random events

Random email address

2007-09-13T07:41:00.000-04:00

This is a random email address:

spamtest@leggmason.com

Please pay it no mind. :)

OK, maybe not.

2007-09-04T20:59:00.000-04:00

A little bit ago, I wrote about the Palm Folio. Basically, everyone thought this thing was going to die a quick death. I thought it might actually catch on. Well, everyone was wrong (including myself). It never even got born.

Palm today killed the Folio project.

Huh. I still think there is a good market for this thing. I like the idea. However, I do like Palm's reasoning. Palm really needs to take a step back and come up with some of the really cool stuff that they did for many years. The reasoning behind killing the Folio is that it is not based on their upcoming new platform, which is Linux-based and is quite a bit different than the current (quite old and very stagnant) PalmOS platform. The early developer stuff I've seen for the new platform is quite cool (alot of the early shots I've seen show a very iPhone-like interface). So when it comes out, the "Folio II" will be based on this new platform that is going into many of the new phones. That makes sense. Now let's hope they do the amazing job with this new platform that I know they can. :)

Can't Do?

2007-08-05T12:53:00.000-04:00

Now here is a good article, from The Washington Post. From the introduction, "The United States seems to have become the superpower that can't tie its own shoelaces. America is a nation of vast ingenuity and technological capabilities. Its bridges shouldn't fall down."

The Can't Do Nation

Damn straight they should not.

Bachelor Party

2007-07-08T16:19:00.000-04:00

Last night, we had my bachelor party.

I had no idea what the plan was. Danny (stand-in best man since my brother is in Iraq) and Jack (good friend) picked me up right at 1.00pm and we headed off to the first event. The movies. To see Transformers. Yeah, that was pretty kick-ass. Actually it was awesomely kick-ass. I grew up watching the Autobots battle with the Decepticons and seeing them on the big screen was great. Say what you will about Michael Bay, he makes a damn good action movie. I did tear up a little bit when Bumblebee lost some of his legs.

After that, we headed over to Danny's apartment where some other folks joined us and then headed to Gaithersburg for dinner. At the Dogfish Head Alehouse. Sweet. Dogfish Head is a craft brewery, based in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. They brew some pretty crazy stuff - they are well known for their IPAs, especially their 120-minute IPA. That stuff is 20% ABV and also tastes really good. It is also $10 per bottle and only found in certain places (they did not have it at the Alehouse). They did, however, have Alehouse 75, which is a blend/mix of their 60-minute IPA and their 90-minute IPA. I had a pint of that, followed by a snifter of 90-minute IPA, followed by a Festina Peche, which is a BerlinerWeisse beer (you cannot find many of these anywhere anymore since folks just are not brewing them). I discovered that last one previously in the week; it is quite good. Anyway, once we had some beer and some food (bacon cheeseburger without the cheese), we went back to Danny's place to meet up with our rented van for the evening.

We piled into the van and headed to the next event, the Baltimore Comedy Factory. Danny got really lucky - the main act was Mickey Cucchiella, one half of the morning show on 98 Rock (which I listen to on the way to work every morning). He's quite funny (and Joe Robinson, who opened was really funny too). Now, the girls (Cin's bachelorette party was the same day/night) went to the earlier show at the same place. And they provided all sorts of information about me and some other folks in our group so he had plenty of material. I had to sit on the stage for a while. Great fun.

Finally, we went to a bar in Federal Hill. I don't think I ever saw the name of it. Oh well. It was fun and they had a couple good beers on draft. Around 1.00a we headed home. It was quite nice to have the van just drop me off at home.

So, that was it. I had a blast and Danny and company did a wonderful job planning this (all things I loved). Thanks guys.

The Palm Folio

2007-06-03T14:26:00.000-04:00

Last week, Palm introduced the Palm Folio. This thing is a "mobile companion," a new category of devices that Palm is attempting the introduce.

For those unfamiliar, Palm is the company that came up with the Palm Pilot, the first really successful line of Personal Data Assistants (PDAs). The primary line of business for Palm now-a-days is their Treo smartphones. Yes, they still have lots of other products, but the Treo is their main line right now. These things run either Palm OS (just like Palm Pilots do) or Windows Mobile. I have been using a Palm Treo 700p for the past couple of months and I really love the thing. There are a couple of issues (notably with Bluetooth pairing) and Palm OS is showing its age, but it's still a wonderful device. It has full PDA functions (calendering, etc), a mobile Web browser, a full Java JVM (from IBM), an email client, and multiple other cool capabilities. I don't really go anywhere without my Treo anymore.

So, enter the Folio. The idea is that smartphones are great, but stink at typing long emails, reading big documents (like graphic-intensive PDFs), looking at big images, and so forth. And that is all true. Sometimes, you really need a big keyboard and a big screen. The Folio is a very small laptop-like computer. It connects to your Treo (wirelessly) and provides all of those capabilities (it's a full keyboard, a big - ~10 inch - screen). It also can run on its own and runs a stripped down version of Linux. It is also pretty low-power, done all in flash instead of magentic media, is instant-on, and has a very long battery life.

The Folio is getting slammed in the media. The Slashdot hordes don't like it. One pretty representative comment -> "It's too big to be a PDA, too small to be a laptop. This thing looks like a solution looking for a problem. Other than the fact that it's a portable device that runs Linux, I see no reason to spend $500 on this. I'd rather buy a sub-notebook and have the extra functionality." Engadget doesn't like the idea. ZDNet's bloggers are not big fans either.

Basically, people do not want to carry another device around. That is absolutely true. On a daily basis, I carry my Treo and my iPod around with me. I sometimes carry my laptop (12" inch model) with me as well. I would not carry the laptop and the Folio around at the same time, and if I am going to carry one, the argument would be to bring the one that has the most power and capability (the laptop). There are already capabilities to use the smartphone as a wireless modem for a laptop as well, allowing the laptop to connect to the wireless provider's network.

This seems pretty clear-cut. Everything in the media about this device is slamming it, including the biggest Palm fanboys you can find. But something seems off to me. This seems like one of those things that everyone will pan but then, a year or so later, everyone has one. I'm not sure why I think this. I don't have any plans to acquire a Folio myself.

But I do think this device could be a dark-horse success.

Indeed, TreeHugger has an alternate viewpoint on the Folio. From their, post, "All of the Gizmodo and Engadget geeks trashing this thing don't understand that we are entering an era where low power, long life and no moving parts are going to be huge advantages." They are right in some of this -> low power and flash instead of magnetic storage are the wave of the future. With the move of applications from fat-clients to the web, this could be an interesting approach (use the smartphone when that will do, when you need a bigger screen and/or keyboard, whip out the Folio, when you need a fat-client, do that).

When you are on the road, do you really need a fat-client? I think not. I think that easily 95% of what the average traveler does on the road can be done with a Folio. Even when I have my laptop with me, I loath turning it on since it takes forever to boot (even when it's just in hibernation mode and not "off"). Instant-on access, a full display and keyboard, always-on high-speed wireless, and instant sync with my Treo? That covers almost all I would do with my laptop anyway.

This will be an interesting area to watch.

Friends

2006-10-23T22:28:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking recently about a trend in my life. I've gone through alot of stages as to who was important to me and my life. First it was my parents and my family (for many, many, years). Then it was the fellow kids at school (elementary, middle, high, and then college). Then it was Cin. Now it's my current group. Now don't get me wrong. My family is still very important to me. Cin is easily the most important person in my life and she always will be. I love her very much and she loves me very much. That's why we're getting married. My "current group" is alot of people that I've know for quite some time that I spend alot of time with. I've worked with these people. I've gone drinking with these people. I've helped some of these people through tough times and they have done the same for me. I think of these people as my family (just as much as my "real" family).

For example, we get together on Wednesdays for LOST nights. It's alot of fun for two reasons. First, it's LOST. :) Second, I love each and every person there. They mean alot to me and I, hopefully, have some impact on them too. I look forward to LOST nights, going to our bar on Friday nights, our parties, movie nights with just a couple people, just hanging out watching the first Battlestar Galactica of the season on a Friday night, and many other days and nights more than anything else in my life right now (well, except for when me and Cin are just snugglin' early in the morning, completely unwilling to get our of bed since we're some comfortable just being there with each other ... NOTHING beats that feeling).

So here's to my friends. You are some of the most important people in my life. Thanks for letting me be a part of yours. And if you don't know if you're in this group, you probably are.

Four Questions

2006-09-21T19:39:00.000-04:00

Who are you?

What do you want?

Where are you going?

Why are you here?

WorldChanging

2006-08-22T10:21:00.000-04:00

One of the blogs/journals I read often is WorldChanging. It's written by a group of writers and is focused on a "bright green" (a better world through environmentalism and new, emerging, green technology) future, frequently covering environmental, humanitarian and design issues. You can read more about it in the small article in Wikipedia.

Anyway, they are publishing a book and having a tour to discuss it and celebrate its release. The book focused on seven major categories of bright green ideas: stuff/products, shelter, cities, communities, business, politics, and the planet. The tour is coming to Washington, DC, among other places.

I intend to buy the book and to attend the event. You should too.

PBS and the "Technical Virgin"

2006-07-27T18:01:00.000-04:00

So, PBS has fired Melanie Martinez, the host of “The Goodnight Show” on the PBS Kids Sprout network. This seems to have been a show for 2 to 3 year olds to watch at nighttime that got them ready for bed. There was a star puppet and a couple other cute things.

Melanie was fired because she revealed to PBS that she had created a couple of spoof advertisements for the website Technical Virgin. These were spoof public service announcements that described all of the things you could do in place of having sex. Some used graphic language.

Read about it on CNN.

Are these ads in "good taste?" Nope. Are they mainstream that you'd want your kids to hear? Nope. Do they exist solely on a website that noone knows about and would have a really hard time stumbling across? Yep. Would a 2 or 3 year old have any idea what they're hearing if they were stumble across one? Nope.

This bothers some folks. Read about one here.

This really bothers me. Here's a woman who, seven years ago, did some work that was questionable. She's now a stage actress with a toddler of her own. Having never seen this show, I cannot speak to how good of a job she did. But I know some folks that did watch this with their little ones and they love the show and Melanie. So this woman leads a respectable life, has cleaned up her past "questionable" acts, and VOLUNTARILY told PBS about this "video."

And they fire her.

Kids love her. She admitted she did something questionable (SEVEN YEARS ago!) before anything about it came out. She doesn't do anything like that anymore. There's a zero chance of anyone who watches The Goodnight Show would ever see one of these fake PSAs. So why should this warrant her getting fired from a job where many kids love her and she apparantly did a fantastic job?

Answer: It shouldn't. Let people realize they didn't make the best choices and move on. Additional fact: George Carlin (who is a dirty, dirty, comedian sometimes - both in his past and RIGHT NOW) is still on PBS shows, including Thomas the Tank Engine. WTF?

