Random Observations From The Desert, er, NW Suburbs...

Bye Taz, We'll Miss You....

2009-11-08T15:00:00.000-08:00

She was a good dog, and part of the family for twelve years....

I've always been a dog person. Big dogs. Not little 9 lb dust mops like my in-laws shitzus, or poodles, bichons or even beagles. Nope. Labs, Goldens, German Shepherds, and just about any other type of bird or hound dog.

Back in Oct 1997, we decided a dog would be good for Jesse, and we went down to the humane shelter in Fort Worth. There were lots of puppies and dogs of all ages. Vicki's only requirement was it couldn't shed too much.

We eventually found a pair of six week old black and tan pups who were listed as border collie & Rottweiler mix -- one male and one female. True or not, I convinced Vicki that Rotts didn't shed much, paid our fee for the female, and came back the next day with Jesse to make sure he was OK with her. She had to be spayed before she could leave the shelter so a couple days later we finally brought her home.

She had the coloring of the Tazmanian Devil cartoon, and after some shameful leading and lobbying on my part, that's the name Jesse eventually picked out.

The first couple weeks were rough. She barked in her kennel (which I'd borrowed from a friend) the first few nights (normal), and since we were both working full time, Taz was usually pretty wound up when we got home. Finding a routine was difficult, as our daughter Emmy was born a few weeks later, which brought along its own chaos...

Taz grew pretty quick, and we eventually were able to put her outside for the day while we were at work. In theory, that worked pretty well, except for two things..

First, she liked to dig under the fence... Once I put landscape timbers at the bottom of every fence panel, the problem was mostly solved (she could dig, but not very far), and she eventually grew out of digging.

Second was a life-long vice for her -- she barked. A lot. So bad that our neighbors left an anonymous note on our door one day (we figured it out because she was the only stay-at-home mom around us...). I went to Petsmart, and came home with a bark collar which shocked her after a warning beep... It worked.

As she grew, she started shedding. A lot. Instead of Rottie hair, she wound up with Border Collie hair, and lots of it.... As a result, she spent little time in the house, and a lot more time outside.

When we moved a year and a half later to our second house, there was a perfect corner for a doghouse. She apparently liked that, and getting her out of the doghouse at times was a challenge... We eventually stopped trying to bring her in at night, and let her stay in the yard where she was apparently happy. And that's how she spent her next few years -- as an outside dog whenever weather permitted.

All dogs have their quirks...

Taz hated storms... Living in Texas, thunderstorms are a way of life from April to September. She'd start barking (shocks from the collar be damned) until we brought her inside to the laundry room. We couldn't leave her anywhere she could see the lightning, or else she'd continue to freak out. On February 1, 2003, we woke up early to find Taz barking like crazy at the back door. I could hear the bark collar going off, but she kept barking on what was otherwise a perfectly clear day. When we heard the news a few hours later about the space shuttle Columbia breaking up over Texas, I knew she'd heard the sonic booms of debris re-entering, and probably thought it was a thunderstorm approaching...

She was also deathly afraid of storm drains and swimming. If we were taking a walk and there was a storm drain on our path, she'd start pulling as hard as she could to get away from it. Best I could guess is a bad experience before being brought to the shelter... When we built our pool, we found out she could swim as well as any of our other dogs could, but never voluntarily. We'd toss her in once in a while if she got particularly muddy, and she hated it. To the day we left Arizona, she never really trusted me when we were around the pool...

Even as a puppy, Taz wasn't one to play with toys. Throw a ball at her, and she'd just get out of the way. Tug-o-war ropes? Forget it. She'd go to town on a real bone, but just couldn't be bothered with rawhides.

Being part Rottie, Taz was protective, and occasionally had a nasty streak, especially when around other dogs. She also snapped at the kids (and nieces and nephews) once in a while, sometimes breaking skin...fortunately ,she never bit a non-family member.

And then there were her paws... She was deathly protective of her paws. Trimming her nails was impossible without serious effort (wrapping her head in a towel to protect me from being bit). When we built our pool in 2001, that helped a lot, as her walking on the concrete deck wore them down to a managable length. But to the end, if someone went to touch one of her paws, she'd usually react with a snap or a growl.

We started camping in 2003, and on our longer trips, it didn't make sense for her to go with just to be locked inside, so she stayed home and we had the neighbors or Jesse's classmates look after her. Being an outside dog, it was usually just a matter of making sure she had food (we free-fed her), and she'd drink from the pool. On shorter trips within Texas and Oklahoma, she came with us. She loved riding in the car and occasionally the bed of the truck.

