I shouldn't be a Tour Guide

Last weekend my g/f and I trekked down to the Texas Hill Country to take a wine tasting tour. I wouldn’t consider myself “big” into wine. That is, I am not much of a wine snob nor do I know everything there is to know about wine. Do I like it? Yes? Then drink it. If I don’t like it I’ll offer it to you instead.

Even though it’s the middle of November our temperature for the day was right about 79 ~ 80 degrees, which was just about perfect. This is completely the opposite of my Bozeman where I used to spend most of my time.



The tour was conducted by Texas Wine Tours, and if you are ever out that way and want to do a tour I’d give them a shout. Especially if you can get Bill to drive you around. He was our driver and he was extremely knowledgeable about wines, history, foliage, and many other things.

We hit five wineries that day and my only real complaint is that the second winery sucked. All of the rest of the wineries and the company of the other guests was fairly well received even if we didn’t care for the particular wines. Texas wines tend to run a bit on the sweet side, but that’s how they seem to like everything down here. The sweeter the better. We tried a particular Riesling that was so sweet my g/f thought about asking where the waffles and pancakes were.

The next day on the way home we stopped off at Longhorn Caverns and took the tour of the cave. This was a pretty easy tour. You didn’t have to have any safety gear, elbow pads, flashlights, etc., and you were squeezing through passages the size of a tube of toothpaste. Are there many successful cavers that are fat bastards?

Don’t get me wrong, there were some parts of the cave that were a little narrow and even for someone as short as me I had to duck quite a bit and stay down to get from one cavern to another. But hey, if the 80-year-old lady in the group could do it, I wasn’t about to let her show me up.

Not to give you a big history lesson, but apparently the cave was used by Comanche Indians, philanthropists, outlaws, and even armies of the civil war. In other words, it’s been fairly well reamed out by just about everyone.

While going through the cave they point out that the lights have to be turned on and then back off as you move between sections. This is because the lights have caused a particular algae to start growing in the cave that otherwise wouldn’t be there. At first I thought the lighting was done fairly well, then I realized that the CCC had really screwed up parts of the cave putting the lighting in and trying to hide the wiring. I’d rather have them not try to hide the stuff and damage the cave a little less. I can figure out that the light needs a wire and that the wire and light fixture were not part of Mother Nature’s plan.

As we walked through the cave we saw about four bats. Three of them were sleeping and one of them was obviously pissed that we were in there and flew around and through us before finding some other place to chill. These were Eastern Pipistrelle bats and are pretty much the size of fuzzy golf balls.



I was happy that I got to see some bats. The tour guide said that there were maybe thirty of these little bastards throughout the cave and that no other bats inhabited the cave.




But we decided that I really wouldn’t make a good tour guide. Why? Well, at one point the tour guide was telling a lady that the CCC was formed during the Roosevelt administration as part of the New Deal. The lady was blank, so the guide starts giving her a history lesson on how the govt. created all these jobs for people, and part of that was the CCC. I think the lady was clues and she started asking more questions at which point I rolled my eyes and exclaimed to my g/f that apparently some people just don’t remember their history.

As we were walking through the cave they pointed out a rock formation that was supposed to resemble a profile of Pres. Lincoln, who had stayed in the cave one night. Naturally I said it looked like his teeth needed some work, and that provoked a chuckle or two.



But towards the end of the tour we were in a room and the tour guide was pointing out where the last flood line was on the wall – about 20 or 30 feet up, and there was a lot of silt and stuff all over the wall from the flood and the river (the cave was carved by flooding and a river running through it).

Immediately after the guide telling us this a lady pipes up and asks “Is that bat guano?” I casually leaned into the ear of my g/f and said “Lady, there is only 30 bats in the whole cave….do you have any idea how much those little bastards would have to shit to leave that much guano?” and of course she starts dying laughing. My g/f said the bats had to eat a LOT of fiber….

I also had the bright idea of flipping the lights out right when people are trying to get through low ceilings or tight spaces. For some reason I would find this highly amusing.

So we decided that I wouldn’t make a good tour guide. Berating the customers, calling them idiots, turning out the lights on them, etc., just wouldn’t be very conducive for business.

Where is my Big Wong?

Last week, a friend and his wife came by to pick me up and take me to a buffet they liked to eat at. We got there and it was closed. I suggested another place. Also closed. And I noticed a third one by the house that is closed.

This seemed odd to me as buffets are a great value for fat bastards that trying to get as much bang for their buck.

Zappa and Witches

A couple of nights back I was re-reading parts of The Real Frank Zappa Book, an autobiography by Frank Zappa. One chapter in particular called Porn Wars was in reference to his battle with the PMRC – anyone remember them?

For a quick reference the PMRC was an organization that was tax exempt and had no members, only founders. It was primarily a group of women, mostly wives of government officials. Tipper Gore, wife of Al Gore was the lead spokesperson of the whole deal and Al Gore supported the actions and even ran the hearings on the issues.

What were the issues? Mainly that rock music (and apparently only rock music was singled out) offended these Christians and so they were trying to first get it banned outright and then to get it labeled as “dangerous.”

A clear affront to our civil liberties and just another witch hunt. But it got very serious and fortunately we had people like Zappa fighting for our rights. I always thought of Zappa as a bit of liberal, but as the definition has shifted some he would probably be considered more of a libertarian.

