Dos Vientos - Open & Closed Theft

Ever have that feeling when you wake in the morning that something just isn't right? Everything seems normal and nothing is visibly out of place, but you just feel it. That is how I felt woke up today -- or at least how I feel now.

We slept in a little later than we normally do -- until 7:30am -- which was odd in itself. Then it was time to take the dog outside and give him his breakfast. I walked down the stairs, turned off the alarm and then opened up the door to the garage. I was immediately stunned by the brightness of the light inside and grabbed the dog's collar as I realized what it was.

A look at the opened garage when I woke up this morning.

On Friday night we left the garage door open all night. Not a first for us, but I was surprised still the same. Fortunately, we live in a city that is considered the safest in the nation (consistently Thousand Oaks competes with Simi Valley for the designation) and our neighborhood of Dos Vientos tends to even be safer. On the previous few occasions where this occurred -- they went without incident.

I looked around the garage and nothing looked out of place -- thank goodness it was a mess. I shut the garage door, let the dog out and gave him some food. As I walked back though the garage, I noticed that both of the car doors were not completely closed -- left cracked open. Uh-oh.

How both car doors appeared when I came out into the garage this morning when I noticed them.

Clearly someone had come into the garage and been in both vehicles. My mind raced as I realized that both laptops that Ashley and I have were in the trunk of my car. What else did we leave in the car, was anything missing?

I walked to the back of my car and lifted the lid of the trunk. What a relief, the two laptop backpack bags were still in my trunk untouched. Then it was time to look inside the cars.

What I first noticed was that on sides of both cars is that whoever had been in both vehicles had somewhat greasy hands because there were visible finger prints with ridge detail (like my CSI knowledge?) visible on the door of both my Black Audi A4 and Ashley's silver Lexus. Careful not disturb them, I looked inside my car.

I scanned my car and nothing seemed to be missing. My Bluetooth headset, the car adapters for my Blackberry and AC converters were as well. Good news.

Then I looked in Ashley's car. Immediately I noticed that a $2 Insten iPod car charger was missing. Annoying, but no big deal. Then we realized a little later that were also missing our Canon Powershot SD800 IS from the center console. That sucks.

I then went through the rest of the garage and nothing aside from the cars was touched. All the tools -- everything still there. Thank goodness it is an awful mess right now.

We called out the local Sheriff Deputies to grab the prints off (we had heard about another break-in or two over the past couple of weeks) to see if any of this was tied together. The officer came out and in CSI fashion dusted the cars and lifted a few good prints -- none of which were Ashley's or mine. :-)

While we have little hope that the camera will get recovered, I am pretty happy with the minimum loss. It had been a fairly common occurrence for me to leave my wallet or phone in the car overnight. The thief could have open the door to our house (and received a squealing siren blast in their ears or worse. And if the thief is caught doing anything else, at least this will be another strike against them.

Most likely the thief was looking for a quick hit without causing too much noise or a disturbance. When they found the camera they called it successful and made off with it.

And while it stinks to lose a camera, I was not all that happy with the SD800 IS. While I have been a devoted consumer of Canon photo equipment -- I had found the SD800 IS to be wanting. Image quality despite the presence of the image stabilization was mediocre at best. After doing some additional reading -- it appears to be a knock on it due to the wider angle lens it has that consistently causes softness in the images. Now I have to wade through the plethora of PowerShot offerings to pick something up before we head out to Italy in just 2 weeks.

Fun stuff. Still, as mentioned above -- I'm counting my lucky stars as the outcome of our theft could have been much worse. I guess we will make sure to close that garage door from now on. I may also consider testing out some new WiFi security / monitoring equipment as well.

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Choices We Make Have Consequences

Every choice we make has a consequence associated with it. Sometimes we make good choices and they result in positive consequences – those are the ones we like to talk about. Sometimes we make poor choices that result in negative consequences – we do not like to deal with them or even talk about them much.

This could actually turn into a much longer post about how most Americans think all of their choices should only have good outcomes and they should not be responsible for their poor choices – like say the tech bubble bursting in 2001, or the current housing market situation where people made crazy loan choices. But it won’t.