In 2005, we took her with us to Caprock Canyon near the Texas panhandle. While I was walking with the kids in the campground, she pulled a little ahead of me (rare), and then turned to block us from walking. She'd never done that before, but after looking about 15 feet down the sidewalk, I saw why -- there was a 5 foot long rattlesnake sunning itself on the sidewalk... I don't think she'd never seen a snake before, certainly not a rattlesnake, but the border collie instinct kicked in.

In 2006, we moved to Arizona, which was a big change for Taz. No longer did we have a yard she could live in 24/7, so she moved into the house... She was nine by that time, and had mellowed a lot, but still shed hair like crazy... Knowing her aversion to snakes, I wasn't too concerned with that possibility, but there were also rats, spiders and the excessive heat to deal with. We knew we would have to get used to the hair, and she'd have to adjust to losing her doghouse. She started out by sleeping on the floor by our bed, and then moved up to on the bed to sleep at Vicki's feet. She may have been old, but was never too old to jump up onto the bed or the couch...

Taz's undoing was eventually her temper. In 2007, we got a yellow lab (Maggie) who she promptly ignored for about two months, and finally started to assert her place as the Alpha. Even when Maggie was twice her size and weight, Taz maintained her Alpha spot. In 2009, we got a third dog (chocolate Lab) (Coogee), and as with Maggie, Taz ignored her for the first few weeks, and then let her know who was really in charge.

Maggie, unfortunately, was technically a teenager by this time, and decided that she'd had enough of being the #2 dog. What used to be playful wrestling with Taz started to get ugly. More than a few times, Taz would instigate a fight, and they would both wind up with cuts on their snouts and ears. In one particularly nasty fight, Maggie suffered a 2" diameter tear on her shoulder (and we suffered $400 in vet bills), while Taz wound up with some nasty contusions on her jaw that took about a week to heal.

Every couple of weeks, they'd get into a really nasty fight, and while Taz continued to hold the top spot, we knew the day would come where Maggie would stop backing down and we'd have serious injuries for one or both dogs.

A couple weeks after moving to Illinois, they had a knock-down-drag-out under the kitchen table, and Taz's jaw wound up with a 3" long rip in it... Even after we got the bleeding stopped, she wanted to go back for more.

Three days later, we had her put to sleep.

Putting her down was horribly difficult for both Vicki and I, but we knew it would eventually have to happen. Aside from the fights, she was in good health. She had all her teeth, didn't suffer from being blind (although I think she was developing cataracts..), arthritic, or some other illness, and it's a little comforting to know she was never in any persistant pain. We also didn't have to go thru the trauma of coming home to find that she'd died (or worse, to have it happen while I was away on business). Still, we knew that the fighting wasn't going to stop, and it wasn't practical to keep the two separated at all times.

All that said, it was painful nevertheless for us, and I'm sure we'll always second guess the decision.

The day before she left us, we had a family birthday party for Emmy, and from what I could tell, Taz had a good day. No dog fights, and at the end of the night, she was chasing her tail, and rolling around on the carpet, acting a little like a puppy again for a couple hours... She had no idea what the next day had in store for her (or maybe she did?), but that's how I will remember her -- tongue out & smiling, rolling around on her back on the carpet. She did that on the grass in Texas, in Arizona, and in Chicago. And I'm sure she's probably doing that now...

She was a pain at times, but Taz will always hold a very special place in our hearts. I miss her terribly, and am thankful she was able to be part of the family for as long as she was...

Obama's Campaign Promises: One Year Later

2009-11-03T19:09:00.000-08:00

About a year ago, Investors Business Daily posted the following list of Obama Campaign Promises.... I thought I'd revisit this more often, but honestly, there hasn't been much to follow. He hasn't done any of them as far as I can tell...

Taxes
Give a tax break to 95% of Americans.
Restore Clinton-era tax rates on top income earners.
"If you make under $250,000, you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime. Not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes. Nothing."
Dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes.
Give American businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every job they create in the U.S.
Eliminate capital gains taxes for small business and startup companies.
Eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000.
Expand the child and dependent care tax credit.
Expand the earned income tax credit.
Create a universal mortgage credit.
Create a small business health tax credit.
Provide a $500 "make work pay" tax credit to small businesses.
Provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to families.
Energy
Spend $15 billion a year on renewable sources of energy.
Eliminate oil imports from the Middle East in 10 years.
Increase fuel economy standards by 4% a year.
Weatherize 1 million homes annually.
Ensure that 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012.
Environment
Create 5 million green jobs.
Implement a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Get 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015.
Labor
Sign a fair pay restoration act, which would overturn the Supreme Court's pay discrimination ruling.
Sign into law an employee free choice act — aka card check — to make it easier for unions to organize.
Make employers offer seven paid sick days per year.
Increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2009.
National security
Remove troops from Iraq by the summer of 2010.
Cut spending on unproven missile defense systems.
No more homeless veterans.
Stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.
Finish the fight against Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorists.
Social Security
Work in a "bipartisan way to preserve Social Security for future generations."
Impose a Social Security payroll tax on incomes above $250,000.
Match 50% of retirement savings up to $1,000 for families earning less than $75,000.
Education
Demand higher standards and more accountability from our teachers.
Spending
Go through the budget, line by line, ending programs we don't need and making the ones we do need work better and cost less.
Slash earmarks.
Health care
Lower health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.
Let the uninsured get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress get.
Stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.
Spend $10 billion over five years on health care information technology.

