Monday January 3rd 2005 10:05 AM PST
Well go figure. Los Angeles traffic is back to its normal suck.
On top of that it's raining, so people drive either WAY TOO
FAST or WAY TOO SLOW. So as a result i just don't even bother with the freeway. It ended up taking me 45 minutes to get to
work today, which in all honesty was a lot better than i thought it was going to be.
Monday January 3rd 2005 12:09 PM PST
Monday January 3rd 2005 01:51 PM PST
We never turn down an offer to go to Tea at the Huntington in the rain. I don't know exactly what it is about the Tea room, but its that much better when its raining. I did a quick search on
GeoCaching.com before we left just to see if there were any caches in the Garden. Well sure enough there are a couple, so i popped the coords into my etrex and we headed off. The one cache that i was interested in was a set of 4 virtual cache locations. Instead of hiding a box with goodies in it, the location itself is special. So you have to find what is at each location and then email your answers to the cache creator. So before we even left i already had an idea what each location was. [partial geocache spoiler] So we passed the first location on the way from our car to the Tea Room. Then looking at the map and waypoints, i figured the what the other 3 locations were. I was only slightly off with the 2nd waypoint. When we started from the first waypoint to the Tea Room, i thought that the 2nd waypoint was the Two Lion's guarding the entrance to the Japaneese Garden. As we got closer to the Tea Room, i started to laugh because the 2nd waypoint actually was the Lion's outside the Tea Room. :) Funny that the place we were going all along was one of the locations on the cache hunt.
So i won't say exactly what the other 3 waypoints are, but i will say that we walk by all of them every time we go to the Huntington. Now thinking about it, i think i might make my own set of coords of more less traveled spots on the Huntington Grounds.
Tuesday January 4th 2005 12:55 AM PST
after dinner tonight (sorry will, the fork and knife ribs are back on the menu) i ran by blockbuster and tried to get Napoleon
Dynamite and Garden State. ND was sold out, so i grabbed Garden State. Jen and I both had not seen this movie yet. Now its
about 1AM and i'm thinking about watching it again. Jen fell asleep about half way through and i stayed up watching. By the
end i was crying. (yup sappy me) But i can't explain how refreshing a NON hollywood movie is. So i've been up for the last
few hours listening to the soundtrack.
Frou Frou - Let Go
Drink up baby down
mmm are you in or are you out
leave your things behind cause it's all going off without you
excuse me too busy writing your tragedy
these mishaps you bubble wrap
when you've no idea what you're like
so let go jump in oh well whatcha waiting for
it's alright cause there's beauty in the breakdown
so let go just get in oh it's so amazing here
it's alright cause there's beauty in the breakdown
it gains the more it gives & it rises with the fall
[so hand me that remote can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow]
such boundless pleasure
we've no time for later now
you can't await your own arrival
you've 20 seconds to comply
so let go
Wednesday January 5th 2005 11:08 AM PST
I got a Keyspan adapter for my GPS unit so that i could plug it into my Mac. I dug around for awhile and finally found a shareware app that would download all the track data from the unit. But all i could find was old OS9 apps. I got a little frustrated finding that there are not many good apps out there under $300 that will just plot map data. How hard can it be? All you have to do is a little math, and plot to a image file. So a few hours of work, and i've built a Flash app that will take the track and waypoint data and plot it. Nothing huge, but i'm looking back at director now. I figure i can actually build an OSX app that will interface using the GARMIN protocol and download the data. Then i can throw it over to flash to plot. Now i just need to align bitmaps under the waypoint plots. Even if i can't do that very well, i can still plot my tracks in vector, and have nice little maps i've made myself.
Wednesday January 5th 2005 01:31 PM PST
Ashlee Simposon - The New Poster Girl for Anarchism
didn't i see this image back in the 90's? What was that i saw it in? hmmm Could it possibly be the "Smells like Teen Spirit"
video? Cheerleaders running around in a gym and an anarchy symbol painted on the drum kit.
I'm going to go on a rant here for no apparent reason. Kurt Cobain could write his own lyrics. He didn't have the best voice in
the world, but he actually performed LIVE using HIS REAL VOICE. The gunge musical movement really does fit into the history
of the United States. We were in the middle of a recession. The unemployment rate soared, and people didn't feel the way
they had in the 80's. Metal, Glam Rock, Hard Rock, and everything part Rock music was really about being happy and having a
good time. In the 90's, gunge really started to show how people were pissed off about the world around them. (Sorry for the
blatant omission of PUNK, but that's not entirely what this is about) So seeing an anarchy sign on a drumkit in a nirvana video
actually fit back at that point in time. People were pissed, and people wanted change in the government and in the economy.
