Here is how the truck looked mid trip…  (At this point we thought we still had all the bags…  HA!)

Long story short, on the way down we lost 2 bags.  A potential $8!!!  One was recovered 400 yards from her house on the return trip home and the other was lost on Poway Rd.  Unfortunately the second bag could not be recovered because of its positioning on the busy road and we could not justify risking our my life for $4.

The whole trip took about an hour and half.  The majority of time was spent waiting for the one person that beat us to the recycle center which took a good 45 minutes.  We took about 30 minutes to unload our recycle which could of gone quicker if we didn’t have to remove the cap on every single bottle.  Yay…

As you can see here, Ashley was quite excited to recycle!

Well, what else can I say, that picture pretty much sums it up! 

Some tips for first time recyclers going to cash in:

• Wear old clothes, it gets messy.
• Bring gloves, the trash cans you use are absolutely disgusting.
• Come early so you don’t have to wait.  We came 15min early and one guy was in front costing us 45 min.
• When stacking your truck, place plastic bottles on bottom with cans and glass on top so you don’t loose your load.
• Don’t save your cans for 5 years and then go with a semi truck load because it will take a lot of effort on your part to load them all up and you will royally piss everyone off behind you.  We certainly did.

20 bags of recycle, hour and a half later we were $95 richer.

So, Saturday we thought we’d get out of the house and go get some food in town.  We forgot Brooklyn’s crate at home so we decided to put her in the pool house as we have done this before and it resulted in minimal damages.  Bailey was left in the backyard.  There are all kinds of things to chew up in the backyard so that’s why we put Brooklyn in the pool house.

We were gone for about an hour.  After we got home, Ashley went to let Brooklyn out of the pool house.  I was in the backyard playing with Bailey when I hear “BAD GIRL, BAD GIRL BROOKLYN!”.  I chuckled a bit and then headed over to the pool house to see what she had done.  I walked in and saw little white pieces all over the floor, then I looked up and saw blinds chewed up, bent and missing.  Fortunately for me these blinds were cheaper then the last set she chewed at our old house.  The last ones were special older blonds that cost me $150!

Here is what 9 months of puppy love has cost me so far…

1. Blinds, Ashley’s Parents House:    $40
2. Screens, Ashley’s Parents House   $30
3. Blinds, Old House                         $150
4. Sprinklers & Grass, Old House      $250
5. Two X-Box Controllers                  $50
6. Friends Red Shaggy Carpet            $180
7. Two DVDs                                     $40
8. Snowboard Boots                          $180
9. Friends Couch                               $600

Total comes out to:                      $1520

Now I know why my parents said No when I asked for a dog.  Didn’t stop me from bringing one home anyway but now that I am having to cover all the costs the reality has really hit!  But, I still love them!

Brooklyn (Left) & Bailey (Right)

Brooklyn

Bailey

There are a lot of people losing jobs in the tech industry due to many reasons, most of which will be blamed on the economy.  Here is the list:

1. Pandora: Lays off 20 employees
2. Zivity: Lays off 8 employees
3. Adbrite: Lays off 40 employees
4. hi5: lays off 10-15 employees
5. eBay: Lays off 1500 employees
6. Seesmic: Lays off 7 employees
7. Redfin: Lays off 20 employees
8. Jive Software: Lays off 40 employees

Total: 1647 employees.

Most of the reasoning for these lays offs was restructuring and almost every company has reported that they are hiring more people.  As condensending as it is, most of these companies blogged about their lay offs and said they are sad to see these people go but they have to prepare for the worest with the economy going to crap.  So who are they hiring and who are they firing?  I’d really like to know if this is just an excuse to clean ship and get some better talent in or if they are really hiring people for different positions.  Positions that will make them more money now, like developers vs. HR emplyees.  Comments are welcome, let me know what you think.

For those who don’t know, the white iPhone 3G only comes in 16GB and costs $300 with a 2 year contract.  I found out the hard way when the guy rang me up for a black 8GB and white 16GB and it came out to $500.  Either way, she wanted the white one and she got it.

