly scans and worrying about baby. Rest I can deal with as baby is fine and just me dealing with seperated pelvis etc. This one effects the baby though and it's for that part that sucks.

Looks like I'll also have to take off work earlier than planned as in starting next week take off. Guess I'll have time to do all those baby setups

The cause of all of this. Well we did a scan today and baby was great but the doctors said my amniotic fluid is too low

i have oligohydramnios aka low amnio fluid. Baby is fine though Thank God and good size so keeping eye on me with stress tests twice a week and scans.

What it means is baby Fae might be here sooner than we want. Anyone want to come stay with us over Christmas in case we need to do an earlier hospital run than planned?

Munchkin

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:28:00 -0800

Proud costume maker

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:28:00 -0800

The Halloween Cake

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:27:00 -0800

Halloween

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:26:00 -0800

This has to be the best Halloween I can remember. Friday night didn't start off as great. Wee man finally went down for nap but later than usual at daycare so couldn't pick him up and take him to Hubbies job but we had a good chill night

Saturday we decided skip music with so much on. Me and munchkin dropped himself off at rental car place to get cargo van. Why - well picking up stuff I lent one Mum who also was giving us ton of great baby stuff and also picking up more stuff from another friend the next day

Then myself and wee man went and dropped off birthday pressie to a friend. I dropped off rather than stay as to be honest scared of being around so many folks without H1N1 vaccine. There was 63 people there including kids there or as my friend put it - mini petri dishes;). Being third trimester and also no spleen well , makes me wary at moment

Would I like the vaccine. Hell yes but none to be found here yet. Hopefully this week !

So anyway after a gushy drop off my hormones flaunting with feeling like bad Mum that my kid was missing a party we headed home

This year in new house we have new neighbors and they have a Halloween Parade and pot luck! How cool is that!

Wee man dressed as pumpkin we went for walk around block or Daddy did and then back to the party.

I made pigs in a blanket. Otherwise known as turkey dogs sliced halfways in cresent rolls. They were a huge hit! We saved the Cake hubby made for the dinner tonight with friends.

Then nighttime and himself took wee lad trick and treating and I did door duty. Wee lad didn't want to come home but sure he was tripping over himself tired at this point. So he came home and tasted his way through some of his candy. He's major impressed with this holiday for sure!

Lovely night then by fire in front room just relaxing and cuddling whole family. Hubby had decorated, carved pumpkins, made a costume from scratch for wee lad and baked and iced a cake. I joke I married Martha Stewart but I know I just got lucky in a guy willing to do anything to put a smile on his sons face
Hope you had a lovely Halloween and now for a restful week

Appointments Appointments

Diary of an irish woman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:16:00 -0700

So today saw Ob-Gyn who is so so lovely. All is well. 25 and half weeks down and 14 to go!

Then accupuncture afterwards which really helps my SPD and my general feeling of Yeah less pain

I also had to make appointments for glucose testing tomorrow. I know hubbie is hoping I pass, just so he doesn't have to listen to my rant of how horrible and what a con the diabetes specialist folks are. Here's hoping!

Then made a dentist appt for me, a dentist appt for wee lad.

Seeing accupuncture lady again this week and Physical therapy Friday. Thankfully for now that's still just once a week.

Then made another appt to see surgeon for follow up appt next week to check on her fantastic work taking the softball lipoma out of my arm.

Made a follow up appt with pregnancy specialist as per ob-gyn request for 4 weeks time

Then my primary care called me and she wants to see me re H1N1 aka swine flu shot. She doesn't have it but I have to go see her they said which baffles me but I will.

Finally made appt for spa guy to come out and repair drip on hot tub

I'm so over making and going for appointments

pictures

Diary of an irish woman — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:32:00 -0700

Smilestore - wee lads pictures on picture people

Best was taking in the baseball bat and ball and then having the poor photographer duck as wee lad hit it straight out of the store. Hes got some swing for a 2 year old!

smilestore photos

Birthday Cake

Diary of an irish woman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:26:00 -0700

Says it all really - wee man discovered how yummy icing can be

I did it

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:46:00 -0700

wee lads new phrase now. So proud of himself, whether its climbing on a chair, taking off his shirt or tonight for first time - doing number one in potty. or as he likes to call it froggy poo (its a fisherprice frog potty ;-)

He was getting ready for bath and we have the pottys there so he can start getting used to just sitting on it here and at Catherines. I'm in no rush to train him - even with baby Fairy coming along, he'll be ready when he's ready. Tonight he told Daddy - I did it and proudly flushed his potty contents down the big toilet. We did a potty dance that we made up on the spot, he ran around naked happy as a clam and we did stickers after the bath. Who knows when will happen again but sure first big step. I was wondering - should I blog this but sure its a step he's taking towards being a big boy. How quickly the 2 years have flown by

More later on our trip to Florida and Arizona but for now a good night.