One phrase in the chapter in particular cracked me up – “…it was about some leather weasel getting cornholed.” Classic Zappa.

But as we all know, the music industry capitulated on this affront and you now have nice little parental advisory warnings on your media. At the end of the chapter Zappa asks “will the artists ever get back in control?”

And this is the point of my post –

This book was written in 1988. Zappa passed away in 1993, just five years later. He never saw the “media revolution” and couldn’t have imaged what we take for granted today.

Due to the advent of MP3s (and other digital formats) and the explosive growth of the Internet I would say that artists have, indeed, regained some control. They (artists) are no longer beholden to conglomerate record companies pulling all the strings. They have their own web sites, their own recording studios, and there is no need to burn CDs anymore - You can distribute everything across the net. I think Zappa would have liked it.

Until the next witch hunt begins and they start enforcing people to putting labels on their web site we are probably OK for a while.

Kill off All My Demons, and my Angels Might Die, Too

Expensive Watches

In the latest edition of Forbes Life magazine there is an article entitle Finishing Touches in which the author asks the question "What's the difference between a $500 watch and a $50,000 one?"

While I wouldn't even spend $500 on a watch, the old saying "a fool and his money are soon parted" comes to mind.....

Moving Closer to Fascism

Have you heard the latest in the war on free speech? It’s fairly well known, but often ignored, that the Obama administration has used it’s considerable power and weight to bear down on those who oppose “the one” to suppress negative opinions about him. This occurred during his campaign, and is still occurring during the healthcare debates.

But most shockingly to me, Obama and his administration recently jointly proposed and helped pass an outright anti-free speech bill into the UN HRC. Go read about it. The HRC is mostly comprised of countries that have a horrible history of human rights practices and is predominantly lead by an Islamic counsel.

In short…

The new resolution, championed by the Obama administration, has a number of disturbing elements. It emphasizes that "the exercise of the right to freedom of expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities . . ." which include taking action against anything meeting the description of "negative racial and religious stereotyping." It also purports to "recognize . . . the moral and social responsibilities of the media" and supports "the media's elaboration of voluntary codes of professional ethical conduct" in relation to "combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."

and...

The OIC’s resolution would ban outright the “defaming” of religions, speech critical of religion (even if accurate), and open discussion about any negative consequences resulting from the implementation of religious beliefs (such as Sharia law).

Folks….this is at the very heart of what free speech is meant to protect. That you or I can have and voice a difference of opinion. That we may question the status quo or the actions of our fellow man. These laws are thin disguises, at best, to stifle criticism and alternative points of view. It’s amazing to me that the U.S. has backed this type of bill while people in European countries are being jailed (or worse) for criticizing Islam, Mohamed, or the Quran.

Thinly disguised blasphemy laws are often defended as necessary to protect the ideals of tolerance and pluralism. They ignore the fact that the laws achieve tolerance through the ultimate act of intolerance: criminalizing the ability of some individuals to denounce sacred or sensitive values. We do not need free speech to protect popular thoughts or popular people. It is designed to protect those who challenge the majority and its institutions. Criticism of religion is the very measure of the guarantee of free speech — the literal sacred institution of society.

Where are the liberals and leftists screaming about people’s rights?

And if that is not enough, the Obama administration is now ordering pay cuts of executives for companies that have been bailed out – this is after they have already been bailed out, not before – when the government would actually have some authority to dictate terms of the loans.

And let’s not forget that while the government is taking control of the auto industry, and the banks, they are still seeking to gain control over yours, and mine, health insurance and medical plans.

What’s amazing to me is that the majority (?) of the American people seem to be going along with this. The debate shouldn’t be “how do we do it,” but is it even constitutional in the first place? The answer in most, if not all cases, is a fairly clear and resounding “no.” The constitution specifically grants certain and enumerated powers to the federal government and anti-speech laws, taking over private institutions, bailing companies out, dictating salary structures, and taking over healthcare isn’t there.

We’ve gotten so angry at what the government has done (bailing companies out) and how the companies have responded (continuing to blow the money) that we are loosing sight of the real issues. We are allowing our freedoms to be eroded and for the government to continue to gain footholds into every aspect of our lives.

People, somewhat rightfully, were upset at the Bush administration and it’s expansion of government power and shunning of civil liberties. Others, were quick to call the Bush administration a bunch of fascists, yet what that administration did pales in comparison to the encroachment of the Obama administration.

My father often compares what is happening, right now, to what happened prior to WWII as Hitler took over. The “game plan,” if you will, is roughly the same. It’s not hard to see the parallels between how Hitler came to power and the Nazi’s eviscerated human rights and the path the U.S. is on.

The Constitution Exists

Last weekend my g/f and I decided to take a couple of days off, have a long weekend and get out of town for a few days. We decided to go to Baltimore and D.C.

As I said there wasn’t any particular reason, just to get away and go somewhere else. Perhaps we’d get some good food and fall colors along the way. We got flights on the cheap (about $215 round-trip) and most of our hotels were paid for with travel points – hey, sometimes it’s nice to have to travel for work!

Since we both work from home we have flexible schedules. We left on a Wed night so I didn’t have to take a day off to get there. We also came home Monday night, which allowed me to work from D.C. that day and again, not have to take a day off for travel.