PBS - shame on you.

Mother Nature

2006-07-06T15:14:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the modern world needs to be shut off for a minute and one needs to remember that despite all the amazingness of the modern world, Mother Nature can still inspire awe like nothing else. For example,

There's a great discussion on this by Mark Morford, columnist for the SF Gate, here. This is well worth the read. And remember what LCDR LaForge said once on Star Trek: TNG, "I've always thought that technology could solve almost any problem. It enhances the quality of our lives, lets us travel to distant lands, even saves lives. But sometimes you just have to turn it all off..."

Developments

2006-05-29T13:12:00.000-04:00

Wow, lots of new and interesting things going on.

First of all, we opened the pools. Very successfully if I might say so. Things are going well - very well. TheSailor's replacement is working out really well. He fits in with everyone quite well and it seems he's been around forever. On the work side of things, TheNewGuy has alot of new and different ways of doing things and new ideas which are working out quite well. That's what you get when you bring in fresh blood and this seems like it was a very good selection on the part of TheCompany.

Next, and probably bigger news, is that me and Cin are engaged. I proposed last night after we went out for her birthday dinner. I gave her her presents and then we went on a The Amazing Race style hunt for her last present. Which was in my pocket. And was her ring. Then she said yes. Which totally rocked. So now the wedding plans begin.

I'm also going to be taking a weeklong, live aboard, sailing class in August, which promised to be alot of fun.

Whew.

The Raven

2006-04-14T15:14:00.000-04:00

Check out the Raven Run.

Raven is Robert Kraft, a resident of South Beach in Miami, Florida (who looks amazingly like my friend and co-worker, Trent). Since 1 January 1975, Raven has run every day on the beach for around eight miles. That's eight miles per day, every day, without missing one, for over THIRTY YEARS. Every day, for many years, people have shown up to run with Raven. He welcomes anyone that wants to come and run the eight miles (on one of four different routes) every day. There are some pretty cool pictures of some of the crowds that run with him sometimes.

There's a good article on this guy at the Miami New Times, which explains Raven's life and the benefits and hardships this running has given him. His streak shows amazing dedication. While I don't think I could ever do that (I have enough trouble running eight miles once, thank you very much), I stand in awe of this. I am also somewhat amazed that he has not left South Beach since starting and feels very anxious whenever he leaves the beach even for a couple hours. He hasn't experienced much outside of his area. But that suites him and I cannot judge that; it's good for him so it's good.

Wow.

John Bolton

2006-04-13T21:45:00.000-04:00

On Monday I went to a special event at UD that was a speech by the US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. I've disagreed with alot of what Bolton has said over the past couple of months. However, I found this talk to be very enlightening. Two of the main issues that Ambassador Bolton sees facing the UN right now - 1) Iran and its nuclear program, and 2) the current genocide occuring in the Darfur region of the Sudan. I was very pleased to see the inclusion of Darfur in this list. It's a big problem and the US isn't doing anything about it. I understand the problems with doing anything in a country where the government doesn't want any intervention, but the horrors that are occurring there are insane.

Anyway, I found this talk to be very good. I learned alot about Bolton's perspective on the UN, which I think is the same position as the current administration. Bolton views the UN as one tool in the arsensal of US foreign policy. If the US wants to do something and the UN could get to that goal, we'll do it that way. If not, we'll do it some other way. It's just another tool in the toolbox.

Now to agree with that point of view, you need to accept that the US has a solution to almost all of the world's problems. And you have to accept that we're right and we'll do what we know to be right no matter what method we take. Now that's not the perspective I tend to take when thinking about world affairs. But I do now understand John Bolton's perspective and, based on that understanding, I understand alot of what he has said publically alot better.

Good talk, Ambassador Bolton. Thank you for being so frank and so honest. It is very refreshing. I don't agree with all of your prespectives, but I understand where you are coming from alot moreso than before.

I have a sister in law

2006-04-09T21:33:00.000-04:00

The result of all the fast-paced developments concerning my brother and his wedding was that he got married this weekend and me and Cindy had to go down to Greenville, South Carolina, for the wedding.

I had used some Hilton Honors points to reserve a room at the Embassy Suites in Greenville for May, which is when the wedding was planned for. After finding out the wedding was now going to be this weekend, I called Hilton and pleaded for them to move my reservation to this weekend and explained all of the circumstances. They were very happy to change the reservation and all worked out very well. Kudos to Hilton for handling this situation very well. I knew there was a reason why I always prefer their hotels.

So we left on Thursday afternoon around 4.15pm, which meant we sat in DC traffic for hours. Luckily, we got to use a new bridge of the always-under-massive-construction I-95/I-495/I-395 Springfield interchange, and that was cool. Then, once we got south of the Capitol Beltway, we got to use the HOV-3 lanes despite only having two people in the car, since my new hybrid car gets mad benefits from the state of Virgina. Very sweet. So, we drove down I-95, to I-85, stopped at a Subway for dinner, stopped at a BP for coffee and a bathroom break, and eventually pulled into the Embassy Suites parking lot around 1.15am. It was painful but the drive wasn't that bad and we got to sleep in on Friday. Very nice. The night manager was waiting for us, knew I was coming and the details of why, and we got our nice room. All very well handled and off me and Cindy went to bed.

On Friday, we woke up around 11am and went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. Delicious. Then we drove into Clemson to see Jim. We met up with him and Sara, got some Clemson-logoed merchandise for Cindy, and went to his favorite bar for some beers. I had a Highland Mocha Stout that was really good. From there me and Cindy headed back to Greenville and the Manager's Reception with my parents where we enjoyed free beer and wine, as well as popcorn and vegetables. They left to have dinner with Sara's parents (first meeting!) and we ordered a pizza from room service, ate it, and went to bed after watching some crappy TV.

We woke up on Saturday early (7.15am), expecting to go shooting. It was Jim's wedding day and he wanted to go shooting. Plus neither Cin or my dad had ever done this so it would be fun. But it was raining and that became a no-go. So we went back to sleep. Then we got up, went shopping so Cindy could get a new dress for the wedding, got some Cold Stone Creamery ice cream, and headed back to the hotel. We got dressed, I picked up Sara's ring (I was the best man!) and we got dressed, met mom and dad, and headed to the church.

We got to the church and met some of Jim's friends and Sara's family. There were six folks from my family (me, Cin, mom, dad, Anne, and her boy, Ross). There were about sixty folks from Sara's family (most of them live in SC). Here's Sara's family...

And for comparision, here's our family...

After the wedding, in the receiving line, Jim looked very flustered when he was meeting them all. Sara's family seems very nice and very large. The wedding was short and went off without a hitch. It was quite good and my responsibilities as best man were minimal. Sara's dress looked wonderful.

Here's a good wedding picture of the bride and groom...

And here's the wedding party (bride, groom, maid-of-honor, best man)...

After the short ceremony, we headed off to the reception.

The reception was at the Westin Poinsett. Ross told us that when he was in high school, this place was an abandoned building where homeless folks lived and his friends would all bet each other to spend a night there. It's really nice now. The reception was beautiful and looked like it was planned for months. They did have a cash bar, largely because the open bar would have been multiple thousands of dollars. The dinner was steak and was delicious. The cake was from Sara's favorite cake place and was really good. There was no DJ; for dancing they used Jim's iPod. The dancing time was kind of short, but that was OK. The best man (myself) gave a rather short and ill-planned toast, but I think it was OK. The maid-of-honor gave a much better one. Sara's dad explained the legend of the Nurenberg Wedding Cup and Jim and Sara did it and succeeded (it didn't look that hard) - this was the first time I had seen this and it was pretty neat. After some dancing, we all headed back to the hotel and Jim and Sara went up to their free Westin room.

Here's Jim and Sara entering the reception...

Well, they absolutely pulled this off. I was so concerned after a wedding planned in one week. Yet they had a full wedding. They were in a church with alot of people there. They had a full reception with a sit-down dinner, a bar, dancing, toasts, a (small) wedding party, a real wedding cake, presents, and everything else that's normally at a wedding (except a DJ :)). It was really impressive. If Jim and Sara could pull this off in one week, a wedding planning in two months would have been amazing.

So, congrats to James and Sara Six. Sara's the most recent addition to our family since Jim. And she's very welcome.

total randomness

2006-04-02T13:45:00.000-04:00

Things have been very strange in my family for the past couple of weeks.

A couple weeks ago, we got some indications that my brother, Jim, was going to propose to his girlfriend (not dating a year yet, if I recall). Now I like Sarah, as does the rest of my family, but this couldn't be real, could it?

Yep, it's real. Originally they were going to get married in May in Greenville, SC (right outside of Clemson). The wedding was going to be right after they graduate. The day after. So they had a wedding to plan in less than two months. This is largely because it looked like Jim's Army Reserve unit was going to get called up in the summer and Sarah (who is in Air Force ROTC) was going to Florida for two years of training right after graduation. So they needed a wedding quicker than the usual year or so away. That was going to be amazing if they could pull it off. And they were doing a good job. Jim asked me to be his best man, they selected a church and reception location, started on the food, Sarah ordered her dress, and so on. Progress was being made and the mood changed from "what the..." to "this is actually going to be a good time."

Until Friday night.

Jim's Army Reserve unit got called up. To go to the sandbox. In the middle of April.

Ouch. So much for those plans. Now, we're heading down to Greenville next week. Yes, one week from now, I'm attending my brother's wedding that we just started to think might possibly happen some day in the future about two weeks ago. I'm really, really, happy for my brother. But I'm very disappointed that this is how he's getting married. He deserves a ceremony and a reception and a shower for Sarah and lots of family and friends at the wedding, and so on. With one week to go, I have no idea what this wedding will look like. And then he's off to the sandbox (before college graduation that is only weeks away!) while his fiance stays here. This is a very strange situation and it's evolving so quicky that I cannot even figure out how I really feel about it.

Well, atleast I don't have to give a speech. :)

excellent Italian food

2006-04-02T13:38:00.000-04:00

Me and Cin have found a wonderful new restaurant, the Aida Bistro in Columbia. Some folks from work had been talking about this place so we tried it out a couple of weeks ago. We went back for the second time last evening and it was just as good as the first time, discounting the possibility of a fluke.

The place is Italian and it shows. They make all of their pasta (most of their menu is pasta or includes pasta) homemade, each day. It is absolutely delicious. Cindy can explain much better than I why freshly made pasta tastes so much better than packaged stuff but she's right - it's delicious. The first time I had spaghetti in a garlic and olive oil sauce. Last night I had the same thing but with whole-wheat linguine instead. It was incredible. The whole-wheat pasta had a much different taste than the "normal" pasta and I liked each on its own, so I have a good choice between the two next time I go there. The table next to us had a salmon dish that looked fantastic, so I might try that next time.