French cafe

Diary of an irish woman — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 23:26:00 -0700

In Florida where his Gram and Grandpa spoiling him. Here's his little
table for dinner with tablecloth. All he is missing is some frenh
music in background

My wee goofball

Diary of an irish woman — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:27:00 -0700

He wanted to put on glasses and said show Daddy so took a photo to
show Daddy later. A tad too big perhaps?;)

Seriously a ham

Diary of an irish woman — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:27:00 -0700

Shade

Diary of an irish woman — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:25:00 -0700

Hubbie put this up today and last night. At last shade for back yard.
With no big trees and quite a few years before the ones we planted
will be a while. So for now we can chill under the canopy and save our
skins ;)

Worms

Diary of an irish woman — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:24:00 -0700

This is all the liquid nitrogen from my worm ranch. Including the
bottle I had filled a few minutes before. Makes great compost tea for
the plants!

Walker Blues

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 01:58:00 -0700

So I'm back on the walker aka zimmer frame and also working from home
with signoff from my doctors. It was actually my own manager who
advised me. He could see the pain i was in just trying to go to
bathroom or a cup of tea on the walker.

Was I surprised that the SPD aka seperated pelvis came back so early
in this pregnancy? , yes but I shouldn't be. When I did the xray for
broken taoilbone the front pelvic shot shows a pelvic gap in pubis
area that you could probably park a car in. Also seems a 2nd pregnancy
if SPD was bad in first comes on quicker. That and with a toddler just
brings it on that much sooner. I was being careful. Keeping legs
together in and out of a car and bed like the queen versus Britney
Spears or Paris Hilton ;) and not doing stairs or crab motions but
didn't help much.

I've a pretty high tolerance for pain, as the PT lady said well you
broke your tailbone and you can't even remember when! But this time it
was so bad , every step was like shards glass into my pubic area on
every step and walker wasn't really helping. I avoided going to
bathroom at work knowing be painful 20 min walk each way. Walking from
parking lot to my cube became a 45 min trek. I discovered small
ironies like that the disabled automatic door switch wasn't timed for
someone who actually needed it! It would always close before I got
there after hitting switch.

So started PT and accupuncture and they both helped but the walking
and also 8 hour sitting at work just making all the good PT and
accupuncture did worthless.

So my boss said get approved to work at home due to medical reasons.
He and my coworker could see I was useless in afternoon. Also with
having to work from home first couple months he knew I could. It's
funny as I don't go into work much here and won't name it but my
product helps folks do things like telecommute better. So it's ironic
that they are not for their own workers telecommuting but in our sales
pitches we talk about the benefit of that all the time to the employer
and the employees.

My physical therapist folks been great. They were recommended to me
after last folks I saw during pregnancy had my therpist leave and
didn't have any experience with pregnant ladies. They went and found a
PT group who had tons of experience! They can't believe I am still
working but for now while I can talk on phone and use laptop at home
I'll be ok.

I won't do what I did last time and work up till very end. You lose
the 4 weeks allowed then beforehand and can't add them on afterwards
which never made sense to me but since California is one of few states
in USA that has any pregnancy leave at all I shouldn't complain. For
one of the most developed nations and richest in world it's pretty
much sad that Americas status, tolerance and policy of pregnancy leave
rated behind Somalia. Yes our policy towards leave for working Mothers
rates below Somalia. Yet I'm lucky to be in CA where they have most if
any at all I believe in the states!

Anyway off soapbox there. So working at home good news is that it has
eased up the pain. The accupuncture also helped as well as PT. It
doesn't feel like such a long road now and I can say 22 weeks to go
without thinking OMG 22 weeks to go! My hubbie been fantatsic and so
has toddler but not fun having Mammy not be able to do all the normal
stuff with you.