Losing The 2016 Games: Blame Bush

2009-10-03T11:41:00.001-07:00

I knew it was just a matter of time. Its like the game Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon: every failure for the US must somehow be George Bush's fault.

Roland Burris, the appointed replacement to The Annointed One's seat, has now stated in an interview that even Barack Obama making an unprecedented pitch for the games could not overcome the hatred the world has for us as a result of George Bush.

Perhaps Valerie Jarrett and some of ACORN's leaders can save face, and come up with a way to sponsor Chicago being the host city for the Obamics...

2009-09-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'm just not a good reader, but I don't see anything in here about legislating health care, nationalizing the largest automotive manufacturer in the world, or forcing people to join a union without a vote:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Congress shall have power
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;—And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

It's long overdue for the states to reminding Washington what exactly they're allowed to do...

Blogging from seat 3E...

2009-09-18T18:21:00.001-07:00

Gotta say this is addicting. AA has wifi on a lot of it's fleet now, and two of my last three flights had it.

On my flight last Monday, I had full email, Gmail chat-to-SMS working with my wife, Windows Messenger to someone at work, VPN to my network share, and it never burped....

Tonight, no work. Its Friday. My time. Just play. AppStore and some browsing... And obviously, blog posting...

I'm gonna have to fork over the $8 per flight or get a subscription... Well worth it. My 90-ish minutes of added productivity on Monday saved me at least that much time in at-the-hotel-work, not to mention the convenience of being able to get/give answers to/from co-workers without the next-day lag I'd otherwise have had...

Great product. Try it. You'll be hooked too.

Final approach

2009-09-14T21:52:00.003-07:00

Currently flying over Illinois, and about 20 minutes from landing in Chicago, both literally and figuratively. After three years in AZ, I officially start a new job tomorrow. Lights of the small towns are a welcome sight, and not something you see much of when flying over the desert...

I've been away from Illinois for 18 years, so it will be interesting seeing how we all adjust individually and as a family. I really loved living in Texas and the desert, and have never liked living in the city.

I really am looking forward to pizza in square cuts with a slightly firm crust, though. That alone makes putting up with the winter worthwhile....

Cathay Pacific

2009-09-14T21:52:00.001-07:00

These were my second and third flight with CX, the first being an A330 in 2007. Both legs were on a 744 and far more comfortable than the Airbus.

CX uses "coffin" seats which are angled so business class seat has direct access to the aisle. On one leg, I was in the last row of business class on the main deck (zone b), and the other was in back of the mid cabin exit on the upper deck. It was a bit confining, but better than climbing over someone else. And in fully flat mode, it was somewhat comfortable for sleeping. Managed to get about six hours of sleep, which is more than my norm on airplanes...

What I didn't like was the total inability to see out the windows. Even turned on an angle, it was painful to see. There's also very little storage... Seat gets a B-

Food was very good, extremely attentive service, and a good mix of Asian and Western choices. lie-flat seat was fairly comfortable. Entrees were presented on a cart, similar to Iberia. I'm starting to prefer that -- an option I'd chosen from the description looked a lot less appealing in person. Since I love Asian, the choices were easier. A+ for quality and portion sizes...

The movie choices overwhelming... 100 movies, 350 tv shorts, and 888 tracks of music... Watched State of Play, The Hangover, The Boat That Rocked (not even released yet in US). Did a lot of work, too... Only wish was for a USB port in addition to the 110v plug. Headset stowage was in an akward location -- slightly behind the seatback, and best accessed with the seat slightly reclined. A+ for IFE.

Lounges at HKG are outstanding. In the First Class portions of both The Wing and The Pier, they offer a self-serve buffet with a wide variety of hot choices, sushi, and salads. They also have private rooms, where you can sleep, dine, and watch TV, and a separate showers area. Again, extremely attentive staff. Arrivals lounge was smaller and hard to find, but provisioned equally well.

Lounges at LAX were less impressive. It's essentially a Qantas Club. Variety of food was greater in the business class side than in the first class, but the liquor and wines were much better on the first side. I don't drink a lot of wine, and had to go to the business class side for a draft beer or a fountain soda. Seats were less comfortable and it was definitely more crowded, but I didn't feel like walking back and forth repeatedly for three hours, so I just stayed on the business class side.

