Melissa Vaughn

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Monday 2/27/2006 10:00AM
Had a nice weekend. Cleaned the house and had Vicki and Jason over for dinner on Saturday. On Sunday Paul and I drove around looking at commercial land for investment.

I got my tax papers and files together finally!

It's gray, windy and trying to rain today.

Thursday 2/23/2006 7:45AM
Yesterday I picked up Bettina from Lebec (She dropped off her truck to have something fixed) then we had coffee and breakfast at Coffee Catina. We stopped at the ranch on the way back and I introduced her to the owners, Vicki and her husband, and the horses. It felt like summer yesterday the weather was so nice. We came back and worked on the computers until around 3:45 then went back to pick up Bela Jr and her truck in Lebec.

Bettina cooked dinner for me and the kids and I hung out after and helped Bela Jr. with his math homework. Paul had dinner off the hill with Wayne who he had worked with the night before until 6:45am. Paul had two meeting scheduled yesterday and only had two hours of sleep. He does amazingly well on little sleep. I don't know how he does it.

Wednesday 2/22/2006 7:40AM
I was exhausted yesterday. Worked at the ranch in the morning and again in the afternoon. We actually got a couple of feet of snow during the night and I drove on icy roads to get down there in the morning. It wasn't too bad, just took it slow like everyone else on the road. By the time I left that morning it was all but completely melted. Did some work on the computer for my regular clients. Bettina was working diligently on the Global West Catalog over here. She's nearing completion on that and I need to finish up with the programming side of that. Paul rescued the images for that site off of Margo's crashed computer. I napped and took a break from working for the rest of the day. I ached 'Weeds' on my iPod and bought a program to take DVDs and turn them into MP4 Files for the iPod. After much research I decided on something called PQDVD. It's for windows and works well, very easy to use too. It takes a little less than half of the time of the video to create the output file. I just finished converting two of the April (horsemanship) videos.

Time for breakfast and coffee. I'm taking Bettina down to drop her car off at the shop.

iPod Update: I'm definitely in love with my iPod now because I have overlooked it's faults and am accepting it for who it is now. I have bought special stick on protection for it and take it pretty much everywhere with me now.

Monday 2/20/2006 9:00AM
I bought an audio book by Pema Chodron called Getting Unstuck based on Tibetan teachings about our attachments and habitual behavior. It's very good.

I've got a good start on Monday. Work up and had breakfast and coffee and worked out on the eclipse.

We had a relatively uneventful but nice weekend at home. It snowed off and on over the weekend, but nothing as heavy as they were talking about on the news. Maybe two inches all together. It's mostly melted off now and the skys are blue and cloudy again.

Saturday 2/18/2006 9:00AM
I love guilt-free sleeping in on Saturdays. It's beautiful out with about 1/2 inch of snow on the ground. The sky is blue and cloudy.

We had Bettina and her three kids over last night. I made tacos and lobster pasta. It's always so cozy when it's snowing out. We had a fire and listened to music while the kids watched TV in the end room.

Paul bought a Creative Zen music player (no video, just music). It's pretty clunky compared to the iPod and it's much bigger and heavier, though I think it's last years model, so maybe it's not a fair comparison. Now I'm not regreting buying the iPod as much.

Friday 2/17/2006 8:00AM
Ahh, Friday's are good! Yesterday I went down and had a nice meeting with Belinda and we went over the To-Do list for one of her sites. It was great to see her and Arlene. I've been working for Belinda for five or six years now and she has become a good friend to Paul and I.

I took Michelle her computer and got to see where she is working now in Ventura. She showed me a little "Heal the Bay" type sticker she found while voulenteering to help clean up a river bed. It said, "No dumping. Drains to ocean." I thought that was pretty funny.

Jimmy dropped off the lobster for me at Belinda's house, since it was near where he was before he went to work (he's a farrier). Belinda named the "bug" Charlie and we kept him on ice. We were a little worried about him because he was looking a little sluggish, so I called Jim and asked if I should give him anything to drink or anything. Jim said he had already fed him a cheeseburger before he dropped him off so he was fine. Anyway, I got him home in the evening and cooked him up. He was huge and barely fit in the pot. I stuck his head in the boiling water first to kill him... ugg, I know that sounds awful, but he really didn't "scream" like everyone was saying he would, he barely even moved. Then I steamed him and served him with butter and garlic, per Jimmy's instructions. It was delicious! Paul's not too much on lobster so I got most of it. He did try it though. I cooked some battered pork chops and rice for Paul. I still have some lobster left over today.