He's a good wee boy though and likes sitting on walker seat while I
roll along. We busted a wheel though, the tire tore so went to medical
store yesterday where I got it to see what they could do. They were
shocked. Seems most of the clients for said walkers are in mid 60's
and older and they have never seen a torn tire. It's not like I was
doing walker olymics or mountain climbing with it but there ya go. So
I have to go to manufacturer and see if they can replace. Maybe I'll
get something with some bing and put a bass heavy sound system in ;)

Have a good week folks!

Zepplin

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:08:00 -0700

Minivan and news

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:07:00 -0700

Picked up new minivan Thursday. Told wee man we would get van then off to get some ice cream as a treat. All way to dealership, wee lad kept saying where icecream go Mammy. Gotta love that singleminded focus ;)

Friday we went to scan. Didn't see much as we weren't getting amnio done. It's a risk but I think they are over prescribed as matter of course when you're AMA (advanced maternal age!). So had to book again for 22 weeks to do anatomy check.

Saturday munchkin wanted to play instead of music so we ran errands. The DVD player in new an is a huge hit. Elmo and Thomas kept him amused after a haircut (seeing all sets of grandparents in Florida so needed haircut badly as hair of curls looked more scarecrow than cute).

Himself went and saw the international friendly soccer match saturday at candlestick park and I had a wee helper over as still difficulty walking.

The SPD has come back with a vengence and really early. My pelvis is very seperated and also twisted inwards one side according to the doc and PT. So back on walker (Zimmer frame) and also ordered work from home till it allevates. That's ok as wee distances like from my cube at work to bathroom didn't seem so long before but when every step is like walking on glass into your pelvic pubic region dear Good Grief.

Also doing Accupunture and Physical Therapy each once a week. The PT works on exercising area to help manage symptoms. The accupuncture helps with pain. It really helped as felt less pain after it last week but then had to get back to work and around and pain came back after all that hoofing around. Optimistic though that with resting it more during day that will come down significantly. Otherwise gonna be a long 24 weeks to go. :) himself and munchkin have been brilliant. Not easy having a mobile challenged Mum.

So having the extra pair hands yesterday from our 14 daughter of friend was fantatsic. While wee lad down for a nap we seriously
cleared out quarter of garage. Hubbies dream of oneday parking in there no longer a pipedream hah. She was great at running with items around house and yes we have more boxes to unpack but doing much better with fewer boxes in garage of doom.

So today off to see steam trains at Vasona park again after we grab some breakfast and get moving and I get rolling on the walker:)

Shiny

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:07:00 -0700

From side

Diary of an irish woman — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:07:00 -0700

discovery

Diary of an irish woman — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:32:00 -0700

How much fun is water... They decided they didnt want the overalls. Didnt make a difference to how soaked both wee man and his friend got anyway

Morning

Diary of an irish woman — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:48:00 -0700

Soccer Mum

Diary of an irish woman — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:46:00 -0700

So government came out with a cash for clunkers program. Up to $4500 back for your car as long as new one got more than 4mpg more. My Suv was well on her way out. Nearly 10 yrs old and had done me well. So Wednesday we started talking about looking at minivans at weekend. Decided since hinselfs car is small, one bigger one needed. Plus all Mums I know said minivan do you well for playdates later etc. So we as in hubbie researched a few and we narrowed down. Heated seats a must have and backup camera. Heated seats are a luxury in California but anyone with back or hip issues tell you it's a big difference.

So told my boss and he has a minivan so got some info from him. Thursday night he sends me email and voicemail that the gov program going so well suspending it as already spent the money.
Hun comes home let him know and we decide go to car dealership

We take his car and munchkin and sure enough yes they are doing till midnight only , a salespersons dream of a deadline you can enforce. So we ask to see someone and get Ross nice Persian man.

See a Honda Odessey we like and then realize that we have hubbie new car here instead of my old suv. So he heads home while I text and call our babysitter last sec and ask can she babysit for us. She does bless her and meets himself at home who is tearing up office looking for my title to my truck.

I fill in paperwork and also get price down. I have Internet access with iPhone and get the internet Honda site with prices plus the company data sheets. Very nice sales guy who doesn't realize I'm in sales :).

So himself comes back and our babysiter has wee lad laughing and getting him ready for bed. We fill in endless paperwork. For the program you need to show your clunker can drive in on own, that you own it clear and insured it and registered your name at least a year. Thankfully I had all of that in my glove box. We didn't have title but later found out they can get a copy for $38. Considering how long I would have to wait for that at DMV well worth it.