Once we got to Baltimore it was raining. It pretty much rained the whole time. I don’t mean it started and stopped the whole time, I mean it freaking rained the whole time. I think Sunday was the only day we got any relief from the rain. It also didn’t get above 50, but all of that was fine with us because we both love the rain and cooler weather.

Of course, the leaves were starting to turn so there were some beautiful colors to be seen in the trees, especially the maples.

We spent the first two days hanging out on the Inner Harbor. Free shuttle rides from the hotel and the occasional taxi got us everywhere we needed to be. As I said it was raining but it wasn’t so bad. My g/f was smart enough to bring and umbrella so we were able to keep most of the rain off of us.

We checked out the U.S.S. Constellation, which is still in the restoration process but you can check out the whole ship and it really makes you think about what life was like before HVAC, electricity and running water – all of the things we consider the staples of life in the USA today.

We also checked out the U.S.S. Torsk – that was cool, but not as cool as the U.S.S. Constellation. The Torks was more of a walk-through and see some stuff. You couldn’t get to certain parts of the sub and there wasn’t much hanging around to tell you what all the stuff was. I knew a little about diesel subs from reading books so I could explain the basics, but we were on from there.

We also hit the aquarium and I have to say it’s one of the largest and nicest aquariums I’ve ever been to. They have excellent displays and atriums depending on where you are in one of the buildings (they are interconnected and one ticket gets you all-access).

One of those nights we ended up in Canton Square at a place called Mama’s On the Half Shell. This was a most excellent place to dine. Wonderful food and a cozy atmosphere that lacked the touristy personality so many of the places seemed to have. In other words, it was just about perfect and I’d highly recommend that you go there to eat if you are in the area. One word of warning, the food is pretty rich and you can quickly end up with an upset stomach even if you are used to eating rich foods.

Next, it was a train ride into D.C. where we spent the rest of our time. My friends that I met in Montana now live in West Virginia and were able to drive in for a night and my g/f’s friend who lives in D.C. was also able to meet us. We had dinner at Restaurant Nora, which is the first certified organic restaurant in the U.S.

The had “happy beef,” and “happy chickens” as well as organic vegetables. The prices were a tad expensive, but the quality of the food was excellent. Everyone enjoyed their meal and nobody complained about the price. I would say it is easily comparable to any other place that is pricey, except you get all organic food. It was also nice to see some of our friends which we hadn’t seen in a while.

Over the two days that we were there we must have walked about 12 ~ 15 miles. That doesn’t include the public transportation and taxis we took a few times. There is just that much to see and do once you are in D.C. Most of the stuff is right there on the mall with the museums and monuments.

We ducked inside the Smithsonian museum of Natural History and checked out a few things but it was so packed we decided to leave. If you had a week you could spend the entire week in that one museum for 8 hours a day – and there were three other Smithsonian museums!!

We walked to the capitol building, but didn’t go inside. Apparently they “whisk” you through there and you can’t see any cool stuff since congress is in session – what is the point? But we were some of the die-hards that stood there in the chilly rain and took photos anyway. “Ahhh….here is where it all gets fucked up,” I said – which pretty much won me an unfavorable glance from my g/f. J

We also saw the Lincoln memorial – twice. Once during the day and once at night. I highly recommend you check it out at night. They did an excellent job lighting it and the difference between the two is like….well….night and day. It’s an excellent monument and you can’t get a feel for how big it is until you walk inside. Pictures just don’t do it justice.

The WWII monument and the Vietnam Wall were also both pretty amazing, but in completely different ways. It’s a pleasure to see that we still pay homage to the people who have fought and died for our country.

One of my favorite highlights was the National Archives and getting to see the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence. I won’t bore you with details as you can go read about that somewhere else but there were a few things that I really liked about the display:

1) you can get right up on the displays and take all the time you want. As long as you don’t touch the glass, you can lean on the frames and put your nose almost on the glass to see the documents which are just a few inches underneath.

2) Some of the documents were originals and some were copies – the specific pages are rotated in and out as to help reduce the deteriorating effect of light on the pages. No flash photography and it’s fairly dim in the room

3) Other documents were on display, such as the drafts of the Bill of Rights or the Constitution – in some ways these were more fascinating that the final drafts as you could see the mark-ups, scratch-outs, linear notes and all kinds of things that went into drafting the final documents.

The Constitutions is in fairly good shape, but the Declaration of Independence is so decayed that you can barely make any of it out. Not surprisingly, John Hancock’s signature still stands out and is still legible. So I can tell you that, believe it or not, there is still a Constitution – it’s shredded and in a waste basket, but you can still see it.

Also on display is one of the remaining Magna Carter documents. It’s the only one that resides in the U.S. and, if you are not aware, represents about 700 years of English common law that was used as a basis for our Constitution.

Stops at the white house were mandatory and as much as I tried to get a quick meeting with Obama to straighten his ass out, the secret service would have none of it. The view is much better from the rear than the front, but you get a lot closer to the front. There was some old lady that had been out there in a plastic tent protesting the use of nuclear weapons – since 1982 or something. I think she also hadn’t seen a dentist since 1982 as most of her teeth were missing and she was very difficult to understand. No other crazy nutbags were out there, but my g/f tells me used to see them all the time.