Fortunately, the choice I made this evening and the bad consequences associated with it are not bad in the scope of things. Really it is just a result of me being spoiled. Really spoiled.

My meetings in Menlo Park finished at a reasonable time today – allowing me to head out to the San Francisco Airport just before 5:00pm for my flight home to Los Angeles. Hoping that traffic would be light enough, I put myself on standby for the 5:56pm flight to Los Angeles with the thought – I will get home two hours earlier.

I planned on giving up my First Class seat (upgrade) in order to do so.

Traffic was not too bad – the car return at Hertz was quick – security and the walk to the end of the terminal to Gate 89 was brisk, but no worries. When I arrived at the gate, I approached the counter and handed my waitlist card to the agent. A ticket printed off quickly and I was in seat 28E. Of the 40 people on standby for the flight I was one of the first two names called. A lot of people did not make it.

There was one minor hiccup – our flight attendants from another flight had missed their connection and were not in San Francisco yet. This led to a 60-minute delay. Then it came time to board the plane.

Did I mention earlier that I had become really spoiled? It has been a long time since I sat anywhere other than Economy Plus, Business, or First Class on United. Maybe a couple of years.

So, by the time I found my way to almost the back of the plane and took my seat in the middle I had forgotten how tight the seats are without much legroom, especially when you are in the middle, seated next to two other guys. It is really uncomfortable. (try typing while fighting for armrest space)

Another reason why I do not enjoy sitting in the back because when the plane moves in turbulence – it is a lot more visual than when you are in the front or looking the window. As I have mentioned before, I really do not like flying – at all. Some find that surprising given the miles I log these days – 115k miles last year on United not to mention other Southwest flights.

Having experienced this outcome and being really uncomfortable right now, I am questioning the choice to jump on the earlier flight. Had it stayed at two hours it would have been well worth it – as it ticks under one hour difference in time, not sure it was the best choice. Then it will take me an extra 20 minutes get off the plane.

Things could be worse, I could have financed my home with 100% housing loan and looking for a government bailout.

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Getting Sick is No Fun. My First Cold of the Season

No one like being sick. Especially me.

Until last Sunday, I thought I had made it through this cold season without coming down with anything. Luckily, I might add. I had been surrounded with people during December at work and elsewhere were sick with various forms of colds and flu. I had spent 4 days in pretty cold weather in New York City. I had been really good about taking higher doses of vitamins and Airborne and seemed to beat it each time.

I believed more than ever that my refusal to get a flu shots on an annual basis (I do not believe they work) continued to pay off.

Then on Sunday, my nose started running. It was the onset of a cold of which it did affect me much until the evening. I thought I could knock it out quickly with some Zicam and continued use of Airborne. No such luck.

On Monday, I was in a meeting most of the day and made barely made my way through it. In fact, I was in somewhat of a Sudafed coma state for most of the day. (On that note, the Sudafed that does not have the drugs that can be used to make Crank / Meth Amphetamine does not work – Sudafed PE is relatively ineffective for me.) Arriving home, I was pretty out of it – which had me going to bed at 7:00pm to end up getting 11 hours of sleep.

On Tuesday, my plan was to stay home sick. But do to about 6 hours of meetings that “I could not miss” it ended up being a work from home day. Fortunately, working from home is less stressful so I felt like I was getting some rest and a lot better. The Airborne and Zicam regimen continues. To bed early again.

Wednesday morning, I felt much better. Although many of my co-workers mentioned I still looked a little pale. However, as the day goes on – I continued to get stronger. Airborne and Zicam regimen continues. I am actually able to stay up to a reasonably normal time.

It’s Thursday now and I am almost 100% again. I am thankful that this bout was a relatively short one. Hopefully, this is my last cold this year as well as my first.

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Ouch! I knew this would happen.

What is your first thought when you see the below picture? I know what mine was. Dangerous.



When we first moved into our new home six years ago I saw this storage area and thought -- someday I am going to smack myself upside the head on that closet system that is there.

In fact, everytime I have gone in there over the past six -- since we store most of our decorations for various holidays there -- I would always worry about it and be totally conscious each time I went in and out.

Of course on a couple of occassions I would glaze the edge and think to myself, "That was a close one. I really should put some foam or some padding on that corner."