There was a feeling that people working together in a community was a better solution than letting our government fuck
things up more.
But then i see this during a half time show, on a national broadcast, for the national college championship football game. Huh?
Is the fact that everybody on stage is wearing black a reference to a Black
Bloc, and which kind of anarchists are they? Are they Ecological anarchists, or Technological anarchists? Is the symbol a
sign of Ashlee's feminism? (or is she even feminist?) Are they protesting globalization, or capitalism right before the network
cuts to a commercial break? I wonder if they are the extremely violent anarchists that wish to overthrow all government. I
guess i'm just trying to figure out what exactly they meant by using the circle A.
maybe there was just a dumbass set designer that actually thought it would be "cool" to put the symbol on the drumkit. This
just makes me think of all the people out there that have a tattoo of a chinese word on their body. (sorry jon) Does the fact
that you label yourself make you MORE that label? or does it dilute the meaning of the label?
ok, this rant is getting old
I don't know how to approach this one. I'm so dumbfounded by everything this girl gets herself into. I don't know which is
more sad... her singing... or the people that buy her music, her merchandise, and her image.
Go read more on Anarchism so at least you know more about it then
Ashlee Simpson.
Oh, i almost forgot. It WAS nice to see SC destroy the Sooners. AND, if you don't know what the fuck a Sooner is... check this out
Wednesday January 5th 2005 05:58 PM PST
I'm usually the last fuckin one to discover a new technology. And when i am shown something new by somebody, i end up
thinking "where the fuck have i been?". So last night i built a vector GPS plotter in flash, and today German shows me SVG.
I've never seen this shit before, but suddenly i realize that this is EXACTLY what i should be using for my GPS garbage. Then i
find that i'm only 4 years behind on finding out about this. Long story short, SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphics) is just XML
when it comes down to it. Its a bunch of vector data, and I can EASILY write a php script to put all my GPS data into a XML /
SVG format. So i feel a little stupid, but at least i've found something new that i can tinker with.
Wednesday January 5th 2005 11:03 PM PST
Friday January 7th 2005 12:31 PM PST
UPDATE on ASHLEE
thanks to koga
The Stop Ashlee Simpson Petition
Could we have every person at the Orange Bowl please sign this. That will give this thing a 72,000 name kick start.
Sunday January 9th 2005 12:22 PM PST
The friday night drive was a little longer than usual. I ended up on Exposisition, and then on Figeroua. As i headed north, i noticed there was a LARGE event at the Staples Center, and traffic was a little more hellish than usual. So i turned on Washington and figured i'd try something different that i had not done in awhile. I was just going to head all the way over to Soto and take that north into South Pasadena. Soto eventually turns into Huntington Drive and passes a couple blocks from my house. So east on Washington it was. On washington between Santa Fe and Soto you cross over a lot of railroad track garbage. I get to this area, and there are no street lights, but there are 2 railroad crossing warning signs that are blinking. I come to a stop with a few other cars and we all look around perplexed. There are no gates on these railroad signs, and there is NOTHING around us for a half mile. I figure better safe, so i sit there making sure nothing is coming. The guy to the right of me makes a stop, and then proceeds through the intersection. I keep looking around, and still nothing is coming. The guy on the other side of me stops waiting as well and goes. So i finally just proceed through the crossing. I cross the first set of tracks. Bump bump. i start to accelerate. I get up to only about 35 miles per hour, and then BOOM. I hit the second set of tracks HARD. Now looking back there must have been a pothole right in the road directly before the track. Anyway, my car dropped a little and then hit the steel track directly. I think, HOLY FUCKIN SHIT what was that? And i immediatly slow down thinking i have a flat tire. I sway the car back and forth just a little to see if i still have all four tires, and my allignment is still good. Everything checks out, so i keep moving. I turn left on Soto in the next block and i go under another one of the railroad tracks. This one has a freight train on it, and must have been the reason that other crossing light was going off.
I keep moving on soto and cross under what is the nightmare freeway intersection of the 5, 10, 60 and 101. At this point i am about a mile past where the pothole and track was. Then my right rear tire starts to make a faint thump. My eyes squint, and i start to raise my voice at my right rear tire. "don't you fuckin start with me!" The thump starts to grow louder, and i don't waste any time pulling over and finding a nice little spot to change the tire. I end up pulling over on Terrace Heights in the rain. So i pop the trunk, set the emergencey brake and jump out to change the tire. I call Jen in the rain and tell her i'm gonna be a little late
I get all the stuff out of the trunk, and get the car up on the jack. Then i start in on the lug nuts. This is the tire that was brand new after an ass clown rear ended me while I was parking. So the lugs must have been put on by a fuckin body builder. I sit there for 10 minutes trying to get a single nut off the tire. I finally give up and call AAA. The guy on the phone sets me up with a tow truck and the truck gets there in 10 minutes. When he shows up, i say all i need is to get the spare on, and i'll drive it home. So he walks around the car, and then i realize the front right tire is now flat as well. Well that settles that. He's in a flatbed tow truck, so it works out fine. We're both wet, so i help him get the car on the back and we get in the cab as quickly as possible.