A++ for lounges at HKG. B+ for the QF Club at LAX...

Trip Report - Hong Kong

2009-09-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong... It's one of the few cities I've wanted to visit for a long time but never had the opportunity to do so until now.

I only had about eight hours, split across two days to do any sightseeing -- this was after all a work trip first and foremost...

I'd arrived into Chek Lap Kok about 0500, and was out of immigration by 0525, but that was still a half-hour before the hotel's shuttle service started to run, so I found the Cathay Arrivals Lounge, took a shower, read some email, and had a little breakfast. That's one of those elusive perks I'm likely to lose if I don't earn another 40,000 flying miles on AA or other oneworld carrier this year. Then it was off to the hotel, just to find out that they wouldn't have any rooms available until around noon. Hardly unexpected, and yet another reason why I took a shower at the arrivals lounge. At least I felt human, so I checked my bags with the hotel, and headed off on the metro to do a little exploring.

HKG airport was built pretty far east in the chain of islands which compromise the former colony -- Chek Lap Kok was leveled, and the channel between it and Lantau Island filled in to make the airport complex back in the late 90's. So getting to the city takes at least 30 minutes by cab, 22 minutes by express train, and 45 minutes by metro from Tung Chung, which is where my hotel was.

Riding the metro during rush hour was unintended, but that's the time I was there... It's staggering to see how many people can be crammed into so small of a space. Being the tall American, I probably had a different perspective of it than others - I was able to look down the entire 8 car length of the train and see nothing but people. Walking thru the stations in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, same thing. Just seas of people everywhere...

Since I knew I would be on Hong Kong Island later in the week, I chose to head out into the New Territories -- north of Kowloon but south of the PRC border -- to see Che Kung Temple and the Hong Kong Cultural History museum. The temple was interesting, but the museum was unfortunately closed on Tuesdays... that little tid-bit was left out of my tourist guide. I'd also hoped to get up to see the Big Buddah on Lantau Island, but the cable tram which goes up there was closed for annual maintenance... It also worked out to be one of the hottest days -- 27C and about 80% humidity. Not exactly pleasant, and I was drenched in sweat after being outside for about 30 minutes, so it was back to the hotel for a shower, lunch and a nap.

Later in the week, one of my work colleagues and I decided to be real tourists, and go up to Victoria Peak. We took the tram up, and had about 45 minutes to wander around the top and see the city from up high. Again, staggering to see just how many high-rise apartment and office towers there are in such a small space. We'd timed it to be later in the afternoon so we'd catch some views of the cityscape with the building lights on, but Mother Nature didn't want to cooperate.

Because you can never time your trip to have perfect weather, we were actually under a Level 3 Typhoon Warning. The scale goes from 1 to 8, and while 3 was not exactly dangerous, we were in the outer rain bands of the storm, and while on top of the Peak, the winds kicked up something fierce, and 20 minutes later, the rains hit. Impressive to say the least...

From there, we took a cab down to the somewhat famous Yung Kee restaurant where we were meeting with two other coworkers. The neon was everywhere, and so were the people. After dinner, we wandered around the streets a bit between rain bands. The only thing we didn't get a chance to do was ride the Star Ferry, but given the weather, decided to call it a night and stay dry.

Definitely somewhere I'd like to go back to in the future, preferably not in typhoon season... maybe in winter...

Enroute to China

2009-09-06T17:44:00.001-07:00

Sort of... Hong Kong, actually, but Kowloon is on the mainland, so it counts in my book.

Started out on WN to LAX. A boringly normal flight, but surprisingly full for Sunday before Labor Day. Even the Fast Park was full today, which means lots of people buying airline tickets. Good, but if they were as cheap as mine, not very profitable for the airlines.

At LAX, I had a four hour wait until my CX flight. Rather than slumming at In-N-Out in Westchester on Sepulveda, I chose the oneworld lounge in TBIT.... My frequent flyer status qualifies me for the First Class Lounge, so im going to enjoy a sit-down dinner, some adult beverages, and get some work done in relative peace abd quiet.

It sounds perhaps a bit decadent and indulgent, but as my days of long-haul flying are winding down, I won't requalify for Executive Platinum on AA this year, and won't be able to sneak into the inner sanctum until some time in 2010, so I have to enjoy the perks while I can... I'll still have my Admirals Club membership, but they don't have the food selections that the business and first lounges do...

The lounge is fairly boring and sterile. lots of light colors, but no real views of the airfield, and looking around the corner, it's pretty much the same as the business class lounge... Food choices include some spicy red curry, an eggplant & veggie dish, chicken over noodles, and a selection of finger sandwiches (salmon, chicken, veggie). But it's quiet, there's free wifi, and I don't have to listen to flight announcements.

