Category Archives: Rants

If I have a problem with something, here it will be.

Home at last

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I pushed on through and drove direct from San Diego to San Jose tonight (or today). It took longer than I had hoped, starting at around 7pm or so, and ending at 12:45am. The car is finally in a home garage again, extremely wet, and slightly dinged, but in pretty good shape all things considered.

It was 4 days and 2000 miles of driving, but I’m glad to finally be home. Next time I will definitely take the plane. When I wake up sometime today I’ll try to post some new pictures of the ride in the gallery area.

California Drivers are the Weakest Link

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I had always believed that Californians were poorer drivers than the rest of the country since moving here 10 years ago. However, I now have definitive proof that they are the worst. Take this sampling of data, for instance:

  • States travelled through: 5 (OK, TX, NM, AZ, CA)
  • Worst roads encountered: New Mexico (washboard consistency)
  • Fastest speed limits: Arizona (75 MPH most freeways)
  • Least traffic encountered: New Mexico (desolate in most places)
  • Dead wildlife leader: Texas (nearly every 10 miles something was toast)
  • Most stop and go traffic: California (starts at the border near Interstate -8)
  • Most police on road: California (from mile 3 onward)
  • Largest percentage of slow left lane drivers: California (if people pass you on the right its time to move over a lane)
  • Greatest speed drop in short distance: California (one stretch went from 70 to 45 in less than 10 miles)
  • The only site where I used brakes/downshifted on the highway: California (if traffic is moving too fast for you, or you really must see that abandoned vehicle, get in the right lane)

This is but a small sampling of the frustration happening near the end of this trip. I’m only to San Diego and I’m tired of the driving here. If I don’t find a route around LA I may have to revise this post and add all the pain of sitting in traffic for hours and hours going nowhere.

Don't Tempt Fate

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Today I had one of those moments that I try so hard to avoid, the one where the rational brain and impulsive brain are fighting it out for control. Let me give you the rundown:

  • I had two good flights on my largest R/C airplane
  • There was no real damage, save for some gear scraping, making it a good day
  • The wind was just starting to pick up, so it would had been good to pack it in
  • No one around was pushing me to fly again

So with all of this known, my rational brain told me to call it a day and go home. My impulsive brain said “wait, you can squeeze in one more flight on your own.” So armed with this information I took the plane up again. The takeoff roll was good, the circuits around the field are fine, even the wind buffeting isn’t a big deal.

And then I land. Or I should say I hit the runway.

Now I have a broken rudder, a crunched wing, and a lot of work ahead of me (or someone who fixes things for me) before its flight-worthy again. Sometimes fate is a cruel master, and this time it reminded me that its not always smart to listen to the impulsive thoughts in my head. Doh.

Tired and Out of Sorts

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I’ve entered month two of very little to no sleep during the week, thanks to a grueling and completely unrealistic product shipment schedule. In a move I will forever regret, I volunteered my services to be both product manager and UI/layout developer, ensuring that I work the same crazy hours I normally assign to the engineering team.

I have to say now that I don’t know how the tech folks live like this, because on weekends all I do is get up around noon, watch a little TV, do a little more work, then head back to sleep. I really hope this project ends soon, as I can’t imagine what a third month of this zombie state would be like.

Two-fer Mess Up

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I combined three things I’m really good at today to great effect:

  • Betting on the goodness of technology
  • Trying to make things go fast
  • Spending money

What I came up with was: an unflyable airplane and a dead hard drive. The airplane won’t fly because its internal wiring is so lengthy as to be its own distortion amplification device (aka an antenna). The hard drive died (less than 6 months old!) for reasons unknown to me, but it was being moved from one PC case to another.

There are a lot of other things worse in the world, but these two events have conspired against my state of zen today.

Good Weekend / Bad Week

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The labor day weekend was pretty good to me this year. I did as little as I possibly had to, flew one of my R/C planes, did some light work around the house, and generally avoided work email. I was all set to call it a good weekend all around.

