Interesting Hotel Stay

I have stayed at a number of hotels and have some pretty interesting experience but the most interesting one happened last night. My wife and children just finished setting up our living arrangements and were heading down stairs for a walk. My wife grabbed the door handle and pulled it open to go down stairs but it wouldn't budge. I then tried twisting and pulling both possible ways but no go. We called down and a host came up to help but couldn't open the door either. Maintenance came up quickly after but had just as much success as the rest of us. After some supplies were gathered maintenance came back up and was able to pry the door open with a crow bar. Once the door was opened it was fairly apparent that the maintenance worker came to our aid directly from his house. The hotel staff were so nice and apologetic afterward and offered us whatever we wanted to make up for the inconvenience. It was only a fifteen minute wait so my wife and I mostly thought it was funny.

Megan Brushing her Teeth

This occurred on 9/25/2011. Megan stands on top of the toilet so she can reach the sink. I squeeze the toothpaste for her onto her toothbrush as she has not mastered this skill yet.Then Megan proceeds to suck the toothpaste off her brush, swallows it, then brush her teeth with the plain toothbrush.

Megan Greeting Daddy

After coming home from a log day of work, I put my bicycle away and enter house. I unload my messenger bag and enter the living room. I am quickly greeted by my precious three-year-old daughter, Megan, who pulls down her shirt and yells out "Boobies!" I start laughing hysterically; my wife was not nearly as amused. I then look at Sarah with a mock expression of disappointment, "Tsk tsk, the things you teach our children, Sarah." Sarah smiles and we both start laughing. I love my family!

Megan Swimming

Megan loves to swim. Here you are at 28 months swimming!



Megan no longer use arm floaties but still need help and uses a small inner-tube. Just last Sunday we went swimming as a family. Megan and I walk to the pool together from Grandma's house (Lynne). Once at the pool Megan rushes to the water, inner-tube around her waist, and carefully walks down the steps into the water. Megan continues walking down the steps until the water is at her waist and then jumps the rest of the way into the pool. There are three things Megan loves to do in the pool; jumping, spinning, and piggy-backing.

Brendan and the Metric System

I had a 6 month construction rotation during which time I worked at the Beale Air Force Base and the Sacramento Resident Office (SRO). When I worked at SRO there was one Mechanical Engineer I worked with as much as possible; Brendan. Brendan and I had an ongoing lighthearted debate about the Metric vs. English unit system over the course of several months. For those who don't know my stance, then see a previous post of mine about the English unit system. During our conversations Brendan did help me understand the English unit system much better. I had always been confused with units like lb/BTU. In this case lb is not referring to the force of an object divided by its energy content. Instead, it is referring to an amount of a substance (measured in weight) per its energy content. This is because, as Brendan says, the fundamental unit for an amount of substance is not mass but weight. I would very much disagree with this, but I can understand where this idea comes from; one cannot measure mass, mass must be derived from taking its weight and dividing by gravity. Although we could understand each other we still enjoyed teasing one another; Brendan and I would tease each other almost every week. One of my favorite instances is when we were looking at a pump and calculating the load the pump puts on the equipment pad. Brendan said, "That's right , the load, not the mass but the force." He then broke out into a big smile and we both shared a laugh.

Aaron’s Experience with Public Transportation

Posted this to Facebook on on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 12:34pm

Date this event occurred: 6-24-09.

This is an entertaining story about my trip from Palo Alto to Sacramento. My first stop was the Caltrain San Antonio station. When I arrived at the San Antonio station I found myself on the wrong side of the tracks and, unlike the trains in Sacramento, there were huge fences blocking all access for pedestrians to cross the rails to get on the train going in the opposite direction. After asking around for a while I finally found someone who could tell me how to get on the other side. I needed to go to the very end of the platform (about 200 feet away) and go under a pedestrian tunnel to get to the other side. By the time I finally got to the other side my train was coming. I quickly pulled my ATM card out to pay for my tickets at the machine but my card was denied. I tried over and over again until finally my card was accepted; at this time the train was almost ready to take off. I jumped on my bike and sailed toward the train. The train attendant looked at me and signaled the train to take off leaving me stranded for an hour until the next train would show up. I learned later that in the bay area most Caltrain workers hate seeing bicycles being ridden anywhere near the train and will leave most riders if they see them on their bikes (a very weird policy, but now I know).
An hour later I get on the train. I found a place that my bike fit nicely and have just sat down when I was addressed. A Caltrain worker yelled at me “Your bike doesn’t go here!” and quick rushed down toward the rear of the train. I responded “Where should I put my bike?” The Caltrain worker ignores my response and continued walking. When the Caltrain worker got back, 15 minutes later, he said that he will be “escorting” me off the train at the next exit (I really love Caltrain at this moment). After being removed from the train at the next stop I notice that there were a lot of bicyclists getting on the train, but they were getting on at the very front of the train (this is where my bike belonged, but no one told me). I had a fairly uneventful train ride up to San Francisco after that.
After arriving in San Francisco I got out my map to the Greyhound bus station and started to bike toward my destination. The map I was using had me going down Haight Street which unfortunately has some of the steepest hills in all of San Francisco. I ended up on Haight and Ashbury which I quickly found out is nowhere near the Greyhound bus station (apparently they sound similar in mapquest). In fact, from the Caltrain station, Haight and Ashbury is in the opposite direction of Greyhound. I then had to bike the 8 miles (literally, to the opposite side of San Francisco) to the Greyhound station. Once at Greyhound I found out that they don’t store bicycles at the station (even though I called ahead and was specifically told that they did). They were able to sell me a $16 cardboard box that I could store my bike in (Greyhound can only store things in sealed containers). Unfortunately, this box was on the small side so I had to disassemble my bike to get it to fit in the box. When I say disassemble I don’t just mean take the wheels off, I mean take every single piece of the bike apart down to the handle bars and the peddles! After shoving my bike into the incredibly small box I was then told that that Greyhound only accepts cash (my day is just getting better and better). I tried the ATM at the station but the machine kept reporting an error. The Greyhound attendants said that they had some problems with the machine before but that it was maintained by a third party so they had no idea what might be wrong with it. The attendants were able to direct me to an ATM that was several blocks away, so away I went (I was surprised that the fee to use this ATM was $4!). After getting back with the $20 to pay for my bike I was informed that when I was out my bus had left without me and that I would have to take the next one which would be arriving at 1:30AM and would get to Sacramento at 3:45AM. They then informed me that this would involve a transfer charge of $15, cash! I love public transportation.

Hornets nest in house

I remember in one of the early houses I lived in as a child we had a nest of hornets living in our ceiling. One day, after my father came home from work, we were sitting in the living room and all of a sudden my mother was shoving all of us out of the house. I peeked around her and noticed that there were hornets pouring out of a hole in the ceiling. Everyone of us hightailed it out of the house as quick as we could and piled in the car. Dad drove us to a store and bought some sort of spray that would help get the hornets out of the house. That was an experience I will never forget.

Deborah's Comet Song

I remember one song my mother liked singing to me every once in a while. I think she heard it from a commercial. Here it goes:

Comet it makes your mouth turn green,
Comet it tastes like Listerine,
Comet, it makes you vomit,
so take some Comet, and vomit today.

I am not certain what lyrics the song uses. Wait, I just found it at Wikipedia.