Summer Travel Season

The summer travel season has begun. I hate this time of year – meaning the time between when any school gets let out and goes back in session. This is the worst time of year for any business traveler. We have to endure the horribly long lines at the airport (thank goodness for my status), long lines for security, stupid people, delayed flights, screaming kids and over sold flights. The airport is so packed at this time of year its literally hard to move around.

Since I have status I can bypass all of this – however, the line currently to check-in at United is an hour and ½ long. The line for outside baggage check is ½ an hour. The inside security line is an hour. The standby list for the flight I’m on right now is > 100. That’s because of many people missing their flights or under the 45 minute limit for bag check. That’s new you know. If you get to the head of the check-in line and it’s < 45 minutes before your flight, they will not check your bag. If it’s too big for carryon then guess what – you’ve missed that plane.

I can’t wait for September….

WNBA contenders

The 21st was a good day as the look of pure rapture on Ruby's face will attest to. The LA Sparks kicked Houston's butt and went on to win 7 straight. The best part of the game was Ruby yelling at Lisa Leslie as she went into the tunnel. A true fan. The game ended with Auntie Dawn managing to score some autograph coupons for the kids and them getting #00 Paige and Johnson's autograph. Ruby shook hands with Johnson and claims she'll never wash it again. It's wonderful to see how the Sparks treat their fans and especially the kids.

The Sparks are now in first place in the West with a record of 10-3.

Have you noticed when you're pulling $100 out of the ATM that it seems like a lot less cash than it did 10 years ago?

NGS Genographic Project - Eve > L0/L1 >L2

L2 individuals are found in sub-saharan Africa and like their L1 predecessors, they also live in Central Africa and as far south as South Africa. But where the L1/L0 peoples remained predominantly in East and Southern Africa, my ancestors broke off into a different direction, West. This L2 line is predominantly African-Americans. Not much is known about this genetic mutation and much genetic sampling is going on right now in West Africa and the United States to determine where, how and when this group emerged. It appears that although this is part of the migration my group (ultimately haplogroup X) did not follow this line.

See next post for L3 - Out of Africa.

NGS Genographic Project - Eve > L0/L1

Previously I discussed the Mitochondrial Eve and how she represents the root of the family tree. Her descendents, moving around within Africa, eventually split into 2 distinct groups, characterized by a different set of genetic mutations their members carry. These 2 groups are referred to as L0 and L1. These individuals have the most divergent genetic sequences of anyboy alive today, meaning they represent the deepest branches of the mitochondrial tree. That's me :-)

Haplogroups L1 and L0 likely originated in East Africa and then spread throughout the rest of the continent. These were the hunter-gatherers. At some point, after these 2 groups had coexisted in Africa for a few thousand years, something important happened. The mitochondrial sequence of a woman in one of these groups, L1, mutated. One letter in her DNA changed and because many of her descendants have survived to present this change is a window to the past. This group went on to form their own group, L2. So, to follow -- Eve begat L1, and L1 begat L2.

Next, where did L2 migrate to?

MOCA

As we meander thru the people in the courtyard outside MOCA many things pop into my head. I wonder about like minded people. The people invited to this event have one common thread - they listen to NPR and have the means to donate a certain level of cash to the cause. It has always struck me that folks that listen to NPR are thoughtful, intelligent, liberal, to some degree at least, and open minded. The open minded trait seems important here at MOCA. It's the Rauschenberg exhibit that we are all here to see. (Or is it the free booze and food catered by Patina?)

The whole Rauschenberg thing is new for me. If someone were to ask, I could explain his art as, "he wanted to create in the space between life and art". I think that sums it up nicely. As I walk into the exhibit I notice these like minded, well educated NPR listeners doing much the same as I am. Some giggle as they look at a piece, some tilt their head at an angle perhaps to get a better view or maybe to rock the brain into understanding. Some stare purposefully making the rest of us wonder what the hell we're missing and some diligently read the little explanations....

Speaking of the explanations on the wall -- who writes this stuff. A word used in one was --scatological. What the hell is that. The only definition I could find was: dealing pruriently with excrement and excretory functions; "scatological literature" . I'm not even sure I really understand the definition but it seeems to me it's shit......yes, someone used a big word to describe a Rauschenberg piece as shit. hehe

There was also a lot of talk regarding the iconology represented in his pieces. Here's another big word after you've had 2 martinis. Iconology: defined as the branch of art history that studies visual images and their symbolic meaning (especially in social or political terms). OK, I'll buy that. But did he actually put the symbols there or are people just reading a whole lot into it? Here's the link to the Ram/urban garden "combine". What does the tennis ball represent? Some people say it speaks volumes. I can see the tire around the ram, but..... Ah well, it was a beautiful night to spend viewing art, watching people and thinking about how minute I am in the world....

Canadian takes 2nd in Bee

Today, my usual Canadian pride is bursting at the seams! What an exciting match on ABC last night as for the first time ever, the International Spelling Bee was televised on network TV. It was rife with stupid commentary (as only the Americans can...), controversy, humor and cliff hanging moments. Not to mention educational for those of us who haven't studied 98% - 100% of the dictionary.

Finola Hackett, a 14-year-old eighth grader from Tofield, Alta., took the $12,000 US second prize Thursday in the competition, worth more than $40,000 US for winner Katherine Close, from Ashbury Park, N.J.
Hackett was poised, her hands clasped in front of her, as she nailed several tough words to make it that far in the final two hours of the two-day annual spell-fest. She easily spelled out knaidel, a dumpling, and formenkreis, a group of related species. She even got dasyphyllous, meaning with downy leaves.

But Hackett, who began in a field of 274 competitors, finally got stumped on weltschmerz, a mental depression, and gave the spelling as veltschmerz. Frustrated the hell out of me because her Dad is German and she asked for the origin of the word. W's are pronounced with a V! Regardless, she's a proud girl and I'm a proud Canadian.

"I'm really proud of what I did for Canada," the teary youngster said after congratulating the winner on stage.

NGS Geno Project - Mitochondrial Eve

Mitochondrial Eve is the name given by researchers to the woman who is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of all living humans. We know about Eve because of mitochondria.
Naming Mitochondrial Eve after Eve of the Genesis creation story, has led to some misunderstandings among the general public. A common misconception is that Mitochondrial Eve was the only living female of her time — she was not (indeed, had she been, humanity would have probably become extinct). Many women alive at the same time as Mitochondrial Eve have descendants alive today. However, only Mitochondrial Eve produced an unbroken line of daughters that persists today — each of the other matrilineal lineages was broken when all the women in a particular matriarchal ancestry had only sons, or no children at all.

Simply put, Eve was a survivor. A maternal line can become extinct for a number of reasons. A soman may not have children, she may bear only sons, (who do not pass mtDNA to the next generation). She may fall victim to a catastrophic event (Volcanic eruption, landslide, flood, famine, etc), all of which have plagued humanity since the dawn of time.

After getting my DNA results back from the NGS my DNA goes all the way back to the Mitochondrial Eve, starting somewhere in or around the Olduvai gorge in Kenya, East Africa.

More on my DNA's particular journey in the next post.

JPL open house -- Cassini-Huygens

Here's a picture of our latest adventures. JPL in Pasadena, CA had an open house this past weekend. What a blast. With life size and scaled models of everything from the Mars Rover, Opportunity and Cassini-Huygens (Saturn). It was very educational for both the adults and the kids. The kids asked very engaging questions and basically spent the whole day saying, "Wow!" and "Cool!" JPL holds this event open to the public once a year. If you ever have an opportunity, kids or no kids, GO! I personally had no idea we were orbitting Saturn or had placed a probe on Saturn's moon, Titan. Sounds almost Star Treky.

NGS Genographic Kit Status

My DNA has been processed and my genome migration route plotted. Stay tuned to this blog for a description of my ancient ancestral migration and other tantalizing tidbits. As a reminder, detailed information on the project in general can be found under the NGS Genographic website here. And you can purchase a kit and be a part of an important study on the migration of hominoids here.

Part of the study has funded and contributed DNA markers to another important project studying recent (aka 10,000 years) changes in our DNA. These changes have occurred in different population segments depending on where in the world. The full article can be found here and here is an excerpt:

For example, major changes in diet occurred as nomadic hunter-gatherers slowly shifted to a settled agricultural existence. Pritchard says this transition left a legacy of strong selection on genes associated with the processing of carbohydrates and fatty acids. The clearest example—one previously known about by researchers—is the gene that allows for the digestion of milk into adulthood.

Among Europeans, whose ancestors relied on milk products as an important food source, this gene has become widespread. In most other human populations the gene is rare.
The study also provides new evidence that mutations to better digest different food products have spread in other groups. Asian and African populations showed selection in genes affecting the metabolism of the plant sugars mannose and sucrose. All three groups also showed selection for different genes involved in the uptake, storage, and energy conversion of dietary fats.
Another previously unreported example of natural selection involves the genes that people today rely on to process most pharmaceutical products.

