Chestnut Street and our old Hood

One last post for the day....the SF Chronicle posted an article about Chestnut St. in North Beach  this morning.  All of the places mentioned were 1-3 blocks from where we used to live....ahh the memories,

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/22/NSJI15B9R7.DTL

Cha-Chico

Jodi and I are headed to Chico today to see Becca and Chris.  It's Becca's birthday and they are moving to Sacramento soon so call it a happy birthday/farewell Chico trip.  On a funnier note Jodi and I started watching re-runs of the Family Guy recently.  People have been telling me about this show for years but never sat down and watched an episode.  This is some serious laugh out loud adult humor.  If you thought the Simpson's had some clever adult humor the Family Guy takes it to another level.  This short clip reminded my of the flu that was going around over the holidays.  Although the flu is not funny, the part of this video where Peter (the dad) is holding the dogs ears back is pee your pants funny.  Enjoy!

Double Bluetooth disaster, and yes that's plywood on my door

I saw a first on Bart today, some dude had 2 Bluetooth headsets on.  Maybe one was a headphone for music but i made me think, "That was just a matter of time."  One was probably filled with sour candy of which he picked it up from the checkout line at Target.  I also saw the worst comb over ever on a Chinese guy.  Think of where a woman would wear a bun on the back of her head and comb in all directions from there.  my favorite part was the hair that was combed up and over the ears to make fake sideburns.

On the home front we have the latest in home décor accenting the front door...plywood. We are in the process of getting a new front door which has been a special experience. If you are looking for hours of confrontational conversation with your significant other get a new front door. If you are reading this and are thinking " we should get a new front door," ask yourself if that need is worth $3k! Now that I have your attention you can imagine that this project has turned me into a cranky 2 year old baby complete with attitude and fits. Naturally the man in me needed to find
a way to chop the cost. Jodi did a good job of ordering the door wholesale, easy peasy. Next you have to get the door milled to match the existing shape of your doorway. That's easy too if your opening is square.  The following has been taken out of context and paraphrased for brevity and drama.

Door Installer # 1: Your house was built in 1912 and your opening is not
square?
TJ: "yes"
Door Installer # 1: " I don't like your front steps, I'll hang it and do
the locks for $1,000."
TJ: "WHAT!"

Door Installer # 2: Your house was built in 1912 and your opening is not

square? I don't like your front steps, I'll hang it and do the locks for $1,400."

TJ: Plan B, call Chris Whitman for sanity check

Chris Whitman: "I'll be over with a sheet of plywood and advise on what to do."

Long story short we're going to get this door project completed for a lot less, but at the cost of a lot of stress.

Here is what i learned and my overall advise on trying to do anything complex that is not your day job. Don't be concerned about getting a deal or saving money, hire someone you trust and be done with it.  Trust is the key word here.

Canada sunrise

Jodi and I started our day by riding to Woodside on Canada road along
side the 280. We had breakfast at Woodside Bakery and headed back.
Now for a little football and maybe the driving range.

Obama heard me...

So in my previous post I wrote how the Obama campaign is using our technology for their Citizens Briefing Book.  When I was browsing through the ideas I saw an Idea for "Encouraging trade Schools." This issue is near and dear to my father in-law Vic so I voted for it and added a comment.  See it here.  (disregard the extra "has" in my comment).  Well it turns out that is is one of the most popular ideas in the Education category, I got a response from the Obama Transition team, and they addressed the topic in the YouTube video below.  It's a start Vic!

Salesforce in the News

We had a really cool press release today.  The Obama-Biden transition team is using our "Ideas" product to collect and gauge what issues matter most to the American public.  Pretty cool stuff.  If you have read the book "The Wisdom of Crowds" this will make a lot of sense. 

"Salesforce CRM Ideas is being used on the Change.gov Web site to gather input from the American people as part of the effort to foster greater collaboration with citizens and a more transparent government. The application is now live at http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov."

Here is a news article about it: http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm/?p=115

Quick Re-Cap of What is going on at the Janzen House

• Fitness = Up: I'm going to punish myself this month for the past year of slacking.  Me writing this is holding me to it.  Jodi is on a subtler approach.
• Cooking = Healthy and Good: I take advantage of Sundays to make most of the meals for the week.  We also got a new crockpot and it rocks.  Just made the best split pea soup ever and it was so simple.  Chx stock, peas, celery, carrots, onion, Ham hock....thats it.
• Work = SSDD: Same $#!& Different Day
• Money = Outbound: Property taxes, Christmas bills, Insurance, DVM registration, Car Repair, and a new front door is killing me right now
• Cats = Diet: Mandy is taking comfort crunchies to a new level.  She's on diet crunchies and not happy.  Last Friday she ate a hole in the side of the bag to get more.  Nothing some Duct tape couldn't fix.  I love Duct tape!
• FJ40 = Smoged: I can't believe she passes smog.  She also got an Oil change.  I'm hoping to register it in another county this year so I no longer have to smog it.  Then I can have fun with the motor.
• Man Den = Coming Along: It's a constant struggle to keep clutter out of my garage but I fee like I'm wining.  I've got some new pictures up and the home gym is in place.  All I need to do next is build some more storage.
• Lost = Caught up: This darn show is more addictive than (Insert weakness here).  We are all watched up through season 4 so we can start season 5 which kicks off this month. preview
• Yard Projects = War Zone:  I just finished digging a giant hole in the yard for my new pond.  This was sitting under the house up in Arnold so I decided to put it to use.  It's about 2ft. deep by 6ft. long.  When all is said and done I hope to have fish, a waterfall, water plants and a perimeter of landmines to keep Raccoons out.

Holiday Picture Update