Category: Haightlife

General news and thinking about living in the Alderete-McCune household.

Ph.D. Exams Completed With Flying Colors

As I described prior to our vacation, Rochelle and I have been working hard on our Ph.D. (in tequila), and had planned to take our final exam this past Sunday (June 1st). I’m pleased to report that we passed with flying colors, in spite of a serious handicap.

As I described prior to our vacation, Rochelle and I have been working hard on our Ph.D. (in tequila), and had planned to take our final exam this past Sunday (June 1st). I’m pleased to report that we passed with flying colors.

The exam is a serious one — maybe not as tough as a real Ph.D. orals exam, but certainly equivalent of a college undergraduate final exam. 70 questions, multiple choice, true/false, and fill-in-the-blank; you must finish in 20 minutes, taking it at the bar, with the other patrons chanting at you.

Many of the questions are trick questions, and require you to know, for example, the difference between Herradura Silver and Herradura Blanco (at most distilleries, they are one and the same). No one has ever scored a 100% on the exam, and only one person has missed only one question. I missed two questions, and Rochelle missed three.

We studied hard for this exam. We bought two very good books on tequila, and read both (and you should see Rochelle’s color-coded page tabs!). Julio provides study material, and Rochelle and I each created a set of flash cards to study it. Although we didn’t do as much studying while we were on vacation as we had planned, it was basically all we did on Saturday and Sunday prior to taking the exam. We knew our flash cards cold, and the couple of the questions that were not in the study materials were either in the book, or had so annoyed our friend David (who took the text a couple months ago) that he kept repeating them, over and over, whenever he talked about his Ph.D. (Quick, what was the original logo for Patrón tequila?)

We did end up taking the exam with a handicap. You only qualify to take the exam when you’ve completed your Ph.D. tasting card, which requires you to sample 35 100% blue agave tequilas while at Tommy’s (and you cannot sample more than three in a single visit). Before our vacation I was two visits away from finishing, and Rochelle was one. We had intended to go once before our trip, so that Rochelle could be done, and I would only have to have two tequilas before taking the test.

Well, we never made it there, and an hour before we headed to Tommy’s for the exam, we realized that Rochelle needed to drink two cocktails before taking her exam — and I had to drink five. That’s 10 ounces of tequila, folks.

Fortunately, we had three hours at the bar before we took the test, and Julio let me start the exam once my fifth cocktail was poured (so I had only drunk four), but even so, I was not even close to sober. So I suppose the fact that I didn’t remember the town where Chinaco tequila is made can be excused.

When Will I Ever Learn?

Our youngest cat, Luigi, has really stinky poo. He used to wake us up with his poos, but we got wise, and he doesn’t crap in the litterbox that’s just off our bedroom anymore. Instead he uses the box in the water closet, across from the bathroom. The problem is, he likes to do it when we’re taking a bath. As you might guess, this makes the bath a lot less enjoyable.

OK, fair warning, this is a cat poo story.

Continue reading “When Will I Ever Learn?”

Toxic Duty

So we got a new cat, the week before Xmas. Luigi is a 5-year old male, black and white shorthair, with a really sweet, cuddly, docile temperment. Luigi has a serious problem, though, something not disclosed to us when we adopted him. A lesser household might have shipped him back to animal control, a virtual death sentence. There’s no way to say this nice: Luigi has toxic poo.

I wrote this posting at the beginning of January, but never made it live, by accident. It’s still a good post, so I thought I’d make it live now. Especially since I want to make a follow-up post to it. (Hold your noses!)

Ever since Cecil died, Basta has been getting more and more bold, and taken more and more of the house away from Billie, to the point where Billie can only count on being safe under our bed, or on our shoulders.

So we got a new cat, the week before Xmas. Luigi is a 3-year old male, black and white shorthair, with a really sweet, cuddly, docile temperment. We adopted him to be pals with Billie, which will hopefully tilt the balance of power in the house somewhere back towards even. So far they’re not quite buddies, but at least Billie has stopped hissing whenever he looks in her direction.

Luigi has a serious problem, though, something not disclosed to us when we adopted him. A lesser household might have shipped him back to animal control, a virtual death sentence. There’s no nice way to say this: Luigi has toxic poo.