Next up... my flight to HKG... in about five hours....

The Purpose Driven Storage Unit

2009-08-31T20:55:00.001-07:00

Is it half empty or half full??

Prepping the house...

2009-08-29T17:51:00.001-07:00

I hate moving... The Queen goes into hyper-nesting mode and has to fix everything in the house, knowing full well that the new owners are probably going to repainting all that we just painted...

This week, we added new archway trim in all the main rooms, crown molding in the dining room, new rock in the back yard...

Today we met with a realtor. Good news is we might manage to break even. Only time will tell.

Changing of the Guard in MA

2009-08-27T07:27:00.000-07:00

Ted Kennedy's passing marks the end of the Kennedy political dynasty, and possibly will bring a much more moderate voice the the Senate.

When John Kerry was running for President, Kennedy and other Dems were concerned that the Republican governor of MA would appoint a conservative to replace Kerry, so the state enacted legislation at Kerry and Ted's urging requiring a special election be held to replace a vacancy in the Senate. It's a fair way to avoid pay-to-play actions like what we just saw in Illinois, and it's only fair that elected officials actually be elected...

Fast forward eight years... Kennedy realizes he's finally facing justice for Chapaquiddick and leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to die, and realizes that in a real election, it's possible now that Obummer's policies and the popularity of Dems means a real possibility that a moderate or even a conservative might replace him...

So does he honor the legislation change from 2004? Nope. He tried to roll back the clock and have his successor appointed by the current Dem Governor...

There are still efforts underway to reverse Massachussets law and allow the Gov to appoint his replacement, but hopefully law will prevail and that doesn't happen. The vacancy is now there, and the Kerry law is in effect at the time the vacancy occurred.

If it does revert back to appointment, I expect you'll see even bigger tea parties in Boston...

What Are The Chances...

2009-08-24T23:31:00.001-07:00

...of getting a job located in a building just a block away from where my dad's last office building in the Loop was?... Granted, that was 35+ years ago, but in a city the size of Chicago, the odds of winning the lottery are probably better...

Toys

2009-08-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

We're starting to get our house ready to put on the market, and have been doing a lot of the usual "this box never got unpacked when we moved the last time" type cleaning... I have a lot of music equipment that I haven't really used since my 20's (except for a couple times with a church in Texas). I can't part with all of them, but I did decide to check out CraigsList.Com to see if any of them still had some value. Surprisingly, my Roland D-5 might still be worth almost half what I paid for it in 1990. If I had a DX-7, it would still be worth quite a bit as well.

But the following ad really caught my eye:

2 fast PC's, loaded with ram and hard drives, Nuendo, Cubase and all the plugius, Kontakt 3, Layla soundcard and Delta 1010 soundcard. 2 15" LCD monitors, KVM switch to switch monitors between computers, 1 Mac 7200 running MastertracksPro sequencing software, 2 midi interfaces. 2 Rode NT1 Microphones w/ 2 Event Electronics Mic. preamps, 2 heavy duty studio mic stands w/ shock mounts. 4 tier custom Keyboard stand, Roland Phantom keyboard, XP50 keyboard, R 8M drum module, Alesis D4 (both drum modules accept trigger in), Proteus module, Korg M3R module, 2 oak racks, Sony 100 w stereo amp, Alesis Studio 32 mixing board, 2 JBL studio monitors, Nakamichi cassette deck, all cabling, power supplies w/ battery backup. Best offer for all. Must sell this weekend. Losing home. I'm tearing it all down this weekend, so somebody is going to get real lucky. call Ron 555-1212

Granted, some of it probably wasn't new, but some of it is, and combined, is worth thousands.

And he's losing his house. Sad. He had money for the toys, but no money for the mortgage.

Hmmm...

Back Online...

2009-08-20T08:01:00.001-07:00

Sorry, the company who has been hosting my server and domain pulled the plug on their hosting services on short notice.

For the past two years, I've hosted my blog on a real server, and only used Blogger as a content management tool. The hosting was free, so I'm not complaining about the short notice, but I really had no desire to pay $100-150 a year for hosting somewhere else.

Instead, I made the business decision to just go with the flow and use BlogSpot's hosting, and redirect my custom domain. For some reason, I could redirect to Blog.Lanehog.Com, but had no ability to redirect WWW.Lanehog.com due to some internal config issues to an expired Google Apps account also referencing this domain... After a few attempts, it got resolved, and now all is well in the world.

And no, I'm not complaining about Google or Blogger. For the price, you can't beat their services. I'll have to give up some of the flexibility I had to throw a custom page with programming onto Lanehog, but I just can't justify the price of doing that right now...