Trunk Bay - St. John

This is a picture of Trunk Bay on the Island of St. John. It is a truly spectacular beach. This beach is part of a national park that encompasses most of the island. It has a fairly unique feature in that not only are their hiking trails but there is a snorkel trail. There is a snorkel travil that goes around that little island in the bay. I think it's probably about a 1/2 mile swim all around it. I did it, it was awesome!

A day in the life of a business traveller

My spirits are always buoyed at the thought of going home after a long trip. This morning was no different. Off to the St. Thomas airport I went with a spring in my step and a smile in my heart. As I approached the American Airlines counter I pondered how I was to get myself out of the middle seat on the Miami – LAX leg. You see, my itinerary was atrocious. In order to get home early I had to move carriers and fly AA. So the flight path was STT – San Juan Puerto Rico, then SJJ – Miami, then Miami – LAX. The Miami – LAX leg is 5.5 hours in the air.

Back to the middle seat – in the islands it is custom to greet people with Good (Morning, Afternoon, Evening). Hey, Hello or Hi is not appropriate. A lot of locals will not even acknowledge your presence unless greeted as such. Service quality often depends on your observance of this. I approached the AA ticket agent with the proper greeting and engaged her in polite banter. I’ve long learned that you can catch a better seat when procured with honey rather than vinegar. My diabolical plan worked and I was moved into my preferred aisle seat. You see, my ticket agent once flew to LAX in a middle seat with an arguing husband and wife on either side.

I had arrived in the STT with plenty of time to check in and clear customs because even though the US Virgin Islands are part of the United States, they aren’t treated as such. After clearing the way thru homeland security I relaxed at the gate. I wondered why the inbound aircraft hadn’t arrived yet. Turns out it was delayed over an hour from San Juan. This was bad. My connection in San Juan was tight and the connection in Miami, tighter still. I approached the gate agent with a humble demeanor as I really wanted to get home today. After much searching and rebooking it was deemed that yes, I probably would miss that connection in San Juan and I was rebooked with the following itinerary. STT – San Juan, SJJ – Dallas, DFW – LAX. Arriving 1 ½ hour later into LAX. She asked me to come outside with her to identify my bag for transfer. I followed her & while out of earshot of other customer’s she presented me with my new boarding cards. First class from SJJ to DFW. Ah, honey wins again.

After a very turbulent arrival in SJJ, I thought I would lose my breakfast at one point, I arrived at my gate for DFW. As I sat waiting I noticed a maintenance guy go thru the gate 19 door. I didn’t pay much mind as it was an hour before my flight. Then a little while later 2 maintenance guys strode purposefully past me thru gate 19. Hmmm I remarked. This is normally a bad thing. ½ hour later 3 more maintenance guys paraded thru the gate. Now I’m thinking either the plane is on fire or the lunch room is around the same corner. I stopped worrying until the captain showed up and didn’t go on the plane. Instead he grabbed a phone and I started to worry. When a captain doesn’t board his plane and you are to board in 20 minutes, it doesn’t bode well. Later we received an explanation that the battery in the aircraft was dead due to a power failure in that area of the field. Working in St. Thomas for a week, I’m familiar with power failures and other outages. It’s a way of life. Of the four external power carts, two were out of service and one was dead. The last was otherwise engaged. We would have to wait.

As I sit in First class sipping champagne and eating my warm nuts, I think about my luck today and wonder if I’ll make the DFW – LAX connection. You see, we left San Juan late….island time, baby.

St. Thomas Post 5 - Island Life

Life on the islands is certainly different. Here is one of my favorite pix of the week. I'll be in the air all day today. Wish me luck as I'm flying American Airlines not my usual United. I have a 5.5 hr Miami to LAX leg that I have a wonderful middle seat in.

St. Thomas Post 5 - There is some fun to be had

Just so you don't feel too sorry for me, here's me eating lobster and notice the "parrot" drink to my left :-) And no, all those Coors Light behind me are not mine....

St. Thomas post 4 -- Different life here

1. Lunch is definitely an half hour longer than you want. Takes forever to get your food. It's island time baby.
2. Cell phones can only be used in the car with a headset. You cannot dial while driving. Brian talked himself out of a ticket with the nice lady police officer yesterday on the way back to the condo. It's a $50.00 ticket for first offence. He knew he wasn't allowed but did it right in front of the cop so we got pulled over. He played dumb tourist. It worked.
3. There are these things called "safari taxis". They sort of remind me of the taxis in Kenya that were white multi passenger vans and they drove around, picked people up and dropped them off, sort of like a bus route. It's similar here. A "safari taxi" will cost you $2 a real taxi ~ $15 per person for door to door service and $5 per person if you're locals. Surcharge for a tourist, imagine that. These are not buses though, they are Ford F350's with a flat bed on the back that has a bunch of seats on it with a fancy canopy. Big friggin' things.
4. Internet connectivity goes down, island wide, a couple times a day. Very irritating.
5. They drive on the left side of the road. I drove to/from site and lunch today. A little weird but not as bad as England. Here the steering wheel is on the US side. In England you're driving a stick that is in your Left hand, the steering wheel is on the RHSide of the car and you're driving on the Left. Here, it's steering wheel on LHside & drive on LH side. Why do they do this you ask? Perhaps its because they were owned by the Danes? Well that would be a logical explanation but the Danes sold the V.I. to the US for $21 million in 1917. There probably was only 2 cars on the island then. By the way, did you know why England drives on the LH side of the road? It comes from the knights and they wanted their sword hand free, the right, for approaching horsemen on the road. Thus, they rode on the Left.
6. The USVI residents (all 110,000 of them) are US Citizens but cannot vote. They have one delegate in congress but he/she can't vote either. Seems like they are treated like 2nd class citizens. I can see why Puerto Rico is upset too.
7. Everything rusts here. Drives me crazy.

St. Thomas Post 3 - Where I work

Ah, the glamorous life of travel. Everyone says, "wow, you get to go to the Virgin Islands, how cool!" Yeah, but actually its hot! This is where I spend my days....not by a pool, but in a dirty, hot warehouse. Notice the fan and the completely inadequate AC Unit. <-- you can click on the picture for a larger, more detailed view ;-)

St. Thomas Post 2 - the price of gas

It amazes me that the price of gas in St. Thomas, an island in the middle of the carribean and far from land has gas cheaper than Los Angeles....

St. Thomas Post 1 - Condo View

This is the view from my condo balcony. Not bad. The view is nice but the humidity is killer. I'm not used to such high humidity. While St. Thomas is beautiful it is not lush. It does have cactus, guava plants and palm trees, it is quite dry actually. I was surprised. The waiter at the restaurant last night said that "it's no Kauai". And that my friends, is the truth.....

400,000 miles on my ass

As I flew over America's heartland in the middle of the night, my ass crossed the 400,000 mile flown mark. I think it's a milestone. My ass thinks its just a hard stone.... Since 1996 I've logged 400,000 flown miles. You may think, ah, that's not too many. I've got 200,000 on my Visa card alone. Well people, I'm not talking about miles you've earned by buying stuff or bonus miles you've received due to status, I'm talking actual flown miles. And these are only the miles logged on United. I've flown many different carriers over the years, although for the past 5 I have diligently tried to stay on United.

As the sleeping pill pulled me down on this red eye flight to Dulles my mind drifted. I thought of all the sight seeing I've been able to do, the countries I've seen and the people I've met. Then I thought of all the time I've been away from home. I think it may be time to be grounded. Perhaps the time has come to hang up my wings.

Then, 8 hours later I flew over St. Thomas and the other isles of the US Virgin Islands. The little thrill I get when going somewhere new, especially somewhere tropical. The white sand beaches and the aqua water beckoning. But the thrill wasn't as strong as it has been in the past. The old excitement level just wasn't there.

Sometimes one must examine their life and look toward the future. As I deplaned in the little airport on St. Thomas I sniffed the air. I smelled change.....

Boeing Oribital Express project

Some things just take forever, especially projects that involve government & security. But when they do actually come to culmination it's a satisfying feeling. The below is the project that I've been implementing VoIP telephones for.

Orbital Express

As an aside, some Boeing gossip is that the "space program" is going back to the moon. They want to search for water. If there is water on the moon or mars or wherever else it has more immediate implications than the possibility of life past or future. They can set up a base and launch further space exploration from there and also build a factory. Water is life sustaining. That's probably the most important aspect of finding water, albeit frozen. Apparently the moon is filled with the perfect raw materials that can be easily mined in a gravity free environment. Sounds like a Sci-fi movie.

