We finally got our California driver's licenses and plates for the Daewoo. We tried to get personalized plates, but the plate "WOOT," "THE WOO," and "WOO" were already taken! We could go online and order plates, so maybe we will pick something else. Personalized plates are really cheap here compared to Illinois. Plates here are only $30/year to renew if they are personalized, and $40 for new plates (first time original plate).
Yesterday we went to IKEA again, and got a dresser, but when we assembled it, it looked funny in our bedroom. There was another dresser we saw which we think will look better, so we're returning the dresser and exchanging it for the better looking one.
I'll post pictures of the apartment soon! We're almost done unpacking everything. Today we are going to our storage place and completely emptying it, and ending our lease at the public storage.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Today I Got a Free Sewing Machine!
Craigslist.com is so awesome! We've been browsing the items for sale/free on the site for the things we need. I wanted to make some curtains, but realized that I didn't have a sewing machine. I was so used to having one back at home, that it was almost suprising not to have one now. So I checked out craigslist.com for some sewing machines. I also checked out what Walmart had, and the cheapest one was about $80. So I thought that it would be reasonable to pay about $30 for a used one. When I was browsing craigslist.com, I came across a FREE sewing machine. Some lady in a rich area of Oakland was just trying to get rid of hers! So I e-mailed her last night and said I would like to take it if she still had it. So she told me she did still have it and that she would leave it in her driveway for me to pick it up today. I wasn't expecting much for "free." But when we went to pick it up, it looked good, and when I tested it out on a scrap piece of fabric, it sewed great! What a deal!
I took a picture of it. I think its from the 80s or early 90s, but I'm not sure. While I was at it taking pictures, I took a few more. Here's a sneak peak of our apartment. I don't want to take too many pictures right now because we still have boxes all over, and its really messy.
Above is a picture of our kitchen, with the washer and dryer installed. The kitchen hasn't really been remodeled since the 50s or 60s. It has a deep ceramic double sink, with blue and white tile countertop. The stove is gigantic (which you can't see in this picture) and is also from the 60s. I thought I wouldn't like it at first, but it is great to cook on! Its very simple and it has style. All the cabinets are built in, and there are all kinds of secret storage places.
Outside of the kitchen is a lemon tree (which is actually in the neighbor's yard), and lemons hang into our backyard. I've been wanting to pick some lemons, since they look ripe, so today I finally did. Here's a picture of two that I picked. I cut them open to see if they were good, and they were! Its kind of exciting to pick lemons. The good ones are at the top of the tree, so you have to climb high.
I took a picture of it. I think its from the 80s or early 90s, but I'm not sure. While I was at it taking pictures, I took a few more. Here's a sneak peak of our apartment. I don't want to take too many pictures right now because we still have boxes all over, and its really messy.
Above is a picture of our kitchen, with the washer and dryer installed. The kitchen hasn't really been remodeled since the 50s or 60s. It has a deep ceramic double sink, with blue and white tile countertop. The stove is gigantic (which you can't see in this picture) and is also from the 60s. I thought I wouldn't like it at first, but it is great to cook on! Its very simple and it has style. All the cabinets are built in, and there are all kinds of secret storage places.
Outside of the kitchen is a lemon tree (which is actually in the neighbor's yard), and lemons hang into our backyard. I've been wanting to pick some lemons, since they look ripe, so today I finally did. Here's a picture of two that I picked. I cut them open to see if they were good, and they were! Its kind of exciting to pick lemons. The good ones are at the top of the tree, so you have to climb high.
Monday, August 04, 2008
PG&E Came, Plus We Got a Washer & Dryer
Today was a hectic day! Last week on Friday, we called PG&E (pacific gas & electric) so that we could turn on our natural gas and electricity to the apartment. They said they were all booked until next Thursday, but when we told them we were living the apartment already, the guy said he would over-ride our request and we should get our service restored sometime on Monday (today). Happily, the technician came around noon. It was an Asian woman, but she was dressed in manly clothes, drove a mean looking pick up truck, and she had a real short haircut. Now I don't want to sound rude, but I thought it was a man with a high voice. It wasn't until 30 minutes into it that I realized 'he' was a 'she' because of her name tag. Woah! She was an appliance wiz! She turned on our electricity and gas, checked all the appliances, lit all of our pilot lights, and was in general really knowledgeable.