The main reason I wanted to upgrade was because the 3G Network.  I’ve heard mix reviews of it but my first hands on experience at a bar with some friends sold me on it.  We were watching horror videos that were steaming on youtube with no lag time or choppy video.  I was impressed.

Now that I’ve had the 3G for a day and have gotten use to it, I’m over it.  Other then the faster network and louder speaker its pretty much the same phone.  The black back is cool and it is a little smaller but unless you’re wearing skin tight pants then you won’t notice the size difference.

Now, if you currently own the first gen iPhone and are eligible for an upgrade I will tell you how you can make some money. Most iPhone owners are savvy users but unless you fall into the 5% that are not, here is what you do.

Step 1 - Go to youtube.com and watch this video on how to unlock and jailbreak your iPhone.  If you are not running version 2.1 then find a video for the older versions.

Step 2 - After you unlock and jailbreak your phone make sure it still works and there are no issues with it.  Meaning you can still make calls and run apps.

Step 3 - Go buy the 3G and sell your 2G iPhone on Ebay or Craigslist.

2G iPhones go for arounf $350-$400 on ebay and craislist.  If you are eligible for an upgrade, you can get the 3G for $200.  So thats $150-$200 profit.  This is no big secret but if you werent aware, now you are.  If you’re wondering why people pay so much for the 2G iPhones, its because they have a contract with another carrier and want to use the iPhone without switching to AT&T.

• Sweater - Target or Walmart
• Beanie - Ebay.com (On their way)
• Tights for Ashley - White Striped Tights
• Glasses - Ebay.com or local Halloween store

Find your perfect Halloween costume! Shop now.

I tried to find a red and white striped umbrella as well as a brown cane but didn’t find any cheap ones.  If you know of any let us know.

I’m sure we will have some pictures after Halloween in the costumes so check back to see how they turned out!

I have decided…  Drum roll please!  On the 2008 Mercedes C300.

Enter to win here: Free Blues Tickets

After registering on this page, you will be able to print your free ticket which is ONLY valid on your birthday date.  Online registration began on September 18, 2008 but this offer is ONLY good for the year 2009.  So if your birthday is in the next 2 months, you’re out of luck.  You will have to wait til the end of next year to go free.

Either way, this is a great marketing move by Disney.  Here are my pros and cons to it…

Why is this a good idea?

• It works because I highly doubt that anyone will come to Disneyland on their birthday by themselves, so they are basically guaranteed at least one ticket sale at full price plus whatever they spend on food, drinks and other miscellaneous stuff.
• The news will spread by itself.  Because they are offering something FREE that EVERYONE can benefit from it is very likely that the message will be forwarded amongst friends and family.  There is nothing better then other people doing your marketing for you!
• They make you register so they can remind you via email, aka, get your email so they can build their list and send you promotions.
• They are getting to know their user base, online.  Because you input your age they can build a demographic of the effectiveness of this campaign.  This is valuable information because then they know who is getting the message and can compare it to who actually comes to their resort.  If they see that the majority of people coming are between 35-55 years old and the majority of the people signing up for a free ticket are 18-30, then they know that they need to bridge the gap somehow.

Why is this a bad idea?

• It is only offered at two reosrts, California Disneyland and Florida Disneyland.  Granted they dont have more locations but still, if you’re somewhere in the middle you’re probably not going to fly to CA to get a free ticket out of it.
• It is only valid on your birthday.  I think giving people a grace period to use their ticket would help them tremendously.  If someones birthday is on a weekday and they have school or work what are they suppose to do?  Most people go on weekends so give people a week to use it.  This was a huge mistake on their part in my opinion.

Now go register for your free pass!!!

Looks like I now need to tag 5 friends to vote… Hmm….

Shoemoney - because he has a lot of followers and I think this is a good cause.

TechCrunch - because they rock!

Ian Fernando - because hes my homie and always down for a good cause.

Jonathan Volk - because he seems down to earth and always posts useful stuff.

Camron Deen - because he got me started on SEO and making money online.

This is a great viral idea by Google to help get more people involved.  Take the time and register so you can voice your opinion.  You have an opinion don’t you???

Here is a break down of our trip…

Night 1:

Got into SFO around 9:30pm after a really smooth and fast flight from San Diego on Virgin America.  Here is a photo I took from my seat.

