Nerdvana

Sardine Tsunami!

2011-03-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

"Sardine Tsunami" was Julia's idea...

In about a half an hour the tsunami from the gigantic Japanese earthquake will hit Southern California, estimated to be about 2 ft high where I live.

This, coupled with the 100 tons or so of dead fish in King Harbor, means we're buckling down for a sardine tsunami!

Update 8:21 AM: Tina pointed out that 95% of the first 50 tons of dead fish have been removed from the harbor, returning it to the nominal level of dead fish. There are still an estimated 30 tons yet to get explodey and float up to the surface.

Update (day after): Reported surges in the harbor have done minimal damage to a few boats yesterday, but I didn't see any 2 ft waves within a good 20 minutes straddling the estimated time that people along the beach had anticipated. People gathered, all turned away tsunamiless.

Ingersoll: Another Dier Original

2011-02-27T20:47:00.000-08:00

I'm totally monopolizing the market for Dier family freethinker paintings.

A photo of Darrel's Robert Ingersoll is on the right; my stylizing of the quote is to the left there. It reads:

In all ages hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns on the heads of thieves, called kings.

I now own two Dier family original paintings of freethinkers: Dean's Thomas Paine and Darrel's Robert Ingersoll. Dean described the T. Paine portrait as a teaser for a grander painting to come, which is really exciting. I have a feeling I can convince Darrel to paint a few more freethinkers for me in the future as well. How about...

Charles Darwin
Voltaire
Karl Marx

I gained much confidence yesterday in Darrel's ability to produce high-quality work in a short amount of time, as Ingersoll took him a mere few hours from cracking open the materials to finished, framed work.

It's great having such awesome siblings!

Peaks and Plains Adventures

2011-02-20T20:55:00.000-08:00

You might recall the trip Christina and I took to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro. Our guide, Praygod Mtuy, has a website for his company: Peaks and Plains Adventures at www.peaksandplainsadventures.com. You have a wide range of options when backpacking Kili, and a tour with Praygod will be very competitively priced, with most of the luxuries of tours twice to three times the price. As I wrote in the Kili blog post, we had an absolute blast through thick and thin.

If you are planning a trip to East Africa and are considering a trip up Kilimanjaro, I recommend our guide Praygod. For more information, visit www.peaksandplainsadventures.com

Insant Bar Graphs in Excel (Tutorial)

2011-02-19T16:37:00.000-08:00

The function used is REPT:
=REPT(text,how many times to repeat)

2nd Best Pic (047)

2011-02-18T19:40:00.000-08:00

God bless America indeed...

Straight Face

2011-02-05T09:36:00.001-08:00

There is so much wrong going on in this rear-window graphic. I used to be gay, but JESUS set me FREE! Let's break it down:

I used to be gay
As far as I know, gay doesn't mean enslaved or anything else that needs any additional freedom, except of course the civil rights that are perpetually stripped from homosexuals (gay marriage comes first to mind). Guess who's first in line to spread the hate? Jeebus!

but JESUS set me FREE!
Though predictably all capital letters for emphasis (there are so many better ways to emphasize typeface, friends), the message is somehow lost on me. Jesus who? I kid; I know this graphic refers to the christian messiah, but it's not clear how or why this jesus would answer a question that nobody was asking (see above about how gay doesn't mean needing to be saved). The term gay itself aptly labels the gays from my observation; there are some pretty jolly, content, and proud homosexuals in my circles. From what do these people need saving? From all I can tell, I and them need only to be saved from bullshit like this in the back of automobile rear windows, and the people who hang it there.

By the by, Christina snapped that photo from her car. Here's the accompanying email text:

I looked this guy straight (no pun intended) in the eye at the stoplight and just shook my head.

You go, girl! You know, in your own passive-aggressive way. I wish I had one of those toy guns that ejects the Bang! flag, that said Now you're straight! or something like that.

* * *

If you didn't know already, the christians have these camps that try to turn the gays into the straights. Again, I don't know what compels them, but they try. What a perverse psychological world these people live in...it's sad.

Want some undercover journalism inside one of these loony bins? Alternet has you covered.

Kick Time Kids Unite!

2011-02-05T08:59:00.000-08:00

You might recall one of my most epic blog posts about the Kick Time! DVD I picked up at Amoeba. Well, one of the commenters (albeit anonymously) is one of the original Kick Time Kids. If you know any of the original Kick Time Kids, send them over to that blog post to share grievances in the comments.

Thanks, Internets!

The Monty Hall Problem

2011-01-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia has a nice page dedicated to the Monty Hall Problem, named after the host of Let's Make a Deal. The game itself ("Monty Hall Problem") gives the player the opportunity to choose what's behind one of three doors; two doors have goats, and one has a new car. After the player has made her/his guess, one of the goats is revealed, and the player has the opportunity to select a different door.

The question is: should the player switch guesses to the other door that has not yet been revealed?

The answer is yes, and it's not all that intuitive. Most people think that since one goat has been revealed, that leaves a 50/50 chance with the other two doors, which must have 1 car and 1 goat. Players who think this way see no advantage in switching their guess to the other, yet unopened door.

In reality, the odds are 33% that the car is behind your original guess, and 66% that it is behind the yet-unopened door. Like I said, Wikipedia explains this quite well. Try it yourself on this dandy little page in the annals of the UC San Diego interwebs.

Because I'm a nerd, I went ahead and simulated two players' outcomes with the two different strategies, "don't switch" and "switch." Here's what I got:

Just as predicted, 33/67 over 1000 trials. Here's the code, which you can run with GNU Octave:


function results = mhall(ntrials)

clc
clear all
close all

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Set up the game %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

ntrials = 1000;
cars = zeros(ntrials,3);
select = floor(rand(ntrials,1)*3+1);
select = [select select];
for (i = 1:ntrials)
cars(i,floor(rand(1,1)*3+1)) = 1;
endfor
results = zeros(ntrials,2);

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Play the game %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

for (i = 1:ntrials)
% Player that doesn't switch
if (cars(i,select(i,1)) == 1), results(i,1) = 1; endif;
% Player that switches
reveal = monty(cars(i,:),select(i,2));
select(i,2) = switchit(select(i,2),reveal);
if (cars(i,select(i,2)) == 1), results(i,2) = 1; endif;
endfor

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Plot the results %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

figure;
bar(mean(results));
axis([0,3,0,1]);
text(1,0.8,'no switch','HorizontalAlignment','center');
text(2,0.8,'switch','HorizontalAlignment','center');
title('Odds of winning the Monty Hall game');

endfunction

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Subroutines %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

function reveal = monty(doors,select)
reveal = 1;
while (checkreveal(reveal,doors,select) ~= 1)
 reveal = reveal + 1;
endwhile
endfunction

function good = checkreveal(r,d,s)
good = 1;
if ((d(r) == 1) | (r == s)), good = 0; endif;
endfunction

function new = switchit(old,reveal)
new = 1;
while ((new == old) | (new == reveal))
 new = new + 1;
endwhile
endfunction

Charleston via I-95

2011-01-08T11:16:00.000-08:00

Christina and I took a short road trip South down I-95 to the scenic and historical Charleston, SC. Neither of us had been there before, so our plan (by that I endearingly mean Christina's plan) was to get a flavor of the colonial history, War Between the States history, and modern Charleston by:

Taking a boat out to Morris Island
Visiting the Charleston Museum, America's first!
Participating in a walking tour at night
Touring a plantation
Patronizing the South Carolina Aquarium

We also took in some good food, though the further South of the Mason-Dixon line you go, the harder it is to eat vegetarian at any restaurant.

* * *

Like any road trip, our journey down I-95 was as much an adventure as roaming around our destination.

In North Carolina we stopped at the Hinnant Family Vineyards for a little bit of wine tasting. Our sommelier was a young man who told us everyone was heading to Charleston, as was he! He knew his wines, gave us 1-on-1 attention (we were the only people there...), and was overall very good to us. We bought three bottles: Tarheel Red (very sweet red wine), a white wine, and a blackberry wine (no grapes, but very alcoholic).

We also couldn't help but stop by the nearby JR store, which advertised on the highway that it's the largest doll store in the world, the largest cigar store in the world, and probably a half dozen other things. We certainly looked at dolls and cigars, but we just ate stadium-grade pretzels (no "Bone Suckin' Sauce" though) and were on our way.

It's worth noting that adjacent to the JR store is a Soffee outlet, adorned by interestingly arranged words describing the contents, much like in the JR store pictured here. Most notably, SWEATS and COLLEGE were arranged such that one might think one could acquire a degree in 'sweats' if one parks one's RV there long enough. I wouldn't put it past them.

Warning: shit gets really weird when you cross the state line into South Carolina. I suppose you don't need my warning; billboards for South of the Border start hundreds of miles into North Carolina (not kidding). Not only is this bastion of imported trinkets out of place (Mexican theme? Really?), it's just plain tacky. South of the Border is where bad eBay decisions and output from Taiwan go to die. Don't stop there. Let the following photos show you what to avoid, lest you wind up here as well:

* * *

Ah, Charleston. A town with history, cobblestone streets, buses that resemble trolleys, and a beautiful bay.

Our first real order of business was to be passengers two aboard a wee little boat rated #1 on TripAdvisor. Captain Howie was hilarious from start to finish on our tour the bay and Morris Island. Check out the FAQ page on his site for a taste of his humor.

Christina and I got to roam an uninhabited area near Fort Sumter for a couple of hours, which we spent collecting shells and hunting for sharks' teeth. On the water we encountered aggressive pelicans and friendly dolphins. As I often lazily do, here is a generous dump of images and video:

* * *

The Charleston museum was half historical / natural museum, and half museum about the museum. Founded in 1773, it's America's oldest museum, and proud of it. Many of the animal and cultural specimens really show off the age of the museum, with hand-written placards and the like.

If you can't tell from the photo on the right, we had a lot of fun dressing up in cunfed'rit outfits. It reminded us of simpler times, when human rights were just a twinkle in our forefathers' eyes, and labor was darn cheap. *shudder*

* * *

The 'night tour' I mentioned was actually a pub stroll, guided by a history buff in colonial garb. Mike (our guide) wasn't in character, and drank as much as anyone else. In fact, we broke his record for the longest pub stroll he ever led, probably because it was New Year's Eve and we were all having a blast. He gave us many insights into Charles Towne (colonial moniker) goings on, from fact to legend to ghost story. We had so much fun that Mike stayed with us until after the countdown to ring in the new year, which we enjoyed at the diviest bar in Charleston. Seriously, Big John's prides itself as the "diviest bar in Charleston." There's a penis drawn on the outside of the men's bathroom door. Graffiti is encouraged...good times. Christina made a half dozen facebook friends that night.

* * *

We ventured 10 miles or so outside of Charleston to visit Magnolia Plantation. We took the nature tram around the property and saw gators, turtles, all manner of water fowl. The petting zoo goats, deer, turkey, chicken, a reptile house, and caged foxes, owls, and raccoons. Have you ever seen an albino raccoon? Well, they have two. How about an albino peacock? Guess what, they have one of those, too! There was even a pretty cool hedge maze to keep the kids entertained.

It is rather sobering to visit a Southern plantation and see the slave quarters. The guide told us that those shacks were occupied through the 1940s by the families of former slaves, no doubt working without too many improvements to their families' standards of living in a hundred years.

* * *

Situated right on the harbor, the South Carolina Aquarium is home to many fascinating specimens of marine life and aquatic birds, and even a rescued (flightless) bald eagle! I don't know what South Carolina's fascination is with albino animals, but there's a pretty impressive white gator at the aquarium.

Overall our adventure down I-95 to Charleston was one we won't soon forget.

carbon footprintz: i haz dem

2011-01-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

I've made many a'trip to DC before, but in early December I might have made my shortest one yet: one night to go to a party with my favorite person. How could I resist? The party was at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Yeah. The venue was the entire museum full of planes and rockets and missiles and satellites. Yeah.

The venue was large and open enough to have compartmentalized, themed sections, with many open bars, food stops, live music, a discothèque, and Rock Band karaoke.

* * *

Am I going to liberal hell? I mean, I fly all the time, racking up miles galore. That's a lot of jet fuel being converted to hot gaseous by-products, injected directly into the atmosphere. It's not the kind of air pollution that makes people cough, but it is the kind of air pollution that inspires bad movies as well as decent ones.