Before the PG&E lady came, Romy went to go pick up our 'new to us' stackable washer and dryer which we found on craigslist for $500. They retail new for about $1200. We got about a one and a half year old used Fridgidair set, front loading, from a couple who had to get rid of them because they were moving to Texas. We did two loads of laundry after our gas and electricity was turned on, and they work great! No more trips to the laundromat! Yay!
Then, we found another craigslist gem, a patio table and two patio chairs for $15. All we have to do is get an umbrella, and some nice cushions for the chairs. All we need now is a weber grill. Sad story, there was a free one on craigslist but when I called, it was already taken. Boo Erns!
Before the PG&E lady came, Romy went to go pick up our 'new to us' stackable washer and dryer which we found on craigslist for $500. They retail new for about $1200. We got about a one and a half year old used Fridgidair set, front loading, from a couple who had to get rid of them because they were moving to Texas. We did two loads of laundry after our gas and electricity was turned on, and they work great! No more trips to the laundromat! Yay!
Then, we found another craigslist gem, a patio table and two patio chairs for $15. All we have to do is get an umbrella, and some nice cushions for the chairs. All we need now is a weber grill. Sad story, there was a free one on craigslist but when I called, it was already taken. Boo Erns!
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Pictures From Mt. Whitney
Okay, so I'm finally posting some pictures from our Mt. Whitney trip. Here they are!
Sunset over the Sierra Nevadas
A view of the Sierra Nevadas from the Inyo Mountains. This picture was taken at about 9,000 ft.
Romy and Jenn the day before the big hike. Mt. Whitney is in the background. It's the peak right above Jenn's head. It looks smaller than the peaks in the foreground.
We saw a beautiful sunrise as we were hiking up the mountain side. The sun rose from behind the Inyo Mountains and Death Valley.
Mt. Whitney is the large peak in the middle of the picture.
A view of Lower Boyscout Lake from above.
A foggy valley below us. Jenn and Courtney take a break from hiking.
Romy is ready to hike on. The stream flowed down these granite slabs, which we hiked up during part of the route.
Jenn and Courtney taking a break from the strenuous hike uphill! What a nice stream to rest by.
The view coming down. You can kinda see how steep the trail was from the angle that the picture is taken.
Coming down the mountain, with Lower Boyscout Lake below.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Our New Address Is . . .
We finally got a new address in California! Yay!
We live in Oakland, near the Dimond District, but up in the hills (not too high up, but high enough to have a bay view) on Delmer St and Lincoln Ave. Well, I wouldn't say bay view, more like a bay 'peek.' We can see half of down-town San Fran across the bay, and the bay bridge when it is lit up at night. We can see the fog over the mountains on the southwest bay in the morning. Sometimes it swallows them up whole, other times the fog just hovers.
We live in a side-by-side duplex. We have our own backyard, and our own one-car garage (more like a shack which will just about fit the Daewoo), and our own mini-driveway where we park the Bus. The neighbor is a United Airlines employee, and supposedly is not home for months at a time. We didn't see him yet. Nor has the landlord, which has owned the building for about 7 months now. He's a new landlord, and he's nice and laid back. He owns his own flower shop and is usually very busy. We have another neighbor which has a huge lemon tree which hangs into our yard. I guess we are entitled to as many lemons that end up in our yard. Mmmmmmm I think I will make some lemonade, or something. We also have a GIANT mormon temple up on the hill. At night it is lit up in white and gold and looms over our dining room window! Its so ironic. Sometimes I can't tell if we went to school in Utah or in California! Hahahaha!