Texture

Do you think that life is all about texture? As I enter my hotel room and pull back the sheets from my Hilton room, I feel the texture of the bedspread. It's almost suede like in feel. I let my fingers dance over it again.......I let out a low moan. It was an involuntary reaction. Texture.... As I drove today from Oakland to Napa Valley, the green covered hills catch my eye. The gently waving grass beckons to me. I think it's the texture...... As I drive further north and the stark contrast of rough hewn boulders arching up into the smooth blue sky seems to draw me in. Texture...... As I perform my regular daily job, I love the sensation of a good pen in my hands. I can almost feel the flow of ink as it soaks into the paper. I appreciate the depth that my pen feels as it makes its first mark. It's all about texture........

What is it about texture that pulls our mind's eye to it? What is it about texture that draws us in? Entices us almost? The best definition google could offer to texture was this: The tactile quality of a surface or the representation or invention of the appearance of such a surface quality. Such rubbish, it's so much more than that. When I scrapbook I strive for texture. It drives my creations. I want people to reach out and caress the page, run their fingers over the photo or ephemera. I don't just want the brain to think of the memories, I want them to be felt. I want them to radiate through their fingers up to the brain and down to their heart, touching parts of our bodies that make us laugh, smile, sigh, and groan.

Texture.

NGS Genographic Kit Status

As I've discussed on a previous post I've purchased a National Geographic genome tracking kit. In case you missed that post, here's the link.

The status of my kit is that it is in DNA Isolation, explained below:

DNA ISOLATION:
The cells are broken open by incubation with a protein-cutting enzyme overnight. Chemicals and the samples are transferred into deep well blocks for robotic DNA isolation. The blocks of chemicals and samples are placed on the extraction robot. The robotic DNA isolation uses silica-coated iron beads. In the presence of the appropriate chemicals DNA will bind to silica. The robot then uses magnetic probes to collect the beads (and DNA) and transfer them through several chemical washes and finally into a storage buffer, which allows the beads to release the DNA. At this point the beads are collected and discarded.

I'm eager for the next step....

The thrill of BBQing

Spring has sprung and all things spring and summer drift through one's mind. Especially since I get to live in Southern California with our beautiful weather, the seasons come early and finish late. One of the things I love about spring is the anticipation of the BBQ season. I love to BBQ. My eyes water at the thought of smoke wafting thru the air, stinging my eyes.... My nose wiggles with the smells of charcoal. And my mouth waters at the thought of rotesserie chicken slowly turning on the spit.

To be a BBQ grill master one must properly prepare for the season. One must clean the BBQ, shop for new BBQ accessories and stock up on consumables (not the edible ones silly). For example, I've recently just purchased from Crate and Barrel a nifty little sauce pan with neat little rubberized micro tips for brushing sauce on the meat.
What's my next purchase? -- Is it the allure of the hot dog roaster or the corn roaster? Also from Crate and Barrel.

Ah spring, the possibilities are endless.....

The Mazda 5

What an odd vehicle I got from Hertz on this trip up to Seattle. It's called the Mazda 5. It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. This picture truly doesn't give it justice. It's like a cross between a station wagon, van and car. It's a lot shorter than it looks and stubbier. The most irritating thing about it is that the moment you start the car, this horrendous beeping ensues because you don't have your seatbelt on. Now, I've learned over the past few days that I like to start a car then put my seatbelt on. It's my way of letting the car warm up for a few seconds before I screech off. I don't need Mazda dictating to me the order in which events happen in my car! If I want to start the goddamn car first, then put my seatbelt on, I should be able to. I shouldn't have to listen to this mind numbing beeping noise while I secure the belt. It's bad enough that the federal government dictates what I have to do to keep myself safe, I sure as hell don't need Mazda doing it to.

This goes right back to that stupid seatbelt that used to close around you by zipping up along the window. Remember those? What a stupid invention that was. I mean, are we really that stupid that the car has to put the seatbelt on for us? Shouldn't we have some rights. The right to not wear the seatbelt? The right to put our lives on the line? The right to be as stupid as we want? We are taking away all the possibilities for the gene pool to be thinned here in America. And you have to admit, it needs thinning.....

Security Bypass

When you are a frequent flier in this sort of airport/airline climate, flying is just a pain in the ass. At most terminals in most airports now, there are Frequent Flier bypass lanes. These will be appropriately named depending on the airline -- Premier, Gold, Platinum, Elite, or what have you. These lanes are for people like me, who travel a lot. Don't give me dirty looks because you're standing in a disney like switchback line of about 200 people when I walk right past you. I don't deserve that look. I travel all the time. When I walk up to the TSA security checkpoint, I know what I'm doing. I can whip out my laptop, take off my jacket and shoes in the span of about 10 seconds with my boarding pass in my teeth and my other hand throwing the bag up on the belt.

I've done it for what seems like a million times. You haven't. It takes you forever. You forget that you have to take the DVD player out. You forget you have change in your pocket. You forget...... cause you don't do this every week. I deserve the bypass lane. You are too slow to have a bypass lane, that's why your lane is so long! So instead of giving me a dirty look as I whip by you with my rollaboard, give me a knowing look of pity because now you know that I have to put up with this bullshit all the time and you don't. Think of how lucky you are standing in that long line because having bypass status means you spend too much time on airplanes, in airports and away from the people you love.

DNA Genographic Project

Well there it is people. My DNA. I could be re-created, cloned if you will from the tiny molecule contained in that vial. Think about it. Maybe the National Geographic is not really using my DNA to research the journey of humankind's ancestors but to create a clone army that has been subjected to mind control and will uphold the Christian right's skewed sense of values and take over the Earth!!! (insert evil laugh here)

But seriously, I'm looking forward to viewing the anonymous ramblings of my ancestors over the millennia. Truthfully, I know they came from Europe and Great Britain. I am a mutt after all with a lot of European blood in me, but you never know, I could have space alien DNA in me. I'm sure that wouldn't surprise a lot of you readers. Maybe they'll discover some new line or breed of humanoid? I could have been the product of a rape back in 10,000 BCE of my ancient mother by the aliens that built the pyramids. Ya think? Stay tuned for the results and perhaps other neurotic, paranoid delusional ramblings....

Tax Ramblings

There is absolutely nothing more I hate doing in the whole world is preparing for taxes. Well maybe going to the dentist or the Gyno. Years ago I had my own business and it was a horror show. I was twenty something and didn't have the diligence and organization skills required to keep a handle on records all through out the year, so come April it was a nightmare. Now, I work for the "man" and get a W2 in the mail like most taxpaying American middle class poor people. You'd think it'd be easy wouldn't you? I must be scarred for life by the previous tax preparation events as I procrastinate until it hurts. Wouldn't you think I'd be motivated by $$$ After all, I do get $$ back every year.

Scars. Emotional scars last for such a long time. Even if they are self inflicted and/or imagined. Memories, they seem to waiver and morph into something that we think we remember instead of what we really remember. I wonder if the brain is covering for us? Modifying memories, making them look better. Sort of like what a mother remembers of child birth. They say they don't really remember the pain.

SSSSS Selected for Additional Security Screening

Yes, that’s me. I had the magic SSSSS on my boarding pass today. I was on a one-way ticket from Burbank (BUR) to Spokane (GEG). No, it wasn’t a pleasure trip. Who would go from 65 degrees in Los Angeles to 38 degrees in Spokane for pleasure? I had to get a one-way ticket as everything was sold out to/from GEG. Go figure, apparently there are a lot of people needing to go to GEG or more likely, get the hell out.

I bore my cross today at security with patience and disinterest. It’s just one of the many inconveniences we must go thru to travel by air. Does anyone really think that a terrorist is going to buy a one way ticket when they know they’ll get enhanced screening? But that’s another blog…. It was quite a fiasco with the pat down, ripping thru all my bags, the bomb cloth on each item. Good thing I got to the airport early.

Now, on to more important things. I flew Alaska Air up to Spokane, because everyone knows that Alaska Air owns the NorthWest. My flight was run by Horizon Air as big carriers contract the short hauls to little carriers. I haven’t cheated on United Airlines for probably 5 years, maybe more. I’ve been a loyal customer despite their little seats, shitty service, lack of any kind of snack let alone actual food and slow baggage service at LAX. My conclusion…the grass really is greener on the other side.

Horizon Air has free beer and wine. Yes, you heard me right, FREE ALCOHOL. They had a nice Red Hook India Pale Ale (which was exquisite) and a Columbia Crest red. They feature a microbrew a month and a NW winery every month. What a treat. And you know what the snack was? Corn chips and cheese. And dessert was chocolate covered cranberries. Yummy Yummy.

National Geographic Genographic Project

Well, I finally broke down and did it. I ordered the NG Global Genome personal tracking project kit. I've wanted to do this since the first article came out in National Geographic some months ago. As stated on the website this is not a genealogy test and I won't learn about my great grandparents. I will learn, however, of my deep ancestry, the ancient genetic journeys and physical travels of my distant relatives. Kind of a cool project if you ask me. I want to know how far my relative walked or migrated since my little genes came into existence. Where does my bloodline come from? I'm a mutt you see, Irish, English, Cornish, Native Canadian Indian (I can't say Native American, cause I'm not), German and who knows what else.

