Quick Follow-up

Following the NYTimes article about Windows sucking, ZDNet has a follow-up that talks about Midori, a potential Windows rewrite (refactor :-) ) related to another research project they have going on called Singularity.

Singularity is the research into a microkernel version of Windows. Microsoft says this will never see the commercial/consumer world ever. The author of the ZDNet article, Mary Jo Foley, however, thinks that Midori is a related project with a lot of MS big-wig weight behind it. I wonder if Microsoft could have a much less bloated version of their OS with the security advancements of Vista. I wonder even more, however, if it would be the complex, convoluted, mess of a bunch of settings that Vista has become. I don't know where everything is anymore. I hope very seriously that they have learned from their past mistakes (I'm looking at you, NT, Vista, Millenium, et al) and organized things a bit better, and maybe moved to a better user interface that people can understand.

This all assumes, however, that Midori is even what she believes it is. Will we see? I wonder, personally, how much it would take to topple the bureaucracy that Microsoft has probably become to result in a usable operating system, a usable website, and software that doesn't always tell me what it thinks I should do, but rather does what I ask it to do.

Mac Obsession X Project

By now it's no secret that I love Mac OS X. It's not perfect, as nothing ever is, but it's the best so far for me. I can't help it; I like eye candy, and Apple even found a way to make some of the eye candy useful and some of the useful stuff eye candy...ful.

I own a Macbook, which I purchased for several reason. First off, the weight of my previous Dell laptop was enough to sink a medium-sized ship. Second, I realized that a laptop should just be a laptop, and a desktop should just be a desktop, and never the twain shall meet, really. Granted, my laptop is sitting on my desk right now, but that's beside the point... Anyway, I don't want to buy Apple hardware, really, because I have specific requirements. I don't want to lose half of my life savings on a computer, and I also don't need a computer that could, if it were a car, set a land speed record. But I also don't want a single-component box like the iMac or Mac Mini, because that defeats part of the purpose, which is to teach my brain about the current state of computing so that I don't become old and technically (if not actually) stupid. So, the Mac Pro is the only Apple machine I could buy, and it doesn't meet my lack-of-debt requirement. Third, a project, which should explain why I'm thinking Apple hardware. I am going to dual boot Linux and Mac OS X on this particular machine. With that in mind... the hardware list!

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L
CPU: Intel Wolfdale E8400 LGA 775
Video Card: MSI GeForce 9600GT 512MB PCI-E
Power Supply: Corsair 450W
Ram: 4 GB (2x2 GB) pqi
HDD: 500 GB (2x256 GB) Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM SATA
Optical Drive: Samsung 20x DVD+/-R (though I may change this due to it being Samsung)

This is the plan. These are the results so far of just how painful this will be according to compatibility lists.

Gigabyte Board: Looks like it should mostly work without a problem, except Apple SMBIOS.kext, IONetworkingFamily
CPU: Intel E8400 Wolfdale (LGA 775) - Should be no problem
Video Card: GeForce 9600GT (Not listed) - The GeForce 8800GT should work, so I might go with that instead. TBD

More to come as this project continues... I'd love to have a really fast Mac OS box, and this would also prompt me to purchase Leopard (OS X 10.5) if I can get Tiger (OS X 10.4) working.

And You Wonder Why I Switched?

If the man in charge can't change things for the users, then who can? I'm a Mac user. This is pretty much why.

My own personal experience was that I was the administrator of my Windows box and Windows wouldn't let me unzip a file because it "might be dangerous."

Now off to call Verizon to see about taking a gouge out of Comcast...

...

Nope, FiOS is not yet available. Now to try to fix my cell phone...

...

Nope, still doesn't work. Bummer.

Cellular Hell

I'm compelled to wax cellular due to a huge number of independently occurring but related events. It all began with a rain storm...

It was a decent day to begin with. We were at a climbing class at Great Falls, VA. Then, following lunch, the skies opened and spilled the heavens to the grounds, and my cell phone (which was protected, or so I thought, in my bag), bit the mud. I'd say it bit the dust, but it rained so much that I think no dust was left anywhere. So, my phone got a little wet during this monsoon and died a slow and painful death. Weak! It wasn't even that wet. It is a Samsung A737. Rather, it was; now it's just a useless plastic shell not suitable for anything other than reminding me to check myself into a mental institution if I purchase Samsung electronics anytime in the even remotely near future. I am now stuck using my Motorola RAZR, which is no treat either. Remember, I bought a new cell phone, which means I wanted one so badly that I was willing to commit two more years of my life to AT&T to get one. It's like leasing your soul to the devil, really. Argh...

