Forgot to mention that I am now a driving with a California license. I am happy to report that I passed my written test on my first try.

<p>I'm with Jeff on the community factor as a motivator for continuing to blog. Two days ago, I felt like I had nothing left to write and was losing interest. But then, I had some free time yesterday, in which I had to stay awake, so I came up with something to write about. The comments received by all have spurred me on to blog forever! Or at least another week!</p> That said, I'd like to announce our intentions to make a trip to Texas in September! We don't know exact dates just yet, as we are waiting for Jamie to secure which days she can get off. However, it will likely by the week of the 13th-20th or so. On the agenda is family, friends, food, and the CD release at UBC. Heads Up!

Mark alluded to a story in his blog earlier this week that only I would get. I thought I would tell the story for the rest of you, so that I'm not alone in my gettingness of that story. (Jeff, did I use gettingness in the right context?) Our freshman year at Baylor University in the city of good press, Mark and I actually shared a class, Calculus II with Dr. Oxford. Mark and I enjoyed the class and tended to have a good time in it, while most of our classmates remained in a constant state of freaked-out. Dr. Oxford's sense of humor was incredibly dry, and his delivery didn't change that much between telling us a formula and telling us a joke. As a result, the rest of the class seemed to miss his jokes while they were feverishly taking notes. Mark and I are sure that if you were to look through their notes, you would find his jokes written in there as theorems. Anyway, because of his dry sense of humor, and because we are a bit mischeivous, and because we sat in the middle row in the back of the classroom, we thought we would try a little dry humor ourselves. Dr. Oxford would pass around a piece of notebook paper each class period for us to sign as an attendance sheet. When it came to Mark and I, we would add two headings to the top of the page. Above the list of names that were already there, we would write "Name." The second heading would be at the top of a blank column next to "Name". This second heading would change every day. Some of the ones that I remember were "Favorite flavor of Kool-Aid" and "What You Think Waco Creek Smells Like". We didn't want it to be obvious that it was us adding this second heading, so we would put in silly answers for the people that had already signed their names. We would try to match their pen color and handwriting as well. We still don't know if the people ahead of us in the class would fill something in the second column, but one day the girl who always got the paper first went up to the teacher after class. She saw the sheet sitting there on his desk, and noticed the second column that had not been there when she got the roll. She read the heading out loud, "Favorite Episode of Cheers" and looked at Dr. Oxford inquisitively. He chuckled and said that somebody always adds those in. As we left the classroom, we heard her read aloud one of the fake answers we had put in for somebody else, "The One Where Norm Drinks Beer." After a brief pause as if trying to remember that episode, then, as if correcting the person who had written this, "Norm always drinks beer!" This might be a good time to note that this was the same girl that had made the front page of the Lariat after falling into the garden in the library while studying one floor up on the ledge. I'm guessing she got a D in Calculus II.

Jamie and I were watching a little TV today to wind down from a hard day's work. All of a sudden the screen goes black and I hear a strange beeping sound. After a few seconds, I realized that a warning message was running across the top of the screen about a severe thunderstorm warning. Apparently, the weather service had decided to extend this warning for another 35 minutes. You'd think that the situation was incredibly dire, we're talking tornado here, if the cable company decides to black out the screen during a commercial break to issue this warning. You'd be wrong, though, it's just rain. Rain is so rare in Southern California, that everybody freaks out if it starts to sprinkle. Granted, I did see lightning here last night for the first time in California, which must seem like magic to these people, but the hardest rain I've ever seen here has still not required the use of windshield wipers (which, by the way, do not come standard on cars in California). You might remember a couple of weeks ago my relating the story of seeing the flames of a huge wild fire from the highway. That, of course, is no big deal to these people. But rain, oh no! Stay indoors! Lock up the children! Cover the swimming pools! The sky is falling! I guess, it just goes to show you that the fear of the unknown is alive and well in the 21st century.