The first night we stayed at Travelodge in South San Francisco for $57.  The price was great, the room…. Not so much.  They had a list of Security Tips that I will add later but you will get a kick out of them.  They were absurd!

Day 1, Night 2:

We took Bart into the city and got off at Powell Street.  This is where we met up with Ashley’s friends, got in the car and headed to Sam’s Cafe in Tiburon.  Sams is a cafe/bar/restaurant located over the Golden Gate bridge on what I think is the North East side of San Francisco.  Their Sam’s burger and margaritas were great, I highly suggest them.

After 4 hours at Sam’s and a nice sun burn on my face we headed back to the city to a friends house in Burlingame.  There we hung out and rested for a couple hours then got ready and headed out to Dinner at Calzone’s Pizza Cucina in the city.  Calzone’s had some mojitos I have never heard of including a Blue Cuban mojito and a Russian mojito both of which were really good and strong!  We had a Lasagna Calzone which was pretty good but I’d like to try some of their other plates sometime…  Can any locals suggest anything??

After dinner we went to a bar and had a few drinks with the people we were with then headed to a friends house over the Bay Bridge (not sure of the exact city).  We stayed at a friends house Saturday night…

Day 2, Night 3:

We hung out at a friends house Sunday morning, went and got some bagels and Starbucks, watched some football and then got ready to head into town.  We met up with more friends at the Palace of Fine Arts and walked around the beautiful architecture and took lots of pictures.  Here is one of my favorite:

After visiting the Palace of Fine Arts we went to a bar/restaurant in the city (I forgot the name) to hang out and watch the Chargers game!  This no name restaurant had a great margarita too!

After watching the Chargers beat the Oakland Raiders and spending a good 2 hours at the no name bar we were getting pretty tired and ready to check into our room at Parc55 Hotel.   After checking in we passed out for a good hour because we were exhausted.  After waking up from a refreshing nap we headed out into the city in search of a sweater for Ashley.  She didnt want to be seen wearing the same sweater in Sunday and Monday’s photos.  :)  We went to the 3 story tall Forever 21… Yay my favorite store!!  Kidding.  But we did find her some clothes here so that was a big plus!  After that we just walked around the city for a while and then headed back to the room to rest up for tomorrow!

Day 3 , Night 4:

The last and final day!  We woke up, got ready and packed up.  Went downstairs, checked our luggage with the bellman and headed to the Cable Car Station.  Here is a photo for reference…

It took about 30 minutes to get onto one of these but it was well worth the wait because you cant go to San Francisco without riding the famous Cable Cars!  We took the Cable Car from Powell to Beach and Hyde.  Mind you we had to be at Pier 33 at 11am for the Alcatraz departure and by the time we arrived at the end it was 10:42am.  At this point we started power walking which quickly turned into running!  We ran a good 10 blocks and somehow made it by 10:58am.  we were tired, sweaty and our legs ached but we didn’t care, WE MADE IT!

The boat ride to Alcatraz was only about 15 minutes which was much shorter then I anticipated but it was a much needed rest for us after our triathlon.  After arriving to Alcatraz we got some water and then headed out and started exploring.  After about 20 minutes of exploring on our own we headed over to the audio tour building.  This was my first going on an audio tour and all I can say is that it was great!  You can go at your own pace, start and stop the tour whenever you want and the stories you hear on these audio tours are incredible.  They describe everything in absolute detail so you really get a sense of what it was like there back in the day.  Here is a photo of us with the headphones…

Even though Alcatraz is a big tourist spot and there are usually a lot of people there it was well worth it in my opinion.

After we got back to shore we took a walk over to Fisherman’s Wharf and ate at Bubba Gumps.  Their food was great and the location was even better.  Looking over the water we had a view of Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge, it really was a great seat.

After lunch we took Bart back to the hotel and got our luggage then headed back to Bart and headed to SFO.  A short hour and twenty minute flight and we were back in San Diego by 7:40pm.

San Francisco is a massive city and I really think you need a lot more then 3 days to see it all but I have no complaints, the trip was absolutely wonderful.

Here are some other photos from our trip…