To read about the project as a whole go here. I'm a sucker for funding research. Perhaps I should have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth so I could be a philanthropist? This little DNA test is supposedly anonymous - I get a # that no one knows is associated with me. Well, I don't really believe that, but, its not like I'm going to murder someone and they are going to use it against me. Of course, you never know. Us women can do unpredictable things....

The $39 Experiment

I was visiting a co-workers blog today and noticed a previous posting that he had made regarding this guy and his $39 experiment. It's quite interesting what he's discovered and the stuff he has gotten back. I particularly like the Mercedes Benz letter and their response. Anyways, check it out at the link above. It's a good read.

My co-worker's link is above as well. Dan is our in house security expert so some of his posts may be over my average reader's head but some of you may find it interesting. For my Canadian readers, he is also a big fan of curling. Dan and I both work for Mitel -- a VoIP company with headquarters in Ottawa.

7-11 Story

Sometime ago I used to go to 7-11 everyday for my Big Gulp in the morning. Some people do coffee, I did diet Coke. Each day I would see a lanky young black fellow who would wash my windows and I'd bring him out a pastry. We had a relationship of sorts. I depended on him, he depended on me. One day I was driving to work and thought "Tomorrow, I should ask him why is he homeless. He's young, in fairly good shape, we've had reasonable conversations before so he's not looney, I want to know how he ended up washing my windows with newspaper."

The day arrived and I asked him what his story was. He was a cable TV installer, went out to a party one weekend, drank too much and got busted DUI on the way home. He lost his license which cost him his job, which cost him his girlfriend & then his apartment. Now after living on the streets and shelters and probably doing god knows what he found out he was HIV +. Occasionally I think about him when I venture into a 7-11. I wonder whatever became of him and hope he's doing ok.

Sedition Act

I was contacted by some students at Nanyang Technological University Singapore regarding a blogger behavior survey. I was quite struck by one of the questions in it. It asked how I felt about the Sedition Act and if I blogged differently because of it. I had no clue what the Sedition Act was and decided I'd better learn.

There was a Sedition Act in the US - 2 actually. The US Sedition act basically stated that anyone "opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States" could be imprisoned for up to two years. It was also illegal to "write, print, utter, or publish" anything critical of the president or Congress. It was notable that the Act did not prohibit criticism of the Vice-President.

I'm sort of led to believe that this act expired with President Adams leaving office in 1800. It's pretty scary though. Why did the supreme court mention it in a 1964 decision? Basically it denies freedom of speech. Hmmm I'll bet there are some members of our government today that would like the Sedition Act alive and well. Let's also remember that what today is known as McCarthyism was a Sedition Act in 1918 -1920.

The true nature of the question stemmed from the fact that this is in effect in Singapore. This Singapore Sedition Act was used against individuals last year for the first time in the past 30+ years and it is in the their Constitution.

We should never take for granted our freedom of speech nor should we ever allow it to be taken away. This right has been infringed upon repeatedly since 9-11 and Americans seem far to complacent.

Water on Saturn's moon?

Nasa's deep spacecraft Cassini has taken pictures of an amazing find. Water on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The picture above shows what must be huge plumes of water shooting from the planet's surface and falling back as snow. In some of the reading I've done the scientists all say it's H20, but seriously, how can that be? It's a hell of a lot colder out by Saturn than it is on our little rock. Articles can be found here and here

But think of it -- water on Saturn. Can you see humankind mining the water? I can. I imagine spacetankers coming back with super frozen water to Earth because we've polluted all our fresh water. I can see mining colonies on Enceladus and a riot breaking out because of inhumane conditions. Really the mine has some terrible gaseous poison that makes humans insane. The mining colony is slowly dissolving into anarchy. Power mining tools being used to dismember the mine management.....staffers running thru darkened shafts with fits of steam hissing all around them. hmmm, I'm digressing here into what could be a cool SciFi movie....

Dirty Little Secrets

Everyone has secrets. Whether they are stashed in the back of a closet in a shoebox, written in a private diary or locked away deep in our mind, everyone has some secret(s) hidden. Remember when you were a kid & whispering a secret into the ear of your friend? How quickly that silly little tidbit made its way across the playground. Perhaps we've taken those playground lessons into adulthood and lock our skeletons safely in the cupboard. When my little niece whispered secrets into my ear I would tell her that if she didn't cover the other ear the secret would leak out. But all secrets leak out eventually.

I know you keep secrets. I know you keep one from your best friend, another from your lover and another from your Mother. It may be a tryst that you are embarrassed of, a moment of underhandedness that you don't want to get out, or some other furtive moment in your life. Suffice it to say, all secrets are kept for only one of two reasons: You don't want anyone to know as it will hurt you or the other person, or you want to seem more important than you think you are.

Thoughts

Things I've learned or thought of during Wednesday the 8th of March---

If Oprah can build 65 houses in a whole neighborhood that was a big dirt field in 3 months, why can't FEMA and the whole US government fix New Orleans? Surely the US Government is more powerful and richer than Oprah.

When you leave a tin of wonderfully delicious and expensive dark chocolate squares in your center console and leave the car in rooftop parking in Riverside in March, chances are it'll be one sticky but yummy tin of liquid when you're done for the day.

Driving to Riverside sucks -- but it sucks much more in the Chevy mommy mobile than it does in my new Dodge Magnum.

2 huge diet cokes for lunch when you're not used to caffiene anymore is kind of like roto rooter for your body. Apparently I need to be reminded of that every 6 months or so. Or perhaps I needed a drain cleanout. Good thing no one cleaned out my trap.

Living your life

The graphic above, although small, represents something big. When we are young we live our lives in the solid oval - focusing on the Present and the Future. A 3 year old answers the question of "How old are you?" with "I'm going to be 4." An adult, when asked how old usually answers with the current age or younger.
This represents how we start our lives working toward the future and living in the present but as we age we relinquish or suppress any future possibilities and dwell in the past and barely live in the present. If you're in the Left handed dashed oval, then you have given up on the possibility of fulfilling your dreams, and essentially decided to mark off your territory and maintain your station.

It's difficult to strive for your dreams. Self doubt, life, & responsibilities can make it challenging to move toward our goals, so we begin to compromise. We settle. We shut down and spend the rest of our lives justifying where we ended up. If someone comes to us with their dream, perhaps we even shoot them down. After all, how dare they have dreams when yours are dead.

Get out of the past and jump into the future!

Hanalei Bay Rains

Hanalei river runs thru the canoe club.
Raging mouth of the Hanalei River. The beach was crumbling at the edge. There is a huge debris field out past the mouth where large trees, etc gathered. They were ferrying people who had to leave in boats over to Princeville.



View from just before Postcards Cafe. The Dolphin is in the background there.

Explanation of Hats -- from Kauai

Yesterday I had to explain to Dena the reason for my hats. I have a small collection of baseball caps. I hadn’t thought of it as a collection really until I had to explain to Dena why I “needed” another one. It’s not that she’d deny me of anything of course, just wondering why in the world I wanted another one. So as I was explaining my little reason for the hats I realized that each holds a special memory of the person, place or event where I bought it.

For example, my Microsoft hat was purchased at the Microsoft store in Redmund, WA after a week of testing a special Baypoint-VPIM --> Microsoft Exchange application. It was a thrill for me to be at Microsoft in general, to walk the hallowed halls, eat in the 24 hour amazing cafeteria, go to the “corner” stores in the campus and finally shop at the famed “employee only” Microsoft store. See, each holds a memory.

So the hat in question yesterday was a Hanalei Dolphin hat. I struggled with buying it, as true, I have a lot of hats. But alas, the memories won. Dena & I have eaten there every time we’ve come for 15 years now. And we were hurried out the night the bridge was closed sans dessert. It has memories, what can I tell ya.

In Kauai today I’ve discovered that there were 20” of rain in 24 hours yesterday. Amazing. We spent the day lounging about the beach, daydreaming about how we could afford to live here. Someday....

Day 4 -- Kauai

I awoke early today, anxious to see what all that rain had done. It didn’t stop raining until about 7 and then it only changed from a steady downpour to a drizzle. I ventured out of our completely flooded driveway and on to the Hanalei Bridge. I didn’t get far. The road was completely flooded starting at Postcards. The Dolphin was reportedly under about 2’ of water.

I then went down to the mouth of the river near the pier, I was stunned. The river was probably 10x the size and was raging. The Hanalei canoe club was now part of the river. The silt from the river had turned the entire bay brown and the fresh water roiled angrily into the salt water, upsetting the bay all the way out to Princeville. I was stunned as were so many locals. We all watched from what was left of the beach as the water continued. Turning toward the mountains I was stunned to see them awash in water falls. I’d never seen so many. The rains had tripled the number of falls cascading down the mountains. I'll post pictures upon our return...