Other nice features: they have a large wine list that starts quite cheap and gets really expensive, they have "small entree" selections which cost somewhere around $12 for a smaller portion of a delicious meal than you'd expect elsewhere (the pasta portions are smaller than most restaurants which is wonderful since they always give you too much pasta - this smaller portion approach is apparently much more inline with how they approach pasta in Italy), and everyone there is very friendly and helpful.

In short, this is a wonderful place. It's also small and hard to get into so if you wanna go, call and make reservations atleast a day or two early, even for a party of two.

Galactica

2006-03-11T11:50:00.000-05:00

Last night was the season finales of all three of SciFi's original shows, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica. Wow. That was some really good TV.

Yesterday reaffirmed my belief that Galactica is the best show on television right now. We had a really difficult choice by Laura about fixing the election. The moral choice won out over the choice that both her and Adama knew was the best for the survivors. President Baltar has already shown himself to be a very poor choice, thanks to the "one year later" jump. We've got a new Cylon model and it's Al from Quantum Leap. The fleet has been decimiated, not by a Cylon attack but by neglect. The colonists now on New Caprica are revolving against their leadership. And we now have a huge Cylon fleet in orbit with an occupying force on the ground and a total surrender by Baltar.

Damn good TV. All that and no new episodes until October. What the frack is that all about?

DVR (take two)

2006-02-20T08:58:00.000-05:00

After the fiasco with the previous Digital Video Recorder (DVR) box, I was quite pleased when the cable man came over the replaced my DVR box with a new one (still the same Scientific Atlanta model) a couple of weeks ago. This guy really worked for the cable company and not a subcontractor. He knew what he was doing. He understood how I had the box set up, he was polite and well spoken, and he talked all sorts of stuff about this model box being the older model that they always have these types of issues with and the newer ones being much better. I did ask what I had to do to get the newer box and he said that he would have brought me one but the warehouse was out of them that day. Nuts, so close to a better box. Of course, my research tells me that it would have been a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD, not the Motorola box that the next county over gets. Still, that would have been nice.

This box has worked well for almost a month now. I love it. Right now I have it configured to record every show that I really enjoy watching, regardless of if I normally watch it live or not (in case I miss it). Right now that includes Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, 24, Drawn Together, and The Shield (I don't have Lost on there because there's no way I would miss an episode of that show since we have weekly Lost-watching parties/dinners for that purpose). I love that I can watch things when I want to. For example, I got home on Friday early enough to watch Galactica, but realized that I hadn't yet watched the previous two weeks' worth. So I went to bed and on Saturday morning, while Cin was at a swim meet, I watch all three weeks worth. Sweet.

The ability to pause live TV is really growing on me too. I finally caught an episode of The Simpsons that I hadn't seen but once. So I started watching. Then I realized I had something very important to do that if I didn't do it right then I would forget and trouble would follow (empty my cat's litter box). So I paused TV, did that business, and came back to watch right where I left off. And since I had been gone five minutes, I could fast forward through the remaining commercial break and still finished at the same time as the live show. Double sweet.

DVR = really cool technology. Highly recommend.

(No Title Provided)

2006-02-20T08:53:00.000-05:00

MrSideshow has appanently let his emotional side show through (for what I believe is the first time. ever.). His story is heartfelt and it's something that anyone with any relationships, be they with pets, family, friends, or anyone else goes through from time to time.

When it's Time to Say Goodbye

I know somewhat of what that man was going through. However, I will never know exactly what he was going through as I think those feelings are never the same for any two people.

Everyday is very often...

2006-02-19T22:28:00.000-05:00

The What Jeff Learned Today blog is dead. It was way too hard to try to keep up with. Oh well.

What Jeff Learned Today

2006-02-01T23:01:00.000-05:00

New blog.

http://jeffsfacts.blogspot.com

The idea here is that I'm going to post one thing that I learn everyday. That means I'll have to learn atleast one thing every day and post it as well. Hope this goes well. :)

I have DVR ... for around 36 hours

2006-01-28T16:57:00.000-05:00

I broke down and ordered Digital Video Recorder (DVR) service from (big cable company) a couple of weeks ago. After getting their "soonest available" appointment (over two weeks from when I called), I stayed home from work on Thursday, for my 1pm to 5pm appointment. You see you need to have your DVR converter box "professional installed" by (big cable company). Apparently, they used to let people install these things and nobody did it right so they do it now. No exceptions. OK, fine.

5pm comes. And goes. No technician. One call to (big cable company) - OK, we'll page the technician and have him call you with an ETA. 5.30pm comes. No call. Second call to (big cable company) - OK, we'll call the technician and tell you, please hold, OK he'll be there within 15 minutes. OK, fine. He shows up, at 5.45pm (for my 1pm to 5pm appointment). He looks at my digital cable box (the one he's replacing with the DVR box) and immediately looks confused. Apparently, he's never seen one hooked up where the Cable Out isn't directly connected to the TV - I guess nobody besides me has a home theatre system. So I hook it up myself. I asked if he had a S-Video cable I could use to hook this thing up - "You mean that thing?" as he points to a RCA cable. Huh. Well I can clearly see why (big cable company) needs this guy to come out and install the DVR boxes because customers can't do it themselves.

So, after I install the thing myself and pay the man for his professional expertise, he leaves and I cook dinner for me and Cindy. Then we watch TV. I experiment and get the box to record a show. And then realize I don't know how to access the Recorded Programs list. So I hunt around on the Internet and find out that the installer left me the wrong remote - the DVR buttons are missing. Wonderful. So I had to go out the next day to (big cable company) and swap out the remote - atleast I didn't need to schedule a technician visit for that. I get my new remote and all is well. I setup the box to tape both Stargate shows and Battlestar Galactica and head on our for the evening.

I wake up Saturday morning, go to my Tai Chi class, run some errands and then come home, ready to watch some TV before starting working on Chapter 2 of my thesis. I look at the cable box and it's all flaky. The front, instead of the nice display of the time, keeps alternating between "boot", some funky symbols, and "HAL2." It will not turn on and it's not putting out a video signal. I do some WEBINT and find out that this pretty much means the box is hosed. I call (big cable company) and their technical support claims not to have ever heard of this before, they try to contact the box over the cable network and fail, and then say I need to setup a service call - a week from now. Oh joy. Nope, I can't swap the thing out at the lobby - I can't be trusted to hook it up myself (although I did when my installer didn't know what he was doing).

For those interested, the box is a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000HD. It you want to see what others think of it, try Googling "8000HD." You'll find alot of people with the boot/HAL2 cycle and alot of other problems. Apparently this box has a reputation for being very unreliable and very flaky.

I sent (big cable company) a lengthy email detailing every problem I had since day one of DVRness. Their response - call the 800 number and let's talk about it. I did that. The guy was quite rude and was unrelenting in his "policy is..." statements. He did credit me the $17 I paid for the "professional installation" since that was not quite up-to-par. He didn't seem to think that waiting two weeks for something to be installed, having to do that myself anyway, only to have the thing break after 36 hours, was a big deal.

Bottom line - another day I have to take off work, the loss of those shows I already recorded, no digital cable for a week, and alot of frustration.

(big cable company), you don't have a very good reputation for customer service. This is why.

Television!

2006-01-16T14:51:00.000-05:00

I try to watch a small amount of television. I used to watch alot and now I try to minimze the amount I watch. That being said, I find that hard to accomplish this time of year because there are so many good, compelling, things on television right now. Here's a sampling.

NFL Playoffs.

We've had a couple games so far and they are quite good. The Steelers/Colts game was fantastic. Plus the Colts lost. Sweet. Seriously, this is the best time of the year for football.

24

Jack's back. Two hours into the new season and it's just as good as last season.

Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis

Even since SciFi has taken these shows over, they air them in half-seasons. This January saw the premiere of the second half of season nine. And it's good ... it's really good. I'm still more into SG-1 than Atlantis, but both shows are really good. The new storylines with SG-1 focusing on the Ori are very compelling.

Lost

Hands down, best television show to appear on network for many, many, years. It's like one huge, multi-season, episode of The Twillight Zone, but with really good, compelling, character development.

seaQuest DSV

This one is cheating, as it's not on television anymore. But, thanks to alot of fan persering to Universal, seaQuest DSV, season one, is now available on DVD. I really miss this show. And this is the first season, when seaQuest has stories that were very grounded in science - it was believable science fiction that you could really see happening in twenty or thirty years. No aliens, time travel, or anything else that we'll see starting in season two. This was (and still is!) damn good television.

Three Books

2006-01-07T12:19:00.000-05:00

I got alot of books for Christmas. Here's three that were really good and I suggest reading.

Dancing Barefoot by Wil Wheaton. ISBN 0596006748. 116 pages.

This book is a collection of five short stories by Wil Wheaton, who is best known as Ensign Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I say five short stories lightly; it's really four really short stories followed by one much longer story. The four short ones are all things that happened during Wil's life, both before and after TNG but focusing on Wil as Wil. The long one is about his experiences doing TNG itself. Some are funny, some are sad. One is cute. This book took me about an hour and a half to read on Christmas evening at Cin's grandparents house. It was an excellent read and I highly recommend it. This book is one of two of Wil's published works, the other being Just a Geek, which I also received for Christmas but isn't to the top of the queue yet.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. ISBN 0316346624. 304 pages.

This book is all about how various things - ideas, trends, viruses, and so forth - tip, or hit that point where they just take off. There's three key factors into making something tip, "The Power of the Few", Something's "Stickiness", and "The Power of Context." The power of the few is important - some people's opinions matter more than most peoples'. There are three types of people that matter the most, Connectors - who know vast numbers of people from all different social circles, Mavens - who stay up-to-date on current happenings and supply information on "things" willingly (these are the Consumer Reports-type people) and Salesman - who are really good at influencing people. Stickiness is a simple concept to understand - the presentation of ideas, as well as the idea itself, can be tweaked in very small ways that make the idea so much more appealing. The power of context is also simple - the context an idea is received in changes ones perception of it. All-in-all, this book was really good. The best part about it is that Gladwell uses real-world examples all over the places to explain things. He'll use an example to illustrate an idea, then talk about the idea, and then use more examples to drive it home. Really good writing. Highly recommend. The book took about four or five hours of serious reading - it goes fast though and it was easy to understand as I went along. The most interesting part for me was the section on the three types of people that matter in making an idea tip - now I know that I'm a Maven (with some Connector properties). :)

On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt. ISBN 0691122946. 80 pages.

This is one of the shortest books I've ever read. It's written by a professor at Princeton University. It is an academic examination of bullshit - what is it and what role does it play in language and modern communication. It's not intended to be funny, but a serious examination of the role of bullshit in moden culture. It's a very short read - took about thirty minutes (it's only 67 pages of text and the book is very tiny - it's only 6.4 x 4.5 x 0.5 inches). Nevertheless, it has got alot of good content in it and really makes one think seriously about both lying and bullshitting and how they are very different, both in goals and in effects. It was a very good examination of the subject and worth reading for anyone. Highly recommend.