T. Paine, Part The First

2011-01-06T21:11:00.000-08:00

I'm in the market for original paintings of Thomas Paine, and I'm always in the market for Dier originals, so this Dean Dier 2010 was a fantastic gift to me. It came with a note:

First official Thomas Paine in a series of ??? ...

I eagerly await the series!

Now, where do I hang this one so that it's prominently displayed? Oh, right - anywhere in my shoebox of an apartment!

Fake Plants

2010-12-22T12:48:00.000-08:00

My apartment complex's management has had mixed results with their decorative foliage arrangements. Hey, I know first hand how hard it is to grow plants in this joint: I'm on the North side of a 3-story building (virtually no direct sunlight)! As you no doubt deduced from this post's title, in the midst of our current rainstorm they installed fake grass, fake palms, and fake cyclamen. While the palms and cyclamen are somewhat convincing, the fake grass just looks like turf, and throws realism out the door for the whole installation.

So what's the deal with fake plants anyway? To me, whatever aesthetic value one might stand to gain in the presence of foliage dies with the realization of the farce. Fake boobs are one thing (I also don't understand those), but fake plants are more like Realdolls than implants. Whatever.

Close Encounters of the Meaty Kind

2010-12-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

Today I was hungry and stumbled upon what I thought was a veggie burger ready for my consumption (don't mind the source). It looked awfully convincing, but the patty edges were a little squared off, making it remarkably cylindrical. Fake meat, right? Smell test: inconclusive. I hadn't had my nose that close to cooked hamburger meat in so long I started to convince myself it smelled fake. Dissection revealed a texture that may or may not have been that of beef, but the wee bit of pink tipped me toward the meat direction (it was mostly brown and grey). I broke the tiniest bit off to taste it, thinking for some reason my taste for meat hadn't atrophied in a half decade. Taste test result: no effing clue. I don't know what hamburger even tastes like anymore. I gave it to an omnivore else who just threw it away. To quote him, "you've already deemed it unfit for your own consumption, so why should I eat it?"

Good question. Can I apply that argument to meat products that I have deemed unfit for my consumption categorically?

Planting Season?

2010-11-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

Two of my pathetic plants recently completed their lifecycles and turned into dried, stalky, seed delivery mechanisms. It's kind of cool to watch parsley and oregano go through that metamorphosis if you're into that sort of thing. Believe it or not, that tall skinny plant from bottom to top in the picture at left is one of the parsley plants that did so well for so long. I took the seeds from this strong plant and scattered them into an available planter, and in a few days I got little seedlings!

Hmm... I can taste the parsley soup now... which reminds me, I should brush my teeth more.

The oregano did a partial metamorphosis; it still looks like leafy oregano, and still smells (and tastes) good. Do you see the oregano on the right? It has some twiggy stalks coming out of it; those seeds went into another available planter.

What's the point of planting these seeds in late Fall? Will they grow?

Who cares?

2nd Best Pic (046)

2010-11-08T21:41:00.001-08:00

Oh, philosoraptor...

Check, Please!

2010-11-07T22:38:00.000-08:00

I think I'm done with this internets thing. The Queen of England is now on Facebook, and I'm not. How ever shall Sir Maynard and I get our updates on the palace's latest gossip if we aren't on the facebooks?

Yuppiestock 2010

2010-11-07T18:04:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I was in DC for The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, and of course to visit Christina, who hosted a sign-making party the night before - fun times! Check out how sane/fearsome the party was! There might have been a little more fear than sanity, though...dipping marshmallows in caramel all night, then eating such a thing actually gives you a hangover. TRUE STORY.

Not only were there marshmallows to dip into caramel at the sign-making party, but there was sign-making. Our signs:

Christina: Let's trade signs
Sarah: Let's be friends
Kristy: I had a one-night stand with Christine O'Donnell (she wore a witch's hat, too)
Laura: Proud to be within 2 standard deviations (with an illustration of a Gaussian distribution)
Katie: Git yer Gov'mint hands off my medicare!
Livia (not pictured): I forgot what her sign said...
Duane (not pictured): They Took our Jerbs!

That picture is the ladies that survived the party and tried to hitch a ride on the DC Metro in the morning. About that...no luck. All trains heading that way were packed. Oh, and it was Howard's homecoming parade that day, so the street was partially blocked off, and elsewhere in town they were setting up for the Marine Corps Marathon, so yeah transportation was a problem. We ended up taking the #70 bus.

Once we got to the mall, it was shoulder-to-shoulder from there on out. We were in a standing room only crowd of 250,000 of our closest friends. A quarter million, 10 million, who's to say. There were people climbing every available tree surrounding the mall, with cheers whenever someone would make it up. Oh, and good luck getting AT&T service there that day...that many yuppies means hella iPhones uploading videos to YouTube.

I call it Yuppiestock 2010 because there were droves of 20- and 30-somethings with signs adorning Internet references in one hand, and a tall Starbucks in the other. One of my favorite memes-on-a-sign (yes dawg I just put a meme in your meme) was the "no rageguy." Electronic fist-bump, bro. Anyway, it was a fun time had by all. You can read all about the musical guests and specific acts that appeared elsewhere, like Kid Rock getting a lukewarm reception (let's just say polite), and the Mythbusters crowd experiments that really did loosen up the group. It was great.

The whole point of the rally is best explained by Jon Stewart himself, at the rally:

Sir Maynard Ashbury

2010-11-07T13:14:00.001-08:00

If you haven't already been introduced, make now your acquaintance with Sir Maynard Ashbury, big game hunter. This somewhat annoying chap did much of the live narration of our safaris in Africa.

Known to most as simply Sir Maynard, he rambles on and on about the subtleties of pachyderm hunting, even after you've asked him very kindly to stop speaking in that damned voice of his. It's pretty annoying.

If ever you find yourself in East Africa in such places as Queen Elizabeth National Park, Lake Manyara or Tarangire, make sure to begin and end every sentence with "you see," and overuse "quite" as an adjective and an interjection.

An audio sample, per Tina's request:

...and in the darkness bind them

2010-10-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

What an overblown title for a blog post about a cell phone charger! A more appropriate title would be USB Squid or perhaps Charge Anything with this device.

Input: power via USB interface, with adapters for the wall and the car.

Output: 8 different connectors for pretty much every cell phone type out there.

This thing is great just to have around the house, but I have a feeling it will come in handy even more when traveling (especially in groups when invariably one person forgets their charger). Best part: $10 with shipping!

Artisanal LA

2010-10-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

I shared the late morning and early afternoon with friends at the Artisanal LA event on the 11th floor of the Cooper Building downtown. Very cool, man. Local LA farmers and small-outfit food and craft producers come together to showcase and sell their wares to hipsters, foodies, bloggers, and winos.

Though there were foods, drinks, crafts, workshops, and lots of free samples, there seemed to be a foodie fashion trend going on: sweet and spicey. It seems that every sauce booth and jelly stand had something with kick and sweet. Not even caramel corn was spared from the heat - habanero and caramel popcorn anyone?

Things I bought:

Red wine and cranberry rolls (large bag) from Homeboy Bakery
Cupcakes from Sweet Dreamery Desserts
Avocado honey from Fat Uncle Farms
Spicy Balsamic BBQ Sauce from David's Unforgettables
Coconut brittle (no nuts!) from Butterfly Brittle
"Hell Fire Pepper Jelly" from Jenkins Jellies

Things I sampled, besides all of the above:

Fruit and herb infused vodka cocktail (in a jar!)
Microbrew beer from Los Angeles
Many, many sauces
More things I can't recall at the moment...

We were all well-fed and had many business cards in-hand for future local patronage in Los Angeles.

Laugh at Smokers (.com) take 3

2010-10-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

Updated once again:

Background music added throughout (almost)
Clips rearranged
Some content cut

It's live on laughatsmokers.com at the time of blogging.

Laugh at Smokers (.com) take 2

2010-10-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

Here's this morning's mix, now featured on laughatsmokers.com:

Laugh at Smokers (.com)

2010-10-23T20:41:00.001-07:00

I did two things today:

Volunteer at CSULA
Edit this video for my main man Cason Macbride:

We hatched this idea about laughatsmokers.com some time ago, but being more or less long distance friends nowadays it's hard to collaborate and sync up schedules. Well, the wait is over - now the future content of that site is up to viewers like you! Email links to your videos in which you laugh at smokers to videos@laughatsmokers.com

How to use The Facebooks

2010-10-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

Spiders!

2010-10-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

click the image to enlarge -->

The Natural History Museum in Los Angeles (yes, there is one) is currently hosting an amazing exhibit all about spiders. This Spider Pavillion is a place where you can roam free among some of the creepiest crawlies you've ever imagined, short of that cheesy scene in Temple of Doom. Christina and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, as did the creepy crawly kids packing the place. It was really cool to see children unafraid of being face-to-face with spiders that aren't behind glass.

The event works like one of those butterfly/bird exhibits that animal theme parks and zoos often have, where you are fan-blown in a plastic airlock before entering the uncaged animal area. Spiders, being quite docile, are the perfect subjects for this because they aren't flying around and they certainly don't seem to be in much of a hurry to leave (or do anything except show off their superpowers of silk weaving).

The event runs until November 7th and is well worth seeing.

Waves

2010-10-17T11:00:00.001-07:00

Whence comest thou, thoughts?
Alone with infinity
Waves of the still mind

Loading a Ukrainian An-124

2010-10-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

It's not every day that you get to see a Soviet cargo plane load up in person, much less at LAX. Pretty cool, no? Sorry for the shaky video; I took it with my cell phone over about 20 minutes. I'm pretty sure more casual cargo loads faster than that...

Which Solstice?

2010-10-15T08:43:00.001-07:00

Not that I patronize Peet's anymore (and not that I every buy anything for myself either), but for a time I had essentially a lifetime supply of coffee and/or tea coming my way every gift-giving holiday. Since that supply has rightfully ceased for powers out of any sane human's control, I found myself opening the last tin of loose-leaf tea I have. It's a particularly delicious Winter Solstice blend, though I'm struggling to figure out which solstice it's from... 2007?

Can somebody help me out, here?

This tea has citrus tones, a mellow blackness, and the slight essence of wet stone.

Surfin'

2010-10-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

Christina and I took our long-overdue surf lessons in Santa Monica recently with great success! We both caught and rode our first few waves, and we were clearly two of the strongest three surfers in our class of nine or so people. Lessons we learned that day:

Don't expect a surf instructor to be on time
How to surf
Surfing is fun!

Arcade Fire at Shrine Auditorium

2010-10-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not very good with music reviews. Tina and I went and Arcade Fire rocked. Not...too much to say about that. They played crowd favorites from their three studio albums, and ended the encore with Wake Up (what else?).

Neither of us had been to Shrine Auditorium before, and it's a great venue overall. It has a kind of classy feel to it that makes you feel out of place. You know, in a good way I guess. It's nice.

The highlight of the whole experience was Christina's studious memorization of the entire Arcade Fire catalog. Since she wasn't too familiar with their work outside of what she was subjected to in my car over the years, she studied up and pretty much only listened to their music for the past month. Is that love, or what?

Political Hypothesis...

2010-10-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

As Randy and I flubbed a few shots during our Sunday round of golf today, we started rationalizing why certain shots went astray. I smoked a cigar - that's why. I ate food the other day - that's why. I saw a Geico commercial a few weeks ago - that's why. Making fun of rationalizations is great, but for some reason we got even more exact with our cognitive dissonance hypotheses. For instance, did you know that every time someone has an abortion a golfer flubs a shot? That's why the GOP is so bent on anti-abortion law! It all makes sense now!

That picture on the right isn't Randy and me; it's Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff.

Dark Side of the Moon (in 8-bit sound!)

2010-10-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

Do you like the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)?

Do you like Pink Floyd?

This might be old news for people who saw this on the interwebs many moons ago, like March 2010, but Sakanakao composed Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in 8-bit sound, with that distinctive NES quality that brings us back to that happy time called the 80s. Awesome.

If you remember the last time I found something I loved remastered into 8-bit, I found the .flv files from the browser cache and converted them to .mp3 files for you to download. Well, I didn't even have to do that this time. You can download the whole thing on the artist's site.

If you were so inclined, it would be easy to do with ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -i 6.flv 6.mp3
etc.

1/6: Speak to Me / Breathe / On the Run

2/6: Time / Breathe Reprise

3/6: The Great Gig in the Sky

4/6: Money

5/6: Us and Them

6/6: Any Colour You Like / Brain Damage / Eclipse

Dead At Your Age

2010-10-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

Among the myriad feeds I subscribe to, Dead.AtYourAge.com is the most morbidly fun one. You get to subscribe to updates about what famous or historically significant people died at your age, with regular updates. For instance, at one point I was told that at my exact age Heath Leger died. Since he hadn't been dead that long, one can infer that we were about the same age.