Wednesday 2/15/2006 9:30AM
Went to work at the ranch yesterday. It was good to get back to see the horses and to see Vicki. I hung out with her after feeding the herd, while she exercised Uno in the round pen. Uno is doing very well and she's planning on riding him again. She rode Bacchanal for the first time yesterday and said that she was very good. Bacchanal was a race horse who changed hands six times and was abused by her last owners who roped her and caused damage to her legs and probably her neck as well.

Paul brought me home a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Valentine's day. It was very nice and thoughtful of him, especially because neither of us is that big on stuff like this and it was quite unexpected. He also bought and added new memory to my laptop which is making it run faster now. He's a sweetie.

I've hired Bettina to help me with some data entry for one of my clients. She is very meticulous and it is so nice to have someone I trust completely to help out with my workload. I've been really tired this week and unmotivated. Today I'm starting to feel better. I'm starting the day off with fresh baked orange cinnamon rolls and tea. Paul is also feeling better, he thought he was coming down with the flu for a few days there. I guess whatever it was we fought it off. Paul is off to the dentist today to get some work done on his teeth.

I'm determined to make some time to get the rest of the photos up. There are not that many more... I'm just lagging and it's something I want to get done so I don't think about it anymore. I've got phone meetings today and meetings down in Thousand Oaks and Ventura tomorrow. I've got to take Michelle her laptop, which Paul fixed up for her.... and maybe go see my WONDERFUL cousin Jimmy, who called my yesterday to tell me he caught a lobster for me. :)

I have a love-hate relationship with my iPod. On a scale of 1-10 today I like my iPod 8.

Monday 2/13/2006 10:AM
I spent most of Saturday loading CD's into my iPod and trying all of the features. I still haven't sucessfully loaded any full length movies but I finally gave in and assimilated with the iBorg and bought two things off of iTunes, a stand up comedy staring with Mitch Hedburg and some other TV show which I'd never heard of and haven't watched yet.

After a meeting in Topanga I went to the beach yesterday and had a wonderful time talking to Robert and watching Gabe surf. I can't believe Gabe is 15 now. He's getting so big. I still remember catching frogs with him when he was three. He's a sweet kid. I gave him a Monster Pipeline T-shirt, some stickers and a surf map of O'ahu.

We stayed and talked until the sun was close to setting and it was getting too cold to sit anymore. Gabe and his friend Gabe wanted to stay and surf more. I guess the waves were getting really good at that point.

Bela Jr's Birthday was yesterday and we went next door for dinner. I had Mike Chapman following me when I got back from the beach around 8:30 so he was promptly invited by Bela Sr. to eat with us. As usual Bela cooked a gourmet dinner of seared/fried sashimi grade tuna, lamb, fettuccine... something, potatoes, rice, bread, etc. It was delicious. We stayed up drinking and talking until the guys got into the usual political debates and I was fading.

Friday 2/10/2006 10:AM
Things I don't Like about the iPod G5
First of all I must apologize to my friends who own stock in Mac or to those who get easily offended when anyone says anything bad about an Apple product.

Except by plugging into a computer and using iTunes, I haven't found a way to do the following simple tasks:

remove songs from a play list that are already created
remove play lists

If there is a way to do this please enlighten me.

Annoying features

You cant toggle shuffle on and off at the playlist you have to go to the main settings menu and change it for all play lists then go back to your play list.
I had to laugh when I read somebody's comment about how the iPod was so great because of it's "revolutionary shuffle feature". Hasn't "shuffle" been around since the 8-track???
Instructions warn not to short charge the iPod but syncing songs or videos from your computer also charges it. So what, are you supposed to wait until you have drained your battery to add anything onto your iPod.
iPod doesn't come with a power adapter meaning that the only way you can charge it is by plugging it into a computers usb port. This is one of those "accessories" that seems like it should have come with the thing.
You can only play mpeg 4 format video on iPod. And it seems only videos purchased on iTunes will work. I downloaded one off of limewire and after 10 or 20 seconds the movie pauses then resumes without sound. This appears to be a known bug. Some have suggested that it can be fixed by re-exporting it using QuickTime (cost $30 to register QuickTime).
When viewing the photo album with the slide show feature, the back light still turns off at the set amount of time so to let someone see your photos you have to go to the main settings menu and change the backlight to "always on". Then when you are done viewing photos go back and set it back to shut off automatically so you don't waste the battery.
The backlight is ridiculously bright, especially in the dark when you are falling asleep and want to change songs or turn it off. There doesn't seem to be a way to adjust the brightness. On the other hand it makes a great flash light. I used it to find the bathroom last night.
Running iTunes makes my computer extremely slow. I'm used to running 10 apps at a time including Photoshop and Flash and nothing makes my computer come to a crawl like running iTunes does.

Mac users are always touting that it's so "easy to use". Anyone with half a brain should find any player just as easy to use. I've never run a music playing devise that is hard to use... seriously folks, what's up with this? They take away 50% of the features and options and call it easier to use?

