Posts from — February 2006

I thought I had something interesting to say, but I don’t. I can’t remember what I meant to write about. It was probably some personal story that was fascinating for me, but boring for most of you. Oh well.

Two things I do remember- 1) the P&O deal and blocking it is really $#@% annoying. How un-friendly can the US keep getting towards global business. Man. . . It’s all Arab-phobia b.s. The Singaporean Govt/Co. already owns a port in Oakland; they’re not a security risk, and they hire Oaklanders. In LA the Chinese own another port. . .who cares?! Sheesh, it’s P&O- but nooo, they had to get bought out by “those people”. And 2)

On a lighter note…

- a few weeks ago I went to have lunch with my coworkers, and we sat outside. Near us at one of the larger picnic/bench tables was a dad playing with his son while they grazed at their lunch. It looked like the dad was trying to kill a lot of time- he was taking business phone calls on the cell while the kid played with some toys. They were multicolored and he was stretching them and putting them on his fingers, etc. The weird thing was- I kept thinking – I’ve seen those before. What is that?

Then I remembered- what they were. [link may not be work safe]

I’m not sure if the dad gave them to him, or if (ick) he found them nearby and was playing with them, or maybe if there’s a kids’ toy that’s similar(?!). But I tried not to laugh or stare. But it was damn funny. I wanted to point that out to the co-workers, but I wisely refrained too.

Oh, and I refuse to answer why/where/how I knew what those were.

There are two types of calls I can get at 6am:

1. I pick up and the caller says Buenos días, Mijo

That means it’s my parents calling

2. I pick up and hear Namaste!, which means work is calling.

Today it was number 2.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Oh, and I got a flat on the way in. Sux0rz, as the kidz on myspace say.

I was telling a coworker here about the flat (on top of the server errors which cause the 6am call), and he said “Man, it’s not your week is it?” I said that it wasn’t that bad. But he reminded me that a bird crapped on me when I was on on either a lunch break walk in Tiburon, or one of my after-work walks. So yeah, he’s right. . . . the poop is falling. At least it’s Friday.

updated: btw, I’d happily trade the 2 types of 6am calls for a 2am Booty Call. But I’m not gettin’ any offers :(

another update: turns out that the spare barely had any air in it, great

one more edit: turns out that the tire’s prob wasn’t just the nail I ran over, but the sidewall’s f’d up too, so I need a new tire . . . At least it’s Friday

LAST edit- I totally forgot that I started this week (or ended last week) with another incident- I ran out of gas for the first time ever on Sunday night at Angie’s after dropping off her and Cory when we got back from Rosenblum’s Open House and dinner in Alameda. She had to take me to get a gas can and everything. Weird.

Oh, this is interesting. Make sure to read page 3 – especially the parts about shaving and the excellent line item: “All applications of lube to myself, you, or any object, will be done by you.”

I wonder if that counts as a binding ketubah.

I was going to write a really long post about going to soccer games, but I could sense it turning into a rant. And I don’t feel like ranting today- it’s too nice out, even with the recent cold snap.

I’ll post some phone pics onto flikr and link them below. The reason there’s a woman’s back in the pic is because she was knitting during the game. I had started to complain about her which what was starting the rant. But I’ll stop . .

Here are Caleb, Edgar, Kevin and myself. Jodi came to the game too, but she hates most pics of herself and told me to delete the one of her. . .

The knitting woman whose husband kept walking in front of people during corner kicks and didn’t understand why people were getting mad:

And the requisite big fat head self-portrait:

The woman in the background and her son, and her husband (who was behind me) even though they were watching the same game, thought every foul was nothing- or deserved a red card in Japan’s case, and that Donovan scored every goal. Donovan Donovan Donovan. According to them, he was the ‘keeper too. Oh well, at least the stadium was full.

Gorgeous weather in Sonoma County this weekend. I’ll have a post for what I bought/tasted later this week.

Happy V-Day everyone. May you be drowning in chocolates and flowers. Or something. . .

On the way back from TX, I was reading American Way, the in-flight magazine, for American Airlines. In the CEO’s column he noted that due to demand, they were finally adding flights from the US to India. I think just one city, for now, and I thought it was Delhi, but I can’t recall.

In his column he explained how they’d fly from Chicago O’Hare to India and due to inclement seasonal weather their route would take them over the North Pole to Asia. Holy Crap. I don’t know why, but that makes me queasy just thinking about it. Let me see if I can find his column

—-five minutes pass—-

Here we go:

We are proud to offer the only nonstop service between Chicago O.Hare International Airport and Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, India.

…..
New markets always bring new challenges. In this case, seasonal winds, along with our desire to conserve fuel, mean we will fly over the North Pole during certain parts of the year, and over Russia and Northern Europe at other times. Of course, serving a new market well requires more than a plan to get there and back. Fortunately, we have a group of experts at American who have helped us tailor our product offering to the Indian market. Our Indian Employee Resource Group played a critical role in planning several aspects of our Delhi service. The group helped us develop a special menu that features Indian, Indian-inspired vegetarian, and Western meal selections. Also, in addition to our more traditional entertainment programming, travelers will be able to enjoy films from Bollywood . the Indian film industry . in Hindi with English subtitles.

That’s a difficult flight. I went on lovely Singapore Air, and I was still ready to tear my hair out due to the flight length. But at least on Singapore Air, I had my own tv monitor and on-demand movie selector thing. AA doesn’t have that. Unless they’re offering that flight at a substantial discount, I’ll stick with the hot waitresses stewardesses flight attendants of Singapore Airlines.

You know, taking the risk and doing what you believe in can pay off. Good job Derek- from worrying about quitting your day job and starting a business to getting that business on Yahoo! News:

McAfee’s ElitePartner, Solid Border, was instrumental in implementing a quick and easy solution for Continental, facilitating a 16,000 unique node deployment. Through McAfee’s enterprise level products and their membership in the McAfee SecurityAlliance, Solid Border delivered an improved security solution for Continental.



“Continental Airlines needed a system that could be dispersed to hundreds of locations globally through slow bandwidth connections but with minimal downtime,” said Derek Del Barrio, principal of Solid Border. “By working closely with McAfee, we were able to understand, assess and meet those requirements quickly — moving from planning to deployment in just a few weeks.”

full article

I should say, getting his business on Yahoo! News in a good, positive way, not in some MySpace/Teenager Scandal way.

Make your own motivational posters.

Yes, it’s an old link, but it came up again today on irc, and gave me more than 30 seconds of funtime.

I put up some/most of the pics from my last visit to TX. You can see pics of the house, of homemade pasta, and a Chris Madrid’s Tostada Burger, arguably the best burger evar, yes, evar.

By the way, I bet you don’t know what that “rock” is in front of my parents’ house. Not you, Jeff, you know. . .