Besides feeling good about who you've outlived, you also get updates about who you've lived half as long as, which for some might be inspiration enough to continue the day-to-day dredge. Einstein made it to 76. Gotta get to 76, then I can go back to smoking and eating bacon-wrapped steak for breakfast. Gotta be better at Einstein than something, even if it's "living at 77 years old!"

Clashing it up for free with tax and shipping

2010-10-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

The title is in reference to the recent post about buying four shirt/tie combos on the cheap. Since then I've worn the two least ugly looking (arguably) shirts/ties to work, but I'm already extending my crazy spending spree.

This time I took a $200 gift card to Men's Wearhouse that was gathering dust and turned it into two sport coats and two blazers. It took some finagling, but ultimately I'm getting a buy-one, get-one free deal (x2) online, but using the gift card in-store (it can only be used in-store). I called the manager of the Men's Wearhouse closest to me and I'll have the merch delivered to the store, pick it up, return it there, then re-purchase it for the same total using the gift card.

Speaking of that total, I'm pretty proud of the deal I got, gift card or not. All four coats were on clearance, with an un-clearanced total of $719.96, but applying the clearances and buy-one, get-one free brings it down to $198.98. Not content to pay for sales tax after applying the gift card, I did a quick search for coupon codes and came out with 10% off. Perfect! The grand total with (free) shipping and tax is $197.52. Eff yeah.

We'll see how horribly these coats clash with everything I wear them with. Time will tell whether or not I care.

* * *

By the way, the difference between a sport coat and a blazer is that a blazer is a solid color, hereas a sport coat has some kind of pattern, stripes, or otherwise non-homogeneous fabric. You know, because I just looked that up and thought I'd share.

Friends with Kids: Wave 2

2010-09-23T22:56:00.000-07:00

Christina and I want to have children.

I'm now witnessing the arrival of a new, second era of children of my peers. The eras as I know them are:

Surprise blessings
White picket fence, planned, storybook families, married, own a home in the suburbs, etc.

Of the first wave I know a half-dozen or so, bright little lasses and laddies the bunch. The second wave is just starting in my life, as close mutual friends of ours just had their first child. At the risk of speaking incorrectly for her (she'll just comment on this post if I do), Christina and I are jealous. Don't get me wrong; we've been jealous of the first wave for quite some time as well, often discussing our envy of those who are accidentally introduced to the most challenging and rewarding experience of their lives (parenthood, not FarmVille). Now that the second wave is upon us, we're super jealous.

2nd Best Pic (045)

2010-09-20T23:11:00.001-07:00

Is this a hobby?

2010-09-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

Christina's old laptop computer has a shiny new OS installed on it, and it isn't SliTaz. On Tina's suggestion I attempted SliTaz 3.0, but the 30 MB OS that could didn't have the drivers for her her USB 10/100 Ethernet adaptor. Yes, the one USB 1.0 port is taken up by the network cable if you want to connect to an internets.

Once again I chose Puppy as the GNU/Linux distro with the best chances of having drivers in its kernel while still keeping a small footprint (130 MB compressed). Guess what? Internets without a hitch! I tried Macpup 4.11 and Lucid Puppy 5.1.1, and decided to go with the LuPup. Everything works like a charm, and I can now use a modern web browser on that computer (Firefox 3.6.6 vs. IE6 on Windows 98), as well as The GIMP and everything else I like to do with these darn computer machines. Hell, CUPS came installed on it so I could instantly access my networked printer. There wasn't even enough disk space on it before to install HP's bloatware for Windows for my printer (you have to install it to get the drivers!), though the assumption that HP even supports Windows 98 might not be a good one. I just checked...they don't support Windows pre-XP.

I'm convinced that I can make a computer last as long (or longer!) than its hardware components, thanks to GNU/Linux. Yay, Puppy!

Update: I'm playing Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" on the old laptop now, but over my home network from my desktop computer. Effing sweet.

Classing it up for $58.48 with tax and shipping

2010-09-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

(click on the image to see a larger version)

Originally $46.00 apiece, I just nabbed four shirt/tie combos for a grand total of $58.48. How's that for fine cheese on a Cheetos budget, eh?

Source: Kohl's online store ( Home > Clearance > Men's > Brands for Men > Croft & Barrow ), plus I googled "Kohl's coupon code" which yielded an additional 10% off with NEW5873.

If you do look at the larger image you will no doubt question my color choice, and perhaps you will go so far as to say I'm buying Cheetos on a Cheetos budget, but whatever. I could use some more shirts and ties, and if the ties alone are decent it's worth it. Let's be real about this, too: I'll pretty much wear whatever to work, so it doesn't really matter what kind of wood you throw into the fire so long as it burns.

(Re)Unification Day

2010-09-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

Did the facebooks kill the class reunion? Not quite. Christina's went very well (guess who planned that one?), and mine was a blast. Is there a significant group of Browncoats that will fight you to the death to avoid (Re)Unification Day? Yes. In fact, friends of mine who still live in Sacramento didn't go...whatevs. Our event planner did a fantastic job on an incredibly tight budget (the budget was of course tight due to the Browncoats not paying their taxes), and from what I've seen so far, Don took great pictures - more to come on that one once they're processed.

To me, it's worth a short flight to catch up with people I haven't seen in a a couple of lustrums. I've definitely traveled for more trivial reasons.

Art Imitates Life

2010-09-10T00:37:00.000-07:00

Forgive my use of the word art to describe a romantic comedy, but that's what I'm blogging about tonight: Going the Distance, starring Justin Long and Drew Barrymore.

Synopsis (with me & Tina in parentheses):

They meet and grow fond of each other in NYC (LA)
She moves to San Francisco (DC)
They make long distance work, despite seeing each other every three months (about every month, more or less)
She keeps trying to find work in NYC (LA) per their original plan
Since the economy doesn't seem to let her move back to NYC (LA), she ends up taking a job in SF (DC)
They break up (got engaged)
He changes jobs to be in California (she might be arranging to live in LA soon)
Happy ending! (Happy continuing!)

Uncanny, ain't it?

I ♥ 10+ year-old computers

2010-09-08T23:29:00.000-07:00

I'm now in possession of two, count 'em two personal computers that have 10+ years on them. The first is a Gateway desktop tower I've had since, well, the 90s when it was a shared family computer. It's still running on more or less the same hardware (network card thrown in sometime in college, RAM upgrades along the way), and in 2006 I ditched the then-outdated Windows 98 for Ubuntu (Xubuntu specifically). That thing got me through a lot, man. Lots of homework, term papers, and burnt CDs. It now runs Puppy 5.x and is still a fully-functional machine with modern software. Amazing, no?

My "newest" toy is Christina's college laptop (circa 2000). It's a Hewlett Packard Pavillion N3310 that can't hold a charge on its battery...making it as mobile as your extension cords. By today's standards, it's quite heavy (over 7 lbs), especially when you consider the native screen resolution is 800 x 600 pixels. The installed RAM is laughable: 64 MB. Since there's no dedicated graphics memory, 8 MB is currently allocated to that, leaving 56 MB of system memory to play with. The interwebs tell me this bad boy can handle a maximum of 512 MB, so I ordered two 256 MB SDRAM (the old kind you can't buy at Fry's anymore). They should arrive soon...and when they do I plan to pop them in and have some fun with a new OS. It runs Windows 98 on it now; what should I install on it? Any suggestions?

Cee-Lo Remixes

2010-09-07T22:01:00.000-07:00

This is a blatent re-post (Dallas Observer), but this song is so catchy, and the mixes are pretty funny.

The Cee-Lo music video:

The mixes into popular movies:

Cee-Lo's Shawshank Redemption from Dallas Observer on Vimeo.

Cee-Lo's Dirty Dancing from Dallas Observer on Vimeo.

CD-0001, "Seeking Approval of Choice of Mate from Others"

2010-09-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

Since both Christina and I are corporate drones, we can't function without process documents to tell us how to do things in a repeatable fashion. Our first process document as a pending merger is CD-0001, "Seeking Approval of Choice of Mate from Others." Written in jest, it was meant to point out the futility of basing your own life decisions on the approval of others. Take a look for yourself and see if you, the reader, approves. I need comments by COB Friday.

My draft of the document is below; you'll need to download and view Christina's edits outside of the browser to actually see the comments.

It's Unofficial!

2010-09-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

Christina and I are engaged to be married! I say unofficial because there is no "office of promises to sign state-recognized contracts with one another at a future date." Believe you me, if there's one person on this earth that can turn an exciting life event into a boring argument over semantics, it's two-thumbed yours truly.

Most of the readers of this blog have probably heard through other channels, but I can't very well go back to blogging about other things without at least mentioning it.

So let me tell you how it all went down. On second thought, I'll let my fiancée do that:

In order to carry out his plan, Duane plotted with my sister Laura for 3 weeks. He secretly flew out to DC over the weekend and then surprised me on Sunday morning while Laura and I were hiking on the Billy Goat Trail in Great Falls. The Billy Goat Trail is the first place Duane and I ever hiked together, so it was quite the sentimental location for him to pop the question. And there's really nothing to get your nerves going like seeing your boyfriend emerge in a place you're absolutely not expecting him to be. As I'm sure you've already heard or assumed, I said "yes, of course!" To make this experience even more perfect, Duane topped it all off with a cozy picnic replete with champagne, raisins, and Skittles (three of my favorite things!) overlooking the Potomac River. It was a gorgeous setting, a gorgeous day, and now I have a gorgeous man inside and out to call my fiancé.

Isn't that nice? There were Skittles!

THE FUN BEGINS

If you know anything about how well Christina plans for things (e.g. our trips through Africa, Guatemala, etc.), you know that we already have a wedding planning spreadsheet. If you know anything about how much I like to turn things into nerdy projects, you know that said spreadsheet is awesome.

A Taste of Chicken

2010-08-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

The other day I was eating cake at work on a disposable styrofoam plate. No big deal (except to the environment, right?). Anyway, I helped a little bit in cutting said cake, and it there was one plate in particular that stood out because it was the one that we put all the scraps of cake that were falling off as it was cut (it was a big, awkward cake that was difficult to cut). ANYWAY, in cleaning up after the ceremony that I failed to mention, I brought the scrap-plate back to my office as an afternoon cake snack. As I got to my office I noticed a little scrap of some whatsit on my hand (frosting?) that I licked off my hand and swallowed. I think that whatsit was chicken. The plates I grabbed out of the office kitchen for the ceremony were some leftover plates from who knows when, so this could have been some prehistoric chicken, man. NOT TO MENTION THAT I DON'T EAT CHICKEN. ANYFRICKINWAY, I tasted the tiniest, rottenest morsel of chicken the other day and I knew what it was. I haven't had chicken since May 5th(ish) 2006 when I went veg. I still recognized the flavor, even though it was petrified. Just thought I'd let you know.

Big Apple Tourist

2010-08-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Tina and I spent a short weekend playing tourists in New York City. I don't know how I've managed it, but I had never been there before. Manhattan is huge. Beside just walking around in awe (and occasional disgust), our three major activities were:

Rent bicycles and explore the whole of Central Park
What's a trip to NYC without a taste of Central Park? I don't know, actually. This was super-fun. There are plenty of dudes just standing around waiting for you to rent bikes with few working gears for negotiable sums of cash. What an enormous park!
Go out with a group of friends to some packed NYC bars
What is a trip to NYC without a taste of the nightlife? I don't know, actually. Cocktails galore, bartenders that have better things to do than serve you drinks, taxi rides, and good company. We even got to spend some time in the daylight sipping on some sangria with one of Tina's best friends on a boat/bar!
Boat ride out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
What is a trip to NYC without some history and culture? I don't know, actually. I recommend taking the volunteer guided tour at Ellis Island - our guy was intense, and very informative when you could hear him. Did you know that nothing bad ever happened at Ellis Island, ever? Tina and I inferred that from the lack of realism in the rosy accounts of how immigrants were treated. You know what they say: you can't always trust what you read on a little placard in the museum on Ellis Island that was formerly a historic immigrant processing facility. Oh, and that statue of liberty, she is one fine manwoman. What androgynous features!