But, I never did. Then came tonight.

I was scrambling through the house looking for my Gore-Tex hiking boots for our quick vacation this weekend to New York City. Searching all over the place, I was somewhat perplexed when I could not locate. On a last ditch effort, I decided to check this closet as there was a slight chance they could be in here.

After a couple of minutes, I turned around and SMACK. I knew I had done a little damage. It a matter of seconds I had a good amount of blood running down my face and I had to run to the bathroom to keep from getting blood all over the carpet.

As with most head wounds, they bleed quite a bit. And in this case -- with some nice swelling, I was also a little woozy from hit. Anyways, I am sure I will be feeling this tomorrow still. Here's a little shot of the damage:


Nothing too major, which may or may not leave a little scar. Guess I will not be able to keep cutting my hair this short for awhile.....

And, most importantly -- I think once I get back from New York I will definitely put some foam padding around that corner. Before I put ANY Christmas decorations away!

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The Mythical 80-hour Work Week

Often times when I run into new friends or engage in social conversations – I hear about how hard they work, and usually the conversation digresses into a couple of folks making some statements about their 80-hour work weeks, followed by the head nodding of the rest of the group.. That’s right, 80 hours or double what a “normal” work week would be considered.

Yes, I know America is the land of great exaggerators. But, do people realize how long an 80-hour work really is? I think people make these statements without really considering how big of a number that is.

What I have come to believe is that for most people this is grossly exaggerated, thus creating what I call the “Mythical 80-hour Work Week.”

Working 80 hours in a work week is an awful lot. That means a 16-hour work day EACH day during the week. Throw in a lunch hour or even eating at your desk while checking on your favorite websites or Gmail and that is a solid 17 hours. That leaves only 7 hours to eat breakfast, dinner, do any errands and sleep.

How unlikely does it sound? Well, you would need to start work each morning at 5am and not finish or leave the office until 10pm. Very few people truly do this.

Furthermore, take my recent case of a day trip – if you count the same as I do, that would be a 17-hour work day. Even if I work 10-hour days for the rest of the week, say 7am-6pm – it would be less than a 60-hour work week.

On a couple of occasions, just for fun I have asked, “What office hours are you keeping anyways?” The answer given is usually, well I am usually in the office from 8am-7pm and then I answer emails once I do some things around the house. Read about 60 hours a week.

Now of course there are a few people that put in 80 hours weeks, or some of us that are in the technology will do that around special projects and deadlines. In fact, I know some folks that do this more than they should.

However, in general, there is a “Mythical 80-hour Work Week” phenomenon out there. Watch out for it!

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How many hours do you work in a day?

I have recently had some recurring discussions with my friends. It is centered on work-life balance and really, I mean really – how many hours do you work in a day? As you will see me write about in next days here, I believe that a lot of Americans – especially those I run into in certain circles – grossly exaggerate the amount they actually work.

So to that end, take this real-life situation from one day of my travel schedule a few weeks ago…

I woke up at 4:00am and left the house by 4:30am to catch a 6:00am flight to San Francisco. My flight lands at 7:30am and I drive down to my office taking a couple of conference calls arriving at 9:00am. I work through the day, taking a working lunch and leave for the airport at 5:00pm to catch a 7:30pm flight, taking more calls during the day. My flight lands in Los Angeles at 9:00pm, and I arrive at my house at 10:30pm.

How much time on that day was I working? Choose your answer:

A. 8 hours – Traveling is part of the job, and only the hours you spend in the office doing quality work count. 9am-5pm is only 8 hours.
B. 12 hours – Traveling is part of the job, however when you are telecommuting in the car and taking phone calls is working. Work was happening from 7:30am to 7:30pm.
C. 17 hours – There is some amount of commuting required to get to any job. Just subtract the amount of time that you would normally spend and subtract that from the total to get 17 hours.
D. 18.5 hours – from the moment you wake to when you get home, you’re thinking about work so just count it all. In fact, if you did not go to bed until 11:00pm, add another .5 hour to that total.
E. Another number.

If I were the one counting here, I would choose “C” based on my sense of workplace hours. Since my normal commute is 20 minutes each way, that is something I have to do either way, regardless if I am traveling that day. So, subtract that from the total and you get your number of hours worked.