A police officer (no I was NOT in trouble) told us to hit a bar on 15th street called Old Ebbitt Grill. This was a great place. It had a beautiful bar and warm atmosphere. We didn’t eat, but checked out the oyster appetizer menu as well as the regular menu. It would be easy to see “backroom” meetings happening here during the wee hours of the morning over a nice single-malt scotch or aged whiskey.

Oh, and I mentioned it was raining right? On the first day in D.C. when we hit the National Mall they were giving away free umbrellas. We already had one so I turned it down and we kept sharing the one we had. It was a travel umbrella so it wasn’t that big but it worked well enough. However, me being a complete dumb-ass, I left it at one of the bars we stopped at to have a drink. No umbrella and it was raining. We got completely soaked, but it was still fun even if I was kind of in the dog-house over it.

I figured by the time you added up all the tips, taxis, and metro rail stations we still made out far better than renting a car and paying for parking in either Baltimore or D.C. So if you go, try the transportation.

All in all, a good trip and a nice weekend getaway. Someone asked me why I would go so far away. Considering that airline tickets were fairly cheap, my truck only gets about 13+ mpg on a good day, and our hotels were practically free I said it cost about the same amount of time and money to go there than it would be to drive somewhere in Texas.

Lost my Ketchup!

It was in the fridge last time I looked for it. A big bottle. Too big to fit in the door, actually. But today I looked in the fridge and I couldn't find it. I have no idea where it went. It's just gone....

Maybe I need an iPhone

Or a notepad might work just as well. As usual, I go for long periods without writing anything on the blog. It’s not that I don’t have ideas. I have tons of ideas. Maybe too many ideas. But inevitably I feel like it’s too overwhelming to actually write about them. I don’t know if that’s because it’s too much at once, or I am just tired, or not motivated.

I’ve been putting a lot of time into my own website project that is so close to going online I can taste it. The problem is, I have too few people who are taking the beta testing seriously and one of my developers has gotten extremely flakey and unreliable. The combination of the two has me very frustrated right now. But if all goes well I’ll have it online somewhere around the first of the year.

Last week we finally got some really nice weather. It’s starting to cool off at night, and get warm, but not too hot, during the day. I keep the windows open as much as possible as long as the AC isn’t kicking in. This morning I woke up and it was about 70 in the house, which is very nice.

My friends are going camping next weekend. I’m taking a rain check since I am going to fly to Baltimore and D.C. with my g/f. No real reason, let’s just get away for a bit. Hopefully we can catch some of the fall colors and enjoy some good crabs. I love crabs. I don’t care what we do as long as I get my all-you-can eat crabs at some hole in the wall that drags a trash can over to the table for the shells and has cold beer.

Recently I put a quite a bit of time into working with OTRS, which is an open-source trouble ticket software. We need to find something new at work so I am evaluating this one. If anyone works with a good trouble ticket software that they like please let me know about it.

I also started dicking around with Jasper Reports and iReport by Jasperforge. They are reporting packages that are similar to Crystal Reports, but they are open source. The problem is that I don’t really know what I am doing and I don’t recall, nor want to learn, all of the MySQL query stuff to make nice reports. *sigh*

Someone sent me this email pointing out the difference between liberals and conservatives:


This is a generalized view, but hopelessly accurate... Remember this: There are liberal and conservative Democrats, Republicans and Independents. It's not the party, it's the mindset; however, it is a fact that the Democrats have the majority of the liberals.

If a conservative doesn’t like guns , they don’t buy one. If a liberal doesn’t like guns, then no one should have one.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, they don’t eat meat. If a liberal is, they want to ban all meat products for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy. A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, they quietly enjoy their life. If a liberal is homosexual, they loudly demand legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic is conservative, they see themselves as independently successful. Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church. A liberal wants any mention of God or religion silenced.

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that his neighbors pay for his.


And maybe it is a somewhat fair generalization. But what is not here is the flip-side of the coin. Conservatives are also generally Christian or Jewish and they too try to impose their sense of morality and religious beliefs just like liberals do. Things such as freedom of speech, freedom to do what we want with our own bodies, freedom of homosexuals, etc. have all been attacked by conservatives and the right wing.

But that is what we do. We make an effort to impose what we believe to be a proper sense of life on others via laws. I’m not saying one side is right or justified over the other, but I am saying you can create equally disturbing and grotesque examples of conservatives and right-wing groups.

Trial Canceled!

Does anyone remember this?
http://invioletlight.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-first-speeding-ticket-on-bike-that.html

When that all went down I had a heck of a time finding a lawyer that would work with me on the ticket. Mostly because I was too far over the speed limit to qualify for things like defensive driving, etc. It wasn't looking good.

But, James R. Mallory took the case. I "hired" him back in 2007 shortly after getting the ticket. I didn't expect much, and figured that the worst case would be that I'd have to just pay it.

About a week ago I got a letter from Mallory. The citation has been dismissed!! YEA!!! I don't know why it was dismissed, it doesn't say. It only says that the trial was cancelled. I'm not complaining.

Lesson learned? You may not always get out of it, but it might just be worth it to pay the fee for someone that deals with traffic tickets all the time.

Electric Engine Efficiency?

In the September issue of MotorCyclist magazine author James Parker wrote an article about the TTXGP (world’s first zero-carbon motorcycle race).

The article discusses up and coming electric motorcycles and the recent race which featured all electric motorcycles. It’s not a bad article, but I take issue with one particular part of it.