He drives me home and drops the car in front of my house. I figure i'll just pop on the spares when i get a chance on Saturday. So all in all i was only an hour late. After that though i needed some good food and a drink. We went to crown city brewery for dinner and watched the lakers game. The same gave that i had avoided on the road home.
Sunday January 9th 2005 03:38 PM PST
Jen convinced me that i should just get the car towed instead of working on the tires in the rain. So we called a tow truck in
the morning. It ended being a few hours wait just because we were not in an emergency and there must have been a shitload
of people on the road that needed the help more than us. So i finally get the car towed to a tire place and get 4 new tires. I
went and picked it up a few hours later and then test drove around the Rose Bowl a few times. The car handles very well now.
It was a lot of fun stopping by the wash in the arroyo and checking out the rapids flying by.
After i got home, Jen and I got ready to go to have dinner with her father. We went over to hang out with him and a few old
friends of his. We had a great lasagna that he had ordered from Anthony's and drank a whole lot of wine.
Tuesday January 11th 2005 11:29 AM PST
Apple released a bunch of new goodies today at MacrWorld. So far of the stuff i've seen, the
Mac Mini and
iPod Shuffle are my
favorites.
Wednesday January 12th 2005 02:08 PM PST
Sunday January 16th 2005 10:29 PM PST
I missed the first episode of the new series Battlestar Galactica on Friday night when i went out with everybody in Long Beach. We headed down to LB to meet everybody for dinner. We met at the place that Bob, Becky, and Steve live, and we headed out from there. Juliet and Will both met up there too, and we all went down to Captain Jack's. Jen and I didn't have the best dinner there, but we were willing for forgive the food cause we were with good friends. We headed back to Bob's place and sat around talking for a couple hours.
Jen and I got home at about 1 and at that point i started to look for a bittorrent for BattleStar Galatica. I figure there's gotta be some geek out there that's already got one of the first episode. At that point i started to get really confused. I was finding torrents for almost all the episodes. One of my friends was online at the time and i asked him about it. Sure enough, the SciFi run in the US is not the first run. SkyOne in the UK has already run the entire series first season. So that's a bonus for me. I dont want to wait week after week to watch these. If i can watch em all now then why not? So i started to search for any torrent files. So far now i've gotten a few episodes and have gotten deep into the series. Downloading a few more episodes now and am still looking for more. This is the only way to watch TV
Monday January 17th 2005 12:53 AM PST
Jen and I had made a plan to cook tonight, but it fell through. We instead went with Jen's father and brother to The Derby in Arcadia. As always, there is no way that we can turn down that kind of dinner invitation. We had a great dinner as always (bacon wrapped filet for me) and sat around at their house for a little while talking and watching the end of
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. David and Bob have both watched this movie about 1000 times. They've got an old VHS tape that is about to die on them, but they keep watching it.
Monday January 17th 2005 09:39 AM PST
It't Martin Luter King day today, so about half the people in Los Angeles have the day off. For some reason i'm in the half that still has to go to work. But as a result the drive today was very very easy. There are only a few days out of the year that i am actually able to drive on freeways in Los Angeles, during rush hour, and not slow down below 50mph. So that was a little perk today, but the fact is.... it's still fuckin monday.
Thursday January 20th 2005 03:04 PM PST
looks like i gotta add one new tag to my blog engine.
This one will be added tonight.
Thursday January 20th 2005 03:05 PM PST
Saturday January 22nd 2005 02:26 PM PST
A couple months ago, a PTA member from La Canda called me and let me in a little secret. Jen had been nominated and was
going to receive the Founder's Day award at her school. Every year the PTA awards a small group of teachers, parents and
administrators at each school in the district. So i got the day off from work, but at the same time convinced Jen that was going
to have a really bad day in meetings and crap. All last week i complained about how bad Friday was going to be at work. Then
yesterday i showed up in the school office just before the award was going to be announced. Jen's father and I both were there
hiding in a little side conference room. Meanwhile outside, all the kids in the schools are being corralled into their outdoor
assembly area. We were told by PTA members that we should sneak outside and stand in a walk area where Jen would not be
able to see us. What i knew, but decided to temporarily forget, was that Jen can't sit still for 5 minutes. So we were standing
there talking and suddenly realized Jen had just popped out of her seat and was running around the corner, coming right at us.