One Chance Encounter

2006-01-01T14:28:00.000-05:00

Me and Cin got up this morning and drove up to Cracker Barrel in an attempt to get breakfast. No luck - the wait was over a hour, probably since it's New Year's Day. So we headed back to Columbia and went to Boston Market for lunch. While Cin was paying and I was filling up our drinks, I hear someone come up to me and say "Jeff, it's been a really long time."

Turns out it was Jan, a girl I knew for years and went out with for a while, many years ago. We've lost touch. So in the course of ten minutes, we kinda caught up. I found out she's working for the Department of State right now, which is really cool. It was really good to see her.

What bothers me is how I handle situations like this.

Even once in a good while, I'll see someone I haven't seen in a long time, someone that I'd love to catch up with and learn more about. Jan was very special to me, and I'll always consider her a good friend. Yet I don't know much about how she's spent the past couple of years. And yet I spent this chance meeting learning a little more, but that's it. No attempt to see her again and catch up. No way of contacting her in the future. It'll be the next chance meeting that I'll see her again at, if that ever happens. This is usually what happens when I run into someone I haven't seen in a while. While I'm really glad I ran into her, part of me feels like I messed up a good chance to reconnect with an old friend.

Oh well. One of these days, I'll get better at this kind of thing.

Tape

2005-12-23T14:59:00.000-05:00

After wrapping some Christmas presents, I got about halfway done with one oddly-shaped gift and then ran out of tape. Ugh. Off to the Target I went. Finding the tape aisle, I found that I had four choices. There are two main kinds of tape - "transparent tape" and "invisible tape." Invisible tape is about twice as much as transparent tape, but it looked better. Once I decided on invisible, I had to choose between the 3M/Scotch and Target brands. I buy Target brand products all the time and normally I'm very happy so I chose the Target brand.

After coming home, I tried to finish wrapping the present I had left half-unwrapped. I pulled a strip of tape up and went to tear it off the container. Herein lies the problem. The little jagged edge where you're supposed to rip the tape off doesn't work well. Not at all. Thinking that maybe this was a problem with the one unit I had, I pulled out unit #2 (I bought a pack of 3). Nope, same problem. Apparently, the Target brand invisible tape has a very poorly designed dispenser. So today I went back to Target and bought a pack of 3 of the Scotch invisible tape. Well-designed dispenser. It works very well.

Bottom line: This was very frustrating. I've never been disappointed with a Target brand product before. Normally they focus on design and usability. What happened with the tape?

Syriana

2005-12-09T17:08:00.000-05:00

Well, it snowed last night. I got up at 5.15am and called the number with snow closing information and was delighted to learn I didn't have to go to work today. I woke up late, had some coffee (that's a treat since I'm almost completely a tea drinker now) and breakfast, got a bunch of errands done, and then went to see Syriana at the movies.

Great movie. It's by the same guy who did Traffic and it shows. The same idea of multiple plotlines that somehow connect late in the movie shows one key issue from many different points of view and illustrates quite effectively how that one mega-issue can change the lives of many different people in completely different ways. In Traffic, that issue was drugs and drug trafficking. In Syriana, that issue is oil. This movie is also a little like Crash where you don't see how the various plotlines are related until near the end of the movie. It's unlike Crash because in that movie, your interpreation of events is altered once you know how various people are connected to each other. In this movie (and Traffic), the various plotlines don't change their meaning once you see how things are connected - it's just different ways these issues touch the lives of these characters. The best explanation of this is in a CNN article about a conversation with the writer/director, Stephen Gaghan.

Gaghan "mentions the front page of a recent New York Times, with articles about disgraced congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Nigerian corruption, the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Iraq war."All this stuff seems different, but it all seems the same. So [with] multiple narrative you go ... I don't know how all this fits together. That's the first hour of Syriana."

And that's what it feels like. Go see Syriana.

My (soon-to-be) New Ride

2005-12-08T19:48:00.000-05:00

I ordered my next new car a couple weeks ago. It has a build date in January and I should receive it sometime in early February, I am told. My first car was a 1988 Ford Mustang. My second car was a 1990 Volkswagon Fox. My third car was a 1992 Geo Storm. My fourth car is a 2001 Nissan XTerra. My next car will be a 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid.

So why am I buying a hybrid? Well, there's a couple reasons here.

First of all, it seriously depresses me when I go to the gas station and pay more than $50 per tank. And that one tank gets me about 250 miles, as the XTerra currently gets around 15-16MPG. That's a lot of money for driving miles. As I drive alot, it really adds up and too much of my paycheck goes to oil companies.
That brings me to reason two, I do not want to support the oil companies right now. I am appalled at the position ExxonMobile has taken when it comes to renewable energy. I am appalled at the Cheney Energy Task Force fiasco and the hold these companies have over the current administration. I don't want to give any more money to these corporations than I have to. So the jump from ~15MPG to ~50MPG will make going to the pump alot more palatable for me.
Third, I'm distressed about the lack of concern in the United States about global warming. If you have a basic understanding of chemistry and physics and you look at the available data, you would believe that humans are causing global warming via increased carbon production. The business of "we don't know if we're doing this" is crap - when "leaders" that are not scientists don't listen to the scientists that do know what they're talking about, I fast lose respect for said leaders. So I'm very happy to report that my new car will be a AT-PZEV vehicle, which is the tightest emissions standard in the world and results in almost zero evaporative emissions.
Fourth, I'm tired of driving an SUV. Trucks and SUVs are fine when you need them. I do not need my truck for day-to-day driving. That's not what it's designed for. It is what the new car will be designed for. I also fully believe that driving my SUV around all the time makes me a more aggressive driver, which I really dislike.

So that's it. Sorry for the preachy statements but I'm getting more and more concerned about the current energy policy of the United States. I'm happy and proud to do a small part in reducing the amount of carbon we produce and the amount of oil we have to find and refine. I'm happy that soon I'll be driving a much more sustainable vehicle. I'm also happy that I'll have a voice-activated GPS-linked navigation system in the new car. :)

Waiting for the snow...

2005-12-08T19:42:00.000-05:00

I feel like I'm in elementary school again.

Here I am on Thursday night, praying for snow. My work closes for snow more than most places, so I'm really hoping that it snows a decent amount. I want to go see Syriana so I hope it snows just enough so that I don't have to go to work but can still drive off to the movies in the afternoon.

Wow, I'm pathetic. :)

Busy Weekend

2005-11-20T22:11:00.000-05:00

On Friday, I left work early and went to the gym (ahh, the gym). I briefly entertained the idea of sitting in the sauna after my workout, as I hear it's supposed to be good for your immune system. However, after seeing the two portly, naked, gentlemen inside, I decided not to see if this is true. :) Cindy brought over food from Noddles and Company, which was delicious. Then, Danny and Jen came over and we watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Yes, this is the same movie as we saw the play of last week (with Danny and Jen). We decided after seeing the play that seeing the movie may make the story make more sense. Nope. The opposite was true; the play made more sense. But atleast we got to do the Time Warp dance again. We also had some delicious wine (Firestone Reisling for me and Cin). Ahh, wine and a campy, cult, movie. Sweet.

On Saturday, Cin was at a swim meet. I spent the day helping my friends Scott and Erin (same folks we went to Paris with last summer) move from their apartment in DC to a house they just bought in Ellicott City. There was some horrible construction on New York Ave going into DC at 10AM on this Saturday morning. I got there and Erin let me in; Scott called a couple of minutes later saying that he was there with the moving truck. We went down and Erin stood in shock about the truck Scott drove up it. This was not the 10 foot moving truck he was reserved, it was atleast twice that long (no smaller trucks in stock). Normally this would be great, but we're in the middle of narrow-street, sharp-turns, DC here. Anyhow, we loaded up the truck (their whole apartment could fit in there), and headed to Ellicott City. I found their new house OK and it's really nice. It took much less time to unload than to load and after the usual pizza and beer, we departed as they needed to return the truck before 5pm (it would have cost something like 3x to return it in Ellicott City). After that I headed home and met Cin at the mall later. We walked around a little bit and then met my parents to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The movie was really good, but I'm convinced I like the books alot more than the movies. Still, top notch film.

On Sunday, I ran some errands and then met Cin at her house. We bought some groceries and took then to a mall off US40 for MIX106.5's annual Stuff-A-Bus event (they load up MTA buses with food for the Maryland Food Bank). We were both a little disappointed that you give then your food and they put it on the bus; we had wanted to load it up ourselves. Oh well. Then we watched the end of the Ravens game (why do we start playing so well - except for some really stupid mistakes from Boller - now that we're out of any hope for the playoffs?). Anyway, it was a REALLY good game. I then watched the Indy/Cincy game. Since when were the Bengals this good? Marvin Lewis is one helluva coach. This was simply the best football game I've seen in a long time. I ran to Giant and got some turkey burgers for dinner and then we watched The Simpsons - which was probably the funniest episode of this show that I've seen in a while. It's just been a good day for entertainment this weekend.

That's the weekend. Back to work tomorrow (until Thursday - love those holidays!).

The Legitimate Theatre...

2005-11-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

Plan for Saturday night: Join Danny and Jen at the Spotlight Theatre in Baltimore for The Rocky Horror Show with dinner before hand. Here we go.

We went over to Danny's apartment around 6.00pm and headed up to Baltimore. We drove down Lombard Street, past some boarded-up houses and came upon our dinner destination, Patrick's of Pratt. This is a small (VERY small) bar/restaurant that Danny's been going to for years. The whole place is about as big as my basement. Turns out that Danny knows Patrick; his family has owned and operated this place since the 1800s. It's a traditional Irish pub in every sense of the word. We ordered some drinks and dinner and sat down to wait (it was quite busy - we had the last available table). Around 7.15pm we were getting quite nervous as we had an 8.00pm show to make and we had to claim our tickets by 7.45pm. So we asked, he went and checked on our food, and said it would be ready in four minutes. It turns out that Patrick's wife, Anne, is the cook, and her helpers didn't show up that night - she was all alone in the kitcken, hence the wait. We paid the check in advance and then our food came out. All of it was simply delicious. I had salmon, Cin had pasta, Jen had a wonderful crabcake (I had a bite - it was awesome), and Danny had a ribeye steak (I had a bit of this too - very, very good!). After eating at amazing speed, we split and piled into Danny's truck. This place was really nice. Very friendly atmosphere, very small but delicious menu, and great service. Patrick himself seems really cool. Other interesting point - it's definatly a small business. Danny's been there late at night before and when realizing they were the only ones left in the place, asked when they closed. The answer: "we're really just waiting for you." They just close when folks leave. What a cool pub. We'll head up there again when they're less busy and we're less rushed.

