Drew's Blog

Ike's Wrath

2008-09-13T20:22:00.004-05:00

This is Interstate 45 going into Galveston. This picture was taken about here:

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Look on the map at all the houses to the west of the interstate, they are probably all gone.

Salt Lake City

2008-09-12T17:47:00.004-05:00

I've always liked Salt Lake City, probably because I'm from Houston (flat as a pancake) and it's surrounded by mountains. Here's the view from my hotel room window.

Ridin' the Storm Out 2008

2008-09-12T17:23:00.004-05:00

When Hurricane Rita was bearing down on Houston in September 2005, I was in Calgary, and I stayed the weekend to visit Banff and Lake Louise. Now Hurricane Ike is aimed directly for Houston and I'm in Salt Lake City, leaving on one of the last flights out on Friday morning with the storm predicted to hit sometime Friday evening. I think it's better to evacuate when you have a chance, most of the folks I know are staying in case something happens. Hopefully everyone will be okay.

Top 10 Things if Drew Were Elected President

2008-09-09T17:27:00.000-05:00

10) I would require IQ test for driver's licenses, voter's registration (clearly needed if I was elected president), and cell phone licenses (yes, I said cell phone licenses). There would be stupid people lanes on the freeway for those that don't make top scores.
9) Report all communists
8) Compulsory border patrol service for all illegal immigrants (don't you just love the irony?)
7) I would immediately declare war on France
6) Presidential cheerleaders. Too much negativity in politics, not enough positive energy
5) They'd have to let me drive Air Force One
4) Reporters who ask me hard questions would be sent to the camps.
3) Balance the budget with a tax on Michael Bolton
2) Immediately grant all terrorists the martyrdom they desire
1) White House Party

My running-mate would be Meg Ryan.

In-N-Out Burger

2008-09-05T17:17:00.001-05:00

When I was in San Francisco I made it a point to have an In-N-Out Burger before I left. Now that's a good burger.

Labor Day 2008

2008-09-01T20:03:00.005-05:00

Because it’s Labor Day, I’ve been thinking about all of the jobs I’ve had in my life. I don't remember what I wanted to be when I grew up, my earliest memory of a career path is when I was in high school. I wanted to learn about computers (they were pretty new back then, I was one year removed from punch cards on a mainframe at UT) but my dad talked me into majoring in engineering, he said that I could always work with computers with an engineering degree, but if I majored in Computer Science and discovered that I didn't like computers, I was stuck. Even though I really didn't understand what an engineer did, I agreed, and in my first semester I realized that engineering was my calling. There was a big construction wall around the new Mechanical Engineering building, and someone had spray painted "Engineering isn't everything, it's the only thing" on it. Other graffiti was removed, but they left that. It was inspiring, and at the time, I agreed. One professor said (tongue-in-cheek) "I consider anyone not working in the engineering field to be a leach on society." I regret now that my college career was so focused on engineering and left-brain activities. I've come to value my creative side, with reading, writing, and other "liberal art" outlets. If I won the lottery I would go back to university for sure.

My first real job (other than paper routes and mowing lawns) was at the Oakwood Glen swimming pool. A couple of my friends got summer jobs there as lifeguards, and they hired me to come in the morning and clean the pool. It was about 30 minutes of work, six days a week, and I got paid $20/week, which paid for a tank of (leaded) gas!

When I went to school I didn't work my freshman year during the school year, but my sophomore year I had to get a job. I went down to the local Wendy's and applied, and was hired on the spot. That was a tough job at first, mostly mopping, wiping, cleaning grease, on your feet all day long, and then I worked my way up to the salad bar. I occasionally did fries and made burgers, one day I even got to work the grill, but that was a skill position, you had to anticipate how many burgers to have going at the same time. Too few, and everyone has to wait. Too many, and there's a lot of waste. I think I lasted one semester there, I eventually gave my notice when the semester was up. The next semester I was a pizza maker, a much nicer job. No grease, and we ate and drank for free on the job.

In the summers, I became a lifeguard and a swim team coach and swimming instructor at Willow Forest. I made enough money in the summer to last me most of the school year, living large until around April and scrimping by until the summer. Eventually, the pool company I worked for got out of the business of managing lifeguards, and I stayed on as a chlorine delivery truck driver (the world's best!) and commercial pool repair. That was a tough job, I worked 100+ hours a week most weeks in the summertime. The boss worked just as hard as we did, and I really learned a lot about the rewards of hard work and a job well done, and also I learned what I didn't want to do for a living for the rest of my life.

