"What I bought on eBay-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y"

No. I wasn't for sale.
(Thanks, Al!)

And a second try for jogging to Zanker's cache!

This time, I succeeded! I will not be turned away from finding a cache! (Well, I frequently am...)

The In-N-Out of Geocaching

Today, tried to get a couple of caches under my belt. The first one was the Columbian Mammoths of the Guadalupe River Basin, which is an Earthcache (my first). It was right near the company I was visiting at in San Jose. Unfortunately, I was 2 days late, and the bones that were found here were gone.


I then tried to find Zanker Joggers Cache, which is a regular cache a little farther away from my week's workspace. Unfortunately, tree cover and GPS satellite availability prevented me from finding it. There's always tomorrow...

...now...onto something which my friend Ian has long been touting...a visit to...
Here's the location just north of Cisco Systems at 50 Ranch Dr. in Milpitas, California. Talked with a nice guy who worked for Cisco, and how he just paid about $850,000 for a five bedroom house on a 7,000 sq. ft. lot in the area about a year and half ago, and today it's worth over $1,000,000. Just sick.

Despite my lighter than usual diet of late, I decided to splurge on my dinner. I got a Double Double (without cheese, tomato or onion), fries, a chocolate shake and an iced tea. I figured I may as well sample just about everything on their menu...which is ridiculously simple. It's just burgers, fries and beverages. That's it. Really.

My dinner:

Verdict? I liked it. It seemed like a cheaper version of Johnny Rocket's to me. Food basically tasted the same, and the fries were a little soggier...but I liked it. But I definately can't eat like this on an ongoing basis!

Stay tuned...tomorrow night, San Francisco! Home of the Spinnaker Restaurant, which I may have to go visit...'cos this can't be real...

Hot and spicy washed down with chocolate...

On a high recommendation, I went to the House of Siam tonight for dinner, a Thai restaurant in downtown San Jose. I had complained that I find it hard to get Thai restaurants to serve me food really HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT...and the House of Siam was recommended as one that would cater to my taste.

So I ordered the Angry Chicken, and assured the waiter that I wanted it 'native Thai' hot. When I got it, it didn't look like it was going to be that hot...and it wasn't. I mean, it registered as slightly hot (possibly a 5 out of 10 on my heat scale), but I took to the spice tray and put the chili paste and chili/crushed red peppers mix on it. WOW! That kicked it up to an 8 out of 10. The waiter assured me he told the kitchen to make it hot, and they did. Maybe my belief that Thai food should register as a 9 or 10 on my heat scale is wrong. Owel...it was a valiant effort.

So I come out of the restaurant, and am confronted with one of the nicer aspects of San Jose...something which a SoFla native would feel somewhat jealous of: decent mass transportation. I mean, how convenient can this be, only feet from the door:

I started wandering around downtown to get in the sights, kinda wanting to catch a movie if I could. However, at the movie theather next to the restaurant, all the movies had started about 30 minutes earlier. Keep walking...until I came across their Imax theater at the Tech Museum of Innovation. My God...that place is incredible. This isn't just an Imax theater...it's an Imax theater that's projected onto a DOME, like in a planetarium. And they were showing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! While I'd already seen the movie before, and liked it immensely, seeing it in an Imax theater was too good to pass up. They also showed the trailer to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and even that movie is looking to kick some butt as well. Anyway, the Imax experience was great, and I only wish I could have seen the museum as well (but it was 10:00pm when I got out).

On the way back to the car, I passed something rather interesting...self-cleaning public toilets:


Really weird...but people use 'em. Makes the place feel...British...or something. *shrug*

Definately a neat evening...

Something else I'll never get tired of...

'nuff said...

Bail bonds, bail bonds...everywhere...

I just don't get it...but this is a random San Jose sampling for your perusal...take yer pick...

Can anyone tell me why...

...there are so many bail bonds companies near downtown San Jose? I mean, how many do you need in a 4 block area? 25? 30? 7,982???!

I'm an eeeeeeeediot...... (A Haiku)

Forgot my sunscreen.
Went to great, fun baseball game.
Look like a lobster.

A Marlin (fan) at SBC Park...

This will never get old...

So here I am again at 36,000 feet...

Jeez I'm an idiot.

In the midst of packing for my current trip to San Jose, we had a really intense thunderstorm with a ton of cool lightning. Normally, we have cloud to ground lightning. This storm had that, but it also had something a lot less common: cloud to cloud lightning. Really cool stuff, and a wonderful show in the sky for a few hours.

So, bolstered by the fact I had captured a nice lightning strike with my digital camera during out Fort Meyers Beach vacation a couple weeks back, I thought I'd try to get a shot or two from my office window at home, especially since the lightning was so plentiful. I did get a couple strikes, but they didn't look as good as I had hoped.

So here I am on the plane to go to San Francisco, leaving at 7:45am, and it's a beautiful morning. The plane lines up to take off from MIA heading east. Engines roar up, off we go.

Looking out the window, I start to see the Brickell Avenue skyline. Hey, that'd make a nice photo, lemme get the camera out.

I reach into my bag and grab it. I flip in on and it beeps differently than usual. Huh? Oh, wrong mode (review mode). Lemme flip it to camera/picture mode. Flip. Beep beep. Huh?

The display reads --- ....instead of the number of photos I can take. Why would it do th....???

WHERE'S MY FREAKING MEMORY CARD????