Then, a few months later, just to stick it to me where it hurts, the 3G iPhone emerges. It's no secret that I have wanted an iPhone. Of course, a couple months after I purchase the crap-tastic Samsung A737, Apple finally decides to both release this iPhone and subsidize its cost. Damn. They would. So now I learn that with my new 2-year AT&T contract, I could have myself a brand-spanking new iPhone. I couldn't be lucky enough to have all this timing work out. Surely Apple wouldn't subsidize the cost when they didn't for the first iPhone. Yeah, right. Oh, and along with the new iPhone also comes the extra ethical question of whether you'll spend $30 US instead of $20 US for the unlimited data plan. Pretty much the last thing I want to do is give more money to a company that doesn't provide me an adequate service. Granted, part of this blame goes to my cell phone (the RAZR) since it's antenna is MISERABLE, but AT&T has had its share of jabs to my ribs, as well as to the girl's and my wallets. I had just reached the point where I would break down and pay $20/month for the iPhone. Now I don't know whether $30 is worth it. I really don't like service contracts. Plus, it's a phone! I mean, how much of The Tubes is really conveniently available on a mobile platform? More everyday, probably, but is it enough to warrant $30/month? My sources says "Outlook not so good," and I (for once!) am not talking about a Microsoft product.

A glimpse of hope then emerged with Android. That's right! Google is coming out with a cell phone software platform. It's Linux-based, and some of it is even Open Source Software. That's awesome. This could be intriguing. I wonder how this platform will do on battery consumption. It's also interesting because it looks like Nokia might try to fight back by buying and open sourcing parts of the Symbian OS, another major cell phone operating system. Let the mobile OS wars begin! I'll be happy to provide my input if somebody wants to provide me the hardware. No problem at all...

Finally, as a a motivator for my diatribe, this article on Forbes on hating your cell phone company. It starts off by saying (I'm loosely paraphrasing) that most people hate their phone companies, particularly in the customer service department. The part that excites me about this article, though, is the following quote:

Another big step: Most operators have plans to open up their networks by the end of the year to a plethora of phone manufacturers, allowing customers to keep their mobile device even if they switch carriers. So you might be able to use that cool, new phone you got at a discount for signing a service contract with T-Mobile, for instance, on AT&T's network.

That's a big thing, because I've been pissed in the past that I couldn't purchase phones that meet my needs because they were locked to another provider, and purchasing one that was unlocked would cost me our house or first born. Rumplestiltskin has got to be behind at least one cell phone company.

So what does this all mean in the long run? It means that (and this is all speculative) the cell phone companies may open up a bit and that there may be a major mobile OS-war that I hope will lead to good, competitive, inspired ideas for cell phones. It means I'm going to have to buy another cell phone before any of this happens. It hopefully means that more of said Tubes could be made available for mobile platforms, and that it may be fun to own a capable phone. Will it be the best of times for mobile providers and companies? Is the endless griping from the consumers they claim to care about actually making them see that they don't care? I hope so.
Read more...

Electronic Salvation

Eventful day today. Let me begin by saying, "Happy anniversary Karina and Kohnke." We were fortunate enough to spend some of today with them. We four went kayaking at Quiet Waters park. And so the fun begins...

My day began at 4:00 AM. I woke up for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Yesterday I put the Yakima rack on my car, and the plan this morning was to finish it off with the easy-to-mount kayak saddles. Seven out of eight bolts later, it becomes apparent that I'm one bolt short of a full rack, so to speak. So, 7:30 AM trip to ACE Hardware, to return shortly thereafter with the piece. Poof! Kayak rack is up and on. I'm so lucky that people who like to work on their homes wake up early.

Part two of the exciting adventure began at 9:00 AM. My initial estimate was that it would take about a twenty minutes to get the kayaks onto the car. Sure it would... Forty minutes later, the Kohnkes get a call from us, which was to be the first of many. Then, since our original plan was to stop briefly to get Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, we did so because we hadn't eaten and our combined stomachs would have triggered a good-sized earthquake. Of course, the line at DD could have wrapped a few times around the equator with room to spare for a return trip to the moon. Second phone conversation with Kohnkes ensues, informing them that we'll be a half hour late.