It would be a long, quiet day in Hanalei with all the shops closed. Most people who work in the shops and restaurants don’t live in Hanalei. We snorkled at Ke’e beach where the water was crystal clear and glass like. I’ve never seen Ke’e so calm. It was a joy.

The night was spent visiting with people from all over the world, talking about the storm and ourselves and enjoying a Kauai local brew - Keoko. We stumbled home, happy with our day on the island.

Day 3 -- Kauai

Our day began as much as any other on Kauai, lounging about and wondering which beach we might visit today. We decided on our beach - Hanalei Bay and spent the day frolicking in the waves and having a beach side picnic. We were chased away around 3:30-pm and that’s really when the adventure began. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening indoors as the rain continued without letting up.

At 8 we took off over to the Dolphin for dinner and tried to talk as the rain pounded the tin roof. It was a rain cacophony. A little after 9 the check appeared the restaurant all of sudden was empty and no dessert was offered. They were closing the Hanalei River bridge, the water was rising, pay the bill and get out!

Startled we paid and dashed thru the puddles to the car. It rained torrential downpours all through the night, so much so that often we could not sleep for all the racket. My mind wandered with all sorts of thoughts of flash floods, rising water and being trapped in Hanalei.

Day 2 -- Kauai

Sunday we awoke through the night to torrential downpours beating out their song on the tin roof of our Ranch accommodations. I’ll blog about our dwellings later. We ventured off to the south today, having breakfast at Gaylords. Something we’ve always wanted to do as it was a much touted uppidity thing to do -- Sunday Brunch at Gaylords Plantation. Well it appears that marketing is everything. The brunch was mediocre at best, except the purple sweet potato pork hash was phenonmenal. The setting however, was wonderful. Alas, one cannot have everything can they? Of course I can, and I will!

After brunch it was off to Glass Beach near Port Allen. It appears that the book Ultimate Kauai has spoiled most spots on the island. Too many people know about them now. We dug for sea glass and looked out upon the vastness of the sea and wondered.

To make amends with Karma and the Hawaiian gods we went back up to the graveyard where I had foolishly taken a shell in January 2005. I had taken this old large shell from a gravesite back then and put it in my pocket, happy with my newfound treasure. How vengeful the gods can be. What a horrible ride back to Hanalei it was with me smelling unbelievably bad of some old, dead sea creature that apparently hadn’t vacated the shell. With Dena gazing out upon the sea I went to the gravestone I had desecrated 2 years before and placed another shell I had found back where the first was. I asked forgiveness of the gods and Karma and hoped all would be right with the world now.

Day 1 -- Kauai

Today I awoke in Kilauea in a very introspective mood but very much in the Aloha spirit. As we ventured to 3 beaches today I found myself reflecting on my life, past and present. Perhaps Hawaii will do that to you. One thinks of past misteps, past accomplishments, future goals and plans. I was reminded how fleeting life can be as I walked across the sand and my footsteps were washed away as fast as I made them. Is that what my legacy shall be? A life remembered only for a moment....

But enough of that serious stuff....
Our travels today took us to Kilauea Bay Beach. We ran across this one while taking a wrong turn looking for Secret Beach, which apparently still remains a secrect, at least to us. We did discover Larson’s Beach however. A nude/gay/hippie kind of beach on the West shore. There was a hippie couple, she’s pregnant and due any day. She makes lei’s to make a living. She will be giving birth in there makeshift abode on the beach. I find that quite scary considering its a 10 minute up hill hike to the parking area alone.... It was an eclectic beach to be sure with 60’s meeting ancient hawaiian’s fishing with nets to the gay 90’s....

State of the union

For Valentine's Day I will blog about my life partner. She's driving me insane. She's officially unemployed as of Monday the 12th as she awaits the start of her new job. So, she's home, ALL DAY! She's been purging and cleaning and shredding and discarding. It's great that she's starting anew in so many ways, but does she have to shred at Midnight? It was a school night last night. I'm laying there in bed, wishing I could sleep and all I hear is that damn shredder and it's pitiful whine. She's so focused on this whole purging thing that she was up @ 8am shredding. I'm trying to work here.

I'm pretty sure the shredder wasn't happy to see her that early in the morning either. It's 10:30 and she's still standing in front of my desk, cleaning and shredding. It's been 2 and a half hours! The shredder has just given up, I'm sure it's overheated. You can kind of tell when it's going to give up. The whine goes from pitiful to morose to downright exhausted, then silence. She says it's happened to her many times now. I've told her that shredding plastic cards is not a good idea.

She's like a machine. Cleaning out her closet, paying bills, running errands. I'm so amazed. I'm not sure I like this "at home" Dena. Oh well, I'll have to learn to enjoy it as she's going back to work on the 27th......

Google changes their logo...

I love Google. I love that they change their logo for special holidays, events or occasions. One of my favorites was the logo honoring the birthday of a French national hero, Louis Braille. The logo was in braille. Clicking on the logo when it's shape shifted brings one to a poignant URL. For the next two weeks though, go to Google each day, the logo will change with a different Winter Olympic event. They did this for the Greece summer olympics, too.

The logo shape shifting is thanks to the brilliant Dennis Hwang and they are iconic metaphors. The costumes Hwang creates for the logo reflect the world of Google's users, not just the importance of itself. A forward thinking company not obsessed with itself but putting a little fun & education out on the internet. After all, Google does have a huge user community.

As excerpted from the page referenced above Hwang works for Google and his favorite letters to manipulate are the O's and the L. Hwang says, "Google makes a big effort to recognize holidays that aren't necessarily mainstream. The Korean Independence Day logo was seen globally by tens of millions of people. Numerous Korean-Americans wrote to thank us on Aug. 15 last year. Many expressed how proud it made them to see the Korean flag."

My new car!!

Memories

I've been cleaning out my stash of storage boxes full of what is supposed to be important information worth keeping. This weekend the neighborhood association is bringing a huge dumpster and shredding company in. Everyone in our association can bring their junk and discard it or shred it. A great idea.

So I've been going thru things. Stuff I've discovered:

-- A rent dispute I had with a good friend of mine in 1989. We're not friends anymore. I think I was a bitch during that dispute. Probably 50% or more at fault during the exchange.
-- The Broadway department store doesn't exist anymore. I probably don't need to keep those statements.
-- I actually bought stuff from the Swiss Chalet mail order catalog.
-- In 1991 I was in 3 car accidents - 3/19, 4/22 and 5/19. Definitely a bad first half of that year.
-- I had a horrible run of renters for my condo. Thank goodness I listened to Dena & got a property management company.
-- The IRS and I don't see eye to eye.

The thought that comes to mind after digging thru 20 years of paper is:

"Sometimes these scars define our life, others are just evidence of missteps during the journey."

The stupid things I do...

So I'm home being a bachlorette this weekend and tonight I'm thinking, hmmm, a Mojito would be nice. I'm gonna be cool and watch Lost by the fire and drink myself silly on Mojitoes. So I get all prepared at 5 PM and get the sugar, fresh mint, shaker, muddler and varietals of rum all ready. But wait, I can't drink yet, it's only 5pm and that would be counter productive.

9:00 rolls around and I'm getting a little tired and ready to wind down. I wander into the kitchen throw a couple lime quarters into my cocktail shaker, add a teaspoon of sugar, carefully prune some mint leaves and throw them in. Mojitos are an art you see, and I'm a Mojito artist. I begin my muddling. After the contents are sufficiently muddled it starts to go terribly awry. I like to mix a little Sprite instead of soda water. It keeps that whole lime thing going. At Vons they were out of Sprite because it was on sale. I bought some bullshit zero calorie Sprite because beggars can't be choosers. I go to open this 2 liter bottle & it starts to bubble over, and over and over. All over everything. No matter how long I waited and how I finessed the cap, it bubbled over. Finally, after subduing the unruly liquid I added the splash to my Mojito. Of course, I'm very aggravated now but I'm trying not to ruin my experience. I add ice and get the bright idea to shake the concoction because none of the ingredients were cold.

Obviously that was a big mistake. I shook the cocktail shaker and this upset the Sprite (which was quite mad already) and the pressure was too much for the shaker. It exploded all over me. Lime wedges, mint leaves and liquor sprayed like shrapnel thru the air. I took the brunt of the blast. I'm quite sticky now and have decided that a glass of red wine and a bath will suffice.

Bachlorettedom is not as exciting as it was 10 or 20 years ago.

Watching the New Horizons launch from Boeing

Sitting in the Boeing Phantom Works installing a VoIP system for a new secret satellite program I had the opportunity to watch this via live feed from Mission Control. It was very exciting to see the holds, the checks, the thrill of it all really.