We probably could have packed more into the trip, but I didn't even get there until Saturday afternoon (on account of working in DC from 2AM to 7AM Saturday morning!). I took the DC2NY bus from... DC... to... NY and it wasn't that bad. I talked to a congressional intern about religion/politics/relationships, watched a crappy comedy/romance/"action" movie, and didn't read much of a book. That's all I have to say about that. I slept through the drive home because my tourist body from head to toe was all tuckered out!

10-Second Sketches: Tina Kili Beanie

2010-08-11T21:18:00.000-07:00

2nd Best Pic (044)

2010-08-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

Double Double

2010-08-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Baking brownies
Double batch
Two eggs
Each package
First egg
Two yokes!
Second egg
Two yokes!
<__<>__>
Eff it
I'm done

A Rough Week for Guatemala

2010-07-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

Christina and I immensely enjoyed our 6 day trip to Guatemala. The weather was good enough (light showers sometimes, nice and sunny other times), the people were great, natural beauty abounded, and we didn't run into any snags. Our week there was great.

The week following, however, was not at all great for Guatemala.

A stunning photographic essay of the calendar week immediately following our departure can be found on The Big Picture. The photos are fantastic, and depict the volcanic eruption and tropical storm that amplified each other's effects on the Guatemalan civilization, especially in Guatemala City, where the infamous sinkhole opened what looked like a hole straight to hell. The text from The Big Picture's blog post is repeated here:

In just the past seven days, residents of Guatemala and parts of neighboring Honduras and El Salvador have had to cope with a volcanic eruption and ash fall, a powerful tropical storm, the resulting floods and landslides, and a frightening sinkhole in Guatemala City that swallowed up a small building and an intersection. Pacaya volcano started erupting lava and rocks on May 27th, blanketing Guatemala City with ash, closing the airport, and killing one television reporter who was near the eruption. Two days later, as Guatemalans worked to clear the ash, Tropical Storm Agatha made landfall bringing heavy rains that washed away bridges, filled some villages with mud, and somehow triggered the giant sinkhole - the exact cause is still being studied.

(Photo credits to Daniel LeClair, Johan Ordonez, Moises Castillo, Doriam Morales, Reuters, AP, and Getty Images)

SkyMall Roundup

2010-07-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

I fly a lot, and on a variety of airlines. One thing is for sure when flying domestically in the USA: SkyMall. Yes, the catalog that symbolizes much that is wrong with American culture is unavoidably in every seat back pocket nationwide. Here are my favorites from my last flight from LA to DC, scanned and ridiculed for the internets to see.

Cool! Paintball! That's the game where you pretend to be a commando with guns and shoot other mildly armed fantasizers, right? The way to maintain the greatest realism is to play in the woods or something so there's natural cover and hiding places, right? How about a couple human-sized balloons and pistols that no doubt shoot the paintball equivalent of BBs a distance no greater than that shown in the photo? Sound like a shitty time? Yes, yes it does. Backyard paintball? Who would want to shoot paint in their backyard? I don't care if it washes away...it just sounds really stupid.

(Transcript from Schlemmer board room)

Jim, I got an idea that will save our company from the disastrous miscommunication with China.

You mean the over-sized shipment of chairs?

Yeah - how about we just call them 'sports chairs' to make people feel big when they're at their kids' soccer games?

Wouldn't a big chair make you feel small?

You're right. Let's say, "...the chair is certain to provide ample room for full-body gesticulations. The lofty seat elevates feet well above the ground, where they're free to dangle and sway."

Those collapsable chairs cut off the circulation to your legs when you do that. This is a HORRIBLE idea, but it's all we've got. Call SkyMall!

Some of my readers are going to chime in and say that the bug vacuum is actually a good idea. Sure, it's a great thing to have a crutch to support your psycho paranoia that makes you perceive a real threat from something that's about 0.000015% of your mass and is absolutely harmless.

What if you can see that it's a black widow or brown recluse spider? Or... *gasp* ...a bee? Don't touch it. If you have a pet that you're worried about, don't let the pet touch it, or you can just relax...either way. If you have a baby that you're worried about, don't teach them the bad habit of being a psycho with a vacuum/bug zapper wand. Relax and don't let your baby touch it. Protecting your children is your job, not SkyMall's.

Maybe if you're allergic to some kind of bug bite or sting this might make sense, but by sticking your arm within two feet of something that can render you even more psychotic might not be the best idea. Don't touch it. That includes sticking a piece of battery-powered plastic between you and the bug. Just don't touch it.

This one just cracks me up. Cell phone cameras simply can't pack very good sensors into their built-in digital cameras, and the iPhone is no exception. Granted, the technology is constantly improving, but slapping an 8x zoom lens onto a crappy camera isn't an example of an improvement. If you're taking a picture that requires a good lens, use a camera that has a good lens, not a questionable, generic, bulky strap-on to a cell phone. This much seems obvious. At $60 (and that's SkyMall pricing, people!), I can't imagine the mechanical interface would be crap. Besides, there's no lens mount, so this contraption relies entirely on some kind of friction mount on the iPhone case. Oh, and after all that, it's manual focus only (of course...there's no electrical connection to the iPhone!). I think cell phone-grade photographers like autofocus, but that's just a hunch.

Do your subject a favor and leave the lens off. We can safely guess that the SkyMall photographer didn't use this lens to take the picture of the product.

Number 4 on Cracked's The 5 Most Ridiculous SkyMall Products Money Can Buy is 'A Baffling Array Of Lawn Ornaments.' Not labeled as holiday items (I'm thinking Halloween here...), somebody at SkyMall thinks that you, yes YOU, want a life-size statue of a zombie crawling out your Gro Mulch all year 'round. This one apparently sells, according to the New York Times.

"...the eeriest eyes you've ever seen," eh? I doubt it. I think I'll be getting the same look on my guests' faces when they see this thing. Oh, the look won't be of fright, it will be a look back at me like, "What the hell were you thinking buying this thing? Did you get this in SkyMall or something?"

Hmm. That gets me thinking about if I actually found something in SkyMall I liked, would I admit that I bought it there? Hmm, indeed.

The Easter Island head puzzles me a tad more than the other lawn ornaments / outdoor decorations. It's six feet tall, which the ad designer seemed quite proud to tout. OK, 6 feet. If it weighed as much as a person then it might still be on the flimsy side, like you could push it over pretty easily. Well, my friends, it's only 92 lbs. Not even "a buck." With the a pretty large frontal area, this thing would get knocked over in a good wind.

Fine, fine...it has to be inexpensive if it's such junk, right? This is the part that gets me the most: it's a thousand dollars! What are they thinking? Even the photo of the product sucks; it's clearly 'shopped. Look at the lighting, and the fact that the kid is pointing at something out of frame...this is just pathetic. Make it a good Photoshop job if you expect me to pay 1000 bucks for this ugly kite.

Many people, though I won't go so far as to say most, keep their pets off the furniture. This of course is the segment of the population that actually likes to live with animals (though not bugs...see above). Many more people don't like the thought of a dog or cat using your home as a toilet, but for those who are pet owners, having a small dog that can't jump up onto the couch isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unlike other SkyMall products that seek to solve problems that don't exist, this one actually creates a problem out of a blessing in disguise.

There was an extremely overweight man sitting in my row as I was gathering these from the SkyMall catalog. When I showed him my stack of clippings he commented on the doggy staircase saying that he actually had one like that for his vehicle. Apparently his dog is/was arthritic and couldn't jump up into the hatchback or pickup or whatever. OK...but why didn't you just pick the damn dog up yourself? Oh yeah, did I mention that this guy was really overweight? He was the guy that everyone has to look at as they walk by. He snored for most of the flight, which gave passengers an opportunity to bond over making fun of how loud it was. Anyway, there is definitely something systemically wrong with us when there is a market for these things.

If only that fat guy had one of these, then he would be sleeping like a baby, right? Well, it was hard for the guy to have the tray table down, so probably not.

This pillow idea might actually work, except I'm pretty sure leaning back is much more comfortable. The only time I want to lean forward to sleep when flying is when the seat itself is really uncomfortable, and my desire to lean forward is really just a desire to shift around a bit.

I don't know. I just can't see myself using this thing. Funny, I can't recall ever seeing anyone else use one either. Maybe it's because the guy using it blends in so well with the headrest upholstery.

Hmm...it does say the following about their sales: "Why not join the many thousands of satisfied customers and enjoy the benefits of this uniquely blah blah blah..." Right. Many thousands, huh? Fun fact: in English we pluralize any non-one number, like 0.03 seconds. So if by 'many thousands' you mean something like 0.03 thousands, perhaps you meant mini thousands.

This is SkyMall's unique solution to the misplaced cell phone, says the tag line of this ad. Everyone else's solution is to use a phone that you haven't misplaced to call the phone you have misplaced. This velcro sweat band is probably closer to the cure for having a prom date (Christina's joke).

What is SkyMall's solution to the misplaced velcro sweat band?

Do you need the 'Face Trainer?'

no!
no!

Is that the brand name? Is it the immediate response that anyone gives when asked if they would use this or any other stupid product in SkyMall?

yes!
yes!

I've been really harsh on the SkyMall people in this post, but I'd really like to hear from anyone who has really gained something besides entertainment value from SkyMall. You know, like a product that is as life-changing as all of them claim to be. So, comment away, Nathan, Christina, and Don! Anyone own anything from SkyMall?

10-Second Sketches: Hamburger Cupcakes

2010-07-07T08:31:00.001-07:00

Cupcake Kabobs

2010-07-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

Christina sent me these pictures approximately 1 year after they were taken, a hazard of love when living so far away from each other. These cupcake kabobs were simple to make, and at the time (4th of July 2009) were the cutest desserts Tina and I made to date, a title that now belongs to the hamburger cupcakes f'sho.

4th of July Hamburger Cupcakes

2010-07-06T21:14:00.000-07:00

Last year I briefly mentioned the cupcake kabobs that Tina and I made on the 4th of July 2009. They consisted of red and blue mini-cupcakes, marshmallows, blueberries, and strawberries on skewers. While outstandingly cute, Christina figured we needed to outdo ourselves for 2010 with cupcake hamburgers. I linked you to Bakerella for the inspiration and instructions, which we more or less followed exactly. All the photos on this post are of our own creations, however.

The concept is rather simple:

Hamburger buns made from cupcakes cut in half (top is top, bottom is bottom), with sesame seeds made from sesame seeds
Hamburger patties cut from a thin brownie sheet
Hamburger fixings from dyed frosting
French fries made from thinly sliced sugar cookies

The hardest step of the process was surely baking and cutting the fries. We ended up only using a single sugar cookie mix (reduced sugar!), but since you have to slice the uncooked dough, remove alternating 'fries,' then cut the resulting baked morsels (easiest when warm and fresh), it takes two loaded cookie sheets to just bake one batch of fries. Oh well...every burger only gets a few fries. Deal with it.

We used a wide-rimmed, tapered shot glass as a cookie cutter for the brownie patties, which we transported along with the cupcakes and completed fries to Sherwood Forest for final assembly on the 4th.

We divided the frosting duties between us: I would handle the green 'lettuce,' while Tina would apply the 'ketchup' and 'mustard.' Her fingernails immediately poked through the frosting bags, which were just zipper-style sandwich bags with snipped corners. The bag of yellow was torn open enough that it was easier to knife the frosting out, which I found rather humorous: not only were our hamburgers playing tricks on my brain for how authentic they looked, but now we are applying convincing-looking mustard on with a knife? It was surreal.

Christina's creative improvements to the Bakerella recipe were the addition of sandwich toothpicks (with blue and red cellophane) and a simplification of the serving presentation. Whereas Bakeralla had elaborate Father's Day printed bags and baskets to serve their burgers and fries, she (wisely) opted for simple plates and napkins.

Operation Cutest Dessert EVAR: success!

10-Second Sketches: Guatemala

2010-06-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm really into black & white (not grayscale!) binary images. Something about the ability to compress all that information into a couple of kB fascinates me.

This little "10-Second Sketch" project was simple:

In The GIMP, overlay a photo with a solid white layer and overlay that with a completely transparent layer.
Crank down the transparency of the white layer until the photo underneath looks like it's under tracing paper.
Using the ink tool and not letting yourself dwell on any stroke, line sketch over the major elements of the photo.

All of these 10-Second Sketches (most took a little longer than 10 seconds, but not much) are all based on photos from our recent trip to Guatemala.