Trip to Annapolis continues (finally) with a tasty breakfast, eaten quickly in the car. Kayaks remain securely fastened to the RSX. All is looking good. "How do we get there?" Of course, neither of us knows. But we think we do, which is all that's important in the grand scheme of things. One wrong turn and several miles down, enter call number three to Kohnkes. After she returns our call, we're on the right track, ETA 45 minutes late.

We show up to Quiet Waters, find the parking area, and we're now 50 minutes late, which is something that my body and brain like to physically remind me of with every ounce of my scarred psyche. After pulling down the kayaks and walking the 30 more miles to the water, we're on the water in the kayaks. Finally. My body is screaming at this point from all the expended energy and muscular distress, and we barely started.

Now do most of that in reverse (except make it 85 degrees instead of 70), get us home , and give me about enough time to eat lunch, and then off to climbing. Yup, climbing.

Every part of me wishes fiercely that I wouldn't move right now. So I'm not. Fortunately, the fingers still work.

And now the punchline... The girl has wanted a GPS unit for awhile now, and Stealdeals had a link to a Garmin GPS for a good discount, so we immediately decided to make it a part of our family. Electronic Salvation is on the way to our front door...
Read more...

A Good Solid Jolt to My Expectations

Wednesday began as a day of fear, continued as a day of extreme happiness, and ended in solid confusion and concern with happy undertones from mid-day. The final portion will be left as an exercise for the reader, unlike the first two, which will be explained in very uncertain terms...

Wednesday was promotion feedback day. I just started my program, so my expectations were dismally low. I've also had a bit of emotional roughness in the beginning of my program, so sometimes getting anything done felt as though I had to pound my way through the brick wall of beaurocracy with a 50 pound weight on my chest and no will to pull through. I've since gotten better. Fortunately, I also learned that my perseverence paid off. I got promoted this year, and I got good bonus because I was among the good writeups my wonderful boss (you know who you are) wrote for interns in our office. So, by about lunch, I could float pretty much anywhere in Maryland I wanted. The rest of the day happened, confused me greatly, concerned me, and continues to, but I'm still happy about the promotion and the bonus. Life is never only one thing at once, is it? That's what multi-tasking is for. Otherwise we'd all run single-task operating systems. I can't help it; I'm a geek who climbs.

So, with my newfound monetary increase, the 64-bit machine I talked about awhile ago my actually come to fruition. I'm excited. I want to order it now, but I should probably wait until I see the bonus. I'm also going to have to think about a new cell phone since my BRAND NEW one bit the dust because it GOT A LITTLE WET! Do me a favor; don't buy Samsung electronics. You'll be happier in the long run. I haven't had one in recent memory that hasn't had major problems. Microwave? Check. Cell phone? Check. Sanity? Double check. Samsung is to me as Ford is to my parents; eternally and unerringly wretched.

The Hidden Benefits of Expensive Gas

Gas is expensive right now. I know, I'm American, and so any non-American who may happen across this is going to laugh boisterously at me. But remember. The American dollar is also worth precious little at the moment. From my strangely delusional perspective, I am annoyed when people talk about having to make ecologically conscious decisions, such as not driving 3 feet to the store, because gas is expensive rather than because using gas is wasteful or bad for the ecology.

So, this story in the Chicago Tribune really caught my attention on Digg. It's the Honda FCX Clarity, a zero-emission vehicle. It's a hydrogen fuel cell/electric car. At the moment it's pretty expensive, apparently, though the article neglects to mention the MSRP, and there are only 3 fueling stations in existence.

The existence of this vehicle brings me a little hope, but also raises some questions. I'm hopeful because an auto manufacturer is actually releasing a car (not a hybrid) that is completely different. The car also looks pretty decent, which is a nice fringe benefit. But as I said, I have questions (as I always do). The biggest question I have is, "What is the energy cost of producing the fuel?" Creating Hydrogen, if I'm not mistaken, is a high-energy process. Is it worse for the ecology to create the fuel? If so, we might as well use gas. This article at howstuffworks.com addresses this issue, and draws the same conclusions, but takes it a step further to discuss gathering energy for either the electrolysis of water or the reformer production of hydrogen from fossil fuels. It's a good read.