In a break from school I worked as an engineering intern for 3D/International, designing HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems for office buildings. I also worked on the construction of the George R. Brown Houston Convention Center, although I was disappointed when I saw the architectural styling. After returning to Hancock Pool Services for another year, I started working at FERA Corporation as a CAD (computer-aided drafting) technician while I finished up my degree. When I graduated, they hired me as a corrosion engineer. Four years later I went to work at El Paso, and with a brief interlude at Enbridge, I'm back where I was.

I am a Total Loser

2008-08-30T10:55:00.006-05:00

I made a Wordle of my blog (actually, just the RSS feed, so it only includes about the last 25 posts). Boy am I a total geek!

Phelps Miracle Finish

2008-08-16T12:29:00.003-05:00

Sports Illustrated has a series of underwater photos here showing how Michael Phelps beats Milorad Cavic in the 100 Butterfly for the closest of his now presumptive eight gold medals.

I was a swim team coach for summer league age-groupers (ages 4 to 18) during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and we watched some of the swimming events as a team. I saw how important the finish is in winning races, and I showed the team some of the techniques the Olympians used. One of the girls, a 14-year old (her last name was Thomas, I think, her mom was the organizer of the swim team at Willow Forest) came to the pool every day that week and practiced that finish. At the meet on Saturday, she was about a half-length behind this big brute of a girl coming in to the finish of the 13-14 girls 100 IM, and she beat her out at the finish by using the touch she had practiced. It was one of the most rewarding moments I've ever had. Then the other girl's dad came over and asked me to step outside.

How to synchronize files on more than one computer

2008-08-14T19:57:00.004-05:00

In a previous post, I talked about how to check email from more than one computer. Like most folks who work for a company, I have a computer at work and a computer at home. My work computer is a laptop because I travel a lot, and when I'm gone I also need to do things like pay bills, work on my ~~fantasy football~~ personal correspondence, etc. and so I need to share some files on two computers.

I used to do it the old-fashioned way (heh) by emailing files back and forth. This was tedious for synching a lot of files, so I bought a USB hard drive. I'd periodically copy personal files I'd need onto the hard drive, and then copy those files to my laptop. I keep everything like that in a separate directory (called Personal, it's kind of a code) and I would just copy the entire directory. The problem with that is that if I changed any of my personal files on the laptop, they would get overwritten.

Then I discovered FolderShare, now owned by Microsoft and part of their Windows Live (whatever that is). FolderShare is a free service that you can use to keep your files synchronized between your computers, share files with friends or colleagues, and download your files from any computer that's connected to the Internet. It's been working great for me, behind my firewall and router at home, and even behind the corporate firewall (allegedly). I don't run it all the time, but once a week or so I'll leave my computer on at home, I leave the software running all the time, and I'll start the software on my computer at work, and bingo bango bongo, it's done. The software is careful enough not to delete multiple versions of a file, but saves them them under another file name.

There is a limit on the size and number of files, a single directory can't have more than 10,000 files. I synch most of my Personal folders, although I don't include my iTunes library (too many files) or My Pictures (too large). I also synch my Favorites list (I have 2200+ links) between home and work, this works great, our corporate pushes out new links periodically and they appear at home automatically.

FolderShare is a great way to work seamlessly on multiple computers. All of your resources are there no matter where you are. It works great, and best of all, it's a free download (it's in beta now, but I suppose that they may charge for it down the road, after all Microsoft has to make money somehow).

In San Francisco

2008-08-08T18:31:00.002-05:00

Quiz of the Day

2008-08-07T18:44:00.002-05:00

See how many of the most common words you can list in five minutes here.

Recruiting Corrosion Engineers

2008-07-27T22:24:00.002-05:00

Our job market is as hot as it has ever been, I regularly get several calls a week from recruiters looking for corrosion engineers. Our company is taking an active hand in recruiting prospective corrosion personnel from colleges and universities, and they asked me to help them come up with a description of what a corrosion engineer does.

Corrosion Control - we keep exciting things from happening

Corrosion Control - real-life application of the Nine Tenets of Constancy

Corrosion Control - crushing the laws of Thermodynamics, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it? When someone asks me what I do, I usually tell them it's a combination of MacGyver and that guy Q from the James Bond movies.

