Coming Up for Air

This week is the JavaOne conference in San Francisco. Unfortunately scheduled at the same time is a once-a-year event we hold at work where 100 "field people" from across the world come in to meet with the development staff. This means I get to attend lots of meetings and after hours events. This is the first night since Saturday I've been home before 11PM. Fortunately I haven't needed to call someone to do emergency repairs on the garage as a result. Buried among the press reports on Oracle earnings, the thing I've spent many hours over the last month got some exposure.

What is an Emergengy?

I was occupied this weekend with an "Emergency Job" I was contacted fri morning by a guy who was in quite a state of panic, he had an emergency and wanted to know if I was available for a big repair job. I'm rarely available on weekends for work but decided to have a look anyway. I was met on the site by this guy who was visibly nervous and looking a bit hungover also. He proceeded to show me his garage and where he took out 20 feet of the load bearing front wall and another 20 feet of the gable wall, including one of the 4 garage doors and the personell door, other minor damage included the stairs leading to the fully finished apt above and a full bank of kitchen cabinets mounted over his work bench. With at least 30% of the entire structure teetering on the brink of total collapse and his 2004 1ton dodge pickup in quite a mess also, he got right to the point ,"I need this fixed before my wife returns on tuesday" then the words that make me available for work on weekends,"Price is no object" It was a bit of a struggle but mission accomplished. I thuoght it was funny that with all the potential for further diaster from the building collapsing his main concern was his wife finding out that he got drunk and drove his truck through the garage,I mean this guy was terrified, he swore me and my crew to secrecy. During the cleanup phase of the project the idea of blackmail money came up as a joke with some of the guys, that poor guy didn't see the humor and warned me sternly for everyone to keep their mouths shut. "Oh what a tangled web we weave".

Planet Dance

We really don't have a westward view from here, but maybe the rest of you will get to see this spectacle.

Moonrise

Moonrise
Originally uploaded by sgh2002.

A lousy picture, but the view of moonrise over Silicon Valley on Tuesday, through our big oak tree, as taken from the hot tub. I am sparing you the ten other pictures in varying shades of black that I took in an attempt to capture the racoon that was sitting up in the tree.

Naked Justice

I remember laughing about John Ashcroft putting drapes over the statues in the Justice Dept so that a naked woman would not be in the background in his many announcements made in the lobby. Still, it wasn't until I read this article that I found out:

In the past, snagging a photo of the attorney general in front of the statues has been somewhat of a sport for photographers.

When former Attorney General Edwin Meese released a report on pornography in the 1980s, photographers dived to the floor to capture the image of him raising the report in the air, with the partially nude female statue behind him.

I suppose being a high-level mucky muck in DC might cause you to lose your sense of humor or taste for irony.

Organized Anarchy

You know when the anarchists get organized, you're in trouble. But, that's just what's supposed to go on in toney Palo Alto tomorrow night when two groups calling themselves Anarchist Action and Peninsula Anarchist Cooperative combine forces.

The anarchists are coming! And Palo Alto police, who haven't seen a major protest since the Vietnam War 30 years ago, are calling in horses and helicopters to deal with what the police chief says could be a violent protest by 800 anarchists marching past downtown restaurants on University Avenue on Saturday night.

It wouldn't be Palo Alto, though, without a deep bow to political correctness. When caught undercover videotaping at the anarchists' press conference, the local chief said, "That was one of our officers. She should not have lied to you." This is the same town that attempted to enforce a rule of being polite and respectful at city council meetings.

Unfortunately -- and here is the big issue -- the area being focused on by these anarchists contains Dara's favorite gelato shop. I'm guessing that they won't have trouble finding customers among the protesters, but they may have trouble convincing them to form the usual line out the door.

Batman Bruised

We enjoyed Batman Begins the other night. I am sort of lukewarm on the comic-book-as-movie genre, but this one dealt less with special effects and more with the story behind poor old tortured Batman. The fact that he's not some sort of superhero freak brings him up in my book, too.

For Kyla, the funniest part of the movie was when Alfred the butler says to Batman, bruised from one of his early run-ins with the lowlife criminals of Gotham: "Sir, you will need to take up a sport, perhaps polo, if you're going to have an excuse for all those bruises." If you could see Kyla's collection of bruises, you'd understand why she was so amused. For some reason, nobody else in the theater thought it was as hilarious.