The New Horizons spacecraft set out on a journey to the edge of the solar system. Liftoff occurred Jan. 19, 2006 at 2:00:00 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. New Horizons is headed for a distant rendezvous with the mysterious planet Pluto almost a decade from now.

The mission plan for New Horizons is long, a 10 year journey to Pluto and then further plans out until 2017. This is how things are planned at Nasa, in decades, not years and certainly not days. You must have to be patient to be a rocket scientist. The project that I'm hooking up all our Mitel gear for plans on going "operational" around 2015. That means that from now til then they are working on getting whatever it is they are working on, working. LOL It's all very secret you know.

Possessed or Obsessed?

Last night as I stood in front of the door with my house keys, I felt something strange. I felt someone had been there. I actually pushed the door before unlocking it to ensure it wasn't ajar or broken. It was intact and I unlocked it. As I proceeded over the threshold to unarm the house I felt like I was not alone. Someone was in the house. I remembered that our alarm will indicate if it has gone off while we were gone, so I unarmed the house but it was silent. No triggers while we were out. I kept my strange sensations to myself as I quickly searched the house. One doesn't like to look a fool you know. Since all seemed well I dismissed the feelings.

Sometime in the beginnings of my night of what should be nice, calm sleep, I awoke with a scream in my mouth. The dream began with us in bed. Dena was having a nightmare. I tried to wake her but she would not. I pinched her, she still writhed in her sleep, obviously in a state of distress. Her face contorted into a silent, open mouthed scream and she mouthed "help me". I bit her, hard. She awoke and something escaped from her mouth. I screamed.
At this point I actually awoke with my heart racing and I was scared to death. Dena also awoke and tried to tell me to think good thoughts and go back to sleep. I was skeptical but thought of Hawaii as I always do when told to think good thoughts.

The next dream was the possession of Ipod's. All Ipod's are possessed and Apple is an evil company out to take over the minds of all that listen to it. I felt that since I often only listen in the car and not thru headphones I was relatively immune since most of the evil spurge was coming thru the headphones. But alas I was becoming possessed anyways. I was aware of it and tried to warn the world of its impending doom but no one would listen. I of course, awoke from this lovely dream that doesn't translate well into words. It was filled with terrifying visuals of evil emmanating from the headphone jack. I drifted back to sleep.

I awoke for the 3rd time with a terrible start, someone knocked 3 times with our door knocker on the front door. The knock was real. It was as loud and clear as if you knocked on my door now as I write this. I awoke scared to death. Now I'll confess that I have had this dream before. Not in a long time mind you, but I have. I also haven't had the feeling that someone was in our house for a long time. The last time that happened we put pictures of our fathers into the dining room and the presence left us. I felt our father's were guarding us. Since New Year's the fathers had been moved to the den to make room for the party. For some reason their protection only seems valid in the dining room. That's where this spirit emmanates from, I know it in my heart. The spirit is also not very nice.

The mouse

I remember the days when a mouse was just a pointing device. It had a little wheel in the bottom of it that got hair and other disgusting little things in it, and you knew when it had to be cleaned. It had 2 buttons, the left click and the right click. Now, I have an optical wirelss mouse with a scroll wheel. No ball to clean, no particular part to blame when it's slow or doesn't move, just a red little optical beam that magically senses where it needs to move.

The beam doesn't like mirrored or glass surfaces, that much is obvious. The wireless functionality is equally as frustrating as the batteries run low, you're not sure if when it's slow to respond it's your computer, the batteries, the wireless part or the red little beam underneath. You just don't know. How frustrating for a geek. Then there's the scroll wheel. I can't live without it. I had occasion to use some older mouse and my fingers kept dancing to the scroll wheel that was not there. My fingers wanted to shoot down the page FAST! Not drag an ancient scroll bar down the side of the page.

How we have evolved, I think.... Or perhaps we're just more productive? Or perhaps we just can surf the internet quicker...

New Orleans vs Grand Forks, ND '97

This is a bloggers commentary and comparison between the huge Grand Forks, ND Red River flood in 1997 vs the New Orleans debacle. There is some interesting commentary with some articles to back it up -- Find it Here

Happy New Year!

The Weather outside is....

The weather outside is delightful
But the mall is so frightful
And since there's only one day to go
Let us shop, Let us shop, Let us shop

Well, I've seen no sales on the way
Must be saving them for Boxing Day
My feet ache and I may drop
Let us shop, Let us shop, Let us shop

When we finally come in for the night
It's all about getting it wrapped
But as long as the paper is tight
And someone passed me a nightcap
Let us shop, Let us shop, Let us shop

I know, my poetry sucks -- Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight

Holiday spirit

The Gift of Time

Wouldn't a gift of time be the ultimate gift for the holiday season? What if you could give somone an extra hour a day for a week? I know that it's not possible to give time, but think about it...what would the power in that be? I can always use more time. I would like an extra hour of evening sunlight in the winter. I would like an extra hour of sleep at night. What a priceless gift. People ask me, "what do you want for the holidays?" My first thought is always time. More time! Isn't it amazing how life changes. When I was in my twenties that first thought was money.

Sometimes we get little gifts of time when we fly west across a time zone and are given an hour or two. This gift is quickly taken back when returning home, because time is cruel. Sometimes I feel like I'm stealing time when I'm finished a project early and find myself with an open chunk or hour in the middle of the day. What if I could bank that time? Think of how rich one would be with time saved in the bank. Richer than Bill Gates and the Walmart clan for sure.

As you read this blog today, think about our most precious commodity on this earth -- TIME. Do you always use it wisely? Is watching TV with your lover a wise use of your time? What about downtime? Everyone needs more downtime. I could certainly use more uptime.

Sweet childish days, that were as long, As twenty days are now.
-- Wordsworth

Wonders of modern technology

The cable guy was here. I picked up a new dual tuner DVR/Cable box from comcast on Monday. I was very excited. I installed it and nothing but problems. The guy is here today and has gone thru 3 new boxes before finding one that he thinks will work. Isn't that promising....
Just so you know, if you are having voice/mouth syncing problems between your HDTV & the cable company, it could be the quality of physical cable you are using. Nowadays, with HDTV you MUST use component video or DVI cables. It was like watching a japanese Godzilla movie dubbed in English.

My printer hates me. Its one of those combo jobs, multi-function they call it. Too bad it doens't function at all. My old Brother Multi-function was a black and white laser that worked perfectly fine. I just needed a new drum and it was $225; but for $200 I could get this other Brother MFC that was COLOR. It was inkjet and I thought, well, who cares...it's color. How fun will that be. I can print Well, apparently no fun at all. The printer only lasted a year and 100's of dollars in inkjet cartridges. I don't print that much....

There's a conspiracy you know. It's all about the consumables baby. People don't think about consumables. Whether it's an ink cartridge, saw blade, drill bit, or copper cabling, it's all about the $$$$ The $$ is in consumables.

Another tragic human legacy

The October 2005 issue of National Geographic has a stunning pictoral review of the Outer Hawai'ian islands, or more appropriately atolls and reefs. The compelling portion of this story was the trash that has accumulated on these far flung, uninhabited isles and how the hundreds of thousands of seabirds eat it, ingest, feed it to their young and die from it. Mostly plastic but this bird in the picture had a lighter, a couple bottle caps and mounds of plastic. It died from starvation as you can imagine. Plastic having no nutritional value.
I've subscribed to the National Geographic magazine for decades (OMG! did I say that) and like to think I do my tiny part in educating myself and supporting their causes. However, with that said, it's hard to read sometimes. After all, coming face to face with the staggering number of unimaginable atrocities we've committed on planet earth and her inhabitants is hard to bear.

Further reading material on the wonderful spread of plastic pollution throughout our oceans:
Europe:
South Africa:
Pacific Ocean:

And the worst of it all, an excerpt below:

One bright summer morning when the captain of the private research vessel Alguita sighted an island where no land should be. The size of Central Europe, this floating island was made of plastic bags.
Six-million of them, according to the logbook of the vessel that lost them. Destined for Taco Bells across the USA, the junk food bags had collected into a single massive blob more a thousand miles off California’s dreaming shore.
As correctable as any unconscious habit, plastic pollution pervades the high seas. The plastic island Moore logged in February 2004 was found inside the three-million square-mile area of the North Pacific Ocean directly under a giant “H” on TV weather maps. Now dubbed the “Eastern Garbage Patch”, this vast high-pressure zone mirrors and interacts with a oceanic circulation called the North Pacific gyre, whose endless rotation traps and congeals our refuse under the scrutiny of starving seabirds who see the tiny plastic pellets as food.

My first ball mark on the green..

That's my ball mark. It's huge, eh. In the background, middle of the picture is the flag. I was so excited, hopping up and down from the tee. That ball even took a piece of grass with it! I'm sorry to say that I missed the putt for birdie but made the par.