Mt. Whitney in One Day

2010-06-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

Christina and I hiked Mt. Whitney in one day. To be accurate, Christina and I hiked Mt. Whitney in one pre-dawn, dawn, morning, noontime, afternoon, evening, dusk, and night, which I guess you could call "one day." Some factoids related to our hike:

Mt. Whitney is the highest peak in the (non-Alaska) United States at an elevation of 14,505 ft (4421.1 m).
Tina and I have been skydiving from lower elevation (13,000 ft) than the peak of Whitney.
The trailhead elevation is 8360 ft (2550 m), making the total climb 6145 ft.
A mile is 5280 ft, which means we increased (and then decreased) our elevation by more than 1.16 miles.
The total horizontal distance hiked was about 22 miles (35 km).
A marathon is 26 miles.
If you look it up on the internets you'll find that Tina and I took as long as "...a beginner and/or [someone who is] not in top physical shape..." lulz! Blame Duane: I haz a slow on the uphill...which is kinda what you want to be good at, not bad at when getting up to the top of the USA.

Doing Whitney in one day was the hardest hike either of us can remember attempting, including the toughest days on our compressed Kilimanjaro schedule. Not content with setting personal records for hiking difficulty, we both felt parts of the hike were the most dangerous activities that we could remember. Keep in mind we've jumped out of a plane together, whitewater rafted (and bungee-jumped into) the Nile, floated over wine country in a balloon, and roasted marshmallows on a volcano that erupted days later. What could be scarier than that? How about...

Snow cover in an El Niño year, so much that we couldn't safely travel the area known as "96 Switchbacks;" instead we had to ascend straight up and down "the chute."
We definitely needed our crampons, and ice axes would have been nice for glissading. We actually tried to glissade without ice axes, and managed to stop short of dying before realizing that was a stupid idea.
Gusty winds that tend to blow right through Whitney's "windows," open spaces between huge rock spires where you can see straight down the slope of the mountain about 1000 ft.

I probably make the whole thing sound harder and more dangerous than it actually is, but my wind-burned face and sore feet will tell you it was one helluva hike!

The scenery on that trail was simply incredible, so much so that I hold Inyo National Forest up there with its sister Yosemite as some of the most scenic mountains in California.

Who wants to hike Whitney with us next year...over several days this time? Any takers?

Animals of Tikal

2010-06-15T23:05:00.000-07:00

On your left you can see the Coati, the range of which apparently extends into the USA. The one we encountered was tame enough that my hunch was correct: throw little sticks in front of you and it thinks you're feeding it, which draws it close enough for your girlfriend to take a picture.

Christina also snapped this picture of a wild turkey. How did she lure this beast in for the shot? I don't know...I was taking a nap!

What other animals roam in and around Tikal?

Well, we already know about the turkeys:

Jaguars, perhaps:

The elusive "not two cars:"

And finally, you have to watch out for that chick from Total Recall:

Tikal

2010-06-15T20:49:00.000-07:00

You get to climb on the ruins!

Sorry. Christina and I got pretty excited when we arrived at Parque Nacional Tikal in the North of Guatemala. You get to climb on the ruins!

A fairly short chartered van ride away from Flores, Tikal turned out to be a great way to casually spend our last day of tourism in Guatemala. What do you expect when Christina plans your trip? We strolled down the worn paths of this popular park, taking as much time as we wanted at the most picturesque temples in The Heart of the Mayan World.

One of the first sights, however, is a big frikkin' tree (at left, click to enlarge). That's me standing next to it! It kind of reminds me of another large tree as you enter a different park in a different far off land, but I digress. Onward to the ruins!

You get to climb the ruins!

The first complex of altars and pyramids we visited was a great place to start, because we had the energy (in the beginning) to run up to the top of every pyramid we saw. As the rain droplet in the photo at right shows, there was a nice little sprinkle every now and then to keep us cool. Not so as the day progressed, and the pyramids got steeper!

OH NOES! Ants!

We had our fun poking our heads around the structures of an ancient civilization, exploring the nooks and crannies. We took a path that more or less beat around the bush, covering Tikal's perimeter before experiencing Templo V and the Gran Plaza.

Climbing to the top of "Temple #5" was unlike the pyramid structures before it on our tour of Tikal; this sucker's ruinous stone staircase was off-limits, replaced by another ruinous, even steeper, wooden ladder-like staircase. If you have any fear of heights whatsoever you will have difficulties even working up the nerve to climb this thing, which is totally unsupervised. I consider myself to be a minor superhero and I was having problems. No matter, the view from the top was fantastic. It really did feel like Christina and I were on top of the world, even more than it usually does when we're together.

The Gran Plaza was probably the most well-excavated area overall, with tourist-favorite Kodak moments aplenty. Templo I, pictured between Christina and I below, is the one seen over my shoulder in the "falling off the cliff" shot above. It's also the one that seems to be the most photographed, and the iconic image of Tikal as a whole.

Did I mention we had our fun in the nooks and crannies?

(the sign says, "Don't scratch," presumably to deter graffiti)

Airport Terminal Lolz

2010-06-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

That morning we flew into Flores from Guatemala City (...from Antigua...EARLY morning), it must have been before shift that had guy who knows computers scheduled at GUA:

i lol'd.

Lesbiants... ¡Qué DIvertido!

2010-06-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a little joke Christina and I shared in Guatemala, specifically while we were hiking in the Reserva Natural Atitlán for Cables Extremos.

Y'see, Tina got bit by some ants on the trail, which easily penetrated her sandal-like Keens (left). We called them lesbiants because of their choice of shoes to attack.

Flores

2010-06-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

We woke up in Antigua, Guatemala at around 3:30 AM that day. Yes, 3:30 AM for a 3:45 AM pick-up at our hotel. Here's how you know you're in a place with nice weather (even when it rains): the kid who pretty much runs the entire hotel portion of the hotel/sports bar/laundromat we stayed at sleeps on a couch out in the open air (covered). Sorry for the dense sentence structure there...there's one guy running the hotel, and he sleeps on a couch. The couch is in-between the sports bar part of the establishment and the little courtyard that connects all the rooms. This couch is in the open air out of doors, but covered by the roof of the sports bar. As it was still dark, we didn't see him on the couch as we were sneaking by on our way out. The precise moment Tina actually woke up that morning was definitely when the couch said, "Buenos Dias."

So we got picked up at 3:45 AM for a taxi van ride to the airport in Guatemala City. The plan for the rest of the trip was this:

Fly to Flores
Same day: Tour Tikal National Park (Mayan ruins)
Spend the night in Flores
Fly home (Flores to Guatemala City to USA)

We took Taca Airlines to and from Flores on a little commuter plane. I say on a little commuter plane because it was the same one both ways, verified by looking in the in-flight magazine's Sudokus that we completed and tagged ("Christina & Duane :)") in our departure seats.

Taca has somewhat of a monopoly on the GUA-FRS flights...and it shows in the flat-rate, expensive price tag. Your transportation alternative is an 8-hour chicken bus ride each way, which we ruled out pretty early in the planning stages. There is another airline, TAG, that flies that route, but good luck booking a flight with them. Taca has a modern airline web interface and a slick-looking logo; TAG is a regional airline that seems to specialize in charter flights. Their site doesn't even have a favicon...

* * *

Flores is a really pretty place. The historic old town area, where we stayed, is on a little island on Lago Petén Itzá. Antigua was walkable, but this was taking it to the extreme!

View Larger Map

It's a good thing that everything in Flores was only a few blocks away from where we were staying, because the Guat Squats were taking hold of our hero that night. It's worth noting that Casa Amelia (our hotel in Flores) was the most luxurious place we stayed on our trip. For those who are taking notes, we had an air conditioner, ceiling fan, a spacious bathroom, and a view of the lake out of two windows! The view of the lake we had from within and around our hotel inspired Christina to propose opening a hostel or B&B around Lago Petén Itzá. It was pretty stunning. Here's a the kind of view we took for granted out of the window of one of our taxi van rides:

It sure beats the Gulf Coast, no?

Hard Work Pays Off: Diploma Edition

2010-06-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Some diplomas you can just pay for (executive MBAs?), but others require hard work:
That's right. Christina and I are now graduates of the school of Atitlan Nature Reserve's School of Cables X-TREMOS, with degrees in Safety Course Participation minoring in Liability Waiving.

Antigua Guatemala

2010-06-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with Antigua the island in the Caribbean, Antigua Guatemala is the destination of choice for international tourists visiting Guatemala. It's safer and more picturesque than Guatemala City, though I really only get information on the safety from the internets and Tina's research.

We traveled through Antigua twice, but the first was only as a means for our side trip up Volcan Pacaya, and onto other towns we went. The second time through we actually intended to explore, and explore we did.

A relatively small town, Antigua's main draws are the ruinous churches and cathedrals, and, well, the churches and cathedrals that aren't dilapidated. Apparently, earthquakes in the 18th century devastated the then-capital city enough for Spanish colonists to completely abandon it for what would eventually become Guatemala City.

I'm telling you, man...this town has lots of jesus. I've enhanced the marked churches on the map at right, and labeled where Tina and I stayed (the scarlet "A" is us). I don't know if it was a subconscious selection of ours or what, but the bow shock between our hotel and the geographical distribution of churches is clearly a separation of church and stayed. Eh? Eh? Whatever, I'm funny.

We were fortunate enough to have great weather that day, making this extremely walking-tour-friendly town that much more accessible to us (weather is always a potential issue entering the wet season). In my usual lazy style of blogging, I'll just dump some pictures into the post and let you fend for youself:

Something that I love about self-guided walking tours is that you are left to people watch without getting some tour guide's version of the world. Opportunities to observe create themselves, and you end up at a wedding right as the bride makes her entrance.

It wasn't all fun and games walking around town, though. The onset of the Guat Squats in both of us had its day of foreshadowing at Christina's expense, complete with cramps and constipation. It's almost like we each developed our own Volcan Pacaya in our bellies that refused to erupt until, well, a natural disaster strikes. She got it much worse than I did, and it only just began for poor Tina on these last couple of days of our trip. The real brunt of it was after we were home and safely bathing in United States tap water, eating fish heads that had been cleaned, but clearly she had picked up the bug in Guatemala. I only got a little bit of stomach cramping later in the trip for a couple of hours, followed by a mild case of the Guat Squats.

A light rain fell with the veil of the sunset, so in our crampy, sitting, resting state I took the opportunity to take a few long exposure shots with the camera, which was a good way to end the night early, as we were preparing for a very early start to the next day...

Lago de Atitlán

2010-06-03T00:41:00.000-07:00

Panajachel, the largest of the towns surrounding Lago de Atitlán, was just as tourist-friendly as Christina's research had led us to believe. We hopped off the chicken bus at the main crossroads and walked right to our hotel, passing several restaurants and shops we were destined to explore in our downtime.

We received the best hospitality and end-to-end service on our trip from Posada de los Volcanes, the only hotel at which we stayed more than one night (two, count 'em two nights!). Francisco, the man with all the answers at the front desk, spent the time to explain everything we wanted to know about the surrounding area and what to do there, including marking up the map he gave us (right) and explaining how the boat systems work on the lake. He told us the hours and prices to see the nature preserve and fly through the canopy on Cables Extremos (zip lines).

When we checked into the hotel that first day in Panajachel we had already spent a good day traveling and shopping in Chi Chi, so we made our plan, walked around, got ice cream cones for the equivalent of 25 cents apiece, ate a pleasant dinner at the Sunset Café, and finished with a night cap at Circus Bar (thanks to Francisco's recommendations).

The Sunset Café was nice--it was a little stormy with heavy clouds covering the lake's surrounding volcanoes. There was so much lightning that the lake was lit by what seemed like flickering candlelight. Neither one of us had seen anything quite like it, and the phenomenon persisted throughout our meal. A dead-ringer for Carlos Santana was playing American pop tunes as well, which created a unique atmosphere. From the way he was singing Stand By Me and Jambalaya on the Bayou I don't think he actually spoke English. Really? Carlos Santana playing Hank Williams? Like I said...unique atmosphere.

We went to Circus Bar twice: once a little early before crashing the first night, and again when there was live music the next night. I'm glad we went when it was empty; it gave us the opportunity to take pictures of the creepy clown paraphernalia one might say is decorating the interior. It's as if anything circus or clown related that comes through town ends up here, on the walls or hanging from the ceiling.

One question remained as we left to try our best to sleep after being unable to see this: what is with the fake severed hand above the bar?