For now, we are stealing internet from our neighbor. Tomorrow we will call Comcast or AT&T to set up internt service. We have no electricity or gas until Monday, when the Pacific Gas & Electric Company comes and turns it back on for us. For now, the cold water is not actually that cold, so we can shower. And we use little tea light candles at night for light.
Almost everything is out of the storage space in San Leandro. We've already made two trips to IKEA to get stuff. We got a bed frame with storage drawers underneath. We also got a new louge chair. Well, we're gonna post pics of our new apartment after all our stuff is packed out and I'm finished re-decorating!
We live in Oakland, near the Dimond District, but up in the hills (not too high up, but high enough to have a bay view) on Delmer St and Lincoln Ave. Well, I wouldn't say bay view, more like a bay 'peek.' We can see half of down-town San Fran across the bay, and the bay bridge when it is lit up at night. We can see the fog over the mountains on the southwest bay in the morning. Sometimes it swallows them up whole, other times the fog just hovers.
We live in a side-by-side duplex. We have our own backyard, and our own one-car garage (more like a shack which will just about fit the Daewoo), and our own mini-driveway where we park the Bus. The neighbor is a United Airlines employee, and supposedly is not home for months at a time. We didn't see him yet. Nor has the landlord, which has owned the building for about 7 months now. He's a new landlord, and he's nice and laid back. He owns his own flower shop and is usually very busy. We have another neighbor which has a huge lemon tree which hangs into our yard. I guess we are entitled to as many lemons that end up in our yard. Mmmmmmm I think I will make some lemonade, or something. We also have a GIANT mormon temple up on the hill. At night it is lit up in white and gold and looms over our dining room window! Its so ironic. Sometimes I can't tell if we went to school in Utah or in California! Hahahaha!
For now, we are stealing internet from our neighbor. Tomorrow we will call Comcast or AT&T to set up internt service. We have no electricity or gas until Monday, when the Pacific Gas & Electric Company comes and turns it back on for us. For now, the cold water is not actually that cold, so we can shower. And we use little tea light candles at night for light.
Almost everything is out of the storage space in San Leandro. We've already made two trips to IKEA to get stuff. We got a bed frame with storage drawers underneath. We also got a new louge chair. Well, we're gonna post pics of our new apartment after all our stuff is packed out and I'm finished re-decorating!
Friday, August 01, 2008
Mt. Whitney Adventure & Oakland Apartment
Okay, so we're finally back from our almost week-long trip to the Sierra Nevadas. We met Courtney out in Lone Pine, CA, which is the town right next to Mt. Whitney. We picked up our permits at the Sierra Interagency Visitor Center on Tuesday morning, and I talked with the ranger there for a while about the mountaineering route up to the summit. He said it was tough, and that it wasn't a "trail," it was a "route." There was no marked trail, you just hiked and climbed from cairn to cairn, or if you didn't see one ahead of you, you looked for a worn out pathway up the mountain.
We would need to start hiking before dawn, he said. He suggested leaving at 3 or 4 am, and that we would need to hike the first part of the trail while it was light out, the day before, to familiarize ourselves with it. So we hiked up the route for about an hour. We figured we'd leave at 4am, and it would be dark until 5am, so we'd be hiking the first hour of the trail in darkness with only our flashlights.
The next morning, the day of the climb, we woke up at 3:15am, and it took us a while (1 hour) to get out of the campground! We were soooo sluggish and tired, but we made it out to the trailhead at 4:45am and started our hike with flashlights in hand, under the bright stars and the Milky Way. There was even a huge bright planet shining overhead and the new moon was rising from the east. We hiked up and up and up until the beautiful sunrise lit up our 'path'.
The next part of the trail required some 4th class climbing, and traversing some ledges. We hiked up a cascading creek until we came up to a rock wall which we had to climb. It had some ledges which you zigzagged up. The ledges were maybe one foot wide, with a sheer drop on one side and a tall rock face which you hugged and grabbed for your life while traversing. "Don't look down!"