Rancho Park

2000 Graves

Not sure if any of you noticed or heard, but on Santa Monica beach to raise awareness of the 2000th US Soldier dying in the Iraq war or conflict or invasion... these graves were set up on the beach. It was a sobering site to be sure. Some crosses had names on them and how/when that soldier died. I wanted to take a picture and continue in my small way to pass that awareness along.
The "fresh" looking graves near the front of the picture are just that - new deaths over the 2000 that died while the memorial was up.

The Idiocy of Air Travel in America

Today's SFO events:

-> A United counter agent calls the SFPD on an international business class traveller
-> TSA takes my last screwdriver

There was a long line for the Premier Executives (and everyone else) in SFO this morning and people were getting frustrated. There was only 3 (up from the usual 2) agents to handle this long line of self-important frequent fliers (myself included). This obviously foreign fellow gets up to the counter (you could tell he was flying on a paid fare business class ticket from somewhere abroad, $$$$) and he says "I've been waiting for 30 minutes, why are there not more people working? What is the hold up?". The snotty agent promptly says, "you should tell management to hire more people, it's not my fault." The guy says, "I'm the customer, I'm the reason you are in business, you should smile and say I'm sorry." The snotty united counter agent calls the SFPD. Can you believe it!? I was shocked. 3 SFPD show up and take the guy aside and talk to him. You think he'll ever fly United again? I guess not.

I've had this screwdriver in my laptop bag for 4 years. Yes, you read it right, 4 years. It's been through more airports than I can count, always coming away unscathed, until it's 2nd visit to SFO. It's not a big screwdriver, about 3 inches long in the shaft, which is metal, and that slips into a plastic handle of about another 2 inches. They searched the bag and took it. I was so sad. It was my last Baypoint Innovations screwdriver. That's the company that was bought and sold and I have fond memories. sniffle, sniffle

Whacky Tourists...

This is Arlene and Dena dressed in their "wacky tourist" outfits. Scary aren't they. This is the first year since, well I cannot remember when, since Dena has dressed up. I have to admit she was very into it and completely in character. Matter of fact she drove us nuts she was in character for so long. Her moniker was Myrtle, sounds like turtle and she was from Miami but originally hailing from NYC. A little scary she had an entire history and life for this character. The shoes certainly make the outfit.

Captcha - What is it?

You've seen it before, probably when buying tickets or what have you. This technology is for preventing automated ticket buying agents or "bots" from buying up all the good tickets from Ticketmaster. The technology is called CAPTCHA and stands for "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart". It is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. A common type of captcha requires that the user type the letters of a distorted and/or obscured sequence of letters or digits that appears on the screen. Because the test is administered by a computer, in contrast to the standard Turing test that is administered by a human, a captcha is sometimes described as a reverse Turing test.

So this technology is being used to prevent a new type of spam, called Splogging. A splog is where an automated program creates a useless spam type blog or website and puts code on it so that google and other search programs will "index" it and think, oh, good web site, make it available to people when they are searching. Splogs have become a major problem on free blog hosts such as Google's Blogspot service. These fake blogs waste valuable disk space and bandwidth as well as pollute search engine results.

Google's Blogspot has provided me with the opportunity to use Captcha to prevent spammers from putting comments on my blog (spam comments). So, if any of you leave comments you'll be asked to enter in the captcha phrase, like on ticketmaster. And thanks for your comments....

Views from the air

I was flying home from Seattle the other day, my home away from home, and a pretty spectacular thing happened. We failed to climb very quickly after take off, but I just ignore anomalies in the air now. The pilot soon came on the intercom & said that we were @ 13,000' and were going to stay there while we flew by Mount Rainier. Well, Mt. Rainier is 14,000' high. So, we'd be just below it. It was on the left side of the plane and the view was stunning. I was so sorry I didn't have my digital camera. The view to the left here in the Blog is sort of what we saw, but in no way captures the image. If there had been a hiker up there, I could have waved at him and him at me & we would have had a moment.

So we're flying along all chatting excitedly on the plane about what we've just witnessed and the pilot comes back on and says he's feeling sorry for the people on the right hand side of the plane. He says he's going to do a flyby on Mount St. Helens. He had climbed to around 20,000' and Mount St. Helens was just below and to the right. Normally when flying over this area of Washington State, Mt St. Helens crater is shrouded in clouds. The pilot literally tipped the plane on it's side and we got a view right inside the crater. We could see the steam coming out of the volcanic vents and the moon like landscape inside the crater, amazing. Then, he did it again. Did you read that? He DID IT AGAIN! What a rare opportunity that United pilot had afforded me. Thanks.

The lives of the rich and not so famous

Dena & I had the marvelous good fortune to end up with dugout club seats. We were in those mysterious blue seats directly behind home plate. What you don't see beneath there is an entire restaurant, catered by Wolfgang Puck. For Sept. 5 they were serving a lovely Honey glazed turkey with a cranberry/apricot sauce, Thyme infused flank steak, a plethora of grilled vegetables, unlimited Dodger dogs, a freezer full of Hagen Daas and much, much more! Too much to list, I don't want any drool on your keyboards.

With Derek Lowe (Dodgers) and Hennessey (SF Giants) on the mound and yummy peanuts in our hands we left the air conditioned comfort of the club and sat in our seats. What a different view and different feeling. You are almost not part of the crowd, but part of the field. The sound is different, you can hear the umpire call the strikes, see the smirks, frowns or smiles on players faces as a ball or strike is called and you can talk trash to the visiting players as they stand in the on deck circle. They can hear every word because you are no more than 5 feet from them. We watched a rookie whose first major league at bat be belittled by several fellows in the blue seats and could almost see him visibly squirm in his uniform.

This was an experience we will never forget. What an amazing view. We still like our seats though! We like to be part of the crowd.

The Falcon

Flickr is an amazing photo web site that you should check out. Spectacular and breathtaking will be words you'll need when you view it.

**** PODing *****

The world of iPods turn me on. I just like the name, the look and the technology of it all. Podcasting, there’s another cool term. Doesn’t it just roll off your tongue like you’re an in the know Gen Xer? Don’t you want to podcast just to say you do it? I’ll bet some of you are wondering what the hell podcasting is? Well the definition is here

Will iPods take over the world? Well probably not that far but they’ll certainly replace your stereo soon enough. Soon we'll just have iPod docking stations around the house and just dock as we go, or, better yet, have speakers around the house and dock when we come in the door. Did you ever imagine 5 years ago that Apple would be saved by what is essentially a MP3 device? Have you seen the iPod Nano? OMG! It’s so cool, why would you buy any other music device? This is not just for the hip or in the knows, this is for everyone that listens to something in their cars or in their ears. You can upload podcasts, ebooks (aka books on tape), music and who knows, probably soon, TV. It’s all right there at your fingertips, literally.

We've come a long way baby

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when opening my hotel room door I saw a picture of Melissa Etheridge on the cover of the USA Today. She had a teaser spot on the front page for a story in the Life section. I quickly flipped to the LIFE section, careful not to let anyone see me in the hall.......and there she was, on the cover of USA Today's Life section. I thought how enjoyable, I'll read that later. You can read it now at this link.

I had thought this would be an article about her breast cancer and perhaps a new album; what I was surprised about when I did read the article was that it was mostly about her wife (self described by Melissa) and her family and her breakup and her new outlook since the cancer. Her lesbian relationship and her family were prominent story features.

If you happen to pick up the USA Today you should also note that the article below it, "stop if you've read this before" is an article by a fellow about reading glasses and getting older. The surprise in the article is the male author's casual mention of his partner as if it was normal. Don't you love being normal. It's been a long time since gays and lesbians were normal, ok, never...... I've always wanted to be just another person in the scheme of things and not someone who has to fight for rights. Hopefully this mainstreaming trend will allow people (the normal ones) to think of us as just like them with lives, loves and sorrows.

You ever wonder.....

I wonder why my urine smells after I eat Asparagus. Don't you? Well, I've found out why and thought I'd share it with all of you. Asparagus is considered one of the most nutritionally balanced foods out there. It's filled with sulfur-containing amino acids that break down during digestion into six sulfur-containing compounds. These can impart a unique smell to urine as they are excreted. "It's the same sulfur group that makes skunks smell," said Barbara Hodges, a dietician with Boston University's nutrition clinic, the Evans Nutrition Group.

Why don't I smell it you ask? Scientists remain divided on why people have different urinary responses to eating asparagus. One camp thinks only about half of the population have a gene enabling us to break down the sulfurous amino acids in asparagus into their smellier components. Others think that everyone digests asparagus the same way, but only about half of us have a gene that enables us to smell the specific compounds formed in the digestion of asparagus.