How would you not only choose, but also rationalize it?

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Almost missed my flight to Las Vegas today

I had quite an interesting morning today. I almost missed my flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Las Vegas (LV). The reason? I had to check my luggage for this particular trip.

Generally, when I fly it is only for a day or two -- so I can cut it pretty close on timing at the airport because I can fly through security. (Thanks to my United Premier Executive miles) I usually just walk to the gate and board.

This time, I forgot about the need to check your luggage in 45 minutes before the flight leaves. Halfway to the airport I remembered that, luckily it was Sunday morning so I could drive faster than I should have. Once I made it to the Parking Spot, I dropped off my car and headed over to the airport.

Entering the terminal, I had 4 minutes to spare before the baggage check closed for my flight. There were some lines, but there were some Easy Check-in kiosks that were not being used. I asked a couple of people if they minded me using them and I checked in. As I went to check my bag -- I was informed that flight was closed for baggage. Uh-oh.

Luckily, at the next counter down there was a United representative that agreed with me that it should have allowed me to check in and made it happen for me. Otherwise, I would have been stuck at the airport standing by for the next flight.

Coincidentally, this actually the second time this has happened to me on the way to Las Vegas. Last time, I was not as fortunate however. I wonder what that says about heading to Las Vegas?

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Sunday in Malibu, California – Star sightings and more

I forgot how much I enjoy sunny Sunday afternoons in Malibu, California. Since we go to church at Malibu Presbyterian, it is a frequent opportunity for us. Today was the first day in some time where the weather cooperated – in fact it reached a high just north of 90 degrees.



That being said, I think everyone had the same idea that we did. A 90 degree day in early March is a great opportunity to really enjoy Malibu and hang out. Especially at the Cross Creek Market, where parking was pretty problematic for the center. We were heading to Marmalade Café, which is just a great overall place to eat – salads, sandwiches, soups, and tons of entrees that can really be enjoyed.

Afterwards a stroll over to The Coffe Bean & Tea Leaf provided some sun rays, relaxation and entertainment.

To that point, the stars were out.

Our first encounter of the day is that we ran into Matt Leinart, with a baby and girlfriend. (Brynn Cameron? Maybe not.) That were heading into Marmalade Café just as we were heading out, I did a quick double-take as he was a bit shorter than I imagined. His player card at ESPN.com lists him at 6’5”, but on Sunday in casual Malibu, I would say he might be 6’3”, but closer to 6'2". Well, then again Shaq is listed at 325lbs, I don’t think so.

Then for the odd sighting of the day, a well known or visible site for anyone who has been to Hollywood or Universal City and has seen a billboard. Across the parking lot coming towards us was a Mary Kay pink Corvette with the plate ANGLYNE rolling towards us. A quick glance at the license plate and you knew what was coming your way. That’s right, it was Angyline Angelyne – the lady from the billboards in Los Angeles was driving towards us. While we peered briefly into the vehicle to confirm it was her, she waved nicely to us and was on our way.

Quite surprising, indeed. What a day in Malibu, I feel there will be many more this year!

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Jury Duty in Ventura County

Today I am spending in the city of Ventura performing my civic duty. A lot of people complain about jury duty and how it is conducted. However, Ventura County’s is really simple to deal with. For example, I was able to schedule this Friday out well in advance so that I knew when I would need to miss work to attend.

This morning has been pretty uneventful. Only one panel was called, before orientation had even completed. We had the normal orientation and video. After the completion of the video, they hand out the wireless access codes – so we can get our laptops online. Apparently if they hand it out beforehand, people do not pay attention. So, now I have my wireless connection setup here in the jury waiting room.

An early morning 20 minute break and then before you know it, lunch is here. An hour and a half for lunch, so just a little stroll out to grab a bite to eat.

After lunch, it is pretty much the same as before – very little activity. In fact, such little activity at 3:45pm, they dismiss us for the day. The good news is that while we were waiting in the jury room, 12 cases that were up for trial were settled that day, wasting less money of the tax payers. As the judges say, the reason we are there are to settle cases. Just by us being downstairs, it makes cases settle.

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