Anyway, I'm intrigued at not needing to purchase gas, and I think this might be the first major step (other than hybrid vehicles) in moving completely away from mass distribution gasoline. I'm excited. Now I hope that this trend spreads. I know it won't be for the right reasons, but I'm just going to have to live with that. Oh, the hidden benefits of expensive gas...

El Crucero

The idea for this post began with a simple phrase; "half-hazardly speaking Spanish." Guess who said it. If you said the girl, then you guessed correctly. Good for you. You get a cookie. There are probably plenty left on the cruise ship. I decided when I heard this that I needed to keep track of the important events of our honeymoon cruise. So I did. And here is the remarkably long stream of consciousness that began on a tired Saturday evening...

It all began at 0315 (you might want to go get a beverage and some comfortable clothes). We woke up. It was early. We went over to Amanda's since she so kindly agreed to wake up at that ungodly hour and take our sorry butts to the airport. And she did. We made it to the airport, to the terminal, to the plane, to Miami, and on the ship with relatively little in the way of events, except for the entire bag of Reece's Pieces and M&Ms that we ate throughout the day. This, as we were to discover, was just the beginning of a long string of days that began with us eating way to much unhealthy food, continued with eating more unhealthy food, and ending with an unhealthy dinner followed by postre (dessert). Now, you may be asking yourselves (or me), "why is there Spanish intermingled in this post?" Consider this an intriguing question that will fuel your desire to read on.

We made it onto the ship. We could eventually check into our stateroom, which was very nice and had a balcony that we spent a deal of time on. We discovered that day that the ship was amazing. It had a rock climbing wall, a wonderfully funky thing called a Flowrider, an ice skating rink (yeah, ice), a basketball court, miniature golf, many bars and restaurants, a Ben and Jerry's, a pizza place, a coffee place, more pools than you could shake a bikini at, a Johnny Rockets, an Italian Restaurant, a Steak House, a casino, and a bunch more that we probably didn't even get to see. Some of these will play prominent parts of our wonderful honeymoon. But, onto the fun. On that fateful check-in day, I did get to climb on the rock wall. They actually had some good climbs, too. The staff working on that deck (deck 13, the sports deck) were all unbelievably nice, friendly people. An inordinate number of them were from South Africa, too. In fact, a statistically significant portion of the people I ran into that worked on the ship were from South Africa. Couldn't say why, though.

Onward to dinner. This requires its own separate explanation, as it is a motivating factor for one of the major motifs of our honeymoon. Upon boarding the ship, it is immediately clear that a very large (metric) number of people speak Spanish as a first (and sometimes only) language. Prior to dinner, I stated in a humorous manner, "What do you want to bet we get put at a table with people who speak only Spanish?" Sure enough, our dinner mates were Cristina (the mom), and Anna (the daughter). I was apparently half correct, since Cristina spoke primarily Spanish with a sprinkling of English. Anna spoke both Spanish and English. It became apparent in the ensuing days that I was fortunate to have had Senor Black for Spanish in high school. You heard right, high school. As in more than 10 years ago high school. As in, "has had one summer of Spanish practice since high school" high school. Knowing that dinner would have been horrible if none of us spoke to one another, I broke the ice. The ice gave way to nightly language lessons, as well as discussions of translating between Spanish and English, the subtleties of Mexico Spanish versus Spain Spanish, and why learning English as a second language is enough to make one want to kill Webster and all of his dastardly cohorts who provided any input to the English language. We also discussed the final couple that should have occupied the empty spaces at our table. It got to the point that we thought the might be Chinese and jet-lagged. It was a fun dinner. I had had a glass of wine, too. From this point on, the missing couple was known as "Los Chinos," even though we discovered on the first formal night that they were from Delaware and New Jersey, and neither had a speck of Asian blood.

On another interesting note, Anna is a communications major with a specialty in TV. When the girl learned this, she jokingly said, "So you're going to go work for Telemundo when you graduate?" Anna replied that she wants to work for MTV. We proceeded to make fun of her lightly for this for the rest of the trip.

Later, when our eyelids were collapsing in upon themselves due to having awoken (despertado) at 0315, Jessie busts out the wonderful "half-hazardly speaking Spanish." This may have been the second night, though. Remember, every night is a late night on a cruise ship.