Then the long wait to finance and wait your turn. Himself goes over to mcdonalds and it's closed but drive through open. Guy says can't do walk ups. Himself explains we are at car dealer, they took our car and wife is pregnant and we haven't eaten in 5/6 hours (now 1030). Says chat to manager who says no problem so yeah! Yes fast food is not good for you but no food is not good at all. ( our orginal plan was go browse cars and do this buying at weekend )

So at midnight we finish all paperwork. I enjoy the sales fencing with their finance guy. I'll do him a Linkedin referral for the work he did plus the extra discounts I got;)

Our new minivan be here Wednesday and they gave us loaner in meantime. Cherry plum colour. We nealry got a blue one just because our sons favorite joke is saying Mammy blue car because he knows it's red. (the grin and laugh he does when you ask him is priceless)

So we got home after 1230. Fell into bed after babysitter went home. Bless her she didn't want to sleep over as no clothes with her for next day.

So next morning dragged ourselves to work. Turns out our cleanup hid the diapers too well and babysitter put swim diapers on wee lad thinking they were pullups as only diaper type things visable.
Wee lad was grand when I gave him bottle in morning but was soaked when himself got him, in fact only thing dry was swim diaper ( which doesn't aborb pee so kid doesn't sink in swimming with a water logged diaper ).

Himself gave him a wee quick bath in morning which made them all feel better.

So next week we become a minivan family and I'm looking forward to it. Mates said welcome to being a soccer Mum and you know that's ok.

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

Diary of an irish woman — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:25:00 -0700

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

You Click - its free - they give away free mammograms to women who need them

Go click away once a day!

Robot

Diary of an irish woman — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:46:00 -0700

Last night wee man ran into front room, 'Where pod Mammy?" (Daddys ipod). Wobot dance he said. So we got out iPod. For those who havent seen this enjoy. Its our wee man Robot Style. He seriously loves to dance

http://mcviking.ning.com/video/robot-1

Zazzle Advanced Store Customization

hikingviking — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:30:00 -0700

Zazzle opened up the Advanced Store Customization to a public beta today!

> Check out Ed's blog post about it

Twittering your new Zazzle products - automatically!

hikingviking — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 03:20:00 -0700

Check out my blog post over at the Zazzle Tech Blog:

Twittering new Zazzle products - automatically!

CSS is Awesome Mug

hikingviking — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:27:00 -0700

Laughed out loud when I saw this mug:

CSS IS AWESOME by stevenfrank
Make a photo mug Online at Zazzle
More Css Mugs

Sunrise

hikingviking — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:19:00 -0800

sunset is gone, ending of another day
how time has flown, life seems to slip away
i tried to savor it all but god knows i waste so much time
how i waste time

looking back, seems like a hundred years
runs by like a flash
through the laughter and the tears
i know i'll never get it back but still i'll always wonder
as i wander

time flows in more than one direction
looking ahead we lack protection
hoping the past will bring a resurrection
we forget about now

we worry so much about spending our time
living in someone else's meter an rhyme
live in the now ya know it's no crime
i said yes, live in the now

so take a seat, live in the present day
live only for now, tomorrow's so far away
and if you start to look back,
take a look around you and you will see
here is the place to be

in the sunrise
live in the sunrise

-Alan Metcalf, 1973-2009

Mary McAleese

hikingviking — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:35:00 -0800

Mary McAleese
Originally uploaded by hikingviking.

We met the President of Ireland tonight. No, I'm not making this up. At fifteen months (and a bit) my child got to shake hands with a head of state. How cool is that?

Ajaxian, Mozilla, Zazzle, Uize

hikingviking — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:57:00 -0800

We're getting a little bit of pick-up in the tech community, thanks to some of my team mates:

Mozilla, Zazzle, and UIZE on Ajaxian

For those not in-the-know, Zazzle's Ajax framework is built atop a toolkit called Uize, the core of which is free to the public. Obviously there's a whole lot of Zazzle-proprietary stuff on the site that's not available to the world through Uize. But we've been solving many of the same problems the other toolkit providers have been solving at roughly the same time. The framework is reasonably mature and pretty powerful, and built around the idea of building a coherent rich application in your page (rather than around an idea of plopping independent widgets there).