* * *

Another early Guatemalan morning was kicked off with a fantastic Q15 breakfast (that's like 2 bucks!) you get eggs how you like them, black bean paste (seriously my favorite part of the desayuno tipico), more fresh corn tortillas than you can eat, jalepeños, fried plantains with cream, and artfully displayed fruit. Oh yeah, and coffee. Included. I should have purchased breakfast in bulk and brought it home with me...

A short walk took us from the main drag to the nearby nature preserve, which is where one can enjoy the thrills of the Cables Extremos among the waterfalls and treetops, which of course we did.

Weeeeeee!

If you can't tell by the pictures, the zip lines were loads of fun.

The other main attraction for us at the nature preserve was a family of spider monkeys.

Weeeeeee!

We also enjoyed some insect/arachnid life at the nature preserve, along with some interesting plants:

The nature preserve was home to s butterfly garden, which is where most of those plant and insect pictures (above) were taken. The funny thing about it was there were no butterflies! The few that we saw were all outside the netted aviary (right).

At about noon we decided to get on with our day (like zip lining, monkey watching, and nature walks weren't enough for one day!), so we rode a tuk-tuk back into Panajachel proper to charter a boat across Lago de Atitlán.

Much like the taxi van / chicken bus arrangement on land, one can charter a private boat by the hour for buco bucks or just wait around for the next public boat to head out. Q25 (about 3 USD) on the chicken of the sea bus gets you a ride from one major town to another around the lake via the bumpiest speed boat you can imagine riding without a release form...with small children...and no seat belts. As you can probably tell from the two pictures, I had much more fun watching Christina bounce around on in the boat than she had watching me...

Destination: San Pedro La Laguna, where they grow good coffee, sell it, and spend the proceeds on colorful churches. It's a little town with cobblestone streets (standard 'round those parts) on the steep gradient that is the base of Volcán San Pedro. The churches weren't the only faith-based eye-catchers in the streets. Practically every corner is painted with some kind of message about a god, which kept me in suspense as we walked...what would the next corner bring? My salvation or just my salivation in anticipation?

San Pedro, for us anyway, will always be remembered as the town of flies. We didn't really have a problem with insects besides the expected mosquito bites here and there until we got to Nick's Place for a late lunch. We both ordered fish with a side of flies! Mine was fried whole fish, the way it's served most places in the world, and Christina's was a seafood soup, complete with a whole fish and crab with her shrimp and mussels.

Our last stop in San Pedro before heading back over the lake to Panajachel was a coffee shop that served local San Pedro La Laguna coffee. We sipped fresh brew, captivated by the efficient mechanical motions the barista repeated over and over again bagging and packaging coffee beans by hand. From large sack to sealed colored bag, you might think your coffee comes from a factory. Next batch of Guatemalan you get check the bag: if it's from San Pedro La Laguna I bet I know the guy that bagged it...right there on bar in the café.

On the boat ride back the clouds turned to rain, which we feared didn't bode well for our underpants back at Panajachel. You see, we did some washing in the hotel sink and hung our nasties out to dry. Remember how I said the service was awesome at Posada de los Volcanes? Well someone on staff moved our underwear to a clothesline with direct sun (which we noticed before heading across the lake to San Pedro) and moved them back off the clothesline before the rain started. When we returned the chonies were drier than we were!

We had scoped the night life out the night before, but Friday night turned out to be great for a self-guided pub crawl:

Blended Mojitos (?) and scant-cheese nachos at the most hole-in-the-wall place imaginable
Atlantis, a pretty nice bar/restaurant served us Cubas libres and Margherita pizza
Circus Bar again for some beers, this time with live entertainment and many more patrons
El Bistro, right next to the hotel, for a bite of pasta and some water before bed

What a day and what a couple of nights!

Hasta luego, Lago de Atitlán!

Chichicastenango: Amazing Place

2010-05-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

Christina and I awoke in Antigua the first full day of our trip to Guatemala (our hike up Volcan Pacaya happened the day we flew in). Early is bright, so we were up bright and early. Guatemala is on Central Time without daylight savings, so it's effectively like Mountain Time in May (UTC-6). That means sunrise is about 5:30 AM...anyway...we got a nice early start to our 4 hour transit to Chichicastenango via chicken bus.

The 4 hour estimation includes our stop in Chimaltenango to change buses. To satisfy our huge American stomachs, we took the opportunity to stop at a panadería for breakfast. Even though we asked about the contents of the croissants ("Vegetarianos? Queso solo!"), they still contained jamón. *sigh*

Our bus from Chimaltenango to Chichicastenango was the longer leg of the journey, and it felt like a serious commute for the Guatemalans that packed the bus the entire way. When you're heading to a town known for its market, people not only bring themselves, but their wares, which fill the overhead space, their laps, your lap, the aisle, whatever. Hell, from window-to-window a typically-packed chicken bus will be 7 people wide: three in each seat and one unfortunate soul that straddles the two seats. If you can't picture how one could sit in the aisle and in two school bus seats simultaneously, don't think too much about it. They've figured it out. Truth be told, this particular bus remained full enough that on the entire 2 hours or so ride we had left there was not one moment when there was enough room for Christina to sit even within 6 rows of each other. The height of entertainment for the ride was a salesman who was peddling something or other out of his briefcase. He had a used car salesman look, and his delivery just screamed QVC ("but wait, there's more!"). This is all happening on a converted school bus passing people on mountain roads, mind you.

* * *

There we were, finally in Chichicastenango, having a desayuno tipico when all of a sudden shiny backpacked people start running down the street, with cameramen following. Christina suggested that they were probably on Amazing Race, and it turns out they were! Discovery channel does a Spanish language Amazing Race, and we were there. At the time there wasn't too much to write home about except seeing them run up and down the streets as we strolled through the market. We saw the alpha groups find clues and hurriedly rush off to their next challenge, but we remained as chill as always.

There's more of the Amazing Race encounter to tell, but it all happens after our journey through the Chi Chi market.

We took our time, walked around, saw the divine light (see the picture at left), and of course did some shopping. We both agreed that one couldn't be a proper tourist in Guatemala without taking home some hand-made colorful blankets, so we bought three. One will fit nicely on my bed (for now), and the other two are more like couch blankets, which might go on my walls (for now). As one has to do when traveling, we haggled down the prices from the buen precio offered to 50-60% of the asking price.

We shopped around for other things, like worry dolls and other trinket gift items. One little girl would not leave Christina alone, and it was starting to break our heart. Usually the street vendors will take your first, second, or third "no" for an answer, but this little girl just could not. She was skinny, small, cute as a button, not very clean, and she was selling refrigerator magnets to us, though I doubt her family has ever owned a refrigerator. We finally broke down and invested some meager pocket change to secure some matching magnets for our new collection of items purchased from kinds we could only say "no" to ten times.

I'll just dump a handful of pictures below and let them speak for Chichicastenango.

So all this typing and going through pictures is getting me thinking about what to do with those blankets (in the meantime before Christina and I actually live in the same place...whenever that will be). I'm thinking the larger bed blanket will make a dandy comforter, and the other two blankets can maybe be hung over a dowel or curtain rod as depicted in the artist's concept art at right. That idea was Christina's, and I'm starting to like it. Don't knock the colors and patterns in the conceptual blankets in the drawings; they're placeholders for when I can take photos of the real things on the wall.

After getting our fill of the sights, smells, and sounds of Chichicastenango, it was time for us to jump on another chicken bus for Panajachel, our destination at Lake Atitlán. After hopping on a bus that was about to leave (and was actually empty! Imagine that!), one of the couples competing in the Spanish language Amazing Race show jumped on. They must not have been doing very well, because we took our sweet time in Chichicastenango. This team, which hailed from Chile, needed to ask us some questions (apparently they aren't allowed to ask the driver) about where the bus was going and how long it would probably take, etc.. Christina and I both signed waivers to release her beautiful face and my ugly mug on the Spanish language Discovery Channel, presumably on the episode when this team gets voted off the island. Wah, waaaaahhhhh...

Hiking Volcan Pacaya

2010-05-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

Immediately after touching down in Guatemala City, Christina and I headed straight to Antigua, a tourist-friendly, walkable, and picturesque town. As soon as we arrived, however, we caught the last tour out to Volcan Pacaya, a nearby active volcano that you might have seen on the news recently (our timing couldn't have been better).

A semi-scenic drive (the windows were tinted to the point of being almost pitch black from the inside!) from Antigua brought us to the trailhead just as the weather turned to a drizzle. There we met our group's guide. A diminutive woman who, under her jacket, was indistinguishable from the children surrounding her that were selling us hiking sticks and ponchos. Having overlooked the possibility of rain, we purchased some large pieces of stretch-wrap-grade colored plastic (toss a kid a dollar and he'll hook you up) and punched head holes in them. Strapped up, boots on, we were ready to go.

Due to the rain, we didn't really take any pictures during the hike, but there certainly were flora aplenty to be photographed. The rain forest setting was pretty, and our guide informed us that the many vistas we passed were much more impressive when not masked by white eye-level cloud cover.

The hike itself takes about an hour and a half (if I remember correctly), depending on the speed of your group. Townies follow you the whole way on horse and offer you a ride on the "taxi natural" if you get tired. Since Tina and I are seasoned hikers, we opted just to use our hiking boots, not saddles.

Once we cleared the rain forest we basically entered what felt like a kiln. The rain let up so our clothes dried almost instantly as we approached the active lava areas.

Being the diligent researcher / planner that she is, Christina brought along four marshmallows in a snack size zipper bag for us to roast. What a treat at the top of a volcano on a rainy day! A German man in our group roasted one of our marshmallows just to tell his girlfriend, who is from Nebraska. He said she would never believe that he did such an American traditional thing on his travels. Ha! It was funny to hear him and the Australian couple in our group discuss this fascinating thing that Americans do with cookies or crackers or something, marshmallows, and chocolate...

That's a lava rock in my hand, not a burnt marshmallow, by the way...

Our hike back definitely reminded us both why we packed hiking boots on this trip: downhill in the mud is not fun in sneakers. Seriously! A gaggle of girls from the UK in our group donned Chuck Taylors to hike a volcano. Tina and I, seasoned hikers as we are, had no problem descending Pacaya, and we arrived back at the van just as it was getting too dark to hike.

What a perfect way to start our trip!

Update: So about that recent eruption of this very volcano... we took this ironic-at-the-time picture at 2010:05:19 16:45:36 (according to the data in the JPG file from the camera). The volcano erupted on May 27th at about 8:00 PM local time, a short week after. We flew home out of GUA on Monday the 24th, only days before the airport would be shut down, which at the time of this writing is still closed to all air traffic.

DANGER
LAVA
HIGH RISK

...indeed!

Transportation in Guatemala

2010-05-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

Guatemalan regional transportation is very convenient and appears readily available to tourists and locals alike. In the tourist hot spots there are travel agent shops all over the place, and they will readily book a private taxi van for you to take you wherever you want, and even arrange guides at your destination if you are so inclined. Just as readily available are the regional chicken buses, and within a town you can hop on and off the tuk-tuks taxis that are in no short supply.

Cities and small towns are connected by major roads that are actively maintained (fresh asphalt!), and a network of privately-owned and operated chicken buses takes full advantage. While privately owned (one owner invariably runs many buses), the entire system works like public transit, with regular routes serving the needs of the (many) passengers by demand. For the tourist, this is good news because anywhere you are going for your short stay is likely to be serviced frequently...and cheaply.

The buses all seem to be used school buses from the United States, but lemme tell you: used cars have never looked this good before (on the outside). The pictures of the buses on this post are few, and they're the ones Tina and I thought to snap while on our trip. You don't have to look very hard to get an idea of the extent of these pimped-out rides, though.

If you want to hop to the next town, just look for a bus. While the first one you spot will have flown by in a cartoonish puff of black soot, the second or third will probably be heading in your direction; just holler out where you're going and they'll stop or keep rolling on. Going to Chichicastenango? Just wave and say Chi Chi to the next bus you see. The driver or the fare collector will point you to where that bus stops if not their own. Simple!

Riding a crowded chicken bus is a great cultural experience, but sometimes you want to treat yourself to a slight step up, like a chartered taxi van. While these might be equally crowded, they are non-stop and generally more comfortable, though it may be counterintuitive that a 13 passenger minivan would trump a school bus in comfort. You see, people sit three-to-a-seat on those chicken buses, kind of like you had to do in kindergarten only when it got really full. Well, the minivans are the same way, three to a couch seat. My knees still rest against the seat in front of me, but in a minivan those seats aren't just straight sheet metal on the backside. The taxi vans will generally run you a bit more money than the chicken buses, but it is very convenient to have one pick you up right at your hotel in the morning.