So, I bet some of you are saying, "Man, that Pete used to deluge us with information. It was like a firehose of words aimed right at my eyeballs. But now, it's more like a regular hose, that was used last week, and only the lukewarm water that has been sitting in it since then trickles out when you pick it up and runs down your leg." Well, that's true and beautifully put, but there's a reason apart from laziness and sickness. I'm still working on site at that temp job in El Segundo. My guess is that I'll be out there for at least another couple weeks. So, I work there for eight hours (7:30-3:30) with no lunch break, I spend at least an hour and a half in the car commuting, then when I get home, I get straight to work on my freelance project. I should be finishing that up pretty soon, and I've got a couple more lined up. Anyway, by the time I quit working around 10:30 or 11:00, I'm too tired to communicate with you ingrat--, er fine people. Hopefully, after I finish out in El Segundo, I'll have enough work to do at home, that I won't have to go out on site any where, but who knows?

By the way, for those of you who are itching to have one these here for yourself but don't have the option to host it yourself, you can get a free one at <a href="http://www.blogspot.com/">http://www.blogspot.com/</a>.

So, we went down to Murrietta to the dealership where we bought our car for them to reattach my mirror that had been knocked off a couple weeks ago (See July 2nd). Three guys came out to check out the problem with the mirror, and then finally one of them just popped it back in right in front of us. I promise that I tried that at home, but I'm somewhat consoled by the fact that it took three of them. Plus, my pride is a lot cheaper than a brand new mirror. A lot cheaper.

Hey everybody, here are some pictures of the new place. Let me know if you have any questions, as I suspect that they are mostly self-explanatory.

I am declaring my head cold nonsense officially over. I think I've gone all day without coughing, sneezing or blowing my nose. To answer Jason's question, Jamie and I have a 2003 VW Jetta Wagon TDI. Jeff tells me that he prefers me to say 'not comfortable with myself' rather than 'fat', because he apparently has a MONOPOLY ON FAT!!! Anyway, I'm going to try and get those pictures going now...

Here's that business card I was talking about...<p><img src="images/Thumbbusinesscard.jpg" border=1>

Good evenings. I thought that now that I have lived here in LA for a grand total of two and a half weeks, I should go over what I've learned so far. Here goes: <ol> <li>Parallel parking. I'll probably continue to get better, but I am pretty impressed with myself and some of the spots I've squeezed into, and even more impressed with the spots I've squeezed the car into. <li>I'm fat. <li>20 miles = 90 minutes <li>Los Angeles is no San Diego <li>1920's Spanish style buildings lose their charm when crammed together and layered with (2003 - 1920) 83 years of dirt and grime. <li>Los Angeles in the summer without air conditioning can get pretty darn warm. <li>Not to feel bad about the cliché that is listing what you've learned in your first two and a half weeks in LA. </ol>

I feel kind of bad blogging from work, but I've done everything I can do until I get a call back from someone, so I figured I should make some use of my time, rather than just sitting here staring at my phone. What have I been doing? Well, the person who set up this software didn't really seem to know what they were doing, so I'm going through and reconfiguring what's there. The software is called Soffront, and it's not a bad little product, unless someone goes in and messes with things they don't know about. Apart from that, I am generating reports for the sales team that keep track of who is doing what. The trip to work went fairly quickly today. I think there was an accident on the 405 just north of where I get on it, so traffic was pretty light. Mark sent me his text editor, which was very helpful in solving some problems here at work today.

By the way, I have taken some pictures of our new place, and as soon as I can get them on to my computer, I'll make them available. I might even do it here, if someone were kind enough to offer their thumbnail generator and method for putting pics on their blog. (inconspicuous whistle) I created some business cards last night for Flatland Media. I figure I should have something to give to people that I come into contact with.

I may have just moved into the realm of 3 meals a day. I haven't been a regular breakfast eater since my mom used to make an Eggo for me in the mornings. The only way I could even stomach that was because I wasn't even really awake yet. Working out of the house, I tend to sleep later and go to bed later, so I usually just wait till lunch to eat. Years of that practice have made the thought of food before 10:30 am give me a queasy feeling. But having to get up at 6:30 and drive 30 minutes to work, I figure I could do with a bit more energy in the mornings, so I'm eating some kind of cereal bar. You know the one from the commercial that has the milk in the bar as well. Well, I think by 'milk', they mean 'marshmallow', but I'm not complaining. For my second meal, I had a sausage and pepperoni lean pocket and two strawberry shortcake fruit newtons. Was it delicious? Yes. Am I bored right now? Yes.