In the article Parker knowledgably discusses engine efficiencies and compares the gasoline engine to the electric engine. He describes the Agni motor / engine as being between 65 and 90% efficient and the gasoline engine as only being 25% efficient.

He then goes on to equate the rough mpg the electric engine represents compared to the gasoline engine, but I’m a little bit lost at this point as I’m still hung up on engine efficiencies.

While I won’t dispute that an electric engine is more efficient than a gasoline engine I will point out that comparing the two, as is, sitting in a motorcycle or car is inappropriate. Why?

Well, I suppose the answer isn’t exactly a simple one. We, as a society, have been on the Global Warming Witch Hunt for years, now. People love to portray fossil fuels as evil incarnate so anything that represents a negative slant to fossil fuels is immediately propelled into the spotlight. What this does is alter our perceptions.

The perception from the article, from the government, from automobile manufacturers, etc., is that we should be using electric engines because they are cleaner and more efficient.

So the big question is, are they? Again, from a raw perspective – that is utilizing the energy available – electric engines are more efficient than gasoline engines. But if you are going to buy into the whole, or big picture, you must go beyond what is sitting in the garage.

If we take a traditional motorcycle, the fuel is stored in the bike in the form of a gas tank. It is then burned in the engine itself, and the result is energy. This energy then drives the engine and the wheel.
If we take an electric motorcycle, the fuel is actual stored somewhere else. It is also burned somewhere else, and the result is energy – which then has to be transmitted, and then stored again (in the form of a battery) before it can drive the engine and the wheel.

That’s a fundamental difference, because in the big picture we are accounting for how the energy is made or produced, but in the small picture it certainly appears that the electric motorcycle is a better choice.

So where does the electricity come from? Power plants. How is most of our power produced today? Easy – fossil fuels via coal or natural gas. Those plants have an efficiency of approximately 25% when they burn fuel. So the actual efficiency of the electric motorcycle isn’t any better (.8 x .25 = .20). And of course, you have loss of electricity over transmission lines and don’t forget the loss when charging the battery (about another 20%). And, we should take it one step further – burning coal (again most power plants are coal) produces more CO2 than gasoline. If you buy into the AGW hypothesis and you believe that CO2 is the breath of the anti-christ then the conclusion is that you aren’t getting any real environmental gain by using an electric motorcycle over a gasoline motorcycle.

Yes, there are windmills and solar panels, but they aren’t capable of producing enough electricity today. Nor are they as efficient over time as a coal or gas (BTW – nuclear would be the best choice!).

So that’s what I get irritated with. Not seeing the big picture and the press, and the people continuing to intentionally be misleading with information. Parker is an engineer – he should know better.

My Roomba Experience

For some time, I had been telling my g/f about Roombas. I didn’t necessarily know if they were all that they were cracked up to be, but for busy people they certain seem like a great idea.

My g/f is a busy person. She’s a work-a-holic when you get right down to it. She’ll deny it but everyone else seems to agree. She also has two mostly inside dogs. They aren’t foof dogs, but because they are inside a bit they obviously shed. Staying on top of shedding dog can be difficult and no matter how much you feel you vacuum or try you are still going to have pet hairs everywhere.

She also has hardwood floors which means that unlike carpeting where the dirt and hairs work themselves into the carpet they are more visible. Personally, I like this because you can get the floors much cleaner than carpeting and you know they are dirty because you can see it.

I kept thinking I should get her a Roomba and kept mentioning it to her, but never got one. They aren’t exactly cheap and I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money on something she really wouldn’t like. A couple of weeks ago Woot! had refurbished Roombas on clearance and a substantially reduced price. I showed her the link and she bought one!

She got it in and the next day all she did was talk about how awesome it was. She had one minor problem with a sensor getting dirty in shipment, but after she cleaned the sensor it started kicking ass and taking names – or rather dog hair! As she put it, it’s the best appliance she has ever bought and would marry it if it were possible.

She had to go out of town for a couple of days so I asked if I could borrow it to fuck with….er try it out. She brought it over and the first night we drank wine and watched it clean my kitchen floor for about an hour. No joke. That was the highlight of the evening. As it turns out, that is one of the negative comments about it. You spend a ton of time watching it clean your floors. I guess all new Roomba owners do this and I certainly did my fair share. I wanted to see how it reacted in given situations and I wanted to see if I could figure out its basic interpretation of it’s sensors and how it would pattern cleaning a room.

It did a great job in the kitchen and I have a fairly large and oddly shaped kitchen (to a vacuum cleaner robot anyway). It even got under the cabinet edges. Apparently its height just allowed it to clear them so it got under them really well.

But the next day I really saw the value in it. It takes longer to clean a floor than you would with a traditional broom or vacuum cleaner. But, unless you are obsessed with watching it you can go do something else. The next morning I stuck it in one of my guest bedrooms where Hopper had been staying. He vacuumed the floor before he left and had only been gone for a day or so. I put it in there, expecting it to scream or something but when I turned it on it started its little dance of cleaning the carpet. I left it in the room and went to make breakfast. Check that again -> it’s cleaning the carpet, and I’m making breakfast. When I was done with breakfast it had finished and I put it back on the charger and cleaned the bin. I was amazed at how much crap it picked up and the carpet had just been vacuumed!!!