Bob mumbles something and runs. I turn slowly, put my hand up to the side of my face as if i'm scratching something, and
quickly follow Bob. We both run down another hallway, and get around a second corner to get out of site. We're both
laughing, but at the same time worried that she saw us. So we head back into the office, and wait there for a little longer.
Then again a PTA member tells us its all clear and we can stand on the walkway again. So now we're hiding in a group of
people 5 feet away from Jen. They start to announce the awards, and then the problem hits us. The first couple recipients are
standing right next to us, and now everybody's attention is focused in our direction. We reduce ourselves to the "duck down
and scratch the head with the hand in front of the face" technique. By some miracle it actually works. Jen's name is
announced, and she walks up to the stage. Even as she walks by, she still doesn't see us. Its not til she's up on stage that she
spots us in the crowd.
Now here's the best part. Yesterday was Pajama day at her school, so all the kids are wearing their pajamas. Most of the
teachers are as well, including Jen. If she had known about the award she never would have been caught dead in her pajamas
up on stage. So the pictures for the paper and the award program are all of the group of people with Jen in her pajamas.
I stick around after the little award assembly and I head back to Jen's class to wait for lunch. I watch her teach a couple little
lessons and then we head off to lunch.
After lunch i head out on a mission. I head out to Fry's in Burbank and pick myself up a dual 2.5 G5 Mac. I've been talking too
long on this one, and i finally needed to drop the cash on the computer. I drag the HUGE box home and crack the thing open.
Then the phone rings. Just my luck. I was on the phone on 4 different calls for 2 hours. So it took me a little while to get the
system up and running after a few hours of running around taking care of other things.
So now i'm moving in. All my major apps have been installed and i'm just getting everything the way i like it.
Jen gets home soon after i get things running and the phone rings again. This time Jen gets it, but we're happy to find out
that Chris and Christina are going out to dinner in Old Town and want us to join them. Now we've all lived about 5 minutes
away from each other for about 5 years now, but we never have been out in Pasadena together. We always end up seeing
each other down at Annie's parent's in Irvine or some wedding or something. So we meet Chris and Christina and their friends
Kate and Dave at la Luna Negra for dinner. We hang out there for a couple hours just having a good time and drinking a whole
lot. Then we finally move on to a little bar on DeLacy. I don't remember what the hell its called, but it used to be a gym, then
a Jerry's Deli and now this bar. So we hung out there for a little while longer then headed home. It was a greta night and a
nice excuse to get out of the house.
Being the dumbass that i am, i got home and sat down on the bed for five minutes and passed out. I didn't drink any water at
all, so at 6 AM i woke up after a full night of sleep and had the worst headache. I got up promptly and drank about a gallon of
water and sat back down at the G5.
Sunday January 23rd 2005 03:19 PM PST
Jen gave me a handheld GPS unit for XMAS and she never thought it was going to be this much of a problem. I carry the thing just about everywhere we go, and i've been tracking everywhere i drive for about a month now. So i finally thought i would publish a small map of the places i've driven. I built the map plotting software myself to plot the gps track data. Its a little inaccurate as far as east / west distances go, but i'm going to get around to calculating proper conversions so the data is perfect. I've also got a small map of Los Angeles that i'm going to start to project data over. But for the time being, heres the last month of driving.
Wednesday January 26th 2005 03:44 PM PST
So far this week eveything has been a pain in the ass. I've got deadlines like crazy and i can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. So last night before i left work, i asked em if i could work from home today. Sure enough i caught a break and i'm able to get moving on a whole lot of work. I work so much faster in my home environment, and on my home equipment. I just wish i could go back to something like this again, but keep the steady paycheck. Well... i've gotten a shitload done today, and i think i've gotten my head clear. I just know that tomorrow it will all be back to the normal hell and this weekend is going to be even worse. Gotta BETA next week and launch the week after that. Can't wait til this thing is live.
Thursday January 27th 2005 10:25 AM PST
Angelo and Adam both came out to LA this week to visit and for Adam to go to a conference at UCLA. They managed to avoid a blizzard back in Boston, and Jen and I were lucky to see them last night for dinner. Jen and I figured it was going to take us at least an hour to get to Westwood last night. So we left at 7 to be there by 8. We were quite suprised that traffic just seemed to dissappear. We mananged to get there in 30 minutes and we were really early. We got to the hotel they were staying at in westwood and then walked to a little itallian place on westwood blvd. It was great to see both of them.