After the ledges, it was quite a relief. There was more steep hiking up broken rock until we got to the first lake, Lower Boyscout Lake, about 2.5 miles from the trailhead and about 10,000ft. We paused for a group photo, and then moved on. The next part of the trail was hiking up huge granite slabs. We followed the creek, which was cascading down the slabs. It looked like a giant slip-n-slide! We thought it might be fun to slide down the whole mountain. Hahahaha! At this point we started feeling the altitude. We were breathing like fat guys, and our heart rates were sustained at 160bpm or more while hiking. They were even elevated just sitting and doing nothing. It started getting uncomfortable, and we started taking more and more breaks. The slabs were sometimes at 45 degree angles, and we were taking baby steps up.
After the slabs, it was more hiking up broken rock and scree until we got to Upper Boyscout Lake. We didn't stop at the lake, but we went just past it as we got closer to the foot of Mt. Whitney. The peak is one of a series of peaks which looks like huge granite outcroppings from a larger ridge. There was one more lake to hike up to, Iceberg Lake, before the summit scramble. To get there, you had to hike up and over a moraine. Snow was more common to see up here. There was no more plant life, only eroded rock, scree and sky. The altitude was starting to get to Courtney and I. At about 11,000 ft, Courtney said she got a huge headache, and began to feel like throwing up. I was feeling lightheaded, but we kept going up. We finally reached Iceberg Lake, at about 13,000ft at 11:00am. At that point, Courtney and I were ready to puke our brains out, and sick! We weren't physically tired, our legs were okay, but we were so overtaken by feeling sick from the altitude that we just couldn't move without a lot of discomfort (thats putting it mildly). Romy was set to go for the summit.
When you looked at the summit, it was about 1,500ft of 45 degree steep scrambling and 3rd class climbing up. There was also still snow on the chute which you had to climb up, which meant skirting around it somehow. The ranger said the day before that if there was still snow on the route, you would have to do some more technical climbing to get around it. We were gonna go climb up there to check it out, but the longer I sat at Iceberg Lake just looking at the summit climb, the more uneasy I felt about it. It looked as though if you made one slip, you'd tumble all the way back down to the lake. Romy was all set to go, but Courtney and I were soooo out of it! Eventually we decided that it might be too much for us in our condition, since we were dizzy and lightheaded. We decided to take our last pictures at 13,000ft, and start to go down. After descending only about 500-1000ft, we instantly felt better.
The views we had were amazing. Even though we stopped 1,500ft short of the summit, we could see a lot of the peaks around us and the valley below, and all the way across the Alabama Hills to the Inyo Mountains by Death Valley. The weather was beautiful! Clear skies, and the temp was in the 60s with no strong winds, just light breezes (what a relief compared to the gale force winds in Patagonia). I will post pictures later.
We made it down around 4:00pm. We spend about 12 hours on the mountain and we were exhuasted! What a great feeling it was to take off our boots and sit down! Then we all took showers, which we refreshing. All three of us went to town and ate dinner at the Mt. Whitney Restaurant. We were starving! Real food tasted good.
The next day, Thursday, we started driving back to the Bay Area. It took 6 hours to get back. We met with our new landlord, Mike, that evening to sign the lease for our new apartment! How exciting! So now we live in Oakland, 2402 Delmer St. It is about 7 miles from campus. This morning, at 8:00am, it only took 15 minutes to drive to school. Last night, we went to our public storage place to get a few things, like our couch. We have no electricity yet, so we had to put our couch together with a flashlight since it was night. We taped a flashlight to the ceiling fan. It worked!
We would need to start hiking before dawn, he said. He suggested leaving at 3 or 4 am, and that we would need to hike the first part of the trail while it was light out, the day before, to familiarize ourselves with it. So we hiked up the route for about an hour. We figured we'd leave at 4am, and it would be dark until 5am, so we'd be hiking the first hour of the trail in darkness with only our flashlights.
The next morning, the day of the climb, we woke up at 3:15am, and it took us a while (1 hour) to get out of the campground! We were soooo sluggish and tired, but we made it out to the trailhead at 4:45am and started our hike with flashlights in hand, under the bright stars and the Milky Way. There was even a huge bright planet shining overhead and the new moon was rising from the east. We hiked up and up and up until the beautiful sunrise lit up our 'path'.