You have to stay on top of cleaning the bin and the rollers and stuff. The Roomba isn’t huge so its parts are a little smaller and require a little more fastidious attention than a regular vacuum cleaner. The good news is that it breaks down for cleaning far easier than a regular vacuum cleaner so this only takes a few minutes, isn’t difficult and doesn’t require tools for a quick cleaning. I did most of this on my countertop in the kitchen.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you know that I have tile, hardwoods and carpet in my house. The carpet definitely wears the battery down faster than the tile and hardwoods. I pretty much allowed it to do a room and then I’d clean it and charge it. Note that if the charging dock is in the same room that its cleaning it will automatically dock and start re-charging on its own (slick!).

The next room I tried was my master bathroom. Here, the Roomba was defeated!!! First it was defeated because it caught so much crap in it that it stopped and yelled at me to clean it. Ok, cleaned it, and put it back down. This time, it started going under the cabinets and it would get stuck. The carpet in the bathroom is thicker than the tile in the kitchen and it would manage to wedge itself under there. Sometimes it could get out, sometimes not. I ended up using my bathmats to make a small barrier by rolling them up and sticking them under the cabinets. This was enough to deter the Roomba from committing suicide.

It took 2 days between charging and letting it have a room for some period of time (average time was probably 30 ~ 45 mins, but I have fairly large rooms). But again, the cool part was other than me watching it I didn’t have to do much. The more you use it, the less you have to clean it, too! Let’s face it, I had been gone for a while and I wasn’t exactly on top of keeping the floors real clean prior to, or after, coming home. So the Roomba got a really good workout.

All the way until the very end I was constantly amazed at how much crap it kept picking up from my floors. Even my hardwoods had been recently cleaned and it still picked up a ton of crap. One advantage of the Roomba is that it will do an area three or four times as well as get under your bed and other areas that you might not sweep or vacuum on a regular basis. Trust me, I know how much crap my regular vacuum pics up and this is easily comparible and perhaps better simply because it gets those hard to reach areas and does them several times.

It’s not very loud, so you can set it down and let it go. I don’t have dogs, but my g/f says they are fairly ambivilant by it whereas they used to attack or run scared from the regular vacuum cleaner. Most Roomba owners say the same thing.

There are ways to confine it to a single room so it doesn’t try to do the whole house at once. They make invisible walls that you can turn on and set down. The Roomba won’t cross those barriers, but in most cases you simply shut the door and walk away.

One other thing is that you have to “roombaize” the room before you let it go. This isn’t much, it’s very simple things like remove objects that might hamper or inhibit the Roomba’s ability to clean up. As an example, my shoes in the closet needed to have their shoestrings tucked in the shoes so that they wouldn’t get sucked up – it’s supposed to have a de-tangler, but I didn’t want to test it. In my office I removed my trash bin, chair and stool to make it easier. These are things I would move anyway if I were vacuuming so I didn’t see this as a major issue. If you wanted to leave them there it would make its way around them anyway.

But I did have a few minor issues with it while it was here – it didn’t like transitioning from my carpet to a thick area rug in my bedroom. It saw this as a barrier and wouldn’t go over it. In my office, it did a pretty good job of tangling itself in some cables but in all fairness I probably have far more cables under my desk and stuff than you do. Even with all those cables it only did this once. It also managed to high-side itself on one of my borders between my hardwoods and tile floors. Surprisingly, it was able to un-stick itself in just about every case except when it really wedged itself under my cabinets.

Being a bit of a geek one thing I would really like is for the Roomba to be able to repeat the last status code. I can’t hear the sounds it makes if there is a status update while its in another room. So when I go in the room I don’t know if it finished successfully, puked because the filter was full, etc. Pressing a button and having it repeat the last status would be highly beneficial.

Since I’m all about convenience I would really like it to set out on a schedule and do rooms without me having to carry it around and all that stuff. Guess what? They do, just not the model that she picked up. You can program it to leave the dock and go clean rooms while you are at work or whatever and it will re-dock itself.

If I had this model I’d probably just make an effort to let it do a room a day. For most of us that means each room would get hit about once a week (count every room – kitchen bath 1, bath 2, etc.). If you are really messy you could do it more than once a week or get one that you can program.

Overall I was very impressed by it and am going to consider getting one of my own if I see them on sale or refurbished.

Returning To Normal

What is normal? My friend says that normal is a cycle on a dryer. I tend to agree with that philosophy.

How about returning to less hectic? Or perhaps less exciting?

My friend, Hopper, recently left to begin his final round of training before he is deployed to Iraq. He’ll spend another couple of months in U.S. before they ship him off to Kuwait for his final round of training. But, for all intents and purposes he is gone for about 15 months.

Now, you have to understand that I love Hopper. I truly do. But he can be a whirlwind and difficult to bear from time to time. He lived with me off and on over the last year as he enlisted in the National Guard. He’d go off for training and come back. No job, not Hopper. I’m not sure he could work a normal job. So lots of free time.

And he’s crazy. So you have these drunken all night long parties until all hours of the morning with who knows what. Giraffe’s in the backyard peeking through the window with crazy midget strippers running around? Not that unusual.

Jager Bombs until 3:00am while Hopper gets wasted and flip flops between being angry, sad, or extraordinarily happy? Not unusual….and not just on weekends. This was a nightly occurrence sometimes.

Hey! I don’t blame the guy. He was getting ready to deploy. Might as well party and get laid as much as possible because you are now cut off.