Five Things I Miss About Texas

2009-08-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

Vicki would have her own list, starting with our old house, but here are a few of mine, in no particular order...

1. Braum's
2. Colter's
3. Esparza's
4. QuikTrip
5. Freeways

Braums... definitely one of my favorite places for ice cream. Nothing spectacular, but it's consistently good. They purposely keep the number of stores to a manageable level, and within a day's drive of their dairy in Oklahoma. So we'll never see them in Arizona anytime soon...

Colter's... Love hate with this place -- we used to have staff meetings there and we'd have to watch my boss at the time lecture us while there was food and sauce stuck in his moustache and beard... It's taken me time to get over that, and this week, I got to spend an extended lunch there working, thanks to their complementary wifi. Again, not the best BBQ in Texas, but it's consistent, and reasonably priced.

Esparza's... One of my favorite Mexican places in Grapevine. It's in a former funeral parlor, but the food is nothing near death. Great salsa for the chips, and good cooking. Didn't get to have a margarita tonight because I was driving.

QuikTrip... OK, it's just a gas station. But we don't have them in our part of AZ, and I love their selection of sodas and hot food (4 different types of taquitos, 6 different types of hot dogs...), and always plenty of room to park or gas up... When we first moved to AZ, we'd try to stop at a QT in PHX whenever we drove up there for the day. The Queen somehow managed to buy at least one of just about everything imaginable sold at Ikea about a year ago, so we don't get up there anymore...

Freeways... I hate traffic, but there's something to be said about being able to go 20 miles away in 20 minutes. You just can't do that in Tucson. No freeways, unless you count I-10, so everything is on arterials with stoplights... I don't know how you grow a city to be 1M in population without some form of freeway system, but somehow TUS managed to do just that.

Back in Texas

2009-08-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

Got to spend a couple days in Texas this week... Unlike the last two trips this year, I had some holes in my schedule and was able to get back up towards our old house, and see some friends. A good time, no doubt, but damn, I really don't miss this place as much as I thought I did.

The first welcome back was at DFW. My rental car was tagged with 35% in taxes... Yes, that's 35, and not 3.5 with a missing decimal... Unbelievable. I hadn't rented a car at the airport in over 18 years, so this was a shocker to me, and I actually pondered the idea of saying "no thanks" and just taking a cab to the hotel...

The second welcome back was the humidity... Jeez... It was only 95F outside, but after ten minutes outside waiting for the rental car bus, I was drenched in sweat...

Third welcome back was the traffic. I had to jump online and do some work before leaving the airport (thanks to the Admirals Club wifi... lifesaver!). By the time I left the airport it was after 7pm, but I still sat in bumper to bumper traffic going down TX-360 to Arlington.

The upside to the evening... I stopped at Six Flags for an hour, and got to ride the Titan, Texas Giant, Batman the Ride, and Mr. Freeze. All that in an hour. Not wanting to press my luck, and with my brain somewhat scrambled, I headed out to dinner and finally to the hotel...

Adventures in Driving

2009-08-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

Our oldest son just got his drivers license a few weeks back... Talk about feeling old.

With school back in session, it's sort of a relief, in that I no longer have to make that drop-off on the way to work, and it's nice having someone else who can run to the store while we're trying to cook dinner, but I think it's an understatement to say it's more than a little frightening...

Green Two (our 9 year old Jeep Cherokee) is now his "to drive"... He think's it's his forever, but I'm just not ready to part with it yet... Green Two had been garaged for the past year, knowing this day would come. After a couple hundred bucks in repairs (new battery, headlights; the engine and tranny mounts had long rotted away, and a couple of the mounting bolts had actually broken off in the block...), she passed inspection and was back in the street legal category.

Something else about Green Two -- the 6" lift kit and 35" tires... Being a 4x4, it's just a matter of time before #1 would want to take her off-roading, so he and I headed off last Sunday to a place lovingly known as "The Pit" which is really a river bottom, and did a little exploring. #1 did the driving, and #3 came along for the ride..

I have to say, he did pretty well for his first time off pavement. We found our fair share of scrub to run into my side of the Jeep (depth perception is acquired, eh?), and a few two-tracks which had been pretty well rutted out. Climbs up and down were no problem, and there was only one point where I really got concerned and had to take over... We were driving on an angle up an incline, and he managed to plant the right front tire high enough that the left front was airborne, and the right rear was at first digging in, and then also airborne because he'd spun it a little too much...

After we switched, I managed to let gravity work, took another stab at heading up the ridge, and got up, but deemed it a little too much for him to try again on his first day out. So we headed off in another direction for a while.