*SIGH*

Sitting in my friggin' card reader at home, where I put it after taking the lightning photos last night.

Damnit.

Well, I'm SOL on the flight, but I have extra cards in my luggage (less capacity, tho...sigh). Jeez.

Whatta way to start a trip.

The Mug of Fear!

Sunset over the Pacific...

La Jolla, California

Only in California...(Well, I'm pretty sure, anyway...)

Yes...it's real...

Seat 44F on a plane with two flat tires...

So, on a last minute trip to San Diego (which, coincidentally, happened to fall during the very week that we had wanted to *be* in San Diego for the ComiCon...), I fly out as early as possible to get me there.

In Atlanta, the remnants of Hurricane Dennis don't seem to be holding things up too much. Then I board Delta flight 1793, scheduled to leave around 8:30am. It's about to leave, just waiting for paperwork and some final bags, the captain says. 8:30...8:45...captain comes on. During a walkaround, he said, a couple of tires were underinflated..."flat"...from a "warm landing" earlier. They need to change 'em, just another 25 minutes. Some time later, he comes back on and says that they found a problem with a brake when they pulled the tires off...so it'll be another 45.

Fine.

We take off at around 10am, about 90 minutes late. At what point do you think the captain was going to tell us/get the tires checked if the paperwork & bags had been done faster?

On that note, the captain told everyone on the PA where his young son was sitting (42D). Just in case any terrorists may have wanted to know so they'd have a bargaining chip. *rolls eyes*

So the flight is in the air. Now I want to put the seat back...and it won't go back. Great. Overhead light? Heh...only if IT wants to go on. Flight attendant call button? Oh, sure, it goes on randomly.

(On a packed flight...everyone can hear you scream.)

Atleast the movie...Sahara...was passable.

YABBTYF30000F.
(Yet Another Blog Brought To You From 30,000 Feet)

I hope we see this more often... 

Even Roger shared the vocals on Wish You Were Here... 

Sing and play your heart out, Dave! 

About 25 years in the making...proving that Hell apparently had frozen over, and that pigs DO fly! Welcome back, Dave, Roger, Nick and Rick! You did a fantastic job! 

Ahhhhhh....

Yahoo! Sports MLB: Atlanta 5, Florida 6 (FINAL 13th) 2005/06/29
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Smart quote of the day

"Q-tips, anybody?"
- Sales pitch by a cotton candy vendor at the Marlins-Braves game in the 6th inning
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Y'know...

...flat tires on rainy Monday mornings just suck...
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...'enough said. 

I've always been unsure of what to think of people who bought Honda Elements...until I came across this one in the airport parking lot... 

If you ever wondered what the wing of a 757-200 aircraft looked like at over 30,000 feet elevation when viewed through a crappy, scratched-up airplane window...now you know. 

Sometime I wonder... 

...what the heck I'm doing here? 

Can you imagine...?

What would it be like if you somehow extended Duel of the Fates and were able to use it for the soundtrack for the Battle of Yavin? I'm not being blasphemous here...it's just an idea...and one that might be pretty darn cool!

Just a random musing as I sit here on the plane...

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SW CD correted track listing

I made a mistake. There is an extra track I put on there. Track 7 is 'Tales of a Jedi Knight/Plea For Help (Ep 4)' (again from memory). That's the scene where ObiWan tells Luke about his father for the first time, and views the full hologram.

So make that track 7, and move the rest of the tracks up one number.

That is all. Move along...move along...

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Star Wars Soundtrack Mix

Bloggin' at ya from up in the sky, over 30,000 feet high!

I love movie soundtracks. I love movies. The soundtracks are an 'emotional glue' which, when I listen to them, brings back the feelings I have when I watch the movies.

Probably the first soundtrack I fell in love with was from Star Wars (in 1977, for those of you who may be confused). I can't recall how many times I've listened to it. Anyway, in preparation for a business trip, I decided to put together an ultimate (or as close as I could get it) mix of selections from all 6 Star Wars films on one audio CD. Here is the selections, in the order I placed them. I wanted it to be as chronological as possible, while giving the ability to tell the story of the entire saga.

(Track names are paraphrased from memory; some contain music from other scenes which adds to their importance, such as track 10, which has Luke and Vader confronting one another, and track 12, which has the conclusion to their second confrontation...)

1. Opening credits/Blockade Runner (Ep 4)
2. Duel of the Fates (Ep 1)
3. Across the Stars (Ep 2)
4. Battle of the Heros (Ep 3)
5. ObiWan vs. Anakin (Ep 3)
6. Hologram/Binary Sunset (Ep 4)
7. Death of ObiWan/TIE Fighter Attack (Ep 4)
8. Han and the Princess (Ep 5)
9. Darth Vader's Theme (Ep 5)
10. Carbon Freeze Chamber (Ep 5)
11. Luke and Leia (Ep 6)
12. Leia Is Wounded (Battle of Endor Part 2) (Ep 6)
13. A New Hope/Closing Credits (Ep 3)

In particular, I like the selection of the first and last tracks, since it brings the movies (and the CD) full circle. If you were to watch the movies in episode order, track 13 would be the last you would hear before track 1, and its themes blend well into Episode 4, as well as containing bits of music from almost all 6 films.

After listening to it, I think tracks 8 & 9 need to be flipped.

Overall, it works rather well. I'd love to edit all the tracks together to trim out unneeded bits and work in others (Cantina Band, Yoda's Theme, Battle for Yavin...). That will likely be my next task.
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