But it could be hard, like I said. Hopper is hard on things. He’s hard on himself. He’s hard on stuff. And he’s hard on other people. He doesn’t mean to be, it’s just the way he is. He is so over the top with everything he does in his life that it’s either going to rub you the wrong way or it won’t.

And that’s OK when you don’t live with that person, but man….it gets tiring. Imagine having a completely out-of-control 35 year old kid and you kind of get the idea.

I’m a bit of a clean freak – he isn’t. I’m very meticulous with taking care of things – he isn’t. I tend to be reserved and have moments of being completely wild and crazy – he has moments of being reserved. That’s not to say that we are entirely opposites, but my point is that it can be difficult to live with someone whose values are so drastically different.

And I was just recently gone for six weeks. So now I am playing catch-up on a lot of stuff (bills, house work, etc) and am trying to get used to that as well as unwinding from his last week here.

So will my life be a little more uninteresting? Perhaps, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And, no offense to anyone, but I doubt what I consider normal is close to what most people consider normal. Where was that giraffe again?

09.11.2001

I know it's late, but I didn't forget. I just didn't know what to write. Another anniversary of that tragic and horrible day in our country's history. May we somehow find a way to overcome our faults, honor those that have suffered and died, and find peace amongst each other.

They’re Some Badass Motherfuckers!!

That was the phrase uttered by the guy sitting behind me at the Prog Nation concert last night once Dream Theater had wrapped up their initial performance. This guy came to see Zappa Plays Zappa and had never really heard of DT before. Needless to say, he was blown away!

It was a great show. FIVE hours of music. The first band, Scale the Summit, was not ½ bad and I’d check them out again given the opportunity. I only caught the last two or three songs, though.

Next came Big Elf. I wasn’t real impressed. I certainly wouldn’t consider them progressive. Take Deep Purple and combine it with Alice Cooper and then make the lyrics less than interesting. It just wasn’t my thing.

But then Zappa Plays Zappa took the stage and things really turned around. I didn’t know what to expect from Dweezil, but he’s a pretty rad guitar player. They covered some classic Zappa with a great ensemble of musicians. The original progressive band – Zappa. They basically laid waste to the place and I don’t feel that many bands could have topped the performance.

But it’s Dream Theater we are talking about and sure enough, they brought the house down in no short order. Those guys are just amazing to watch. The hard part is figuring out which one of them to watch, and the guys doing the video presentation must have figured this out at some point because they were splitting the large screen and showing two or even four of them at one time – just their hands mind you.

One thing interesting is that Jordan Rudess was smoking on the keyboards and I noticed he was using an iPhone of all things for one of his effects. It’s a little application called Bebot. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFG7-Q0WI7Q

But it was an awesome show. Made even more awesome by the fact that they aren’t playing in Texas this year and my trip to CA just happened to coincide with them playing here.

The Cheap Bastard Real Doll

My g/f picked this up for me since she knows I can’t afford a Real Doll

Banned From Guitar Center Part II

I got a response back to my letter that I mailed to the Guitar Center executives. True to behaving like a bunch of pussies they elected to forward my letter to the Arlington store and not answer it directly. And of course, the letter that I received had no return address on it, which is fairly ridiculous considering I know where it came from.

Here is the letter that I was sent:

Hello *NAME*
I received a copy of your complaint letter from our main office. It does seem like the situation could have been handled more professionally on our end. We will use this as a training tool for the front door staff and management of the store. We do care about our customers experience and please accept my apology for the bad experience you received July 18th. You are not banned from the store. We do have a procedure of verifying inventory leaving the store. So, if you do shop here, don’t be surprised if you are asked to present your receipt upon leaving. You can refuse, and hopefully you won’t be confronted the same way.

Thanks for your feedback. Feel free to call me if you would like to discuss this further. I did not have your phone number, otherwise I would have just called.

Thank you,

*NAME*
General Manager
Guitar Center *CITY*

Armed Protesters

About a week ago my friend Bling! sent me this article on a bunch of protesters in Phoenix, AZ that showed up armed to an Obama speech.

It’s worth a quick read, and I’ve had a bunch of mixed feelings about the article since I read it. Just in case you don’t want to do the quick read – it’s legal to openly carry firearms in AZ. A bunch of anti-Obama folks showed up at one of his speeches fairly well armed. One guy even had an assault rifle. They weren’t let into the convention, but they were clearly in close proximity to where the president would be.

One of my first and immediate thoughts is “good for you!” Some people had the balls to really show their dissent and disapproval of what is happening in the government today in a very open and insulting fashion.

But I also think that these people behaved completely inappropriately. We aren’t talking about a few protesters showing up to say that they didn’t agree and that because they are in AZ they also happened to be carrying firearms. No, these people intentionally armed themselves and went to the meeting in a coordinate and organized fashion.

What is wrong with this? Well, let’s face it. Carrying a gun is not the same thing as carrying a sign or a banner. True, you might be able to use a sign to swing at someone but a sign or banner is clearly not as threatening as a gun, even if what was written on the sign is really good.