I love getting off road and exploring, and I could tell he was having an absolute blast as well. I know he's going to head out on his own with his friends some day, and I'll find out the Jeep is either stuck or rolled, but hopefully that won't happen for some time...

Ah, the religion of peace and tolerance...

2009-08-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

CNN is reporting the following...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Six people were killed in Pakistan on Saturday when Muslim demonstrators set fire to houses in a Christian enclave and fighting broke out, local police said.

Police said Muslims were enraged over an alleged desecration of pages in the Quran at a Christian wedding last Saturday, and held a rally to protest. The Quran is the Muslim sacred text.

The Muslims went to the Christian community in Gojra City, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Lahore, and burned 40 to 50 houses. Muslims and Christians exchanged gunfire.

Police said efforts to settle the concerns with dialogue so far have failed.

On Thursday, 15 Christian houses in the region were also torched.

Pakistan is predominantly Muslim but has a small Christian community.

Meanwhile, police in Islamabad reported Friday that an al Qaeda member thought to be involved in several attacks was arrested.

Bin Yamin, a senior police official in Islamabad, identified the suspect as Rao Shakir Ali.

Police believe he was involved in strikes on targets such as the Danish Embassy, a rally of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chauhdary, police, and a hotel.

The suspect is a resident of Sargodha, which is 165 kilometers (about 100 miles) northwest of Lahore and has a house in Rawalpindi that has been used to facilitate insurgent acts, police said.

2800 miles in 10 days

2009-07-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

We're back... Yellowstone and the Tetons were awesome, and we even managed to squeeze in a couple hours each at Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon North Rim.

Photos to come sometime this week.

And then, maybe some discussion on Sarah Palin, and the long awaited "Obama's Campaign Promises Update... I was going to do that quarterly, but it would have been really short. Then again, so will this one...

Hmmm....

2009-06-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

My hotel in Colombia used to be a monastery. They still have a large open space with an altar for worship, and a confessional which is available three nights a week.

When you look at the choice of items for the minibar, I guess having the confessional onsite makes a little more sense.

Normandy, 65 Years Later

2009-06-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

Today marks the 65th Anniversary of D-Day. For those under 40, it's the day that the Allies invaded France, and liberated it from the Germans during World War II.

Ironically, I'm sitting in Nice, France, where it's quite nice (if it weren't for all the tourists), watching the commemoration ceremonies live. Obama's there, as are hundreds of veterans and their families, and heads of government French President Nicholas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Ironically, none of the four heads of government were alive during the conflict, let alone served. Queen Elizabeth II, however, actually served in the conflict, and wasn't officially invited by the French... Go figure.

When people accuse the US of trying to impose its will on the world, perhaps they'd do well to reflect on the selfless actions taken 65 years ago. France would not be the country it is today had it not been for the sacrifice of tens of thousands of men and women from the United States or the Commonwealth. They didn't die defending their country's borders --- they died on the shores of Normandy, in Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

Then again, as recent history is showing, many in the US are also unable to also realize that the freedoms they enjoy came at a price. It wasn't just handed out to us.

Shocking...

2009-05-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of buzz over the past couple days about an Oregon man who apparently shocked his kids with a dog collar. Not exactly the fine model of parenting most of us would come to expect, but hey, somebody has to be the worst at it...

I've got three dogs, and Taz has worn a shock collar like the one above since she was a puppy. Without the collar, she'll bark for hours. With it, we get a couple of light woofs once in a while, which she's learned is enough to trick the collar into not going off... And yes, I've been shocked by it from handling once in a while. A little worse than a nasty static shock from carpet and metal, but just annoying, and not lethal. Taz may have a nasty disposition at times, but I don't think it's from the collar.

Step back into the time machine.... remember Troopergate, and how outraged the world was that Sarah Palin tried to get her ex-brother in law fired?

I find it sad, yet totally predictable, that while the media is up in arms about what this dad in Oregon did, nobody in the media seemed to focus much on the fact that Palin's ex-brother-in-law used a taser on his 10 year old stepson. And no, nobody seemed to be nearly as outraged as they are over the Oregon guy.

For the record, I don't endorse doing this, and I trust this shmuck in Oregon will get the punishment he deserves.

It's just too bad the media couldn't see as clearly when it came to Mike Wooten. Instead, they were off committing journalistic malpractice by attacking the whistleblowers instead of the actual criminals.

The Oregon guy is in jail. Mike Wooten still is employed as a law enforcement officer. Go figure.

What's even more discouraging... Had Palin not taken any action, I'm sure some cutting edge liberal investigative reporter would now be pointing out how the Palin's abused privilege by condoning similar actions on her nephew by a family member.