I'm considering getting the Creative Zen Vision next time. I still kind of like the iPod just because I can listen to music all of the time with it, but I think it may have made a mistake buying it instead of another player.

The ideal player would have all of the features of the Creative Zen plus a touch screen or way to edit contacts and notes like a hand held organizer.

Thursday 2/9/2006 12:25PM
OK, I'm having withdrawals now, working sucks. I want to go back to Hawaii and lay in the sun under the palm trees and swim in the ocean. I miss my new friends and even the crazy Brazilians.

I need to get grounded so I can get back to work, but it's very hard after too much coffee and too much sleep. I need to dive into an ocean. I want a distraction but I need to get focused. I know I will settle but I need a few more days.

I started smoking again while I was in Hawaii, not that I totally quit, but I only smoked occasionally when I drank for the last month or so, usually on the weekends with the neighbors or out with friends. What do they say, idle hands are the devils playground? Well with nothing to do but nothing it's tempting to indulge.

Now, I am going to get back to work... I am... here I go... I am getting back to work now... really ;)

Wednesday 2/8/2006 11:00PM
Settling back into non-vacation life is not totally unbearable. Our wonderful neighbor and friend Bettina cleaned out house while we were gone so it was really nice to come home thinking that we were cleaner neater people than we actually are. I've been getting back to work, still on Hawaii time, and still feeling pretty relaxed about things.

I had such a great time there, relaxing and not thinking about work much. It makes me realize that there are more important things in life... well at least things that are more fun than work, that I need to do more often. Again, I am making a pact with myself not to get so bogged down in work and to have more time for friends, family, and fun.

This Sunday I'm planning to go see Gabe B. (The boy I used to babysit who is now 16!) in a surf contest in Malibu. I have to stop for one meeting with Canyon View Ranch in Topanga and meet Michelle somewhere to give her her laptop that Paul was going to work on, but didn't get a chance to.

Right now I'm about ready for bed. I just took a bath and am reading another horse book (yes, I know it's another obsession). I'm also trying to get some more photos up on the site while downloading stuff for my iPod (I bought a G5 60 Gig). I took way too many photos I think... to many to sort through logically so I'll just throw a bunch up there.

Tuesday 1/31/2006 9:00AM (Hawaii time)
Yesterday we piled into to cars and went to Waikiki. Paul had to get parts in Honolulu so he opted out. I snorkeled out in the ocean, the visibility wasn't that great but the water was nice. Chris Heifner has friends that own Faith Surfing School there so we all got long boards and I had my first surfing lesson. I stood up 3 times. It was really fun but I'm definitely not used to using my muscles in that way. To paddle you really have to hold your upper body up while doing it and my neck and arms were ready to fall off by the time I came in. I also got a headache which my instructor said was common if you are not used to it.

We all went out to sushi dinner at a nice hotel compliments of Billabong and the surf school. The tuna sushi is so good and fresh here. So far I've had sushi almost every day I've been here.

Today I'm a bit sore from the surfing. Paul is still sleeping and I'm in the living room having coffee. Arthur is asleep on the couch and I'm trying not to wake him. A few of the others are up and around somewhere, probably surfing. I'll see what Paul wants to do today, since the contest is not running again. They are going to start that up again tomorrow I think... if the surf is good. There is talk about staying longer, I'll have to talk to Paul and see. He's thinking about going back on Sunday instead of Thursday like we had planned.

Sunday 1/29/2006 9:30AM (Hawaii time)
Finally got some photos uploaded. It's been great here. We are sharing a house on the North Shore of O'ahu that is owned by Billabong. It's been overcast a lot but always warm day and night. The sun is really coming out today and Paul pretty much has the day off. There is no contest running today, just a concert later on. We'll probably do a little sight seeing.

Yesterday was the first day of the webcast and Paul's setup worked great. Delilah and I made a barbque last night for everyone.

My favorite thing to do here is snorkle. There is a place called Sharks Cove just up the road from us and I've gone there 3 times already. I can't wait to go again. I may look for some other places to go too, but everybody says that one is the best. It's not crowded and the water is clear. Now that the waves are getting huge though, it's even a little dangerous because the waves are breaking over the reef. The area right behind our house is called Banzai Pipeline and has some of the biggest surf in the world. It's not safe to go in and only expert surfers surf here. It's great to watch though, even right now I can look out and see 60 to 70 guys out there surfing and body boarding.

