Comfortable in My Skin - Round 2 Sponsored by Cetaphil®

Major Updates

One thing is for sure, this post isn't going to be about how I've completed my blogging goal. It's been about 2 months since I last posted... my apologies. Anyway, in that time I've been pretty busy knocking out goals. So, without further ado, here they are in no particular order (with some commentary for each):

1. Get a new job - I finally managed to get out of IBM. It was time. I had been moved around several times in recent history and it was looking like it was going to happen again. I'm working at UC Davis now. For the next 2 years I will be working, along with developers from many other universities across the US, on an open source project called Kuali. I'll be working on administration software needed by universities. Sounds like it's going to be alot of fun!
2. Clean up and plant the south planting area in the back yard - While there are new plans to do more and different things with the back yard, I did manage to plant some things in that area. My hops took off and have reached a second floor window. The tomato plants Amanda brought back from work one day exploded into tomato bushes and have yielded a pretty good harvest, with more to come. The pepper plants have yet to bear fruit, but are still healthy. We also had a few rogue sunflowers for a while.
3. Wash and clean both cars - I managed to do this about a week before Amanda's parents came to visit... though I cheated a bit and went to a car wash. I still put in the effort and cleaned them out and vacuumed and cleaned the inside. Still, with as dry and dusty as Sacramento has been, but the time her parents showed up a week later, the cars were caked with dust already.
4. Complete my IBM Healthy Living program each year I'm working for IBM - This is kind of a completion. I was about 2/3 of the way through it when I ceased to be an IBM employee. Still I had done all of the tracking and even did some of the evaluations before I quit.
5. Average at least one date night a month - Through the kindness of one of Amanda's friends, Lisa, we managed to have another date night. We had babysat for Lisa a month or so ago and she called us out of the blue to remind us she owed us. We managed to get quite a bit done around the house and then go out to dinner together. Thanks, Lisa.
6. Take Milo for a walk at least 5 times a week for 3 months - So, having walked Milo daily before vacation and after we returned, I have now averaged 5 times a week for 3 months. Milo is pretty addicted to it now and it seems likely that this practice will continue even though the goal has been met.
7. Get a battery charger and slowly switch Deacon's toys' battery consumption to rechargeables - Got the charger and have not bought non-rechargeable batteries since. On a side note, we got the "eneloop"-brand charger. Seemed to be the best mix between the 'fast'-chargers that shorten the overall lifetime of the battery and the 'trickle'-chargers which take forever to charge but make each battery seemingly last forever.

That's the end of my list. There are quite a few more goals in progress, but I'll write about those when I complete them.

Another ethnic restaurant down

To celebrate Amanda's last day at UC Davis last week, I went to Davis and took her out to lunch. She was craving Thai food, so we ate at the Thai Bistro in Davis. The food was quite good! Amanda got her usual Pad See Ewe and I got a Yellow Curry. The portions were great for lunch and included a small salad. I also had the Iced Thai Tea which was typical, but good.

It's your typical 'hole-in-the-wall' Thai joint much like Amanda's and my favorite, Tawan's in San Francisco. We both liked it enough that we'd go back... if we had reason to be in Davis.

Thai Bistro
234 E Street
Davis, CA 95616
(530) 747-0123

Catch Up

OK, so it's easy to fall behind on posting when you've gone on vacation. So here's a quick update of the items completed just before or during vacation:

• Finished the walk/run daily for at least a month before we left... good thing since I didn;t keep up with it on vacation.
• Had a date night while on vacation (movie and dinner at Benihana).

Still playing games

Ok, so this is more like what I expected. Cards! We are still playing
games and I'm well on my way toward completing this goal too!

Working on the office

So, here's my latest progress on the office. I think this is proving
to be one of the harder lost items. More later.

Another One Bites the Dust

So this past week I finally knocked another complete item off my list.  I updated my resume.  Check it out at http://www.eversmann.com/damien/resume.html.  It's even available in several formats.