Dog Days of Springtime

2009-04-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

"You move 15 tons, and whaddayou get... another day older and deeper in debt... St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go, I owe my life to that Home Depot store..."

Some people go to the beach for the weekend, some head for the lake, others to the mountains...

We decided to move a mountain. Of rock.... 15 tons worth... In case you're wondering, that comes out to about 180 wheelbarrow loads.

As many of you know, Maggie the Yellow Lab won an award two years ago as the most destructive dog in the State of Arizona. She's met her match in Coogee...

Last year, we put a fence up to keep Maggie out of the pool area, but she still managed to get at it over the winter. And she's been training Coogee in the off season.

Now, what does 15 tons of rock have to do with Maggie?

In preparing for putting down the rock, what Maggie and Coogee didn't destroy, the teenage landscapers did...

So, in addition to laying down 15 tons of rock, I got to rebuild the drip system for the third year in a row. This year, I decided to improve a bit. When the original system was installed, the flex pipe used got mixed in with the regular PVC pipes for the grass pop-up sprinklers. Not a problem, except there were places where it was near impossible to get to the flex pipe to plug holes or put in new drip lines.

Rather than fight the same battle I'd lost twice, this year, I ran new flex pipe along the edge of the pool deck, and for good measure, installed PVC where the dogs had access to the flex-pipe along the house wall... All in all, a good six hours of work, and a moderate success. I also have the added benefit of now knowing where all the lines are, which will make repairs a heck of a lot easier.

The dogs? They're just waiting for the opportunity to get into the pool area. They saw where I was working...

OK, now what do I watch?...

2009-04-03T20:52:00.000-07:00

For 15 years, they've been a fixture in living rooms around the world, including ours. This week, ER said goodbye, and I have to say, did so with style.

Spoiler alert for those who didn't see the show yet.... stop reading now. Close the browser. Now.

For the rest of us who did see it on Thursday night, watched it online at NBC.Com, or, like millions of others, downloaded it illegally off the internet, it was a good way to close things out.

Over the past six months, we've seen all of the original cast return in some form or fashion. The flashback sequences with Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) , Mark Green (Anthony Edwards) and my personal favorite, Robert Romano (Paul McCrane). John Carter (Noah Wyle) returning from Africa, and winding up on the table for transplant surgery with none other than Peter Benton (Eriq Lasalle) at his side, an almost direct flashback to Season 3, when Benton winds up on the table with Carter doing the honors. And yes, Doug Ross (George Clooney) and Carol Hathaway Ross (Julianna Margulies) made their reappearance, albeit from a distance. Jeanie Boulet (Gloria Ruben) made her return early in the season. I was really starting to wonder about Susan Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) , who finally showed up in the finale.

There were only a few recurring characters who didn't return in the last season. Of those who lasted more than two seasons, only Deb Jing-Mei Chen (Ming Na) and Yosh Takata (Gedde Watanabe) didn't come back in some form or fashion. Don Anspaugh (John Alyward) also didn't make any appearances, however he was referred to in two of the last episodes, including the finale.

I must admit, I really like how they handled the finale. In the opening sequence of the , Archie Morris (Scott Grimes) is woken up by Lydia Wright (Ellen Crawford), which is something she did in the pilot to Mark Greene. They opened not with the newer techno music, but with the original Marty Davich theme.

Greg Pratt's brother Chaz is giving a tour to a group of med students, and one keeps lagging behind the rest. It turns out to be Rachel Greene (Halle Hirsch), Mark's daughter, now 22 and in med school and applying to CGH.

During the remainder of the episode, a few loose ends are tied up for good. The Carter Center is opened, and John's estranged wife Kem makes a reappearance at the opening reception, but it's not the happy ending some expected. Taggert and Gates finally reunite, and Benton and Elizabeth Corday (Alex Corday) have a very brief moment in which they finally become friends again following their breakup over ten years earlier.

The closing scene, and last line? Absolutely perfect. There's a mass trauma coming in during the middle of the night. All the docs and nurses are standing by in the bay, almost as though it is a curtain call, awaiting the arrival of the first ambulance.

Ambulances start to arrive, and organized chaos ensues as the injured are brought in one by one.

Carter, heading in with one of the last patients, turns around and calls out to Rachel, who has been standing on the edge of the action, watching with interest...

"Dr. Greene, are you coming?"

A smile breaks out on her face, and she runs in after Carter, following in her father's footsteps quite literally.

So, rather than there being a real ending, things wound up coming full circle. And definitely not the explosion killing everyone in one fell swoop as some radicals expected...

Thanks to John Wells for an excellent ending to a series that I was convinced had lost its way a year earlier... It's too bad Michael Crichton wasn't around for the final curtain, but just as the Mark Greene character would have watching the final scene unfold, I'm sure he would have approved.