Politics and Genes

Not nature vs. nurture, but geneology vs. ideology. Call me a skeptic, but I have a hard time buying the science behind a genetic predisposition to being a conservative Republican. If you believe this article in the NY Times, though, there is such a link.

Political scientists have long held that people's upbringing and experience determine their political views. A child raised on peace protests and Bush-loathing generally tracks left as an adult, unless derailed by some powerful life experience. One reared on tax protests and a hatred of Kennedys usually lists to the right.

But on the basis of a new study, a team of political scientists is arguing that people's gut-level reaction to issues like the death penalty, taxes and abortion is strongly influenced by genetic inheritance. The new research builds on a series of studies that indicate that people's general approach to social issues - more conservative or more progressive - is influenced by genes.

Well, at least some of you have something to blame it on :).

New Driver

Kyla passed her test with flying colors. Now I'm never going to get to drive the Prius. Okay, I confess -- I did drive it on Saturday. Very nice.

Country Music Invasion

I'm not sure how we slipped into this, but we seem to be awash in country music in our house these days. Well, that's not entirely true. I think we have to credit or blame (as Garrett would certainly put it) Kyla mostly. What started as a few innocent CD's of Kasey Chambers on the way up to go snowboarding has blossomed into watching the Country Music Channel top 20 and mother-daughter choruses of Redneck Woman and My Give A Damn's Busted. And they're bonding on the lyrics, too. Take one favorite, Girls Lie Too

We can't wait to hear about your round of golf
We love to see deer heads hanging on the wall
And we like Hooter's for their hotwings too
Other guys never cross our minds
We don't wonder what it might be like
How could it be any better than it is with you

[Chorus]
Girls lie, too
We don't care how much money you make
What you drive or what you weigh
Size don't matter anyway
Girls lie, too
Don't think you're the only ones
Who bend it, break it, stretch it some
We learn from you
Girls lie, too

Yee hah.

Size Matters

I guess the SprayOnMud wasn't available in time to up my testosterone levels, so the family had to resort to a smaller, cooler gadget for Father's Day. And hey, there is a lot of peer pressure on such stuff in my world. A while back, I just could not live without combining my Palm Pilot and cell phone, so I was sporting the Handspring Treo. That was one lousy phone, though (although the newer models are purported to be great). Then I decided to go with the extreme on the cell phone end, as long as it could handle all of the phone numbers I stored in my Palm Pilot. So I ended up with a tiny Sony Ericsson. A pretty darned good phone. Lately, however, I have been feeling inadequate -- phonewise, that is. I hope you'll forgive the metaphor, but between the Prius and the new Motorola Razr V3, it will be the equivalent of taking a geek Viagra that lasts for about six months anyway.

Great Product Idea for Urban Outdoorsmen

Urban SUV and truck owners have heretofore had to get their testosterone fix by driving over curbs and onto the shoulder of superhighways. But with this breakthrough product they can show just how macho they are.

If you’ve got a 4X4 or off-roader, Sprayonmud will send a message to anyone who disapproves or is just plain envious – you use your off-roader, off the road as well as on it.

Let's face it. This was an obvious move once holes in jeans and bullethole decals became popular.

Just An Idea

CAP
Originally uploaded by sgh2002.

Normally I try to keep my innovative ideas shrouded from the public eye. But, this recent discussion around the inadequacy of warning systems has put me in a mood of true public service. I believe the technology of The Ambient Orb could reasonably be coupled with the Dept of Homeland Security's color coded terror alert levels to provide a more timely warning to our nation's capital. Shares in this new enterprise will be available to family members.

Emergency Preparedness

Your story about the recent quake and the warning system reminded me of the other day when a pleasure aircraft strayed into restricted airspace around the capitol and effectively shut down the U.S. government. Apparantly the warning system was to send out several people and yell "RUN GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE" I know it is serious but as you could see the panic stricken people hauling ass in no general direction you couldn't help but wonder why that new office of Homeland security couldn't do just a little better to warn and evacuate in an emergency. I'm sure Bin Laden was laughing in his bunker while watching Dish Network.