I think I might become the hero of LA, if I were to introduce the left turn signal at many of the intersections throughout our neighborhood. At almost every light, in spite of heavy traffic, two cars get to turn left, and they have to pull out in the intersection and wait for the light to turn red to do it. All the more reason for me to plan my routes with only right turns.

It seems like just yesterday that I last blogged. Unfortunately, the clear display of the dates on this blog give me away. Well, at least the reason is good news. I posted my resume on monster.com earlier this week. The next day I got several responses, including one from a company that specializes in temp jobs for computer professionals, Volt. They had found an opportunity that seemed to match with my resume. We talked a couple times that day, and then the next day, Thursday, I started a 2-3 week project in El Segundo! The only down side is that I have to commute, and Jamie has to take the bus or walk to work when I'm gone with the car. The commute can be as short as 20 minutes with no traffic, but it has taken me as long as an hour and a half to get home. I tell you, if someone is going to invent an alternative to our highway system, they'll probably be sitting on the Santa Monica Freeway when they come up with it. The job is at Menemsha Companies, a general contractor that does a lot of Starbuck's work. They need me, because they bought an ASP-based Customer Relationship Management software package, and they need it customized for their company. The work is right up my alley, and I enjoy it, except that I have to use Notepad to write the code in, which slows me down a little bit.

On another note, Jamie and I qualified for Wawanesa insurance, which is about the cheapest auto insurance I've ever seen, but it is apparently hard to qualify. The only thing we have to do to finish up the process is get California driver's licenses. So, very soon, we will become official residents.

First of all, this head cold that is still lingering really robs me of the will to write. But I laugh in my head cold's face (which I guess is also my face), and I write anyway. I don't think I mentioned it before, but we had been having some weird problems with the water in our bathtub not draining while at the same time the water in the toilet made strange noises. So, we called in the landlord, who brought over some drano. We were about to leave for the 4th, so we decided to wait on the drano until we returned. On Sunday, we poured in the drano, and then ran hot water, but the hot water itself didn't seem to want to go down the drain. To make matters worse, when we flushed the toilet, water went up instead of down. Just for kicks, I thought I'd see what happened when I ran the bathroom sink. When I did, stuff started coming up out of the drain in the bathtub. Enter Roto-Rooter. The landlord got Roto-Rooter there within a few minutes. When I started to describe the problem, the guy was finishing my sentences, because he knew exactly what the problem was. It took a couple hours to fix, and I had to hold it for a while, but now everything is up and running.

On another note, I just saw a squirrel outside my window, which reminded me that we saw a possum or an oppossum outside my window the other night. It was kind of creepy, like it was a baby ROUS.

Hey, just wanted to let you know that Jeff finally posted a musing. And Jason, welcome to the LATE nineties.

Jamie and I didn't get back to the Siebers until 12:30 or so last night. Then, we had to get up at 5:30 this morning to head back up to LA for Jamie's first day of work, which starts at 9:00 am. On the bright side, we made really good time with no traffic. The down side is that now I have to force myself to stay awake until it's time to take her to work. I tried holding my eyelids open with toothpicks to no avail, so I'm writing this instead.

We spent the day on Coronado Island at Jamie's aunt and uncle's place. Jeff was there, as was Noella and her boyfriend Jason. First off, we attended the parade. I mentioned that I didn't really get the concept of parades, and Jeff explained that it was because I wasn't in band in high school. Touche. It was pretty out there for California, but I would like to point out that I did not get sunburned, even though I spent 45 minutes in the sun with no sunscreen. (Upon realizing this, I ran home to lather myself up. with SPF 45 90 3000 googleplex.) In the afternoon, we got to see a patriotic medley of American favorites down the years performed by a 'non-audition' group that had driven all the way from South Dakota just for this one performance. By the way, in case you weren't sure, 'non-audition' = 'they don't have to be good' = 'they weren't. We took all we could stand, went back to the house and had a virtual meat party for dinner (not a real meat party, because Shana's grill wasn't there). We went out to the golf course to watch the fireworks, and while we waited, Orlando Spinelli's lesser known cousins performed some pretty awesome magic tricks with some glow sticks. The fireworks were great, and then we headed back to the house to have dessert and play games until traffic off the island had died down enough for us to leave. The End. Good night.