We drove down Pratt Street at a high rate of speed to get our tickets. We dropped off Jen and Cin and me and Danny found a "public parking lot" to park in. It was between two buildings and we had to pay some guy standing around $6 to park there. Kinda sketchy. But the truck was there when we left the show, so it all worked out. We found the girls at the Showcase Theatre, where we were going to see The Rocky Horror Show. Both Danny and Cin had seen the movie, but it was a firsttime experience for both me and Jen. This was a REALLY small theatre - maybe one hundred folks total all around the stage. The show was "interesting." I'm not really sure how to describe it - I think anyone who has been the show will know what I mean. It was quite enjoyable though. Plus all four of us were doing the Time Warp dance all night. :)

After the show we headed back to Patrick's to see if they were still open and we could get some drinks. No dice; they were closed. All the folks must have left. So we headed to Vaccaro's in Little Italy as Cin really wanted a canoli. She got that and then we headed to Howl at the Moon, as neither Danny or Jen had ever been there. That was alot of fun too. Around 12.45am or so we headed out and got some required Power Plant Live pizza, which was OK, but not as good as it normally is at 2.00am.

That was it for all of us. A short trip home and both me and Cin collapsed on her bed. ZZZZZZZZZZZ......

A nice, relaxing, day

2005-11-11T15:04:00.000-05:00

I love federal holidays. Here's my schedule for the day.

9.30am - woke up and played with my cat
10.00am - ate breakfast (Fiber One cereal)
10.30am - went to the gym
11.30am - went to the mall for lunch (Caesar salad w/ tomatoes and fat-free dressing)
12.15pm - went to grocery store #1 (David's Natural Market)
12.45pm - went to grocery store #2 (Roots Market)
1.30pm - got home and watched Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
2.30pm - took a shower and got some laundry done
3.00pm - had some tea
7.00pm - picked up Cindy and went to Fuddruckers for dinner. I really wanted to try a ostrich burger, as I hear they are great. Apparently, they're also not on the menu at Fudd's anymore. Nuts. So I had a buffalo burger. It's as tasty as ground beef (better, based on my one experience with it) and it's 97.5% fat free and low in sat fat. Sweet.
8.30pm - went to Bad Movie Night (every year, on his birthday, a friend of mine had people over to his house and we all watch a really, really, bad, movie). This year we were a day late as he has law school classes on Thursday nights. Tonight's movie was Flash Gordon. Ugh, how horrible. :) We also had some of his handmade grapefruit wine, of which I'm the only person that seemed to like it.

What a sweet day.

Crash

2005-11-05T22:55:00.000-05:00

Tonight I watched Crash on cable on-demand. This was a damn good movie.

IMDB describes it as "Several characters of different racial backgrounds collide in one incident. The different stereotypes society has created for those backgrounds affect their judgment, beliefs and actions. This in turn causes problems for each of them." See the whole IMDB entry here.

That really wasn't what it was all about, but it was surely a look at race in America today and the stereotypes that everyone experiences at one point or another. It was a very powerful movie. It made me think. Really think, which is something a movie hasn't done in a while.

Plus it had Sandra Bullock in it, which can't hurt. :)

What's odd is that at the end of the movie I decided I never wanted to watch it again. I say that because I want to remember this movie just like I saw it tonight, the first time. I think I might see things differently knowing how things were related at the beginning and I think that would have detracted from the movie.

So, watch Crash. It's well worth the two hours.

Incident at the Gate

2005-10-26T20:02:00.000-04:00

I live in a gated community. That means there's a gate at the only entrance in and out and to obtain access to the community, you have three options (1) present a magentic card that opens the gate, (2) type in a four digit code that opens the gate, or (3) call a resident from the callbox, who can then open the gate for you. There's also a security guard shack right near the gate. So I got home today and there was a line at the gate. There were three cars in front, a P/T Cruiser at the gate and two sedans between me and this car. There was a guy who had gotten out of the P/T Cruiser and was yelling at two women, who had gotten out of the sedans. Apparenly the code that the person he was visiting wasn't working and the security guard was out, making rounds of the community (this usually takes about ten minutes). So he decided that since the women in the cars behind him wouldn't open the gate for him, he would just sit there and yell at them, blocking the gate. He also threatened to back up into the car behind him and he cursed alot. All this while the woman in the second sedan had three kids in the car (who hadn't eaten dinner yet, it seems) Wonderful.

Eventually he backed up. At a good rate of speed. Almost into the car behind him. But he didn't hit it. He then spun around and hit a curb, popped off it, and turned his car around out of the way. Then he proceeded to get out and yell some more. Meanwhile the woman with the kids called the police with the guy's license number and a description of this wonderful behavior. The security guard then made it back (he wasn't done his rounds yet but the growing comotion got his attention). The guy then started to yell at the guard, how this thing happened everytime he came to visit his friend and these folks (not his works for the two ladies and myself) wouldn't let him in. He then explained why he was perfectly justified in blocking everyone else out. Meanwhile the three of us headed in while the guard was explaining to him why he couldn't do this and that he needed to get out of people's way as the most he would be gone should be ten minutes (seems reasonable, eh?).

Ugh. Some people.

The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World

2005-10-17T17:45:00.000-04:00

I found this logic puzzle on the web and fell in love with it. So I copied it here for everyone to see and think about. I have to admit that I didn't figure it all the way out myself. It's really good. I copied this from http://www.xkcd.com/blue_eyes.html, so full credit goes to that guy. Enjoy!

Blue Eyes:
The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World

A group of people live on an island. They are all perfect logicians -- if a conclusion can be logically deduced, they will do it instantly. No one knows the color of their eyes. Every night at midnight, a ferry stops at the island. If anyone has figured out the color of their own eyes, they [must] leave the island that midnight.

On this island live 100 blue-eyed people, 100 brown-eyed people, and the Guru. The Guru has green eyes, and does not know her own eye color either. Everyone on the island knows the rules (but are not given the total numbers) and is constantly aware of everyone else's eye color. Everyone keeps a constant count of the total number they see of each (excluding themselves). However, they cannot otherwise communicate. So any given blue-eyed person can see 100 people with brown eyes and 99 people with blue eyes, but that does not tell them their own eye color; it could be 101 brown and 99 blue. Or 100 brown, 99 blue, and the one could have red eyes.

The Guru speaks only once (let's say at noon), on one day in all their endless years on the island. Standing before the islanders, she says the following:

"I can see someone with blue eyes."

Who leaves the island, and on what night?

There are no mirrors or reflecting surfaces, nothing dumb, It is not a trick question, and the answer is logical. It doesn't depend on tricky wording, and it doesn't involve people doing something silly like creating a sign language or doing genetics. The Guru is not making eye contact with anyone in particular; she's simply saying "I count at least one blue-eyed person on this island who isn't me."

And lastly, the answer is not "no one leaves."

Seventy Two Hours: Episode I

2005-10-16T20:53:00.000-04:00

I remember thinking when I was with Cin on Thursday night that the next 72 hours would be "interesting." I was right - strange times.

I took Friday off. I went to my insurance agent's office, got blood drawn for an upcoming physical, got myself signed up for direct deposit from the one job I have that I still get checks from, finished a book review I had due, and then went to the gym. Normally that would be a relaxing day, but the book review took alot longer than I thought I really wanted to get it done before going out of town this weekend. So I did and I made it to happy hour at a somewhat normal time. Here's where things got crazy.

DrMo, her sister, and our friend Elana (she's one of the two twins that came to my birthday party - see the previous post) were enjoying dinner and drinks when our boss shows up. This is from the part time job that both me, DrMo, and her sister all work at (and Cin, but she wasn't there) and Elana used to work at. He looked like crap. I said hello, got him a stool, and asked him what was wrong. He then stated that sometime in November would be his last day with the company (hereafter called TheCompany). He was "asked to leave" and couldn't discuss the matter any further. Wow - what a shocker. For years, this guy (we'll call him MrSailor, as he liked to sail and was in the Navy for a while), and one of the VPs of TheCompany have never gotten along and butted heads all the time. There were always problems, and one had to wonder who would outlast who. But this? Wow.

To put this in perspective, I started working for TheCompany when I was fifteen years old. It was my first job. MrSailor was my second boss - he was working when I started and moved into the "boss" role about a year or so later. So he's really been my boss for over 12 years. He got me into being a lifeguarding instructor. He taught me almost everything I know about how to save someone's life and how to train people to save lives. He inspired me to be an EMT a number of years ago (which I can no longer do due to time, unfortunately).

What bothers me the most is that this is the absolutely wrong thing to do. I've been in countless situations where two people cannot get along in a professional environment. Every job I've ever had has been like this - some of these have been far worse than the thing between these two folks. The major problem is that there are about a billion things that TheSailor does for TheCompany that no one else can do right now. I'm not just trying to sound dramatic - there are no fulltime people working for TheCompany that know how to do some of the things he's done. Period. And these are important things - like hiring and training (in a customer service organization, don't you think you want to retain the guy who does all your hiring and training?). To get rid of someone because you don't get along with them, not taking into account all the work he does - working well beyond his job position and miles beyond his salary, seems very petty. It's a heck of a way to run a company.

So where do we go from here? I have no idea.

(Episode II of Seventy Two Hours can be found on the travel log - the companion blog to this one).

Happy Birthday to Me

2005-10-10T14:17:00.000-04:00

Cin asked me a couple weeks ago what I wanted for my birthday. That one was easy this year - I wanted two things, (1) her to take me to The Melting Pot for dinner, and (2) her to make me a pizza from scratch.

We did the restaurant dinner last week and it was tasty, very tasty. DrMo and her boyfriend and her sister joined us and we had lots of delicious fondue. We also had a new Reisling from somewhere in Australia that had just begun being imported into the States. It was very different than any other Reisling I've ever had - it was less sweet and more dry. It was very delicious. DrMo's boy took the label; hopefully he'll track down where we can buy a couple bottles.

On Saturday, Cin was supposed to make me my birthday pizza. She was going to call me in the afternoon when she was ready for dinner (apparently the dough needed to rise). Around 6.30pm, I got really tired of waiting and when I couldn't get her on the phone or IM, I drove over there.

Big Mistake.

Apparently Cin (along with DrMo and their other roomie, Erin) had planned a suprise party for me. And I walked in right when people just started to get there. The only ones there were DrMo and her boyfriend, Erin, Cin, our friends Mike and Sara, and our friend Stephanie. Whoops. Luckily, things picked up from there. Lots of people showed up and Cin began to forgive me for coming early. The pizzas she made were delicious (she made three - a white cheddar pizza, a Pizza Margharita with sliced tomatoes and fresh moz cheese, and a "normal" pizza) - very delicious. Lots of folks I haven't seen in a while (including Rachel and Elana - they're twins - that I haven't seen in years) showed up. I had a great time and it looked like everyone else did as well. The party also had a pirate theme with decorations and such. I had to wear a bandana with various pirate images on it. Arr!

Thanks to Cin, DrMo, and Erin for planning this (and to MrSideshow for "pumping up that ******* pool in the basement"). What a sweet birthday present.