The following day, day 2, was a day at sea. Day 2 becomes labeled "the day Greg discovered the Flowrider." It's one of the days I realize that I'm a lucky guy for having married a woman who likes it when her man shows off for her, or does something that looks frightfully painful and makes her laugh. Both of these end up being true statements. The Flowrider session of choice was stand-up surfing on something about the size of a skateboard deck. This masterfully elegant pressurized water cannon provides for loads of interesting tricks as well as melodramatic losses of balance resulting in the unified cringing of the audience and cries of "ooh" in stereo from these same onlookers.

Day 2 held many other things in store as well. It was the day we found the ice skating rink (deck 3). It was also the first formal dinner evening. I like it when the girl gets to dress up. She always looks so pretty. It was also the day that I became known as "the guy who says peachy" to our stateroom attendant. Every day from then on, he set me up with, "Everything is?" to which I was required to answer "peachy" before we could continue on with our day. Also, day 2, I discovered that we had the good fortune of being on the ship during Euro 2008 (soccer), and that it was almost always on when we wanted to return to our stateroom for some R&R.

On day 3, we looked around the ship some more. I am certain in all of this looking that we never found all pieces of the ship. At one point, though, we wandered into a part of the ship that we most certainly shouldn't have been. You can tell immediately when you're in the wrong place when you see no decorations anywhere. The floors and walls are plain, undecorated, neutrally-colored surfaces with no features whatsoever. Then you get quizzical looks from the staff who is supposed to be there. Then said staff member realizes that nobody else is going to police the guests out of the area. The fortunate step was in passing through a door that had no "Crew Only" markings. In most cases, the doors are labeled that way if guests can't enter. This particular door was not.

Later on day 3, we arrived in San Juan. We saw Fort San Cristobel and the Bacardi factory. The fort was very nice, and very picturesque, and it's always fun to see random iguanas meandering about. We don't get a lot of that in Maryland. Meaning absolutely zero. At Bacardi, we got free drinks. Jessie got two, as did I. Which means literally that Jessie got one and I got three. The rest of the tour of Bacardi was surprisingly mellow. A fun fact about the tour was that we started in a pavilion, at which point we were shuttled to a tram car. The tram car never left site of the pavilion in its various wanderings to other buildings during the tour. What's the point, you ask? Well, so did we. The answer, I am afraid, is not forthcoming. The tour was fun, though. Bacardi probably has the best corporate logo in the world.

Day 4; SCUBA day. We spent day 4 (from about breakfast to 1700) in Philipsburg, St. Maarten. We got to go SCUBA diving, and had a wonderul French guide named Ann Charlotte. She was nice. I also discovered that sea urchins can hurt, and they don't need much force to do so. The girl discovered that sunken boats can also hurt, and leave fun little red scratches on legs that hit them. She says the boat attacked her. I never saw it move. :-)

Following SCUBA, we walked around Philipsburg. Five people offered to braid my hair, which would have been an interesting feat had I let them try it due to the tangled mess that resulted from SCUBA. I also got one offer for drugs. It must be the hair. I look like a hippie. What's an 8-ball, anyway? In any case, I obviously didn't accept.

Enter day 5, a day at sea. I spent the morning on Flowrider. Awesome device. I want one in my back yard. I also entered a bouldering competition, and took the gold. I had only my self as a competitor, though, as nobody else entered. Que lastima! Day 5 was also the second formal night. The girl and I got dressed up again. More formal pictures on the ship. Fantastico! Day 5, I believe, was also the day we learned from Tramaine, our head mesera (server), about great white shark attacks off the coast of South Africa. She says they grow to 15 meters. We never convinced her to come with us the next day to Labadee. She doesn't like the water. Can you guess why?

Day 6, Labadee, Haiti. This gem of a location is owned by Royal Caribbean. It's fenced off from the rest of Haiti. It looks like a little beach resort. It's picturesque. The girl and I got to go on a zipline, which was the longest over-water zipline in the world. I got a video of that ride. Of course, I also had to be curious about the stopping mechanism used by the zipline.

See, the rider is harnessed to a contraption that contains two pulleys in it. The wheels of the pulleys ride a thick steel cable. When the rider reaches the end, the contraption hits a heavy block to bleed off speed. If it can't stop the rider in a short enough distance, death is immediate. That's why nobody ever complains about a bad ride! :-) Just kidding. The block then hits a very long spring, which compresses and stops the block, the contraption, and the rider.