Well, I didn't really plan to write anything until after the 4th, but I microwaved my TheraFlu for a little bit too long, so I'm sipping on it while it cools off, and I've got to do something. So, the ear-nose-throat affliction has turned into something less painful but more annoying. My throat doesn't hurt anymore, but I've got all kinds of drainage all of a sudden, and a real deep throat cough. I couldn't sleep last night either because of the Claritin that Connie gave me for my illness, or because I started reading Harry Potter yesterday and had a hard time putting it down.

On our way down to Fallbrook today, through multitudes of traffic, I saw a couple things of note.

1) A license plate on a car in front of me that read UB SOBER. I assume that it was meant as an admonishment to the rest of us to not drink and drive. But to me, it seems really counterproductive and a bad idea. Once a person is driving drunk, it's too late to remind them to stay sober. Instead, you may be convincing a drunk person that they really are sober. Imagine a mind in the drunken state, driving along, thinking that he might be a little too tipsy to drive. He's just about to pull over and call a friend to come pick him up when he sees in front of him, barely able to read it, but in his drunken state he thinks it's a message from God, UB SOBER. "Yerrightz," he says to himself, "I be tobally sover." So, my take is good intentions with the license plate buddy, but let's come up with something else, like UB HAMRD.

2) I witnessed my first California wildfire today. It was in Lake Elsinore on I-15 between LA and San Diego. You could see the smoke for miles. The fire itself was about a half mile east of the interstate, and you could actually see the flames. Several helicopters and planes were making trips back and forth from Lake Elsinore on the west side of the highway dumping water on the flames. It was mind-blowing. We could see houses up in the hills engulfed in flames. And people thought it was dangerous for us to live in Manhattan!

OK, the TheraFlu is almost gone...

Jamie wanted to post occasionally as well, so she now has a blog at http://www.thesegues.com/jamie/starr/. Enjoy!  (And coming soon, a blog from Jason).

Well, it had to happen, and now the worrying is over. When we went out to get in our car, which we have to park on the street, the mirror on the driver's side was bent back the way it's not supposed to go. It did snap back into place, and there appears to be no scraping of the paint or contusions of the metal. However, the mirror part is just hanging on by two wires. So, I'll take it by the dealer's tomorow on our way to San Diego for the 4th of July to see if they can snap it back into place. Till then, a nice bit of clear packing tape will keep it from falling off any further, I daresay.  And we'll learn to pop our mirrors in while parked on the street.

In an attempt to liven my spirits and give Jamie something to do in between Harry Potter chapters, we took a drive down to the beach this afternoon. We headed down Santa Monica Blvd, all the way to the ocean. The 12 mile route took just under an hour of travel time. But it was nice with the windows down, going a mean 15 mph. We strolled down the beach a bit, where Jamie got her feet and pants wet. We admired the sand castles and the sunburns of people who very recently must have looked like me. Then, we headed back, but this time I noticed a sign for Interstate 10, or "the 10", or the Santa Monica Freeway. I thought this might be a lot faster, and it seemed that way for a full 5 seconds, when traffic ground to a halt, and we averaged about 30 mph all the way home. Needless to say, it is going to take me a while to gauge how long it is going to take us to get from point A to point B. So, if I say I'm on my way, that means I should be there within the next 24 hours.

Well, boo, I've come down with some sort of ear, nose, and throat affliction that has robbed me of my will to talk, smile, and just move in general. But out of sheer discipline, I thought I shouldn't go too long without posting something here. Somehow my sinus problems are mixing with the smells coming in through my office window to become something quite disturbing. I know it's not just the smells, because Jamie would have picked up on the bad smell miles away. The fact that there are smells coming from my office window reminds me to let all of you Texans know that we don't have air conditioning here. In spite of that and it being July, it's quite comfortable in our shady little bungalow with the windows open and a cool breeze blowing through.