The first time he crapped, Rochelle and I were sitting in bed, watching TV. At first, we were “What’s that?”, followed closely by “Eeeewww, open the window!” The smell continued to grow, and opening the window and holding the bedsheets over our noses still wasn’t enough, so Rochelle braved the stench, and ran the litterbox to the kitchen, and came back and lit a scented candle. That solved the immediate problem, but later we discovered that the kitchen reeked, and Rochelle retched.

The next time Luigi did his business in the box off the bedroom, we sprang into action immediately. I grabbed the box and took it into the hall, and scooped the offending material into a plastic bag, while Rochelle opened the window and lit the candle again. It worked reasonably well, and that has been our routine about every 20 hours.

This morning it happened around 6am. I was barely awake, and Rochelle was asleep. I decided I was too tired to get up, and simply put my head under the bedcovers, with the intent that if it woke Rochelle up, we’d handle it then.

Well, not only did it wake Rochelle up about 10 minutes later, but the odor was so powerful that before waking she dreamed that Luigi had pooped, woke up grateful that it had only been a dream, and then shreaked when she took a good whiff and realized it was real.

Our vet tells us that there’s nothing obviously wrong with Luigi, or his poop, which was tested earlier today. But it’s definitely one of the more fragrant samples they’ve encountered, and they don’t believe it can be normal, so Luigi will be getting general antibiotics later today.

Please, god, let that take care of the problem!

A Comedy of Errors

Rochelle and I have great fun with each other while on vacations, but we don’t always travel well together. Our trip to Costa Rica was a textbook example. The passport problem was just the beginning of our troubles.

Rochelle and I have great fun with each other while on vacations, but we don’t always travel well together. Our trip to Costa Rica was a textbook example. The passport problem was just the beginning of our troubles.

We actually, for the first time ever, were completely packed well before our departure time. This was critical, because we’d made dinner plans with friends, to go visit RNM across the street (great food, spotty service). We’d intended to send them off with an hour of time left before leaving, but we were having a such a good time that we suddenly freaked out when we realized we had only 20 minutes to get ready and leave.

Among the many things we accidently left behind were Rochelle’s new flip-flops, really nice ones with loofa-style surface for massaging your feet as you walk. And we left some critical travel supplies (booze and sleeping pills), which meant our plane time was torture. Like democracy, air travel sucks, but it’s better than all the alternatives — especially if you can consistently knock yourself out.

I also didn’t get to pet all of my kitties before leaving, at least not the way I like to before taking off for a week. The taxi out to the airport is where I always think, maybe I should just stay home.

There aren’t very many direct flights to Costa Rica, so we were flying by way of Houston, where we had hoped to hook up with Rochelle’s brother for breakfast. But Code Orange got in the way of him being able to meet us, and we weren’t able to make contact by mobile phone to make alternate plans, so we just headed to our gate. Fortunately there was a bar literally right next to our gate, and the biscuits and gravy from the Popeye’s 100 yards away was astonishingly good. I think that says oceans about the food they serve on planes.

Two things did work out well for us. Our friend David was able to connect with us in Houston, and continue with us to Costa Rica (he was with us the entire trip, except the SF<–>Houston legs). And our flight timing, starting at 1am on Friday and getting us into Costa Rica at noon, was brilliant, because we were able to grab our rental car, race out to the hotel, throw our stuff in our room, and proceed directly to the pool and chill out. Once the waiter brought us drinks, we were almost completely recovered from our travel traumas.

Stupidity tax, part two

So, getting ready for our trip, Rochelle was going to Xerox our passports, so we would have copies, just in case. I was in the tub, and she went to get mine. A minute later, she came down the hall, laughing, “A ha, Michael is a dumbass!” It turns out my passport expired on 30 April 2003. Oops. We had exactly 18 hours to figure out what to do.

So, getting ready for our trip, Rochelle was going to Xerox our passports, so we would have copies, just in case. I was in the tub, and she went to get mine. A minute later, she came down the hall, laughing, “A ha, Michael is a dumbass!” It turns out my passport expired on 30 April 2003. Oops.

We had exactly 18 hours to figure out what to do. Rochelle checked a Costa Rica web site, remembering that you could take a photo ID and your birth certificate, and that would be enough. It turned out that that rule had expired on 1 May. Oops.