Yay!

hikingviking — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:26:00 -0800

What about Bob the Builder?

hikingviking — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:58:00 -0700

The LA Times reports:

McCain portrays Joe Wurzelbacher as a symbol for all Americans struggling to get by. Among them, to hear McCain tell it, are Phil the Bricklayer, Wendy the Waitress and Rose the Teacher. On Monday, he added Ed the Dairyman.

My question is, why leave out Handy Manny and Bob the Builder?

Mr. McCain, your target demographic isn't old enough to vote yet.

Joe the Plumber T-Shirt
by
ttfisher
Create Customized Tee Shirts Using www.Zazzle.com
See other Issues T-Shirts

Kyler and The Rescues on Grey's Anatomy

hikingviking — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:43:00 -0700

Exciting news from our friends down in LA ...

The Rescues are going to have a song featured in the 2-hour season premier of Grey's Anatomy this Thursday

Kyler teamed up with fellow Indie folk Adrianne and Gabriel last year to form this "Indie Supergroup", and now they're on Grey's Anatomy. Freakin' awesome.

Check out their website. Friend them on MySpace. Buy their album. It's fantastic.

The Rescues

The Rescues on MySpace

Foreclosures, financial crisis, and buying a house in California NOW

hikingviking — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:56:00 -0700

First of all, as I sat in a meeting last week with a loan officer as we're beginning this experiment to see if we should/really want to buy property in California, I have never felt more like a Republican. Our loan officer is a fantastic guy (ask us if you're looking for one, we'll send his info along), and I have no idea what his politics are (nor do I care), but the number of times he said "conservative" in our meeting struck me a little off guard. I suppose we do make good salaries. I suppose we are fairly "conservative" in how we handle our money and choose to spend it. I like to think of it more like "fiscally responsible" myself, as both of us have been through periods of debt and now that we're clear with good credit, we don't want to become "house poor" in our mid 30's as parents. So I suppose we ~could~ spend a lot more than we want to and push up that debt-to-income ratio. But let me illustrate why we are entertaining the idea of buying property in California NOW.

We've learned a lot about foreclosure in the last few weeks.

On the technical side, we've learned how people default on their mortgage payments and then get served a "Notice of Default". The smart ones at this point try to sell "short", which means the lenders expect to receive money "short" of what they are owed. "Short" does not imply "quick". Often there are two lenders from two mortgages, and the two lenders fight over who gets what amount. So a "short" sale (this is also called "pre-forclosure") can often take months. An offer can sit there, and the lenders don't have anyone assigned to the case yet, so the potential buyers are stuck in the water until something gives.

Often what happens next is that the owners in default get evicted and the property goes to Auction, where it eventually ends up getting bought by the primary lender on the mortgage. Then property is called "REO" (Real Estate Owned) or "Bank Owned". Vacant, and with a single owner, the process can move a LOT faster. I've seen a few of these properties pop up around here. They hit the market, hold an open house, get a flood of offers, and sell immediately. Unless they're in really bad shape, then they sit for a loooooong time.

So:

Notice of Default -> Pre-Foreclosure (short sales) -> Eviction -> Auction -> REO

On the personal side of foreclosure, well, that's a varied and sometimes heart breaking thing. The good news here is that if owners succeed in selling "short", their credit is kept a whole lot more in tact than it would if it goes to foreclosure. The bad news is that if they don't ... people end up evicted, with awful credit, and no hope of getting another home loan.

We've gone to view several properties that are "short" sales ... pre-foreclosures ... these are not people who are trying to make their property appealing to buyers. Some are down on their luck and terribly embarrassed to have people show up to view their property. Some have a real tendency to spend way beyond their means, and it shows in the size of the flat-screen TVs in the living rooms. Some are probably running an organized crime business, and again, it shows in the size of their flat-screen TVs and in the wires hanging off the powerlines in the back. We've also seen a handful of vacant REO properties. The ones that turn quickly are the ones that have been well taken care of; usually well-meaning people who got in the market in 2003-2005 at the height and couldn't keep up. The ones that linger are the ones where people have left all sorts of garbage and fire pits full of glass bottles for God-knows what kind of illegal activities. Many smell really bad.

Anyway, all this to say that the financial crisis of 2008 and the burst of the housing bubble has hit California pretty hard. It sucks for a lot of people. And for that reason alone I'm voting Obama over the failed economic policies of the libertarian "let the market work without any oversight" right wing. But that's another story.