For the lazy/adventurous/curious, there is the infamous three-wheeled tuk-tuk (sounds like a bird, no?) for intracity travel. Just as pimped-out as the chicken buses, these three-wheeled coaches are everywhere. Just think of something the size of a Smart car with the power of a moped with undersized wheels and three homo sapiens to drag uphill. Just give them a dollar or so in Guatemalan Quetzales and you've got yourself a ticket across town!

To capture the tourists' shared sentiment regarding these tuk-tuks and their drivers ("taxi" ... "taxi" ...), what better than a tee shirt?

(without further context, the non-tuk-tuk references might be lost)
Yeah, throw in blankets, scarves, and dolls and you have all the street solicitations covered!

Spirit Airlines to and from Guatemala

2010-05-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

Christina accrues miles with Spirit Airlines, which has regular flights into Central- and South America, which proved quite convenient for our recent trip to Guatemala. Flying anywhere with Spirit means you're going through Ft. Lauderdale, which is where the two of us met for our shared flight into Guatemala. It was my first time flying with them, and my main observation was that their business model is essentially to provide air transportation services à la carte:

They offer generally low airfare.
They charge for checked bags (now standard on other airlines, though Spirit claims to have done that first).
They chare for carry-on bags, which might become a trend as well. The carry-on fees haven't started yet, and we actually packed light enough to not check anything there or back! Yay for packing light!
They charge for drinks normally provided for free, including water. The only thing they provide in-flight for free is a small bag of extra-salty pretzels to make you thirsty for some water...that you have to buy.
There are advertisements everywhere. When you're aboard the plane you feel like you're in a subway car, with overhead landscape advertisements lining the main cabin interior. Oh, and that free bag of pretzels? The package is an advertisement to open a Spirit credit card, an application for which is handed to you with the pretzels.
Legroom optional for an additional fee as well. The cabin configuration of Spirit's Airbus 319s is without walls, but with first-class sized seats in the first few rows. The coach-sized seats seem way more cramped than any other airline I've flown in recent memory.

Anyway, here's our flight paths from home(s) to Guatemala and back:

View Flying Into and Out of Guatemala in a larger map

Forgive me, but I have an anecdote that highlights a nit I pick with Spirit's extremely à la carte business model, coupled with the airline trend of only accepting electronic payments on-board. A woman sitting in front of me on the flight home from FLL and LAX had two young children in tow, no food or water with her, and only had cash. Granted she didn't seem like the most savvy traveler (or mother), but Spirit's policies put her in a spot where she couldn't control the component of her children's misbehavior that could be attributed to hunger or thirst. I really blame her, because her youngest didn't seem old enough for solid foods, much less the junk snacks offered in-flight by a budget airline. I mean, she was on a five hour flight...bring some baby food! She ended up paying another passenger cash for use of his or her credit card, and she bought some kind of processed "beef" sticks (like Slim Jims) and Pringles. The latter largely found its end on the floor as crumbs, destroyed by her older son of maybe two or three when he wasn't busy standing on the seat grabbing at the book I was reading. Again, forgive me for this paragraph, but I just see the whole situation as a liability to Spirit, seeing as how they don't even offer potable water to patrons on cross-country flights unless they have a credit/debit card that doesn't bounce. /rant.

Guatemala

2010-05-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

Christina and I recently returned from a 6-day trip to Guatemala, the heart of the Mayan world. Dust off your Spanish, friends, as I enter blog about it mode. As usual with these adventures of Christina's that I find myself in, this post will be updated with links to subsequent posts regarding the specific events of the trip, such as:

Getting into and around Guatemala
Hiking Volcan Pacaya (yes, that volcano in Guatemala)
Chichicastenango, a market town where we got on TV
Lago de Atitlán, via Panajachel (nature preserve, zip lines, boat rides, oh my!)
Antigua, picturesque tourist Mecca
Flores, via Lago Petén Itzá
Parque Nacional Tikal

A geographical overview of the trip:

View Flying Into and Out of Guatemala in a larger map

View Amazing Adventure through Guatemala in a larger map

Chrstina's amazing schedule, which is the result of many hours of research and planning, all hers (not mine). The success of this trip (which is great!) heavily depended on her ability to fit so much fun and recreation efficiently into a six day period, including travel days! It never felt rushed - quite the contrary - the schedule was extremely relaxing. Our itinerary, which is quite repeatable once the ash settles:

2nd Best Pic (043)

2010-05-29T08:17:00.001-07:00

You can click the image to enlarge. It's a reference to Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.

2nd Best Pic (042)

2010-05-14T01:03:00.001-07:00

Quick Thought

2010-05-14T00:55:00.000-07:00

You know what bugs me? Probably. You know what else bugs me? People walking on treadmills with the incline cranked up, which is fine, but holding onto the dashboard/handles as if they would fall off otherwise. The handles aren't there for that purpose. Walk slower when you're going "uphill," or decrease the incline.

OMG I just did some googling for a humorous image on this topic and found someone else's rant that says it all quite well, diagrams and all. I'm so proud!

Thanks, Caroline!

Friendly Atheist: Hemant Mehta

2010-05-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

I usually don't shove ideas down my readers' throats very often (except F/LOSS, Linux, religion, atheism, politics, etc.), but I'll plug the Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta for a moment. Why the plug? It's not just because of the relevant and interesting blog topics he and his contributors regularly post about, but also because he added me to his blogroll. It's the only Nerdvana on there!

Though I don't necessarily consider this an "atheist blog" (those are getting pretty popular), I do consider it a blog written by an atheist. Do you think I dwell on any particular topic too much? How would you describe the 400 or so posts on this blog, if you were to describe them as a whole? I'm curious.

Perfect Gift

2010-05-10T22:29:00.000-07:00

Back story: Dean acquired a broken snow globe and came up with the idea to create an atheist-themed alternative to give me for X-mas. The genius in that an emptied snow globe already contains the perfect atheist "nativity scene" of sorts: one that doesn't exist!

Thanks, Dean!

2nd Best Pic (041)

2010-05-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

My dad took this pic.
"It should be your new icon!"
I don't think so, Dad.

This was taken before starting the 2010 Zoo Zoom in Sacramento. I was...kinda hung over, but that doesn't explain why I look like a troll. I guess being hung over and being me explains why I look like a troll.

A Wake of Venues

2010-05-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

So Parks informs me that an old residence of mine in Davis is now infested with KDVS DJs. Lemme paste in some hot-off-the-"presses" IM convo lines:

(01:26:26 PM) Andrew Parks: have I told you I've seen bands play in the house you used to live in Davis?
...
(01:31:44 PM) Andrew Parks: KDVS DJs have been living there for the past couple years, they have shows every great while, there's a couple DJ houses like this in davis
...
(01:32:10 PM) Andrew Parks: the first show I went to there I felt like I'd been there before and couldn't remember for awhile, then it hit me

Of all the places I lived in Davis, this house was probably the second best for house shows. The best venue was definitely the last house I lived in in South Davis, which was used mostly for building automobiles, LAN parties, sock wars, and gigantic margaritas (fuel lines make the best straws).

See that margarita on the right hand side of the sock war pic? No? Let me clarify:
Oh, undergrads...

Extremely Casual Sundays

2010-05-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

I saw my boss's boss's boss's boss today on while running on the strand this morning. It's one thing when I dress down at work and the higher-ups catch me wearing a T-shirt and sneakers I've had since high school. It's another entirely when I wave to one of these executive types with my pale, sweaty, shirtless frame mid-stride, flaccid manboobs tossing to and fro (see photo at right). He waved back and acknowledged me, which par for the course.

Here's my favorite part: he was wearing a polo shirt from work. Classic. This guy wears suits, and might forgo the jacket on Fridays. Maybe the Sunday beach attire scales with "status," that is I scale down to going topless and he scales down to what most people wear on Fridays.

meh.

2nd Best Pic (040)

2010-05-04T19:57:00.001-07:00

Mucky Charms

2010-05-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

There we are, exhausted and filthy, having just RunAmuck in DC. Part 5k run, part music venue, part septic tank, 100% good Saturday afternoon.

First off, the weather was beautiful. Named after my girlfriend, Lake Needwood provided a very scenic jaunt through the outdoors, no matter what it was we were supposed to do. Now let's get to talking about what it was we were supposed to do...

According to the RunAmuck site:

This is the RunAmuck DC Mud & Music Fest! The Mud Run is a unique and incredible 5K run with hills, river crossings, walls, obstacles and MUD.

Their capitalization of MUD imlies an acronym, which stands for Holy Shit I Don't Think This Is Mud. After a thousand or so people throughout the day have dragged their sunblock-laden netherbits through the same wading pool volume of brown goop, you simply can't believe it's not butter.

I'm making it sound like it's something you wouldn't want to do, but believe me, it's a hoot. First off, it's one of those crazy runs where people dress up in costumes, run as partners/couples/teams, bring props, and generally don't care too much about the results (we got 80th in our division!). Did I mention the venue was fantastic?

So there you are, running with the crazies, leaping hurdles, climbing walls, wading through shin-high mud in chest-high warm lake water, all the while having a blast. One thing about the course that is definitely different than running on the beach: elevation changes. The first third of the race must have been 70+% uphill, and sometimes pretty steep at that.

Anyway, so there you are, running with the crazies, wet, muddy, slimy, wet shoes dragging you down as you're now trail running around a gorgeous lake, when all of a sudden 1/4 of your team (which happens to be the better half of your relationship) slips and bangs her hip on a gigantic, blade shaped rock. Yikes! Christina is such a trooper--SHE KEPT RUNNING. Yeah. She kicks ass.

By the way, that's a bruise on the hip pictured at left. Get your mind out of the gutter, asshole.

So there you are, running with the crazies, sweaty, stinky, bruised, scraped, tired, and you get to the top of that last hill...and see the finish line. One more obstacle. The MUD pit. You are about to learn what that acronym stands for...the hard way.

If you're an idiot you dive in head first. Go on, scroll up and look at everyone in the picture and laugh at the guy with the mudstache.

Anyway, our un-costumed team's name was the Mucky Charms, and we all agree that the whole affair was a great time worth repeating...perhaps in costume next year!

This Guy

2010-05-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

Who has two thumbs and:

...just spent a half hour at a self-wash car wash getting sand and sand-related grime off/out of his car?
...parked in his new parking space for the first time today, which is really only 4 spaces down in the away from the sand direction?
...got back into town to find out he left the bread on the table, untied with the bag wide open?
...inspected said bread for mold and couldn't find any, then really wanted a sandwich?
...had a blast this weekend and will give a proper blog post about it after his sandwich?

Sea Pig

2010-04-23T19:26:00.001-07:00

At the Natural History Museum in DC I found some information on this little guy, the sea pig:

According to wikipedia:

Members of the Elpidiidae have particularly enlarged tube feet that have taken on a leg-like appearance. These legs, in conjunction with their large, plump appearance have suggested the common name "sea pig".

Do the sea pig internals look anything like a CFL to anyone else?

Uganda Safari Tea

2010-04-23T18:51:00.001-07:00

Uganda used to be the property of the East Indian Trading Company, so one might expect the post-imperial wake to be one where the finest tea is practically on tap. After all, fine tea is in fact grown in Uganda.

Well, Ugandans like their milk with a little tea. Slightly discolored hot milk is pretty much what you drink when you ask for tea anywhere you go, sweetened to taste of course. I wouldn't say it's the worst way to drink tea, but ironically I like mine black.

I picked up some tea at a grocery store toward the end of the time I spent in Kampala with Christina, but I didn't actually open the package until recently. The results were...surprisingly not surprising. I'm a pretty frugal shopper, which is probably a trait to relax when grocery shopping in East Africa. This "tea," which was probably the cheapest stuff in the store, is more like large grains of instant coffee, but not. I don't quite know how to explain it, but it wasn't tea.

I tried steeping it in the Bee House teapot (thanks, Dean!), but I think it's meant to be added to hot milk directly. Maybe this "tea" is just granules of dirt to discolor hot milk, which by previous analysis yields tea (obviously), sweetened to taste.

Anybody want some tea? My treat!

Real Shark vs. Octopus

2010-04-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, here's the real deal:

This has gone on way too long...