Shakin' and Quakin'

Dara tells me that the recent 7.0 quake off the coast and the followups has CNN on earthquake alert level red. Next thing you know, Anderson Cooper will be reporting live from the San Andreas fault. Nothing's been noticeable in the San Francisco area yet, at least to me. Sitting on the 9th floor of a 14 story building on the mud flats of the bay is usually a good way to be tuned into any seismic activity -- or bad way, depending on your point of view.

The offshore quake did accomplish something. We learned that the tsunami warning system isn't worth much. The warning went out, but it seems that nobody was home at the SF office of emergency preparedness. I am probably oversimplifying. Suffice it to say, though, that none of the frolickers at the ocean shore were aware there might have been a problem. Fortunately, nothing happened. Live and learn, I hope.

A little something from the Bay

Part Male, Part Female, Fully MysteriousI saw this and thought it might interest all the Chesapeak veterans and others with an interest in Biology or just an interest in something just plain wierd. I thought it was funny that it was found by crabbers from Middlesex county Va., and they seemed to have their own battery of tests to put it thru before giving it to the experts.

Car Virus

After reading this, I was afraid I we might have to call the whole Prius thing off:

An F-Secure researcher also tried other Bluetooth attacks against the car on [sic] got the shock of his life when car systems locked up displaying the following error message: "The transmission lock mechanism is abnormal. Park your car on a flat surface, and fully apply the hand brake". Blimey.

Blimy. That translates to WTF around here (Mom, I refer you to dictionary.com if you have trouble guessing from your RTFM experience). Reading further brings some relief, though:

Restarting the car cleared the problem but the same test repeatedly crashed car computer systems. The behaviour raised serious concerns. But after double checking systems F-Secure realised low-battery voltage - rather than Bluetooth attacks - were responsible for the car's systems going haywire.

Remember what I said about it being a great day when I didn't have to work on my car anymore? I think this also has to apply to debugging my car.

The New High Bred Car

One man's new car will someday become another man's treasured junk. We have two cars coming up on 9 years old, and 1.9 new drivers (Kyla's only lacking the license, not the ability, and waiting on the appointment next week). So, we've been feeling the pressure to do something about the situation. We waffled on the small SUV, lusting over the ability to get to the snow without putting on chains. We checked out the hybrid SUV models, and thought about the new Ford. Somebody once said when a company has to tell you in their marketing that quality is job 1, it's a sure sign that it isn't. We sweated over Consumer Reports. We fretted over whether we still needed more room in spite of the looming empty nest. Somebody had to make a decision, and that person was Dara. As of this evening, the entire family now has something to fight over: who gets to drive the Prius.

It's cool, pretty much the bleeding edge of geekmobile. When you are near to the car, with the key in your pocket, it automatically unlocks as soon as you put your hand on the door handle. You start it by pressing the start button, not turning a key. The gearshift is on the dash and consists of a joystick thingy. The navigation console shows you what road you're on as you drive. Since I have the right kind of phone (Bluetooth enabled), I can make and receive calls through the car's speakers and microphone while the phone is in my pocket. Fortunately, a lot of the geeky features of the console are disabled while the car is moving, or diddling with them would be more of a safety problem than drinking and driving. Geeking and driving.

I hope I get to drive it one day.

5th grade grad

Yesterday I took off work to attend the graduation ceremony of Dan's 5th grade class. I don't remember any type of celebration when I finished elementary school, we simply finished our bread and water and walked home barefoot in the snow. Today's kids have it easy! All kidding aside it was a very nice event the school went all out with the planning and execution of the day and it was heartily enjoyed by kids and parents alike. Kirsti and I are very proud of Dan's work at school, he takes his work seriously and still manages to enjoy school and seems to be popular amongst his peers. Every year since he started he struggles a bit early in the year but in the last 2 semesters he seems to pull it all together and makes the A-B Honor roll. We are both satisfied with his education thus far and praise the work of his school and teachers. They have a police program at the schools here called DARE, Drug and alcohol resistance education, The local police volunteer their time to supervise different activities durring school time to promote good citizenship with a backdrop of the evils of drug abuse and underage drinking. This program works at least for Dan and his freinds I know, they would not think of touching drugs and think very poorly of anyone that uses or sells drugs. Plus they are very respectfull to the police and are on a first name basis with the regular volunteers. While walking thru town saturday we saw our local sherriff (quite a local celebrity) he greated Dan calling him by name and engaged in some small talk that I was not included in. I didn't even get a hand shake, but I'm still voting for that guy. The DARE graduation was by far more popular with the kids, held at the local park they hosted softball and volleyball tournaments and brought in some very successfull local auto racing teams and their cars for display. They also have a DARE band which played mostly popular music among the kids. After summer vacation Dan will begin 6th grade at Randolph Macon he is looking forward to it, he did seem a little surprised to recieve his summer reading assignment from them but it didn't dampen his enthusiasm for his new school. He will also be attending Baseball camp this summer this is something run and instructed by the local A minor league team The Front Royal Cardinals.