Here is a map of the properties going to Auction in our rough area of Campbell and south San Jose (Cambrian Park). Courtesy Realty Trac.

And here is a map of the bank owned "REO" properties in the same area.

What I haven't taken a screen shot of is "Pre-foreclosures", because there are more than 300 in this level of zoom.

Rediculous, eh? I hope this helps illustrate how bad the current crisis is on PEOPLE even more than on the BANKS.

But for those of us fresh off the 2001 dot-com bust who couldn't believe the real estate bubble of 2003-2005 was grounded in reality ... well, this whole thing means we can find houses for fairly reasonable prices.

The bubble is bursting. Housing prices are down literally $200K around here.

If you're fortunate to have nothing to sell, now is a GREAT time to buy around here.

hacked? hardly

hikingviking — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:04:00 -0700

So, its bad enough that Palin and her minions like to use personal emails for state business in an attempt to keep information secret, as an assistant claimed that e-mail messages sent to a private address on a "personal device" like a BlackBerry "would be confidential and not subject to subpoena."

Now it turns out that it took a 20yo college student about 15 minutes to hack into said personal email through Yahoo!'s "I forgot my password" set of security questions.

I'm not defending said college student ... the poor guy broke the law and will probably go to jail for this. But it didn't exactly take a James Bond or a cyber war with Alaska's next-door neighbor Russia to crack her email.

I mean this is a candidate for Vice President we're talking about. If her email isn't safe from a curious college student, she is NOT ready to lead the free world.

Open Mics and Smith Barney

hikingviking — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:48:00 -0700

I have to blog this before it becomes too buried by the news cycle covering Palin's speech tonight. I see it has already popped off the bottom of the CNN political ticker.

Listen to GOP strategists trash talk their VP pick:

Noonan, on her website, has tried to backpedal and suggest that her cry of "It's over" wasn't actually referring to the campaign. Decide for yourself.

And on the other side, here's the speech that I loved the most last week, which was quickly overshadowed by Obama's. Where did the Dems find a guy named Barney Smith? I swear, I have never seen the Dems so on-message and together as they are this year. That says a lot about the man leading the campaign.

Fionn is One

hikingviking — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:10:00 -0700

Can you believe it? I have no idea where the last nine months have gone. Maybe I do, but they went by so fast. The first three I remember savoring every second ... every diaper change ... every chance I got to nap. Then we started traveling ... off to Ireland, off to Florida, out to Costanoa, out to Murphys. Then we were sucked back into work. And it was easier to host people at our house than to go anywhere. Then we went back to Florida and celebrated my parents' 55th. Then he started crawling. Then we took a train ride down to Santa Barbara. Then we got sucked back into work again. Now he's one. Wow. He's one. Where does the time go? But he's awesome. And he's one.

What a fantastic weekend for soccer...

hikingviking — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:00:00 -0700

Okay, yeah, the Phelps phever is great.

But this weekend was about SOCCER. There's so much good soccer going on right now, with the European leagues starting back up, and my local San Jose Earthquakes on a bit of a winning streak, and my TiVo recording six full matches for me. Let's recap my favorite teams:

San Jose Earthquakes: I was there Saturday night!!! We beat Boston 4-0. Boston, the leagues best team. And San Jose, the leagues worst.

Newcastle United: Kevin Keagan's team tied Manchester United 1:1 at Old Trafford! (I root for Newcastle because ... well ... I like the beer, and Sinead lived there briefly.)

West Ham United: Beat Wigan! (I root for West Ham because of an old boss I had who was a huge West Ham fan.)

Aston Villa: Had an amazing game against Man City. 3 goals in seven minutes from Gabriel Agbonlahor. (I sometimes root for Aston Villa because I like their coach, Martin O'Neill.)

Born to Rock

hikingviking — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:36:00 -0700

IMG_2091.JPG
Originally uploaded by hikingviking.

Here we are by The Picture People in Valley Fair preparing for Fionn's 1st Birthday photoshoot.

...on the Clintons

hikingviking — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:25:00 -0700

I've been saying for months that Hillary lost the primary because Barack managed his campaign better, understood the dynamic of the race better, and generally played the game better than she did. And I've been pointing to the whole primary as the reason why he makes a dramatically better President than Hillary does. It wasn't about gender (is there such a thing as gender-baiting?), and it wasn't about race. Obama was the better candidate when it mattered.

So finally this article gets posted, showing how badly mis-managed Hillary's campaign really was.