Part of being a gun owner is showing responsibility above and beyond that of non-gun owners. If anything the public eye is always upon us (if you know we are carrying) and our actions should transcend that of the common citizen. Carrying firearms into or near a political rally in protest is not a sign of prudent thinking and responsibility. Political arenas are a microcosm of emotion and prone to arguments and disagreements. This is not the type of environment to which you introduce even more uncertainty and potential threat of personal harm. If I know I am entering into a situation like that, I leave my gun at home or I don’t go.

We are also talking about a speech given by one of the most controversial presidents in recent U.S. history. Clearly there are a lot of people that don’t like him for whatever reason and the U.S. Secret Service has a great responsibility of protecting him. A bunch of protesters carrying firearms is a nightmare for them. I don’t believe that there should be a law that says a gun can’t be carried within so many feet of POTUS, but again a little exercise in good judgment would be prudent.

I can only think of all the anti-gun people saying “look at these gun nuts! What do they think they are doing??” But I’ll say this –

1 - They were exercising their rights, even if it wasn’t in the best taste.
2 - There were NO incidents that day amongst anyone carrying a firearm.

Updates From Cali!!

I know…I know….I never update this anymore. I’ve been out in California at the home office. We are developing courseware and labs around Cisco’s new Nexus 1000 Virtual Switch. We are also updating the labs and courseware for the Nexus 2000, Nexus 5000, and Nexus 7000.

I got assigned to write the lab guides for the Nexus 1000v. Not being a huge VMWare guy, I’ve had a massive learning curve. Dicking around with VMWare is not the same thing as administering VMWare in a vSphere environment and troubleshooting issues with it.

Also, since the Nexus 1000v is so new there just isn’t a lot of good supporting documentation or user groups. When I’d search Cisco or Google for error messages I’d be lucky if even got a hit or two – and usually it was some poor bastard having the same problem without being able to find a solution for it.

So my days stretched out and my hours got long. I think I’ve been averaging about 14 hours a day on this stuff. That includes working on the weekend because there just isn’t a whole lot to do when you are hanging out of town for a while.
But finally, I’m about ½-way done with writing the lab guides for this course. It’s not something I normally do. Design it? No problem. Implement it? No problem. Write lab guides or courseware? Umm….can we get someone else? Nobody ever likes the lab guides anyway.

But I have found a little bit of time here and there to enjoy a nice meal or hit the beach for a bit. Of course the beach was cold both times I got there, which was a nice relief considering it’s still hovering in the 100’s back home.

My g/f flew out for the weekend and we had a good time checking out Sausalito, Pescadero, Los Gatos, and a few other places. There is a really cool toy store in Sausalito. Someone with a warped sense of humor obviously buys their toys. Like this nifty Deluxe Jesus Action figure.




Genius.

They also had the Lunch Lady action figure, which my g/f found highly amusing.



And, Dream Theater is playing out here next week so I have to go see them as they aren’t playing any Texas dates this year. If I am lucky I’ll be going home after that and getting a little downtime. Five / Six weeks on the road is a bit much……

If You Agree, Pass it On!

If not, suffer the consequences!

I’m sure everyone gets these types of emails. I get them all the time. Mostly I get them from well meaning people that are upset on some level about some issue. I could probably categorize them into a few categories:

Illegal immigrants
The Baracalypse
God and / or Country
Gun Rights

Now, it’s not that I think that these emails aren’t interesting. Most of them are a re-hash of some other email that may or may not contain truthful information. More often than not, whatever is contained inside the email never happened but is composed to get a point across. Who cares if whatever was written actually happened?

I do. And this is not the point of this post. But if you don’t care then why pass it along unless your only objective is to motivate someone else through fear or anger? And if that’s the case, then you may be a person whose ends justify the means. I find these to be dangerous people and it’s the same people that are in politics with this mentality that so many of these emails are about.

I’ve often thought of compiling a spreadsheet that shows how many times I got the email and from whom – in some cases I get the same ones from the same people over the span of a few years. But what do the emails really do? They convey a message and that’s about it.

I mean, seriously, it takes just a moment a couple of mouse clicks to forward the email on to your next 173 closest Facebook “friends.” But what have your really accomplished? A few people will read it and say “YES!” and forward it on. Some will delete it after reading and some will delete it outright without reading it. You might even inform some of the sheeple out there about an issue that really means something to you.

But that’s it. That’s the extent of your accomplishment. Not very compelling when you think about it.

Do you really want to do something? Then yes, go ahead and forward the email….but rather than telling the next person to forward the email or suffer the consequences how about encouraging them to write their senator, congressmen, and state representative? How about you doing the same thing.

I’ll admit I’m a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to this. On the one hand I know that if we really used the system the way it’s supposed to be used, and voted these assholes out of office that they would really listen to what we have to say. But we don’t do it. You forward your email, nobody writes them, and then we don’t go and vote. So on the other hand I am just as apathetic as you are and often times don’t take the time to write them unless it’s something I am seriously concerned about.

Want to put this bullshit to rest about illegal immigrants? Write your politicians.
Want to make English the official language of the U.S.? Write your politicians.
Want to stop all the bullshit gun control stuff? Write your politicians.
Want to stop all the government spending and crazy bills being passed? Write your politicians.
Want bullfighting midgets coming to your home town? Well, not sure that writing your politicians would help here, but it’s worth a try.

And when it comes time to vote – go vote. Get them out of the office if they can’t do what you want. Come tell me how so-and-so voted for or against something you feel passionate about and get *me* to vote them out of office.

Or, forward your email…. I might read it.