Why I drive junk

Ever since Dad and I tackled those 4 easy bolts that was my first engine rebuild I have been always looking for that diamond in the rough, that little creampuff of a car or truck that just needs a little tenderloving care to restore it to its former showroom condition. That search had my yard looking like a cross between a used car dealer and a junkyard, the line between the 2 is a blurry one. Over the last month I decided to prune away the junk and work on the creampuffs. I went from 6 vehicles to 3 in just a short period of time with the help of E-Bay. Left with just 2 trucks and a car the pressure was on to turn those wrenches and make my plan of 3 beauties to drive come true. I already knew my " core competence" is not auto mechanics but with a solemn pledge to myself to attack with the gusto of a pit crew I began my mission. Damn the need for fancy equipment to analize problems full speed ahead. As with most shade tree mechanics my stratedgy was simple, replace obviously malfunctioning parts and use the process of elimination for the rest. 3 weekends and a bunch of evenings later I overcame my obvious lack of training and rose victoriously over my stable. Sure I probably spent enough money in replacing perfectly good parts to pay a pro but what fun would that be. I am particularly proud of my 1986 corvette by far the most challenging and most expensive in terms of part replacement, its still not perfect but much improved.

The Kind of Day You Can Really Get Burned Up

AtTheBeach
Originally uploaded by sgh2002.

It was 85 here in Redwood City, but it didn't get above 60 at the beach. Truly the kind of day you can really get burned up, as Kyla, Garrett, and I proved. It's hard to tell you're frying when you're so damned cold. Here is the scene at Bean Hollow State Beach. We brought D'Or along. She had a great time, although she had to stay on the leash the whole time. Her biggest thrill was barking at the shark kite that kept swooping over our heads.

Classy Summer TV

When reruns rule, it's time for another round of reality TV to fill the gap. Our current favorites are The Scholar and Beauty and the Geek. As if these valedictorian high school kids haven't had enough pressure to get into college, they now have the pressure of competing for a full ride scholarship while living together in The Scholar. More entertaining than you might think. Beauty and the Geek pairs up mostly airhead georgous women with dorky, smart, socially inept guys. They compete in various things that require the guys to make the girls smarter and the girls to make the guys more, er, bearable. So far so good. And what rundown of summer reality TV would be complete without mentioning Dara's guilty pleasure: Strip Search. VH1 VJ Rachel Perry and a guy who produced the Australian version of the show, ominously titled The Thunder Down Under, go on a cross country trip to find "fifteen ordinary men from all across America [...] to compete for one of seven six-figure, one-year contracts as a member of a traveling male strip revue troupe." It just doesn't get much better than that, does it. Keith, you may want to alert Kirsti to this one.

A Is for Arlene

CabFromCuba

It's that time of year again all you Floridians. Time to tune into the Weather Channel. I figure we might as well use the blog as storm central. I bet these guys are happier that they didn't end up navigating this vehicle through Arlene than they are upset that they didn't make it to Miami.

Not So Deep Throat

Okay, The American Prospect is a liberal publication. Still, this article on the latest Regnery propaganda from Curt Weldon, a member of our fine Congress, was interesting. This is especially so after the revelations of a top FBI guy being deep throat.

Mahdavi also said that the bulk of the information that he had provided to Weldon was originally sourced from none other than Ghorbanifar, the subject of a rare CIA “burn notice” after the agency found him to be a "fabricator" more than two decades ago during the Iran-Contra affair.

Mahdavi is Weldon's mysteriously named source, Ali. These guys are like bad weeds, but somehow they always seem to find someone to water them. So we have a member of Congress, Weldon, writing a book to discredit the CIA using a discredited source, Ghorbanifar, who had to use an indebted third party, Mahdavi, to shovel information to Weldon because Ghorbanifar is such a well-known fabricator. From the Amazon summary:

Congressman Weldon exposes a deeply dysfunctional culture and perverse political agendas in American intelligence that are endangering American security.