Carolyn and Modern Romance

2005-10-07T12:58:00.000-04:00

My brother sent me a link to a story that I find very amusing. It's sad in a way and just bizarre in another way. Anyway, it's posted in parts within a forum.

The first part of the story is here (page 1 of the thread).

The second part of the story is here (page 3 of the thread; you need to scroll down about 3/4 of the way - look for the UPDATE post from user Secks, the guy who this happened to).

The third part of the story is here (page 11 of the thread; scroll down about 3/4 of the way).

The last part of the story is here (page 15 of the thread; scroll down about 1/3 of the way).

It's a long story but it's quite amusing (wierd amusing, not so much ha-ha amusing). Anyway, enjoy - I know I did. :)

Touched by his Noodly Appendage

2005-10-05T16:39:00.000-04:00

In what's probably the best done commentary on the whole "controversy" about intelligent design (ID), here's the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This all came from an open letter from a guy named Bobby Henderson to the Kansas School Board expressing his view that if they are going to teach ID, they should give just as much time to his belief system, that the world was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Something like this...

There's really a whole belief system here, outlined on the webpage of Mr. Henderson. For example, did you know that global warming is really caused by the declining number of pirates in the world? It's true! There's emperical data proving it on the site. What's also very interesting ... someone has offered a $1,000,000 reward for anyone that can prove there that this theory is incorrect. That's right a million dollars. Noone has collected yet.

I think this puts the entire "controversy" in perspective.

Home of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: here
Wikipedia article here: here

Renaissance Festival

2005-10-02T20:24:00.000-04:00

Today a bunch of us went down to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. This is a yearly event that has all sorts of shows, food, and lots of fun. Cin shot arrows, we sampled lots of good beer and food, we saw Johnny Fox the swordswallower, and we browsed the shops full of knives and swords. Alot of fun.

Damon's Grill

2005-10-01T16:59:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, me and Cin went to Damon's Grill for dinner. I had a coupon emailed to me for my upcoming birthday for a free entree. That coupon, and my current love of ribs, motivated the choice. I was a little worried, as the service at this place has been questionable in the past. This time we asked to sit in the clubhouse section, which is the sports bar type section, in comparision with the "normal restaurant" section. As expected, the service was much better. I got ribs and Cin got a half a chicken. Very tasty. I also was able to sub my potato out for tomato slices which were delicious. So, we had a good time. We had a little snafu with the coupon but all was well; they actually ended up taking off the ribs (the more expensive entree). Sweeet. We'll be going back to Damon's.

I really like the beer glasses at Damon's - they are tall and skinny with a handle. Very nice.

The Swedes, Americans, and Oil Independence

2005-09-23T10:19:00.000-04:00

Now this is a VERY promising event.
Sweden To Try To End Fossil Fuels Dependency By 2020

I really think these people have a really good idea. Note that there are some very well-recognizing and well-respect people pushing for a very similar policy here in the USA...
Set America Free

(sorry for the preachy post - this is one issue I'm really starting to care alot about)

Ray and Ribs

2005-09-22T21:34:00.000-04:00

Tonight we went to Ray Lewis' Full Moom BBQ in Canton (Baltimore). Delicious. I got a rib platter which had four spare ribs (BIG spare ribs) and two sides, two ears of corn in my case. All was delicious. Cin had the grilled salmon (the last piece they had apparently) and a salad and mac&cheese. The restaurant was really nice, all decorated with lots of Ray Lewis stuff. There was no wait and we had excellent service. This one gets a highly recommend from both me and Cin. :)

4 8 15 16 23 42

2005-09-21T22:00:00.000-04:00

Tonight was the season premiere of Lost.

More proof that this is the single greatest thing on TV today. Potentially one of the best things on TV ever.

If you're not watching this show, you need to.

Today be the Day!

2005-09-19T22:44:00.000-04:00

Arr! Surely you all best be knowin' that today is the day o' all the pirates of yore! It be Talk Like A Pirate Day! Best wishes to all the cap'ns out there and all their mates! Surely you shant be walkin' the plank like a bunch of scurvy dogs!

http://talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

Rooibos

2005-09-18T21:00:00.000-04:00

At Borders the other day, I found a tea bag container from The Republic of Tea called Red Tea. Turns out it's not "real" tea but from a plant that only really grows in South Africa - it's called "rooibos," not to be confused with Chinese "red tea," which is what they call black tea. Anyway, it's good. It's really good. It's caffeine free. It also has alot of antioxidants, but according to the web it does not have as much as green tea, contrary to what the container says. Anyway, this stuff if really good. Highly recommended.

Read about rooibos plant (and associated tea) here.

Canton

2005-09-18T20:57:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, me and Cin went into Canton (part of Baltimore) for dinner and drinks with our friends, Mike and Sara. We had dinner at the Outback - the one in Canton apparently never had a line and it sure didn't on Saturday night. We had a good dinner. Then we went into Canton's main square (lots of bars) and went to a place called the Cosmopolitan, where they specialize in martinis of various sorts. They had a list of around 100 different ones. I had a "Raventini" which tasted like grape. Very tasty. After that it was back to their apartment and we watched So I Married an Axe Murderer, one of Mike Myers' earlier movies. It was funny - predictable, but funny. We didn't get home until 1.30am or so, but it was a fun night. I really like Canton - it's even nicer than most of the bars in Federal Hall. Very cool place - we'll definatly be back there.

Buona sera!

2005-09-13T21:36:00.000-04:00

Today, me, Cin, and DrMo started Italian class. It's once a week for two and a half hours at HCC and is not for credit. But this is the same Introduction to Italian class that's offered for credit. I was a little worried about this, as it's two and a half hours on Tuesday night, but it was alot of fun. And I did pretty good at it, even if I do have to say so myself. Hopefully this keeps up.

In other news, on Friday the bartending staff at Fridays, our every-week happy hour place came over when me, DrMo, and our friend Jen had just gotten there and told us that TheBartender had been fired on Wednesday (I'm going to steal DrMo's nickname for TheBartender, as it's appropiate as he has been our bartender for years and he's damn good at it). Apparenly he didn't come to a meeting (that none of the bar staff came to) and he got fired. Apparently the new manager there (they go through managers like no tomorrow) was out to get him. TheCuteGirlBartender (that one I made up) was quite furious about this and told this manager that like 80% of the folks that come to the bar on Friday came to see TheBartender (which is true), to which the manager said that they'd have to attract new regulars then. Man I feel appreachiated. Anyway, TheBartender is looking for work and we think he'll end up at another bar we like nearby. So happy hour may be moving after multiple years. What a messed up situation. How dare they screw up happy hour ... I ought to club them and eat their bones! :)

Goodness with the new Cell Phone

2005-09-12T23:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a feature. I was driving home from Delaware this evening and almost ran into an accident. The large truck in front of me slammed on its brakes (as did I) and as we drove past, I saw what used to be an Eclipse spun-out in the middle of I-95 with the front and back bashed in and the driver just getting out of the car. I dailed 911 on my cell and got a busy signal. I hung up and dialed again - at which point I noticed that my phone had gone into Emergency Mode. Apparently once one dials 911, the phone stays in that mode until cancelled, with the GPS receiver online so its broadcasting your position to emergency services (this is Enhanced-911 or E911). Very cool. To summarize, the police were already responding to the accident and everyone seemed OK.

Cin's new anti-gas guzzler

2005-09-05T00:51:00.000-04:00

Cin got a new car. Long, and probably uninteresting, story.

The interesting part is the mileage. At first we thought the gas gauge was malfunctioning but we computed the MPG during her first fillup. 41.59MPG. Sweet.

Yep, it'll be time for me to get a new car in the next couple months.

Gas

2005-09-01T16:28:00.000-04:00

One gallon of regular unleaded.

Wednesday Morning -> $2.69
Wednesday Evening -> $2.79
Thursday Morning -> $3.09
Thursday Evening -> $3.19

Now I understand how the global oil market works and I know there is nothing I can do about this but grin and bear it. But still.

I absolutely think we're headed for a serious energy crisis in this country. Why are we still living as if oil was our future? Winston Churchill once said the politicians are concerned with the next election and statesmen are concerned with the next generation. It's obvious that oil is not sustainable for our generation, much less the next one. We really need to start thinking about what we're going to need to be doing in twenty years and start planning and developing for it now. Instead we just keep increasing our oil usage... Sigh.

Hornet Update

2005-08-31T19:36:00.000-04:00

The supervisor from Ehrlich never called me back.

Today, after not finding a single little bugger in my house since the Ehrlich man came out, I came home from dinner with my parents and found one dead on in my basement. Completely separate from all the other ones. This concerns me a little since it looks like the other ones. Obviously they were getting into the house somehow, as they were in the attic. It seems perfectly reasonable that one would fly somewhere else and end up in the basement. I'm just hoping that he's the only one.

and now for something completely different...

2005-08-29T21:26:00.000-04:00

I found this website/blog: PostSecret. The whole idea here is that you fill out a postcard with something that bothers you about yourself, or some secret you have, and then every week all the postcards received that week are posted, anonymously on the web. I'm not sure how I feel about this site, as you'll see if you read through some of them. I feel really sorry for some of these folks, living with hiding what's written on these cards. Hopefully posted them online (anonymously) and having people read them helps these folks. Anyway, I just wanted to pass this one on.

Presenting Ensign and Mrs. Jonathan Dorsey

2005-08-28T21:28:00.000-04:00

We spent Saturday at the wedding of Mandy Martin, one of Cindy's friends from the Towson swim team. I've know Mandy for a couple years and I've known Jonathan since around when they first started going on, about two years ago. They are a wonderful pair. The wedding was held at the Naval Academy, where he went, and the reception at a fire hall in Severna Park. Both were a blast.

The Naval Academy chapel is beautiful. Simply beautiful. The ceremony was very short (~25 minutes) and performed by the Academy chaplain (we think). It was definatly a short one, as they apparently have weddings almost constantly on Saturdays - when we arrived one was finishing up and when we left people were showing up for the next one. Whew. One oddity was that when Mandy's dad gave her arm to Jonathan at the altar, the priest asked if he was willing to "transfer" his responsibility to look after her to her new husband. Never heard that one before. Id on't think I like it.

The reception was also nice. Our friend Danny DJed it and he did a good job. The food was good. We danced alot. Cindy visited with alot of her swim team friends she hasn't seen in a while. The reception was six hours long but didn't feel nearly that long.

All-in-all, a good time. Congrats out to Mandy and Jonathan.