> The Front-runner's Fall

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.

The sad thing is that the Clintons (both of 'em) still haven't gotten over themselves. Obama, quit being nice. Unite your party by making it clear who the chief executive is, and go win this election.

Night time

hikingviking — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:02:00 -0700

This is our routine for putting Fionn to bed. He's really going to hate us.

"Night night Daddy" (I get a wave and a kiss)

"Night night door" (he waves at his house/door toy on the floor)

"Night night R2" (he waves at our R2-D2 robot on the book shelf)

"Night night spud trooper" (the Mr. Potatohead Star Wars storm trooper)

"Night night keys" (the key rack)

"Night night Buddha" (the picture of a ruin at Ankor Watt)

"Night night skeleton" (the satirical picture of The Girl With a Pearl Earring, except she's a skeleton, that we found in a party store and put up for Halloween 2006 and haven't bothered to take it down since)

"Night night unicorn" (the pen-and-ink of a unicorn hanging in the hallway)

"Night night fan" (the overhead fan in his room)

"Night night light" (the light on the overhead fan)

"Night night Fionn"

Fionn sings and plays guitar and sticks fingers in my mouth

hikingviking — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:25:00 -0700

Fun video the wifey took last night. (Yes, I'm wearing a Vote Hiking Viking for Jedi Council shirt.)

Obamosaic

hikingviking — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:18:00 -0700

This rocks ... its a mashup of 200(ish) Obama t-shirts from Zazzle:

>Obamosaic: T-shirts from Zazzle

Chewey at Comic-Con

hikingviking — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:17:00 -0700

Angie & Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca)
Originally uploaded by zazzleandria.

It's really cool to see Chewbacca and Zazzle together.

See the whole Star Wars Election site at Zazzle.

Amtrak rocks; RV camping is great for kids

hikingviking — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:20:00 -0700

Okay, positive blog post. Really.

Amtrak rocks. Getting a little roomette for a 10 month old to crawl around in is the *only* way to travel. It was a short trip ... five days, with two of them on a train, but I actually feel like I've had a vacation, in a way completely unlike the way any east coast good vacation karma is erased after a cross-country flight. If it didn't take 5 days to train it to Florida, we'd be doing this every New Years.

And four nights in a camper in the hills north of Santa Barbara was pretty freakin cool, too. Talk about red-state California. But having a little kitchenette was outstanding, plus a pool and spa and (for when the kid is older) horseback riding and hiking. It was great to spend the 4th with E&R and their two little ones ... we were on the beach in Monticito watching the Gap fire fill the skies over Santa Barbara.

Anyway, letting the world know that we're home, somewhat rested, and totally safe despite that big ole fire down there.

AT&T, how to I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

hikingviking — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:52:00 -0700

O AT&T, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

In 1999 you were Pacific Bell. You had no DSL in Mountain View. You took four weeks to set up a phone line in my apartment. You claimed that because the previous renter had some other service, turned on somewhere outside the apartment, it was not your responsibility. You sent a signal to the corner of Middlefield and Shoreline, but couldn't get it all the way to me.

I moved to San Francisco in 2000. I found a great little DSL provider called Telocity. Installation was a breeze. I was hooked up when the router arrived. Service was rock solid. Far better than my friends with Comcast over in Berkeley. Home phone? Well, I didn't care. I recently changed to the *old* AT&T Wireless service, best coverage in the Bay Area. Life was golden.

Then Telocity was bought by DirectTV. The service change was seamless. Life was ... okay ... I missed the friendly people at Telocity.

Then DirectTV DSL was bought by SBC, the name you went by for those few years. I went two weeks without DSL during that merger, and you set me up with a Yahoo! dial-in account during the interim. What you didn't tell me was that legally, the Yahoo! dial-in service couldn't be provided by the same company (despite the marketing proclaiming SBC/Yahoo! service), so you screwed up my accounts and charged me several months of both dial-up and DSL coverage. It took me weeks and multiple phone calls to three different companies to sort out that mess. Oh, yeah, and when my equipment arrived nothing worked, and there were no instructions. When I called you *again* for that, you said I had to register once the box arrived and then it would take a day or two to receive service. Two days later I had DSL. A day after that I got my welcome letter explaining how to register my new account when my equipment arrived. Everything you did during that service change was ass backwards.