Irony is lost on these guys, clearly.

I'm stumbling, too

I've been stumbling along ever since Steven introduced the tantalizing concept of the stumbling browser. I was completely engrossed for about two hours one day, but I decided not to let that happen again. I liked the website on disposable underwear, probably triggered by my interst in travel. Believe me, this is not a porn site (that's edible underwear). This stuff is really ugly, but if you're going to throw it away, who cares? Another site I tried was a fitness quiz to predict how long you'll live. It starts with your present age and you answer a lot of questions. In my case the answer, which scared the daylights out of me, was 105. Actually, I think the rest of you should be even more afraid of that prospect than I am.

Core Competence

Core competence is the standard buzzword to refer to what your business does to make money (like software) as opposed to what you have to do just to be in business (like balance the books) or that you're trying to expand into but which you're really not qualified for. Companies are always trying to stay focused on their core competence. Yesterday I was party to a conversation between two people at work. One was giving the other a hard time about having a maid. The one with the maid was saying that everyone he knew in San Francisco had a maid, and it was worth it. "Cleaning is not my core competence," he says. I asked if his core competence was sitting on his ass watching television, but he felt that drinking was closer.

More on No Brainers

I guess maybe we're all sick of hearing about the housing bubble. I know I can hear the air coming out of it in this neck of the woods. You know you're in trouble when shoeshine boys are speculating in real estate, to borrow a phrase. Or when there is an entire cable television channel in Naples dedicated to real estate. These are the harbingers of bubbledom. One that struck me the other day was the fact that it is apparently commonplace out here to enter into an interest-only loan.

Interest-only loans financed nearly 70 percent of the home purchases in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties during the first two months of this year, based on data analyzed for the San Francisco Chronicle by LoanPerformance, a mortgage research firm. Just 18 percent of the home purchases in those three counties relied on interest-only loans during the same period in 2002.

The statistics were similar in San Jose, where interest-only loans accounted for 61 percent of home mortgages in January and February, up from 9 percent three years ago, Loan Performance said.

What are these people thinking? Okay, I guess that's easy: housing prices go up, and I'm livin' like a king! Pssssssss...

Biggest No-Brainer in the History of Mankind

I've been annoyed for the last several mornings by a radio add for home loans touting that "This has to be the biggest no-brainer in the history of mankind." I don't know. It seems like to me there must be an awful lot of other things that rank higher in the history of mankind than home loans. So when I thought to whine about it here on the blog, I thought, "What the heck, I'll see if Google picks up on it so I can point people at this stupid company." I guess it should have come as no surprise that there are other companies using this line. And there are other people who are surprised that anyone would use such a line, which apparently annoyed listeners to an Atlanta radio station. It just goes to show you that when you're one in a million, there are 6.8 of you in the San Francisco Bay area.

Stumbling Upon Things

Since I am now using Firefox for my web browser (due to geek pressure from my mother as I discussed before), I am using some extensions. One is a "Blog this" extension that adds a "Blog this" item in the popup menu. The other one I just installed, which is kinda cool, is called Stumble Upon. It adds a toolbar to your browser, and based on your interests and your ratings as you go along, locates web sites that you might be interested in. There is an Internet Explorer version, too. There are many, many people doing the rating, so this helps locate interesting sites and filter out the cruft. I thought this page was pretty funny, though. I'm not sure if I was directed to it because I included "Bizarre things" or "Travel" in my preferences. A sample of one of the actual stories told by travel agents:

A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York" The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent: "Are you sure that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" "That's it! I knew it was a big animal!"

Some others I stumbled upon and liked:

PostSecret
Secret Worlds: The Universe Within

You might want try it out.

Row v Wade

RowVsWade
Originally uploaded by sgh2002.

Since we seem to be on the sporting theme, I thought I'd share this old fishing controversy. I hope it doesn't upset the no politics rule on the blog.

What a rack

Yahoo! News PhotoYou saw the md.state striper record then the world record blue catfish you might as well feast your eyes on this monster! Unfortunately a dispute over hunting rights has tarnished this record. I might get a little miffed if someone killed this dear on my property with or without permission