2010-04-17T22:46:00.001-07:00

This is the 400th post to this blog. You know what the secret of blongevity is? By the way, I just made that word up. The secret is making posts like this. Depending on how aggressively you want to annoy your readers, you can scale the frequency of OMFZ IZ MY Nth POST! posts as follows:

Every 100 posts: 1% annoying content (assuming every post isn't annoying)
Every 50 posts: 2% annoying content
Every 10 posts: 10% annoying content...I've never seen this done before...
Every 5 posts: 20% annoying

You know what? The number of posts to this blog would just skyrocket if I adopted the every 5 posts frequency of total blog posts announcement posts (awkward, but read it again...I think it technically works). Quantity does not necessarily indicate quality one way or the other, and arbitrary milestone numbers are just that.

Mega Piranha

2010-04-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

Question to the internets: does this have the potential to dethrone Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus as the worst movie that looks like it was possibly taken seriously (and also isn't porn of any usual sense of the word)? What, you didn't know that was an award?

A thorough analysis of the title reveals the folowing:

There are Piranha in this film
They are Mega Piranha

Let me know your feelings in the comments. Once I can watch this film (I saved it for when it becomes available on Netflix), perhaps I'll give a review. After all, my dad and I fished (and ate) piranha in the Peruvian Amazon on Sandoval Lake.

As you can see on the right, each little piranha isn't so mega, though in groups they can eat down to the bone right before your eyes. Not to sidetrack too much, but it's the same lake that we played in before we knew there were piranha, but whatever.

* * *

I tell you what, the clear winner for worst movie that can't nor couldn't ever have been taken seriously (and kinda is porn except not at all)? That, my friends, is a title held by a movie called A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell. Yes. It's on Netflix's "Watch It Now," so it's worth skipping around the scenes and catching just the opening and the thrilling climax (that's all I did). Let's break down the title:

A Nymphoid Barbarian - The leading lady is an scantily clad vixen.
in Dinosaur Hell - This movie does not take place in the past. There is no claim that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. The setting is a post-apocalyptic world in which animals have mutated into...definitely not dinosaurs. If nothing else, you gotta just see how damn cheesy the props used for the "dinosaurs" are.

Go watch 5 minutes of it. Or not.

PowerPoint Presentation Pet Peeve (Popular, Perhaps)

2010-04-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here's something that irks me: meetings that are conducted using PowerPoint presentations in edit mode (as opposed to presentation mode). Does this happen to you?

If you've never experienced this, let me break it down: some jerk opens up the slides for the meeting (which she/he probably calls charts even if graphical data is absent), and instead of making it full-screen, you get a generous wasted margin all around, forcing everyone in the room to squint. NOT COOL.

Here's a tip: press F5 to start from the beginning, or press Shift+F5 to start from whatever slide you are viewing in edit mode.

Repeat:

= enter presentation mode from slide 1.

= start from whatever slide you are viewing.

Yellow-ish Brick Road

2010-04-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a funny picture I took on a beautiful day. Not funny ha ha, but you know, it kind of looks like something it isn't.

Maybe a brick path through blue astro turf?

How about when you take a nap at the base of the Washington Monument and point skyward, you can't not take this photo.

2nd Best Pic (039)

2010-04-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

Raw Fruits, Vegetables, & Nuts

2010-04-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

This post isn't titled how I became a raw vegan or even trying out raw veganism, but the story is kinda close to the latter. For some time now I've been interested in taking in only raw foods, and limiting myself to just fresh fruits and vegetables, with the occasional nuts for variety (and protein). Drink lots of water, get a good amount of exercise in each day, and graze on nature's candy all day. Sounds good, right? What's that you say? Sounds bland?

I know, raw is the key turn-off to most people. Meat eaters can stomach a well-prepared vegetarian dish, and vegetarians seem to appreciate raw veggies and fruit as snacks, but it takes a certain degree of willpower to make it your only source of sustenance.

I LOVE TAQUITOS.

This is something I learned after filling my fridge like shown. No, I don't keep oranges or bananas in the fridge, but it made for a nice photo. Anyway, that certain degree of willpower is no joke. Like most things, the change in diet probably seemed more drastic for me because, like most Americans, I typically eat junk. Granted I already eat more fruits & veggies than many, I still LOVE TAQUITOS. I also enjoy the occasional adult beverage, so I made a couple of exceptions: eating socially and drinking...socially or otherwise. I didn't cut out booze and if I was out and about I would relax the raw and the vegan.

* * *

Well, I pretty much cleaned the fridge, eating almost everything raw. Eggplant, yes. Potatoes, half of them (the other half I just microwaved in a moment of weakness...still no spices, herbs, butter, etc.). Yes, I ate half a bag of potatoes raw, but my mom used to do that when I was growing up so I wasn't too phased by it. Eggplant, yes. Raw eggplant. Bok choy, leafy goodness. Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, spinach, lots of asparagus, peppers, tomato, cucumber, and some good old sweet fruits.

How long did it take to clean it out to the state shown at right? Oh, about a week and a half or so, with a couple three or so instances of eating out. I did drink some milk the last couple days of that time span, and broke down and got some hummus for the veggies at the end there, too. No big deal, right? The point is that I ate a ton of food that is nothing but good for me. Nothing artificial. Nothing was even frozen, much less cooked. The freezer remained empty, as it had been since I returned from my last trip to DC.

So...why?

I don't know. I like to play little games with my body and experiment. It's all about exploration vs. exploitation of knowledge. You poke around and discover new ways of operating, some might be better and some might be worse. We are always making decisions to explore what we don't know or exploit what we do. This was a little exploration, and I think I'll exploit the increase in fruits and veggies in my life from now on. I'm going to eat bread and buy frozen veggies (etc. etc.), but like many projects it was a fun little venture.

Another Month, Another Absence

2010-03-30T22:28:00.000-07:00

Yet again I find myself coming back to this blog, ready to dump a month's worth of belly button lint onto the internets. Y'see Rudy, I've been on travel most of the month in DC, which was nice because work paid me to spend time with Christina!

Notice Tina's name wasn't a link to a goofy picture of her (or us) as per usual? Well, it turns out that sometime in the last month Google finally killed Google Pages for me, for good. The drama, it appears, is over. Oh, and that's where I was ~~dumping~~ hosting all the pictures of Tina.

Hmm...what else...I'm curious to see what my electricity bill will be for the month of March in my little closet of an apartment. Y'see Rudy, I cleaned out my fridge before leaving to DC and flipped all my breakers (and not because of a broken water heater this time). This is a great setup for two future posts: refilling the fridge and overuse of the term "going green."

2nd Best Pic (038)

2010-02-28T23:01:00.000-08:00

...courtesy of the interwebs.

Surface Tension

2010-02-28T18:06:00.000-08:00

Look at how well this little cotyledon cutting retains water... one might even say that water stays a little too perfectly, or not.

The spotty rain we've had recently is likely to be a bit much for these little guys, but perhaps that will offset the fact that I rarely water them otherwise.

...or not.

Arena (1989)

2010-02-28T13:31:00.000-08:00

Has anyone seen this movie?

I watch my share of bad movies, but I just can't seem to get enough. Arena seems to have everything: 80s, fighting, aliens, VHS only...it's like a childhood memory that I don't yet have.

So again, has anyone seen this? Three alien thumbs up?

Dr. Horrible's 8-Bit Musical!

2010-02-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

Doctor Octoroc over at 8bitcollective is working on a NES-inspired flash-based remake of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. So...much...win...

Anyway, check out the three musical tracks that are up on the site, or you can just download the mp3 files that I ripped. You know...find the .flv files in your browser's cache and use FFMPEG...that old trick!


ffmpeg -i so_they_say.flv mp3/so_they_say.mp3

Ain't I a stinker?

Internet Speak FTW!

2010-02-27T12:51:00.000-08:00

I actually used you're doing it wrong today to a complete stranger. I received several texts this morning:

Lisa, here is a text message
Jdjdjdjjf [sic]
Try againp [sic]

This unknown assailant showed no sign of stopping. I use the word assailant because I don't have unlimited texting on my mobile plan.

Naturally, I called the number and got a man's voice. He seemed pretty confused when I told him he had been texting me all morning.

Him: "Oh...I, uh...I was trying to text somebody else." Here it comes...
Me: "Well, you're doing it wrong." [click]

I'm an asshole.

Poor Man's Pancakes

2010-02-27T11:38:00.000-08:00

I love pancakes. Usually I start from a just add water mix and add various fruits from there. This morning I decided to start from scratch. Motivation:

Get rid of some things in the kitchen (clean out the fridge and cupboard)
Try something new

My first inclination was to mash bananas, add water, flour, and egg, then mix in some blueberries. Good guess, right? The bananas and blueberries throw off the balance when I use a mix, so I wasn't expecting to get the proportions right on the first try, considering my concoction was mostly banana.

The first attempted pour turned out to be an unflippable flop.

I added another egg. A breakable cakable.

Bumped the egg total to 4 and added another, maybe half cup of flour. Whuddya know! Somthing that looks like pancakes!
Keep in mind there's no added sugar, so anything sweet I tasted was from the bananas and the blueberries. You know what? The somewhat grainy, hearty texture went with the unsweetened flavor, and overall the pancakes turned out to be quite edible. I would daresay I would prefer making pancakes like these than from a mix.

* * *

I'll throw in a double meaning into this post's title. You see, I kept increasing the egg, water, and flour to the point that I had more pancakes than I could eat. Usually that just means freezing them and munching on them every morning before work for the next week. Remember, though, that I'm trying to clean out the fridge/freezer, so that doesn't exactly serve the original purpose. If anything, I moved flour from the cupboard, water from the sink, and bananas from the compost bin I call a fruit bowl into the fridge/freezer this time. What to do?

I carried the plate outside my building on a little quest to find my homeless neighbor. I don't know his name, but I see him right outside my building. The telltale signs of blanket, shoes, empty bottles, and his bike were all in place, but no homeless man.

I didn't want to waste the pancakes and just leave them there to go bad, and I kinda wanted my plate back, so I just threw them in some tupperware to eat tomorrow.

Oh well. It's the thought that counts, right?

What to do with the SD card that came with your camera

2010-02-26T21:17:00.000-08:00

Problem: Your point-and-shoot camera came with a laughably small SD card that you immediately had to upgrade to something that would hold more than 10 photos. Now what do you do with the old one?

Solution: Turn it into a bootable disk with an entire working operating system on it!

Having a Live CD lying around the computer area is an essential part of one's contingency planning (everyone has contingency plans for their personal computing needs, right?). If your MBR gets hosed or some sector required for booting to your primary OS gets corrupted, or if you use Windows, you will probably need to boot into something else to save your machine at some point in your hard drive's life.

What if there's a problem with the CD-ROM drive? What if you have one of those super-popular netbook thingies that doesn't have an optical drive? What if you have a MacBook Air?

While the answer to pretty much all of those is to have a GNU/Linux OS on a flash stick at the ready, I think installing to an SD card is even cooler. Shut up. I think it's cool.

Most operating systems require 1.21 Jiggabytes of disk space, but there are many exceptions in the Linux world. For this project I chose SliTaz. It seriously took a few minutes to format and install (how long can it take when the whole SD card is 32MB?), and I was booted up and running through my new SD card reader in no time. WOOT!

What more could you ask for in an OS? I mean jeebus...there's a fully functional web browser in the familiar Windows-like GUI interface (BusyBox), along with many other tools that you would expect to find.

It all fits on a 32MB SD card.

Isn't that great?

3.5" Card Reader

2010-02-26T20:57:00.000-08:00

Now believe it or not, and I've been known to lie, but this here's a true story.

I periodically drop into Fry's just to smell the electonics (duh), and ever since I built my computer I've been looking for an all-in-one card reader (and USB port, and eSATA, audio, etc.) that would go in a 3.5" slot stickin' out the front. On my last trip to Fry's I finally found one that supported SDHC. I didn't want a USB dongle--got tons of those. I just want a frickin' slot on my PC for SDHC cards. I could have probably found one online, but the internets doesn't smell like electronics, and I love having an excuse to go to Fry's!

Anyway, I picked it up and installed it today. Sweet!

If there was a problem I solved by playing electronics consumer, I could now safely say, "problem solved!"

Oh yeah, about those stickers on the right side of the case... for the longest time I went without any kind of sticky adornment as kind of a pride thing, but once Dean & Brandon gave me a gang of Linux Inside stickers I had to put one on. Of course, I had a stack of other stickers I could put on there, like the (free) Ubuntu sticker that looks like a Windows sticker, and all the vendor stickers for my parts (motherboard, graphics card, processor). Now my computer looks like a frikkin stock car, but hey--it runs like one, too!