Later on day 6, we went snorkeling. It was pretty, but very crowded in the area. We got lots of underwater pictures, I hope. We shall see. There may be a lot of pictures of water damaged 35 mm film. The line to get off the island was also ridiculous. It took quite a while. I'd rather not think about that part. Oh, we also saw Tortuga, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame.

Back aboard, I was (of course) back on Flowrider. Day 6 (or maybe it was 5) becomes the day I'm known to little kids as, "the guy who's good at surfing." Told to me on the elevator.

Day 7 began, as they all did, on the Flowrider Day 7 also contained the speed climbing competition. It was enjoyable, but also reinforced my belief that I am not a speed climber. We returned way too late to our staterooms, packed, and got ready to get off the ship the next day.

And now for something completely different...

This cruise requires some analysis. We had more fun on it than on our first cruise, but we couldn't tell why. So, the girl and I thought about it a while. First off, the ship itself. Fantastic! Amazingly large. The sports deck (deck 13) was a remarkable thing for people of my kind. I surfed. I climbed. We played mini golf. It was great. Also, deck 5 contained the shops, Ben and Jerry's, the pizza place, the coffee place, and the wine bar. It looked like a neat little street contained within a ship. Deck 3 contained the ice skating rink. Also fun for us.

Second, the food. The food was not the highest quality. Carnival had better food. Also, the food for the buffets was the same ever day, and they had "staple" dishes at dinner every day. So, there was a chicken, beef, and fish option at dinner every day, and they never changed. Each day they had specialty dishes, though. I was not, however, chomping at the bit to kidnap and torture staff members or chefs for the recipes.

Third, the open decks. The pool area could be crowded, but there were many places to sit and relax, and the options for these places varied greatly. There was every combination of shady, not shady, loud, and not loud you could imagine. So, you can always find a place to be that's right for you if you look hard enough.

Fourth, the shows. These varied greatly. The guest entertainers were very good. It makes sense, though, doesn't it? That's what they do for a living. The Royal Caribbean-produced shows were VERY mixed. The ice show was great. The musical production really blew. I mean, can lyrics really get anymore dull? The cruise review show was very good. The acrobat show was pretty good, and ended up being like a toned down version of Cirque du Soleil.

Fifth, the money. It doesn't really make sense, sometimes, thinking about what you have to pay for on a ship. It makes sense that you'd have to pay for alcohol and soda. It makes sense that all of the shows are free. It was nice that all of the sports deck was free. It's nice that the gym was free. It does not make sense that a couples' massage costs over $250. It does not make sense that you have to pay $3.95 to enter Johnny Rockets, but can then eat all the food you want, but then have to pay for milkshakes. The money thing was hit or miss, and could stand to be a little more consistent.

Tipping at the end was also a little less painful on Carnival than Royal Caribbean. Ouch...

Oh, and the staff. The Royal Caribbean staff was superior to the Carnival staff. I got to know many of them, and they were all very nice.

Overall, given the exact same ship, the Carnival cruise would probably be better. This Royal Caribbean cruise had more interesting activities for us, though. Perhaps we'll have to look at Carnival again sometime when they build a ship with a sports deck to compete with Royal Caribbean. Perhaps they already have one now, but we just don't know it.

Anyway, I hope you're still awake, or that you've had your several glasses of wine and are nice and relaxed by now. Hasta luego!
Read more...

Pasadena Drug Dealers

So on the way home from the legitimate Pasadena drug dealers (aka pharmacy), we saw pretty much the entire Pasadena police force huddled around a car right outside of our community. There was a shady-looking dude handcuffed, standing against the hood of his car. There were the police watching him. There was the police dog, searching for what I imagine were the drugs this guy probably dumped out in the woods before they could stop him. Good stuff. Nice show. Props to the cops.

Excitement abounds! We're leaving for our honeymoon cruise on Saturday. This is the first vacation we have gotten to take since we got married. I'm ten kinds of excited, though the girl doesn't think so because I haven't written the excitement all over my face yet because it doesn't quite feel real. I think it might on Saturday morning somewhere around 4 AM, which is coincidentally about when we leave so that Amanda can take us to the airport, which is awesome of her. Thanks Amanda! You're awesome!

生日快乐: Sheng Ri Kuai Le

Yup, it's that time of year again. The year where all the stops come out, my family and friends get together at dinner after climbing and tell the Red Robin server that it's my birthday, they sing me the "adult version" of the happy birthday song (stop thinking dirty thoughts), and then I get to eat enough ice cream to send a small country into diabetic shock.