Monday 1/23/2006 9:07AM
It's the day before we leave and for some reason everyone decides that they should send me a million things that they MUST have done before I leave. Why, Why, Why do they wait until the last minute. I sent my notice out last Thursday and since then everybody is coming up with new projects and "emergencies" that they knew about for weeks, but just thought to tell me about now. Grrrrr! ok, I'll stop complaining since I just read Jenn's "Hell at Work Week" blog... sorry Jenn :(

Anyway, Paul has a zen-like way about him this morning as he's cutting out foam for the Pelican cases that will hold the 100+ lbs of batteries and radios for Billabong's streaming event. He's going to ship them to Hawaii via UPS so that we don't have to worry about the bomb squad blowing the cases up on the runway at the airport. They do look a little suspicious.

I'm worried about all of my clients and their "emergencies". I can't get everything done, there is just never enough time. Paul says that as long as you have a roof over your head and food to eat, there's nothing to worry about.

It's my own fault for taking on too much work. I'm really trying to stop that, but trying and doing are two different things.

Anyway... I hear snorkeling is fun. (I'll stop whining now.)

Wednesday 1/18/2006 12:15AM
Just got the news from Paul, WE'RE GOING TO HAWAII!!!! I'm so excited.

We will be staying in one of the two houses that Billabong owns on the North Shore "Pipeline" on Oahu. They are paying for a car and Paul's plane ticket so we just need to buy my ticket. I called up Michelle Gardner to let her know. She lives on Hawaii island and I really want to hop over there and see her for a day. We'll be gone for seven days. Michelle says to bring very light clothes and a bathing suit (of course), it's been very warm there lately.

I'm not sure yet which day of the actual surfing event will occur but it will be shown live here: The Billabong Live WebCast Page (providing that Paul does his job ;)).

Wednesday 1/18/2006 9:40AM
I have 23 things on my TO-DO list today and no possible way of finishing them all. I need to PRIORITIZE, which is what I do every day, and move things to tommorow (I'm using Outlook's calendar, which makes this fairly easy.) I had to laugh when I saw how many things I've put on my schedule today though. There's just not enough time! I finally had to tell a potential client today that I'm booked through the middle of next month.

I had a really good sleep last night. I went to bed at 7pm and woke up at 5am this morning. Paul actually was up before I was because he fell asleep early also. This is highly unusual for both of us, but it was nice. I didn't get much sleep the night before. On Monday I drank Japanese beer with Bela and Bettina and even though I only had 2 glasses in the afternoon, and didn't feel drunk at all, I had a really hard time sleeping. I had to get up the next morning at 6 and work at the ranch so I really didn't get much sleep at all. I think my body just doesn't tolerate alcohol the same way anymore. It makes me tired when I drink it and I can't sleep afterwards. I've never really been that into drinking anyway so it's not such a bad thing, plus with a family history of alcoholism on both sides the symptoms are probably a blessing anyway.

There's a possibility that Paul and I may be going to Hawaii for about 7 days around the end of this month. One of his clients is Billabong and they have surf contests all over the world which and feed the video live over the internet. Paul helps them with any problems they run into with the networks they run through. I'm not sure why, but this time they need someone on-site. Since I can work from anywhere as long as I have an internet connection, I can go with him and squeeze in a vacation. He's still waiting for final approval of his bid though.

Hoping...Hoping...Hoping

Sunday 1/15/2006 10:00AM
I'm starting to realize that I have a serious allergy to work on the weekends. I have no desire to get on the computer and do any work. I don't mind doing unpaid projects, but if I start to think about work I get dizzy and fall off my chair (at least that is what I assume would happen, I haven't actually gotten as far as seriously thinking about it).

This morning I was up at 6AM. Yes, folks that's right, even thought I stayed up with Paul watching TV until around 11 or so, I'm becoming a morning person. I usually can't stay in bed after 7AM now that I'm getting up for the horses about twice a week.

I've always loved mornings but I've gotten used to working late and sleeping in late. It feels better to get up early though. I love to have quite time to read on the couch or by the kitchen window with my coffee to watch the birds. Since we had snow last night I put seed out early because the birds always seem to be so hungry when there is snow. I guess it's harder for them to find seed when it snows or maybe they just need the extra food to stay warm.

Saturday 1/14/2006 2:40PM
We are supposed to get snow this weekend. The clouds are moving in. Paul and I are going to go down to Ventura to run some errands and hopefully get back before it gets too sticky. We are taking his 4-wheel drive truck so even if it does snow while we're gone, we wont have to walk up the hill like we did the first winter here, when Paul had the 350z.

It was a rear-wheel car and couldn't make it up the first big hairpin turn in Pinon Pines. It just kept sliding sideways. So we backed back down and parked at the entrance and walked up to the house. It's about a 20 or 30 minute walk, I guess. The snowflake clusters were like big sand dollars and luckily I had my big coat on so I wasn't cold.

I'm looking forward to getting some snow this year. So far we haven't really had any.

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