Then I sat down and turned on CNN.

I had read about Katrina and the goings ons down in New Orleans, but I just hadn’t seen video of the situation. It certainly put things into perspective for me and reminded me once again just how much things (and people) are taken for granted. Thinking back to a year or two ago when I was in the French Quarter its hard to imagine that much of the area I’ve seen before is now utterly ruined, with many lives taken along with it.

I plan to donate shortly, but something nagging at me says that just won’t be enough. I really do feel for the displaced folks out there and I am reminded once again about what a complete inept government we have elected in recent years. Dumb.

When upgrades don't go smoothly

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I saw a post earlier this week proclaiming a new version of WordPress (my current blogging software) was out. Having missed the previous two updates, I downloaded it, checked it over, read the directions and installed it. After putting a post in, everything seemed to work. I got a little text message that looked odd, but all seemed fine. Peachy.

On Saturday I got back around to looking at what caused this text error. To my horror it had gone from mere annoyance to full blown site wide chaos. Text error messages sprung out of nearly every page. When I poked around to find out why nothing jumped out. Worse still, some of my images were now broken. What had happened?

To shorten this story to its final conclusion, there was an old plug-in I was using on a previous version of WordPress that went south, taking everything it touched (which was the whole site) with it. Now that it is disabled things seem fine again… until the next time I try to be smart with the upgrades. Doh!

Walking is rough stuff

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It’s official: I’m a complete klutz. I was walking around today, doing some errands, and while stepping off a curb my ankle twisted and became my heel. The twist was so bad that a woman standing nearby actually cried out “oh my!” when it happened. It was a serious challenge just limping back to the truck and driving home.

Looks like there will be very little exercise for me in the near future and a whole lot more limping around and cold packs. Joy for me.

It's good to have hot water

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So the “new” house I live in is starting to show signs of its not-so-newness. On Friday the water heater died and I’ve been dealing with the impact of that ever since. What impact, you say? Well for starters…

- No showers because the water here is about 45F coming out of the tap
- Dishes piling up because there is no way to wash them
- Running out of clothes because there is no way to clean them

I never realized how much I was dependent on hot water. I also didn’t understand that the life cycle for water heaters was so predictable. In my complex 4 other water heaters failed this month. The complex is only 14 years old, so it seems like that is the max lifetime for water heaters, or at least A. O. Smith 50 gallon versions like I had.

I’ve been told to expect the HVAC and garage door opener to go next. Just when I was happily expecting to save some money here comes the home issues to eat up that savings.

Upgrade/Downgrade: Tokyo Travel Edition

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For those of you who have seen the VH1 show Best Week Ever this will be familiar to you. For those who haven’t, there is a segment in the show about good things happening to someone meaning “upgrade” and bad things happening meaning “downgrade.” I now present my own version: the Tokyo trip edition.

  • Got to fly out of the local airport directly to Tokyo: Upgrade
  • Had flight delayed by nearly two hours: Downgrade
  • Magically received bump from business to first: Upgrade
  • Ran out of water 1/2 way through flight: Downgrade
  • Was second person off plane, breezed through customs: Upgrade
  • Had to wait for an hour for luggage: Downgrade
  • Long wait caused a missed train, and another hour wait: Downgrade
  • Paid for train pass, got on nearly empty car: Upgrade
  • Found out I was in the wrong car, had to sit in the vestibule: Downgrade
  • Negotiated way out of train station: Upgrade
  • Had to walk for 20 minutes to the hotel: Downgrade
  • Sweat like a pig thanks to 80 F weather: Downgrade
  • Wake up every morning at 4am: Downgrade

For those keeping score at home, that is 5 upgrades vs. 8 downgrades. I’m only half way through this trip (which continues for another 6 days) and the downs are already winning. It isn’t looking good for upgrades, but then it wouldn’t be me if it did.