It was a good one, too. I had a good day at work, I went climbing, and I had a tasty calorific meal. It's good stuff. My wonderful bestest wife ever bought me Smash Brothers Brawl for the Wii and a bottle of Inniskillin, a tasty tasty ice wine. Now my stomach feels like the size of a small celestial body and it's nearly time for bed.

So, thank you Bear, Amanda, Ken, Sam, Tim, Sam, and Tim (yes, there were two of each of those, I promise, though one of the Sams has girl parts). I had a great evening.

PS - In case you haven't figured it out by now, the title is the way to say "Happy Birthday" in Chinese. Pronounced "shung er quai luh." And if you see question marks or something weird like that, it's because you don't have the language pack for Chinese installed. I'm fortunate enough to be running a real operating system, not this crappy Windows junk that sucks and tells you what to do all the time, and then fails to do it properly.

PPS - It must be the malaria scare!

Helpless Bystander...

It's hard to watch a friend in pain. It's harder when it's more than one friend. It's even harder when those friends are some of your dearest friends, and some of the best people you've ever known. It's even harder when you realize that, no matter how good a friend you want to be or can be, that really nothing you can do can make them totally better. Feeling useless is about on par with me to feeling confused and not understanding. So, to all of you who are in pain, I'm sorry that I can't make everything better for you. I can promise you, though, that it will be better, and that I will do everything in my power to make that happen as quickly as possible. If I try too hard and annoy you, just remember that it's because I love you all.

Warning: This Post May Result in Epilepsy or ADD

So, several of us have been sleeping poorly recently. Myself, the girl, and Amanda to name a few. I was explaining to Amanda some of the tricks I use to get to sleep. My main trick... daydreaming.

I let my imagination roam free. I pick a topic that I am interested in. For instance, cars. I enjoy driving fast, though I don't get the chance to unless I'm autocrossing. Or trying to stay alive while driving on highways in Maryland, which is not an easy task sometimes. That's a rant for a whole different time, though. But I digress. I pick this topic and I go with it. Sometimes I use it as a mental exercise as well. For instance, I'll think about the strengths and weaknesses of police cars and how I, if I were to flee from the police (which, on record, I will NEVER do!), would pursue this. Police cruisers are built for speed. My car is not. Police cruisers are not quite as nimble as mine, though. Then I take this to new heights. I imagine where I would have to go to elude the police. I imagine what I might have to do to evade a police helicopter, which, if nothing else can be learned from Spike TV, one can learn that a police helicopter just about always ends a police pursuit. Yes, I am ashamed that I sometimes watch Spike TV. Don't judge me. You're just as weird in your own little ways. Go ahead. Take this time to introspect. I'll wait...

...

OK, you can stop now. Eventually, the day dreaming takes a life of its own, and then I don't have to apply any brain power to doing this. Then, sleep just takes over. This usually works. May it work for you, too!

On a different note, Picasa is awesome. Stay tuned...

More Adventures

Climbed outdoors for the first time ever today. Strange, considering I've been climbing now for 4 years. It was beautiful out at Carderock. We were right next to the river, and the temperature was close to perfect (although a few degrees too warm).

It's amazing how much pieces of EarthTreks prepared me for climbing outdoors, and how much pieces of it didn't. In the gym, you are given a route, and you must solve it. The routes are marked with colored tape, so you always know where to go. Outside, you are given a rock wall, and you must pray to the callous gods that your fingers and toes can take the abuse, and that you can find pieces of rock face that aren't just rounded, unfeatured slab.

In any case, it was enjoyable, and I discovered that I apparently have a keen eye for discovering turtles. Everybody else seems to miss them. Today was my second turtle sighting. The first was while kayaking. Of course, it's hard to miss something when you hit it. Don't worry, the first turtle is perfectly fine. It was a baby snapping turtle. Today's, I can't identify yet, though fear not! I'll unmask it like Scooby Doo and the gang unmasking some old guy! VW buses are cool...

My Hobby (ala XKCD): Literal Interpretation

 

Yes, I know this is blatantly derivative of XKCD, but I love the strip, and so this is my homage, in a way. We watched Stardust tonight. The entire movie was about a shooting star. Hence my hobby; taking phrases and interpreting them literally.