Trip to Mexico was fun, full of the usual antics and I’m back in San Francisco, back to the grind of life and work. Nothing super interesting going on, outside the house hunt.

I made a trip down to San Diego to recruit the best and the brightest of UCSD and took a day and a half (Thursday & Friday) to work in the Microsoft San Diego office to get away from my office and get some work done. Not to mention, it was awfully convinent timing since I was considering making it down here this weekend anyway. In any case, yesterday I gave my old roommate Ryan Taylor a call and his new band (Orion Frequency) was playing a show on the UCSD campus. So Dan and I made it over there after going on a hunt through Hillcrest, North Park and Kensington to get him food and a stop at American Apparel. It was great to see Ryan, he’s totally got the rock ‘n roll jam look down and was rocking his signature chops on his guitar. The band’s music is solid, check out the site for a couple of tracks. After his show we made our way to Porters Pub on campus to check out another band that was playing there. We got ourselves a beer, started playing a couple people foozball while listening to some band jam reggae. That’s what I miss about college.

Tonight Shane and Justin are getting in to town and we’re going out to dinner with a bunch of people. I’m also going to swing by Island where Ryan’s working at the moment to get a happy hour drink since he’s manning the bar at the resturant. Tomorrow will take us on our yearly day trip to Mexico. Stay tuned for details.

Yesterday was my fourth year blogging and having the site www.adityabansod.net. You can check out the original blog that started it all. I used to blog manually by editing an ASP page and when the page got too big, I cut the entries out of the page and moving them in to an archives page. That, of course, was before I knew what blogging was and before RedYawning existed.

The KKK has adopted a stretch of highway in Missouri as part of the state’s litter removal program. The state appealed for obvious reasons and the appeals court and the Supreme Court turned down on grounds of free speech. While it’s nasty, low and down right ugly, it’s legal and our constitution protects speech and expression, regardless of how bigoted it may be. It’s no surprise I’m a supporter of the Bill of Rights, ACLU style, but abuses like this disgust me all the same. The AG of Missouri hits the nail on the head:

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon said he intended to meet with members of the General Assembly to talk about options, which could include abolishing the 18-year-old program.

“The program has served good purpose, involving community groups in cleaning up highways and creating public spirit. But this certainly throws a monkey wrench in that if any group, regardless of its history or its purpose, can rent a portion of public property,” he said.

The national director of the Klan, Thomas Robb, countered:

“The state of Missouri was hanging its hat on the notion that Klan members were creating threats and committing horrible crimes, and that was far from the reality … You can not abolish someone’s first amendment rights simply by what you think might happen,” he said.

Well, Mr. Robb, in fact you can. The government extends their ability to do exactly what you say over the entire Bill of Rights. That’s how we’re detaining citizens at borders for searches with accusing them of anything, issuing wire taps without probable cause, or conducting searches of private property without reason. It’s all there, authorized under the Patriot Act, among other subversive executive orders.

Best business story yet of the year: Tut Systems bought CoSine Communication for $24.1 million in a stock transaction. CoSine has $22 some million in cash reserves. Bottom line? Some $24 million dollars in stock (cheap) bought them $22 million in cash (valuable). Brilliant.

I’m late to the game (as my coworkers lambasted me for), but SF CityScape is awesome source of urban information, such as public transportation, high rises, redevelopments, and all that good stuff.

The hubbub on the (possible?) indictments of Delay in Texas has caused a lot of articles about the Ethics Committee in the House to be written. They’re (when they is the Republicans) are changing the rules one month then again a few months later to protect then retract protection from their leader. Suspicious.

Sadly, it must end. I was out of the office for 16 glorious days and I’m sad to have to go back to work. That’s not totally true; while I was feeling quite burnt out from work by the last few weeks of 2004, this time off has been refreshing and I’m feeling ready to get back in to the swing of things. 2005 is going to be an interesting year at Hotmail and I’m sure it’ll contain it’s own headaches unique from 2004 and 2003.

In the two+ weeks I had off, I visited Costa Rica and my parents, as well as spending copius amounts of time doing nothing in both those locations and here in San Francisco. I re-visited New York City and Philadelphia and have put the commitment together for 2005 to buy a home (before you think I subscribe to New Years resolutions, it’s not one since I’ve been wanting to for a few months now and finally am seeing places worth buying).

2004 was a great year. Lots of crazy, life defining things happened. My parents moved across the country, my sister moved to Paris, I moved to San Francisco, Ami moved in, I visisted the UK, France, Estonia, Finland, Ireland and Costa Rica, my job took off, and I think, for the first time yet, I felt like I’m a grown-up and not a college kid anymore (although I hold strong to the claim that I hardly act any differently). Let’s see what 2005 brings.

We picked up Anon (our pet turtle) after he’d been turtle-sat from our vacation. When we got him back, his eyes looked inflamed and had a clear, puss-ish looking lid over them. We called the pet store we used to go to in San Diego (Pet Kingdom — it’s an awesome place, locally owned) who suggested that he may have an eye infection, so we ended up calling around a bunch of places in SF to find if any carried around eye drops and ended up finding a place in Daly City. Administring eye drops to a turtle is quite a bit better than you might think it is. I ended up holding him mid air while Ami droped the drops over him. He hardly flinched. It’s been two nights of doing this and his eyes look better. The wierd looking lids don’t show up any more when he blinks (which makes me think they’re not inflamed any more) but when open, his eyes still do look a little puffy. He’s still not eating too well, but hopefully his appetite will improve in a few days.