The Aristocrats

2005-08-27T11:03:00.000-04:00

Last night me and Cin went and saw The Aristocrats. This is a documentary about the "insider" comedian joke of the same name. Read more about the joke itself here. The movie was really raunchy and really funny, but not as funny as it could be. There was definatly alot more talking about the joke (and other things) than telling of the joke itself. Both me and Cin liked alot of the other, similar, jokes that the many comedians all told. What's interesting is the crowd response to those jokes. We were in the smallest of all theatres at the Anundel Mills Muvico - it had a capacity of 101 seats and maybe a third of them were filled. Everyone laughed at many of the jokes, the more vulgar they were. Noone really laughed at the more racial jokes. They even discussed that in the movie - that racial jokes are now the older sexual jokes - they still make comedians nervous to tell them. Interesting. All-in-all, this was a funny movie. My score => 7/10. BTW, Cartman from South Park had the best telling of the joke - we think largely because of the delivery and Kyle's interruptions.

Hornets

2005-08-26T14:12:00.000-04:00

Over the span of two days, I found three dead hornets upstairs in my house (well, one was alive but very groggy looking and Eddie was swatting it). I got out the ladder to look into the attic (as they were all upstairs near the attic) and when I lifted the cover up a little, I saw another dead one. So I called the J. C. Ehrlich pest control company and they came out about an hour later, for an after-hours, "emergency", appointment.

He spent a good hour up in my attic looking for a nest and such. He found eight or nine other dead ones and one live one (which he killed). No nest. So there really wasn't anything else he could do. We did tape up the attic entryway (the moulding around the cover was loose and they surely could have flown in there). Apparently they will have their QA manager come out at some point soon to take another look as well. So he left and I slept pretty poorly, constantly on the lookout for hornets. It's about 2.15pm the next day now and no hornets in sight.

The Ehrlich guy was very professional and very good. I have alot of trust in everything he told me. He also impressed me when, upon calling me back after being paged, he tried to talk me out of the after-hours appointment as it's alot of expensive ($200 just to show up, plus whatever the treatment costs). But I felt alot better having him come out so it was worth the money. So, good job Ehrlich. Hopefully this is all taken care of.

Elementary

2005-08-18T18:46:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading the complete works of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This includes all four novels (A Study in Scarlett, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Valley of Fear) and all fifty-six short stories. These were sixty of the most enjoyable stories I have ever read. Doyle had a wonderful writing style and the use of Watson as a narrator gives all of the stories a very intriguing feeling. As I'm done reading them, I find myself wanting more to read. I also find myself a little disappointed in Holmes' final disposition, as a keeper of bees in the Sussex Downs. I do, however, understand that as well, just as if Holmes was a real person. I understand why someone would want to get away from something they have been doing for such a long time to pursue other interests. At the same time, I completely understand when, in retirement, Holmes encounters a murder and must solve it. The character of Sherlock Holmes is one of the most believable fictional characters I have ever encountered. If you're looking for some good reading, I highly recommend this collection.

The Dukes of Hazzard

2005-08-13T11:31:00.000-04:00

Last night we saw The Dukes of Hazzard. This was quite interesting. The movie was nothing at all like the TV show, with the characters being the characters in name only. Now while that's true, the movie was pretty well done. It was funny. Quite funny. If you go into this movie looking for a good time, you'll probably get it. If you go into this movie looked for a Dukes of Hazzard movie, you'll be likely to be disappointed. So take it for what it is. My score -> 7/10.

Willy Wonka, Tea, Steak, and Beer

2005-07-27T15:30:00.000-04:00

We saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a couple days ago. Definately a different movie than the older, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder. Johnny Depp's take on Willy Wonka is quite a bit different. I'm not really sure how I feel about this new, completely out of touch Wonka. The older movie seemed to teach Charlie a lesson and the whole thing, down to where he decides to return the Gobstoper is really just a test. Not so here - Charlie "wins" by just being the last kid standing. There's also a new backstory for Wonka and a resolution that involves making up with his dad. Heartwarming but pointless, in my humble opinion. The scenes with the "Great Glass Elevator" are good. The Oompa Loompas now have a backstory as well. They don't seem very cheerful in this movie - even the songs are very to the point and just seem to be missing some of the (obviously dark) fun of the first movie. Nevertheless, this movie is great and well worth seeing. My score -> 8/10.

In other news, the Outback makes a good Long Island Ice Tea. We went there last night for the first time in a while. Steak was (seriously) overcooked but the fries were very cheesy. Waiter didn't really come back to check on the steak's doneness so points off for him. I've also decided that I really like Dos Equis - we went to Fridays afterwards for a couple beers and all was well.

oddities at the cashier

2005-07-23T17:21:00.000-04:00

I went to PetSmart this afternoon to buy a covered little box for my cat. He's got this horrible habit of throwing litter out of the box when covering his "business" and it's really messy and annoying. Anyway, when I went up to pay, there was but one person in front of me. Her bill -> $17.44. She wanted to pay with a Visa gift card. These things are just like normal gift cards but work anywhere Visa is accepted - it's like a prepaid credit card. So she goes to use it and it comes back declined. Then she tries again with the same result. The cashier, trying to be helpful, asks how much is on it and she replies that it only has a couple dollars left. Gee, I wonder why it didn't work? They call the manager out who has the idea that we'll just charge $3.00 to it and then she can pay the rest. OK, we're down to $14.44 due. She hands the cashier fifteen dollars in cash. And says that she wants to pay $13.00 and then charge the remaining $1.44. So she does. She runs her Discover card for $1.44 and gets two one-dollar bills back. So for this $17.44 purchase, she paid $3.00 on a gift card, $1.44 on a Discover card, and then $15.00 in cash and got back $2.00 in cash. This whole ordeal took about fifteen minutes. I just don't understand. :)

good food and a (surprisingly) good movie

2005-07-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

Ever since Cindy moved into her own house, she's wanted to cook more. So last night, she cooked dinner. She made salmon (broiled ... yummy), pasta with EVOO (that's extra virgin olive oil for those that never watch Rachel Ray), bruschetta, and pesto. I ate everything but the pesto. The salmon was very, very, good and tasty. So was the pasta. The bruschetta was also tasty. I'm glad Cindy has this new itch to cook ... it's tasty, healthier, and cheaper than eating out as much as we do. :)

After dinner, we watched The Pacifier on DVD. This is Vin Diesel's forte into comedy. It was surprisingly good. It had a number of plot holes and was somewhat predictable, but it's a Disney movie so what do you expect. It was good clean fun. My score -> 8/10.

Wedding Crashers

2005-07-17T10:42:00.000-04:00

We were supposed to go out auditing for the outdoor pools on Saturday. We headed out and immediatly got stuck in a downpour. Back to the office. After looking at the weather, we cancelled (try again on Sunday). Instead, me, Cin, Danny, and his girl Jen, headed to the movies to see Wedding Crashers. It was funny. It was too long. It had a POINTLESS cameo by Will Farrell (I really dislike Will Farrell). But it was cute. Vince Vaughn was really good. All-in-all, it was the best movie I've seen with that same group of actors (Vaughn, Wilson, Wilson, Farrell, Stiller) in a long time. My score -> 6/10.

A "Fantastic" Evening

2005-07-16T11:22:00.000-04:00

Last night we saw Fantastic Four at the movie theater near Columbia Mall. We met Mo, Matt, and Bridget before hand and had some food at Uno. I had a Caesar salar that was really good (Uno's has the best crutons) and me and Cindy split a Tomato, Basil, and Mozzarella appetizer. Very tasty. The movie was OK - it was really slow getting started, which can be necessary to understand the background of this particular group of superheros. Nevertheless, it seemed to drag. And I didn't really buy the character of Doctor Doom. And I didn't buy the way The Thing could revert back to human form and then back again - this was supposed to be a one-time freak-of-nature mutation. Regardless, the movie was still enjoyable. My Score - 6/10. The theatre itself gets a 3/10 for all the obnoxious kids there who talked on their cell phones during the movie, yelled at each other, and so on. The movie staff tried to keep them under control but as soon as they left the room, it started up again. Very uncool.

As a follow-on, the main post office in Columbia apparently now lets you ship packages at any time. They have an automated package mailing system and I stopped by around 1.00am after dropping Cin off to mail a package and it all went smoothly. They don't offer as many options as are offered when you speak to a clerk, but it was still very cool. If you ever need to mail something at 1.00am, I suggest trying it. :)

Wine and a Movie

2005-07-09T11:17:00.000-04:00

Friday night, we went to the Basignani Vineyards up in Sparks, Maryland. Apparently, every Friday during the summer, they have a tasting of their various summer wines. Then they show an older movie on their lawn. Me and Cin drove up and met a group of friends that were going. We went in and tasted some wines and ended up buying a bottle of Vital (blush wine). We played a little Trivial Pursuit with the assembled group and then the movie started. It was Roman Holiday staring Audrey Hepburn. This was actually very funny. Best line in the movie -> "You have my permission to withdraw." The wine was good and the movie too. All for only the cost of the wine (plus a small admission fee for the movie). Highly recommended.

movies

2005-07-08T14:57:00.000-04:00

Just a Thursday night at the movies - Madagascar this time. This movie is almost exactly what you'd expect from the commercials, except it's a little more adult. When Alex (the lion) gets into the wild, he reverts back to his instinctual ways and wants to hunt and eat the zebra. Of course he restraints and him and his zebra friend are OK, but some of the parts when he's hunting can be downright scary for little kids. The best part of the movie - easily the penguins. They steal every scene they're in (which isn't much). In fact, all of the side characters (the penguins and the monkeys, mostly) are far funnier than the main characters. All-in-all, funny movie that makes you laugh and not much more. My score - 7/10.

Wedding!

2005-07-04T16:02:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, 2 July 2005, we went to the wedding of Rachel and Wes. Rachel was Cindy's roommate during all four years of college and Wes her boyfriend of most of that time. Cindy was in the bridal party.

We went to Upper Marlboro for the reheral last Thursday and then had the dinner at this really nice beach-themed restaurant/sports bar. The dinner was buffet style with chicken and mahi mahi. Very tasty. On Friday we drove down and stayed at Colony South hotel in Clinton, MD. This place was OK but not that great. We ended up driving forty minutes to Waldorf for dinner (Outback :)). After that, back to the hotel for sleeping.

On Saturday, we woke early and drove to Rachel's house to get the girls ready. After a hour or so we went to the chruch. This was a traditional Catholic ceremony that was very nice. Then to Andrews AFB for the reception. Very nice and classy place (the enlisted club). Good food (London Broil) and two desserts. Oh, and an open bar with delicious Captain and Cokes. The reception ended at 8pm and we left fairly quickly for our camping weekend (see the travel log).

Congrats to Rachel and Wes. Very good show.