Meanwhile, the old AT&T Wireless was bought by Cingular. Fantastic coverage. I now had rollover minutes! Life was still good with my cell phone.

In 2004 I moved to Campbell. I transferred my DSL service. The transfer was okay -- you certainly had learned a few things about providing DSL -- but a year later every Monday at about 8am for the better part of two months I had no network at home. Most nights around 2am all my connections were severed. Every time I called support you tried to blame my home router or my modem, both of which were fine. Once I went out to Frys and bought a new DSL modem, and by the time I got back six other people had called in and you finally had critical mass to claim that there was a DSL outage in my area. On at least four occasions you botched handling outages in my neighborhood. With two adults frequently working from home, this service was unacceptable. DSL had never been so sketchy, and your tech support had never been so shady.

I now have Comcast and have not had a single internet outage in the two years. Yay, eliminate this inept company named SBC from my life.

Once I thought I was clear, you changed your name from SBC to AT&T and you bought my nice wireless carrier, Cingular. And you started sending me marketing SMS messages. And you went from one-year to two-year service contracts. And you really stretched out the length of time I had to have a phone before I qualified for an upgrade. And somehow you managed to become the only carrier of the iPhone. Which I have to have, because I'm a nerd like that.

And today, as my last (nice!) phone sits dead on my dresser, victim of a fall into a beer mug (don't ask), and I'm chugging along with my wife's old beater Motorolla phone which has already screwed up my Mac Address Book thanks to a terribly buggy sync handler on the phone, and I get excited about changing my plan to a shiny new iPhone 3G when it hits the street next week ...

... and you double the price of the iPhone on those of us who bought something other than an iPhone last year and aren't eligible for an upgrade yet.

O AT&T I so despise thee. You really suck.

McViking Wedding Set iMix

hikingviking — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:43:00 -0700

Okay, this is two years late, but we've kinda had our hands full the last two years.

To all our friends who enjoy the Dekanamixes series, you'll remember that we skipped Christmas 2005 as we were busy planning the wedding. That mix pretty much really became the mix of the music we chose for the wedding, plus a few nice bits leading up to the party and leading away from the party. It turns out that I've had this mix sitting in my iTunes since summer of 2006. We never got around to distributing it, because oh my god, where do we draw the line for who gets it?

All that said, I'm quite fond of the music, and I'm a bit sad that a few of them never made it to folks (the Men of Worth -> Frou Frou -> Lamb beginning rocks, and the Madness -> Black Eyed Peas -> Paul Oakenfold ending is what the party really was inside our heads, regardless of what was actually played by the deejay).

Well, I finally made an iMix on iTunes for it.

Check it out: McViking Wedding Set iMix

Here's the track list:

Engagement:

The St Kilda Wedding / Connemara Girl (Men of Worth)
Must Be Dreaming (Frou Frou)
Sun (Lamb)

Ceremony:

Ave Maria (Celtic Woman)
Gabriel's Oboe (Chloe Agnew)
Make Me a Channel of Your Peace (Sinéad O'Connor)
On My Way To You (Sue Matthews)
Eric's Song (Vienna Teng)
Throne Room and Finale (From "Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope") (John Williams)

Introducing the new couple:

Theme from the Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not) (Mike Post Feat. Larry Carlton)

New couple's first dance:

Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper featuring Sarah McLachlan)

Bride's dance with her father:

Three Times a Lady (Single Version) (The Commodores)

Groom's dance with his mother:

This One's for You (Barry Manilow)

The Party:

It Must Be Love (Madness)
Don't Phunk With My Heart (Black Eyed Peas)
Starry Eyed Surprise (Oakenfold)

Fionn Crawls Forward

hikingviking — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:32:00 -0700

So Fionn's been crawling backward for a couple of weeks, but tonight he finally figured out how to go forwards!

Find more videos like this on McViking Family

The Zazzle Beer Garden

hikingviking — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:09:00 -0700

I opened a new gallery this weekend on Zazzle, and spent most of Sunday drawing glasses and cans. Check it out:

The Zazzle Beer Garden

And the "World Beer Drinkers" product line, the first of several variations on a theme I plan to make:

Irish Beer Drinker by beergarden
Get this custom shirt at Zazzle

Belgian Beer Drinker by beergarden
Get this custom shirt at Zazzle

German Beer Drinker by beergarden
Get this custom shirt at Zazzle

American Beer Drinker by beergarden
Get this custom shirt at Zazzle