A quick internet search turned up Plan B, travisa, which is able to do same-day passports in four cities in the U.S. One of them — thank god — is San Francisco. Rochelle called them, and the cut-off is 10am. It was 8:30am, so plenty of time. They even were able to take the photo.

The damage: the US Government takes an extra $60 to do an expedited passport renewal. travisa’s service fee was $139 + $10 for the photo. Doing the math, that’s an extra $210 above what it would have cost if we’d done this after getting back from France — which is when I should have noticed this.

What’s really fucked up about this is, we decided not to take the direct flight from SFO to San Jose, because it was an extra $110 per person. One hour of massage in Costa Rica is $20, so that would be five massages. So we decided we could deal with the indirect flight by getting massages, and come out even, or ahead, really, because we were going to do the massages anyway.

Well, that’s how the stupidity tax works, you think you’re getting ahead, and in an instant you wipe it all out. Ah, well…

DHI 126

Daily Home Improvements: Shredding.

DHI 126: Cleared off my dresser top, mostly by shredding all the old ATM and credit card receipts I was keeping there. After two years, it seems unlikely I was ever really going to enter them into Quicken…

Wow, my worst week ever. I started well, working on the dresser crap while Rochelle watched the network movie Martha, Inc., but then did nothing for the rest of the week.

Oh, well…

Paying the Stupidity Tax

Rochelle and I have a thing we call the “stupidity tax.” It’s where you pay more money than you should, for a really dumb reason. My most common stupidity tax is forgetting to send in rebate forms. Last week I paid the stupidity tax three times.

Rochelle and I have a thing we call the “stupidity tax.” It’s where you pay more money than you should, for a really dumb reason. My most common stupidity tax is forgetting to send in rebate forms.

Last week I paid the stupidity tax three times:

  • Paid my car registration three days too late. ($12)
  • Waited until too close to our vacation to order from Amazon.com, and had to pay for expedited shipping. ($13)
  • Let Rochelle go to the MADE IN FRANCE open warehouse and moving sale unsupervised. ($300)

At least I get to eat the cheese from the last one.

Graduate Education

As many of you know, Rochelle and I have been involved in graduate studies for a couple years now, and we’re finally coming to the end of the program. We’ve been doing a lot of coursework, including extended exercises at home that are not required to graduate, but are required for complete mastery. Rochelle has just one class session left, while I have two, and then it’s just final exams for us.

As many of you know, Rochelle and I have been involved in graduate studies for a couple years now, and we’re finally coming to the end of the program. We’ve been doing a lot of coursework, including extended exercises at home that are not required to graduate, but are required for complete mastery. Rochelle has just one class session left, while I have two, and then it’s just final exams for us.

We’re about to go on a short vacation, and are taking all our study materials with us. We’ll get home, and two days later take exams. Then we’ll get our Ph.D.s, and become eligible for field work with our favorite professor! If you can believe it, there’s actually a waiting list for volunteers for his trips, so it’ll probably be next year before we can head down to Mexico with him and do some original research.

There’s a short description of our program available online, if you’re interested in more details. Yes, it’s a Ph.D. in booze. What did you think we would be studying???

DHI 115-121

Daily Home Improvements: HTML work, cable babysitting, redesign work, The World as a Blog, saving junk, RSS work, and some purging of crap.

DHI 115: Continued my obsessive tweaking of this site’s HTML template until I finally got it to (once again) validate as correct HTML. We’ll see how long that lasts…

DHI 116: Stayed home to wait for The Cable Guy to fix our cable. Two days in a row.

DHI 117: Began some major work on this weblog’s design, with the intention of moving it to XHTML + CSS. This is going to be some effort, so you may see the results in chunks as I roll them out.

DHI 118: Added Geo Tags to this blog. Now, before you sneeeeef at how nerdy this is, you should check out the geoblog, where you can see the world wake up and blog, in real-time. Very groovy. Uh, to us nerds…

DHI 119: Moved some empty (future eBay shipping) boxes down to the basement, and generally cleared the crap from a small area of the massive pile of crap in my office.

DHI 120: Added channel-specific RSS feeds for this site. This involved fixing a defect in the software that I use to run this blog, which was preventing the easy changes from working.

DHI 121: Emptied out one of my many plastic storage bins of a bunch of home electronics (center speaker, side speakers, cables, cheap analog camera, etc.) that I don’t want, or want to store, any more. On its way to Goodwill, eventually.