Bewitched

2005-06-26T23:44:00.000-04:00

Tonight we saw Bewitched. We had high hopes for this movie, especially since the show is Cindy's favorite show of all time. Boy werw we disappointed. Rather than actually make a movie based on the TV show, they made a movie about the making of a remake of the TV show but the woman they get to play Samantha is really a witch. The problem is that the movie didn't really have much of a plot - it was just a jumble of many things that happened with no real theme or sense of what it wanted to say or the story it wanted to tell. Many times throughout, I found myself wondering where it could possibly be going. There was a subplot about another actress being a witch that just trailed off and was never resolved. Uncle Arthur appeared - he was a character on the old TV show and appeared as a real warlock in this movie (I think?). Will Farrell's character was openly wondering about what he was and what was going on - the answers were never clear and that whole sequence didn't make a lick of sense. Bottom line - this movie sucked. The only good part about it was the casting. Nichole Kidman was a perfect Samantha; Will Farrell was a perfect Darrin. Had they actually done a Bewitched movie and not this crap, they would have been wonderful. My score - 2/10. Best line in the movie - "You, you be quiet or I'll give you a tail!"

random

2005-06-24T23:33:00.000-04:00

What a random night.

I went to happy hour, which apparently started a bit before usual. After some good food and drinks, we decided to go swimming. One of Columbia's pools has a new waterslide that not many of us had been down. So we drove over there, stopped off to get suits. That slide was fun! It shot you out of it so fast it was awesome. I did jam my foot trying to go down once and boy does it hurt now. :( Anyway, the slide was ALOT of fun.

From there it was to a different pool to soak in the hot tub for a while. After enjoying that, it was off to the older, indoor, waterslide. We raced down the slides a couple times (these are enclosed slides that are much longer than the newer, outdoor, one) and then went off the diving board a couple of times.

From there it was off to Fridays for last night happy hour. :) A couple drinks and food later, it's time for bed. What a wacky Friday night.

movies

2005-06-19T12:52:00.000-04:00

This weekend we saw two movies (we're trying to catch up on our backlog).

On Friday night we saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The premise of this movie is pretty simple - a couple (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) both have double lives as assassins. They are both assigned to kill the same person, find out about each other, and then try to kill each other. They figure out that they're both being played and then must work together to save their lives. This movie was pretty good. I was quite tired upon seeing it (the movie was around 11pm and I had a tough day so I was exhausted) but it was good. My score - 7/10.

On Saturday night, we saw Batman Begins. Talk about a great movie. This was definately the best Batman movie of all time and I think it was clearly the best superhero movie of the recent past. Finally we get a Batman movie that's pretty true to the story and is quite dark, as opposed to the campy movies that Joel Schulmacher brought us. The movie was downright scary at points and Christian Bale does a great job exploring the mind of Bruce Wayne and what makes him Batman. This is, easily, my favorite movie of the summer so far and I honestly don't know how anything else could beat it. My score - 9.5/10.

Buffett!

2005-06-16T15:54:00.000-04:00

So after multiple years of trying to get tickets to see Jimmy Buffett through Ticketmaster, I broke down and bought a set off eBay this year. So yesterday, me and Cin were off to see Jimmy at the Nissan Pavillion in Virginia. There's two parts to this.

First there was the concert. Jimmy Buffett was, as he always has been whenever I've seen him (this was my fourth concert), awesome. He did all the songs you'd expect him to do plus a couple that I have never heard him do live which totally rocked (such as Last Mango in Paris, easily the number three Buffett song of all time). The crowd was really into the show (duh) and you can tell that Jimmy still loves what he does. It was Cindy's first Buffett concert and she really enjoyed the show too. So the show itself gets a 9/10 (points off due to the lack of Migration being played).

Nissan Pavillion is a different story. We left Columbia at 5.20pm. We got into a parking space at 8.35pm. The should have been a 50 minute trip if there was no traffic and we did the speed limits the whole way. Part of this was normal evening traffic (parking lot like) on the Capitol Beltway. But once we got onto I-66 it cleared up and we did great. Then we got close. There are two ways into Nissan off I-66; both involve going a small way on a local highway and then turning onto Wellington Road. This is a one lane in each direction road and we moved about 1 foot every minute. We were stuck on this road for over an hour (for three miles!) and we enjoyed (!!) the first two songs on Wellington Road. Who designs a pavillion that big (over 25,000 people) and has a one-lane road as the only access point? There is one description for such a person - an incompetant engineer, plain and simple.

Once we turned into the Pavillion we drove over 3/4 of a mile to our parking "spot" - so called because it was just a place on a field. We speedwalked that 3/4 mile to the entrance and finally went in right when Jimmy was finishing his fourth song (we missed Changes in Latitudes... - damn). I gave up on the non-moving beer line and we made our way up the stairs to the lawn. We then enjoyed the concert and even got some beers, which made us both much happier. :) We did get in line at a beer stand and right when we got close were informed that they were running out of beer and we'd have to go elsewhere - good planning there, Nissan Pavillion.

The rest of the concert went great. We had a good time. Until we tried to leave. We sat in our car, without moving from the spot, for over two hours. Yes, two hours. This is largely a symptom of the crappy road access to the pavillion, but still very annoying. Again, whoever designed this place and the VDOT support to it ought to be fired as they are not even qualified to design an on-ramp much less road support to a major concert venue. We finally got home at 1.30am. Yes, 1.30am after the concert ended at 11.00pm. Overall score for Nissan Pavillion - 1/10 (they get one point for having reasonably priced beer that was very cold and delicious).

What did I learn?
(1) Jimmy still does an awesome concert.
(2) Whoever designed the roads in/out of Nissan Pavillion is not a competant engineer.
(3) Next time we see Buffett, we will not be going to Nissan. Since he no longer does Merriweather Post Pavillion, we will most likely fly to another city to see him. Probably Vegas. I would rather spend $200 on flights to do that then to be subjected to the traffic and parking situtation at Nissan again.
(4) Barring that, we will both take off work the day of the concert and get there around 1.00pm next time. This will provide a front parking spot and easy access out of there after the concert.

Chesapeake Bay Swim (and dinner)

2005-06-15T16:24:00.000-04:00

Cindy did the Chesapeake Bay Swim this weekend. Well, there's really two events - the official swim which is the from west side to the ease side totallying 4.4 miles - and the "challenge" which is on the east side of the bridge and totals 1.1 miles. Cin did the challenge which was really hard onto itself. She finished 68th out of over 450 total swimmers which totally rocked.

The swims ended on the east side of the Bay Bridge at a restaurant calling Hemingway's. When the swim ended Sunday we both decided we should give this place a try, so we ended up going there yesterday (Tuesday). It was VERY nice. We sat on the porch overlooking the bay and the bridge. The food was outstanding. Cindy had the best salmon she ever had and I had a crabcake and filet that very both excellent. The food was a little pricey but worth every penny. Highly recommended.

Happy Birthday in Federal Hill

2005-06-15T16:19:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, we went out to Federal Hill in Baltimore for a friend of mine's birthday. We started off going to the Sky Lounge & Tango Tapas bar. This place was cool - the downstairs had alot of very comfortable couches and puffy chairs and it was quite relaxing. The upstairs was OK but very crowded and loud. They specialize (drinkwise) in martinis (I think) - they had a large selection of speciality drinks, plus good old beer standbyes.

The second (and last) place we went was MaGerk's which is a traditional bar with lots of loud music and dancing. This place was packed - it was very difficult to move from anywhere to anywhere - at one point we stood on the stairs attempting to go up for about five minutes. Anyway that was pretty good but a little more crowded than I would have liked. :)

It was a good time. I really like Federal Hill. Oh, and to Jayme, happy birthday.

Kenny Chesney (and friends)

2005-06-05T13:25:00.000-04:00

Today me, Cin, Mo, and Matt, went to the Kenny Chesney concert at FedEx field in DC. This was much less of a concert and much more of an all-day music festival. The concert started at 4.30pm. We got there around 3.45pm and after driving through a mile or so of parking lots, we found a place to park. FedEx field has the largest set of parking lots I have ever seen. After a short walk, we headed up and found our seat ... the very top row of the stadium directly facing the stage. Right under my seat ran a concrete separation joint, indicating me and being directly in the center of the stadium, facing the stage. Being on the top row wasn't all that great as there were two fences separating me from falling off - granted you couldn't see through them very well (but you could!), but still not my first choice of seating.

The concert started right at 4.30p with Uncle Kracker (my favorite of all of the performers). He did a short (30 minutes) set which rocks - I do like my music alot. Then, after a 20 minute break, we had Pat Green - I only knew one song of his (Wave on Wave) but he was pretty good. He was on for about 30 minutes as well. Then came Gretchen Wilson, who was quite good. She did alot of new stuff and then did a one-song encore, I'm Here for the Party (she finished with the Redneck Woman song). Gretchen was on for about 45. minutes. Next up was Keith Urban. I'm not a big Keith Urban fan so I was a little unhappy that he stretched his set out to an hour and fifteen minutes (including a 15 minute cover of Tom Petty's Free Fallin'). I didn't realize how many of his songs I knew, but that makes sense as that all sound very similar to each other. After this set, Kenny Chesney finally came on (around 9.15p - almost five hours after the concert started!). He was pretty good and did one song each with Keith Urban, Gretchen Wilson, and Uncle Kracker. Then he brought out Sammy Hagar (you may remember him as being David Lee Roth's replacement as the lead singer of Van Halen - IMHO, he was the downfall of that band). They did three songs together and then around 11.00p, Chesney's set ended. He did two songs as an encore, the last of which is the She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy song which I really like.

We actually left our seats between the two encore songs and were walking down the escalators when Tractor ended. We got to our car and then spent a good 45 minutes or so in traffic (FedEx field parking and traffic sucks. They didn't plan this well. It is a VERY poorly designed parking lot and the folks that were "directing" traffic were quite inept). All that and I had almost no gas (gas light on the whole time) and we were sitting idling in traffic. So we finally got out, got gas, dropped Mo and Matt off, and then headed home, long since abandoning our plans to go out to dinner.

So, the concert was quite good. We paid alot for this - the $25 tickets we had were doubled in cost by Ticketmaster "service charges" and each ticket had a $8 parking fee on it - the parking at that place isn't worth $0.08, much less $32 (since there were four of us in the truck). We did easily get our money - one concert ended up with five acts and an unannounced guest (Sammy Haggar). The seats weren't great but they were not bad either - we had a great view of the stage and the entire stadium. We saw other friends of ours there, who ended up sitting one section over and a couple rows down. The music selection was good and very enjoyable (although the audio mixing and balancing was not very good). The parking and logistics sucked. Finally, I think I would have enjoyed Kenny Chesney's set more if it wasn't so late. I was not expecting a seven hour concert and I think having four opening acts was too much. While they were all good, it made the concert too long and at the end I was very tired and didn't enjoy it nearly as much as it they had left one of the openers out. But, the concert was good. We all had a good time and the extended playlists made the ticket price well worth it and led to a very relaxing experience.

this blog...

2005-06-05T13:17:00.000-04:00

I'm intended this to be a companion to the travel log - full of ramblings about things that happen that are worth commenting on but aren't really travel. I have no idea how often I'll update this (hopefully alot as alot of interesting things happen to me - well interesting to me at least).