The next part of the trail required some 4th class climbing, and traversing some ledges. We hiked up a cascading creek until we came up to a rock wall which we had to climb. It had some ledges which you zigzagged up. The ledges were maybe one foot wide, with a sheer drop on one side and a tall rock face which you hugged and grabbed for your life while traversing. "Don't look down!"
After the ledges, it was quite a relief. There was more steep hiking up broken rock until we got to the first lake, Lower Boyscout Lake, about 2.5 miles from the trailhead and about 10,000ft. We paused for a group photo, and then moved on. The next part of the trail was hiking up huge granite slabs. We followed the creek, which was cascading down the slabs. It looked like a giant slip-n-slide! We thought it might be fun to slide down the whole mountain. Hahahaha! At this point we started feeling the altitude. We were breathing like fat guys, and our heart rates were sustained at 160bpm or more while hiking. They were even elevated just sitting and doing nothing. It started getting uncomfortable, and we started taking more and more breaks. The slabs were sometimes at 45 degree angles, and we were taking baby steps up.
After the slabs, it was more hiking up broken rock and scree until we got to Upper Boyscout Lake. We didn't stop at the lake, but we went just past it as we got closer to the foot of Mt. Whitney. The peak is one of a series of peaks which looks like huge granite outcroppings from a larger ridge. There was one more lake to hike up to, Iceberg Lake, before the summit scramble. To get there, you had to hike up and over a moraine. Snow was more common to see up here. There was no more plant life, only eroded rock, scree and sky. The altitude was starting to get to Courtney and I. At about 11,000 ft, Courtney said she got a huge headache, and began to feel like throwing up. I was feeling lightheaded, but we kept going up. We finally reached Iceberg Lake, at about 13,000ft at 11:00am. At that point, Courtney and I were ready to puke our brains out, and sick! We weren't physically tired, our legs were okay, but we were so overtaken by feeling sick from the altitude that we just couldn't move without a lot of discomfort (thats putting it mildly). Romy was set to go for the summit.
When you looked at the summit, it was about 1,500ft of 45 degree steep scrambling and 3rd class climbing up. There was also still snow on the chute which you had to climb up, which meant skirting around it somehow. The ranger said the day before that if there was still snow on the route, you would have to do some more technical climbing to get around it. We were gonna go climb up there to check it out, but the longer I sat at Iceberg Lake just looking at the summit climb, the more uneasy I felt about it. It looked as though if you made one slip, you'd tumble all the way back down to the lake. Romy was all set to go, but Courtney and I were soooo out of it! Eventually we decided that it might be too much for us in our condition, since we were dizzy and lightheaded. We decided to take our last pictures at 13,000ft, and start to go down. After descending only about 500-1000ft, we instantly felt better.
The views we had were amazing. Even though we stopped 1,500ft short of the summit, we could see a lot of the peaks around us and the valley below, and all the way across the Alabama Hills to the Inyo Mountains by Death Valley. The weather was beautiful! Clear skies, and the temp was in the 60s with no strong winds, just light breezes (what a relief compared to the gale force winds in Patagonia). I will post pictures later.
We made it down around 4:00pm. We spend about 12 hours on the mountain and we were exhuasted! What a great feeling it was to take off our boots and sit down! Then we all took showers, which we refreshing. All three of us went to town and ate dinner at the Mt. Whitney Restaurant. We were starving! Real food tasted good.
The next day, Thursday, we started driving back to the Bay Area. It took 6 hours to get back. We met with our new landlord, Mike, that evening to sign the lease for our new apartment! How exciting! So now we live in Oakland, 2402 Delmer St. It is about 7 miles from campus. This morning, at 8:00am, it only took 15 minutes to drive to school. Last night, we went to our public storage place to get a few things, like our couch. We have no electricity yet, so we had to put our couch together with a flashlight since it was night. We taped a flashlight to the ceiling fan. It worked!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