The unusual smells are nothing to worry about, though. According to the Dictionary of Medical Syndromes, which includes an entry on the urinary excretion of odoriferous components of asparagus: "The syndrome does not have any pathological significance

Johnny Carson memories

Tonight's Emmy award's tribute to Johnny Carson brought back many memories for me. I remember in the late 80's taking my gramma to see him. We stood in line at NBC and it wasn't really that hard to get in unless he had someone really quite famous as a guest star on. I really wanted to take gram there because she watched him every night. It was a lot of fun seeing Johnny even if we were in the cheap seats....

Then I remember taking my sister, mom and brother-in-law Ian to see Jay Leno. We were not early enough to get a good place in line. Jay Leno was very popular and we were pretty near the cut off for what the studio could hold. Krystal really wanted to sit in the coveted "woody's". These are/were seats that Jay puts all the good looking girls in and they are at the front of the studio. You see, Jay wants good looking women in the front row seats for him to look at. As they were letting people in and the flood was turning to a trickle, they started counting empty seats, we were next.

The seat filler took one look at Krystal and put her in the woody's. She later said they were quite uncomfortable. Ian and my mom got a seat and they said I could have a seat later in the show after the gorilla vacated mine. Isnt' that wierd, "oh me, well I have to sit in the green room because a gorilla is in my seat". Yeah, there's a wierd statement. However, how many people can say they have sat in the green room of the Jay Leno show? For those of you not in the know, the green room was made famous by Carson and is traditionally where guests wait before being called to the stage.

Pony Rides.....

Off we went to Griffith Park to try out hand at the Pony rides. Mom decided to put Grace on the Pony that goes around in circles because Krystal could walk beside her. She thought Grace would be nervous. No way! After that little ride Grace wanted to go on the other horses, the ones where Mom couldn't walk beside her. As you can see by the picture here Grace did perfectly fine and seemed to completely enjoy herself. A well spent $2 investment.

Building a bear with Love

Gramma, Auntie Dawn and Grace went off to Build-a-bear while Mom shopped. Here is Grace warming & kissing a heart to go in her new bear. The bear is called Beach Bear Bob. He has a nice red hawaiian shirt and matching red hat and some stylish Californian sandals. Hang loose baby! It's hard to believe Grace is only two.

Grace our little Hollywood Star

Our little Hollywood star is here in her new Barney shirt and hat that Auntie Dawn and Dena bought her. Mom is a little mad cause she won't take it off! I love being an Aunt!

Landscaping the Backyard - AFTER

After a long series of small but significant project in the backyard, it's finally finished. I highly recommend 4sod.com as a source of extremely reasonably priced Marathon sod. We purchased the IIe variety as it is specially bred for Southern California. The backyard now has a richer feel and inviting alure to it. When's the next party you ask??

Landscaping the Backyard - BEFORE

After we put in cedar chips around the flower beds, added lights & the scalloped edging, we were ready for the sod. And there it was, 5:30a it was delivered. How exciting. I can't wait for the after pictures!

Repo Man Road Rally

I dragged Dena & Arlene to an outdoor showing of the cult classic Repo Man sponsored by the Alamo Roadshow. None of us had ever done a road rally and though there were a few testy moments we did have fun. We were first to the first clue, which was a tire/muffler place on Mission Street in downtown Los Angeles.

Highlights to the day include going down a tunnel to the LA River and meeting the neighborhood homeless speed freak who was extensively tattooed; Dawn doing a face plant while running across the 4th Street Bridge/street, probably the highlight there is that I didn't get run over by a semi truck while sprawled across the white lines.

We had a major breakdown following my kareoke stint at the Japanese Village. I suppose I should explain that. One of us had to sing "punk rock style" to Little deuce Coupe. I was elected, now I have to tell you, it's not fair that she made me start the song in the middle. Arlene said I totally didn't do it punk rock style, I did it with my hips swaying 50's style. What can I tell you. Anyways, the clue was "if G Money and Les Nessman owned a convenience store, what would it be called? The store is East of one of the bridges." Well you could say we got off on a wrong tangent thinking WKRP in Cincinnati, I took the van up to Mission when all along the store was off the 4th street bridge. There's no bridge on Mission. This is where things got testy. It was hot, we were tired and ready for a cold one. We had to call in and get a clue, which was basically that the damn store was called "GLess Meat Market" Who was going to guess that??

Grocery Store frequent shopper cards

Your PRIVACY IS AT STAKE!

When you signed up for your frequent shoppers card at Ralphs, Albertsons or Safeway did you use your real name, address, phone #, birthdate, etc? What information do you think they are collecting on you? You do realize that they are collecting all your shopping habits, what you buy, when you buy it, how many Entemann's Key Lime pies you eat, how many cartons of cigarettes you smoke, etc. I wonder if my shopping habits could be used against me in a lawsuit, let's say I sued a tobacco company for my spouse's death from lung cancer. The grocery store possibly could be served a subpoena as to what brand of cigarettes we bought and when or even if we bought them.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to use a fake name, address, etc., when filling out the application form for the grocery card? Unless you cash checks at the store the information you put on the application is only of use to the store and those marketing firms they sell it to. Do you ever wonder if they could tell after let's say 100 shopping trips if you would vote liberal or conservative? I would think that whether you bought organic produce or not, ketchup or deli mustard, or salmon vs. Hamburger helper could be used to profile you.

A couple of interesting web sites are below detailing out some recent developments or events regarding grocery cards and their impact to privacy on the citizens of the world:

Firefighter charged with arson
Seattle Presstake on grocery cards and the bigger picture

Finished Walkway

Yes, 4 weeks later (or was it more?) the flagstone front walkway is finally finished. Amazing how long small items like this take. Contractors are so busy nowadays spending people's home equity loans that they have no time for small time jobs like this.

Where would you move if you sold your recently doubled in price home? Well, unless you moved out of California, probably nowhere for the same or less $. So, why not just fix up your house with all your newfound equity? That's what most people are doing, hence the shortage of contractors and their attention.....

Are we really free?

I'm reading this book called the Traveler by John Twelve Hawks. It freaks me out to be quite honest with you. It's set about 10 years from now, modern day, and normal citizens (like me and you) are being quietly and covertly manipulated by fear, terror and diversions. Does this sound familiar? I've been reading it for about a week. The book mentions passports with RFID chips. The day after I read that section the USA Today ran an article about the US Government issuing RFID passports. I discuss RFID's and the possible privacy implications of them in a downline blog.

The book then goes on to talk about implanted PLID's in the human body. Well these are also being trialed in kids and adults alike. A PLID is a personal locating ID, implanted under the skin and your exact location can be tracked. Do you really want that? Do you not think that your habits could be catalogued and "subversive" activities stopped? The GPS in your car could be used to automatically ticket you if you were driving in the carpool lane because they know you are single, surveillancelaince camera to determine you are the only occupant and BAM! you have a ticket in the mail. Just something to think about.

What about privacy? Do we need more video surveillance cameras all over the place? Did you know that face scanning and recognition software is available? Yes, as you pass by a video camera your face can be scanned, tied to your passport photo and your whereabouts pinpointed exactly. Kind of freaky, eh?

Some interesting articles to note on the security and privacy of upcoming technologies:

Passports

Implant Trends

RFID's What are they really?

Radio frequency identification (RFID) and Electronic Product Code (EPC) technologies are being implemented to improve supply chain efficiency and reduce shrinkage by providing more accurate tracking of goods and assets. RFID are being used to replace the bar codes now used to identify products. Many large retailers, including Wal-Mart, have recently announced their intentions to move over to RFID technology in the near future. RFID allows these companies to track their products using radio-frequency identification tags that can be scanned by radio waves at any time.

An RFID tag is a chip that can contain information such as a product's expiration date and temperature, and it can be scanned from a distance of up to 30 feet. This makes it a lot easier for a retailer to find products in a warehouse and keep track of what condition they're in -- big advantages when it comes to managing inventory. (Hmmm you think, 30'. Will they use it for other things? What about when I buy it?)

If used effectively RFID could have a massive impact on many industries with deliveries telling you what's inside before you open the box or a supermarket trolley being wheeled through a checkout with an instant total, the issues as always surround privacy. Who is to say that the RFID tag meant to help a store track its inventory will stop being used when it leaves their premises? All the trials to date have gone to great lengths to show that the tag information is not being sought after it leaves the store but the tag is not deactivated so there is an opportunity for it to be interrogated by 3rd parties be they connected or unconnected to the retailer the standard allows for enough power so that tags can be read from a distance of 20 meters.
The giant retailer Wal-Mart has been very cagey about its use of RFID only confirming trials and trying to allay consumer fears, but to date no retailer has deployed the technology that would kill RFID tags at the store exit, unnecessary the retailers claim, big brother claim the civil liberties groups. Which ever way you see the technology there is no doubting that it could have the largest impact on commerce since the rollout of barcode scanning.

Something to think about......

It's not all bad

On one of our boat rides in Puget Sound, this was the view. Actually, everyday we can see Mt. Rainier towering over the area. It's been quite clear and rain free for most of my 3 week business trip from hell up here.