How I Got Roger Staubach's Autograph

2008-07-26T18:32:00.000-05:00

My friends Kevin and Leslie and their kids took this video of Roger Staubach signing my business card. They sent it to me as a gift because Roger was my childhood hero. It couldn't have been a better gift!

Gasoline Costs

2008-07-25T15:12:00.003-05:00

One of the nice things about using personal financial software (I use MS Money) is that you can very quickly break down where your money is going. Here's my expenditures for gasoline, not counting vacations or business travel (I use different categories for those), over the last eight years. One note, I have a company car that I use for commuting to work, and the company pays for the gas. In the summer of 2005, I left El Paso for Enbridge, and returned in November of 2007. I didn't really think that having a company car helped with my gasoline bill much, since I only live 8 miles from work. I calculate that my commute contributes about $400/year, but from the graph it appears that there is a larger contribution than I thought. I do drive to the airport 20 or 30 times a year, that contributes another $300 or $350 per year. Maybe I'm getting a better deal than I thought? For once?

Drew Bobblehead

2008-07-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I probably watch The Office a little too much.

Le Tour 2008 Week One (or should I say Weak One)

2008-07-13T16:40:00.006-05:00

As I predicted last year in this post, "there will be many more drug scandals before I regain confidence in the fairness of the race." Former US Postal and Discovery team member Manuel Beltran was arrested by French police Friday after testing positive for the banned red-blood cell booster erythropoietin (EPO). He was re-tested on Saturday July 5th after pre-race blood tests showed abnormalities, but the results of the followup testing weren't available until last Friday. (Photo from lequipe.fr)

Under a new French anti-doping law, Beltran faces a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of $121,600 (€76,000). He has been expelled from the Tour, and will be fired from his team pending the results of the testing of the "B" sample. He will likely get a two-year ban from professional cycling, which will be in effect a lifetime ban since Beltran was planning to retire this year after a 14 year career as a top climbing team rider.

This is yet another of Lance Armstrong's teammates who have proved to have been doping. That doesn't make him guilty, but the fact that Lance was able not just to beat but to dominate the best cyclists in the world, when many of them have subsequently been proven to have been doping, makes it more difficult to defend him (and Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton).

Top 10 Tour Disappointments
10) Time-trial specialist and US team Team Garmin-Chipotle member Dave Zibriski's absence due to a back injury.
9) David Millar promised to be a GC contender in the Tour for Team Garmin-Chipotle. After the first mountain stage, he isn't even close. On a day he needed to gain time, he finished 55th in stage 8, losing more than four and a half minutes, and is now 25th overall.
8) French polka-dot jersey winners who can't climb. What an attention-whore Thomas Voeckler is. Not one of the polka-dot jersey wearers so far could hold a real climber's bike shorts.
7) After a fantastic time trial in stage 5, Stefan Schumacher fell near the finish in stage 6 when he ran into the back wheel of Kim Kirchen. He lost the overall to Kiki by 16 seconds, and probably would have had three more days in the yellow jersey.
6) Fabian Cancellara's time trial, the presumtive favorite as a time trial specialist and world champion for the last two years. Everyone was ready to give him the stage win and the yellow jersey. He finished fifth.
5) Robbie McEwen. Or lack thereof.
4) Some of the greatest sprinters in the world are absent from the Tour once again. Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi was banned for one year after testing high for the asthma medication salbutamol. Petacchi holds a therapeutic-use exemption for the otherwise banned substance, he is presumed innocent with levels of up to 1,000 ng/ml, but tested at a level of 1,320 ng/ml. Tom Boonen, last year's green jersey winner, was barred because he tested positive for cocaine outside of competition.
3) Juan Mauricio Soler, last year's polka-dot jersey winner, abandoning because of a fall on the first day of racing.
2) No Alberto Contador (last year's winner) and American Levi Leipheimer (least year's third place finisher) because of the arbitrary ban of Team Astana.
1) We're still talking about drugs in the Tour de France.

Top 10 of the Tour
10) Having a commentator that seems to know something about cycling. Craig Hummer replaced Al Trautwig and he seems to be growing on me, he's dominating the commentator picks. TDFblog described Al Trautwig as combining "bombast and ignorance in staggering proportions!" Hummer doesn't quite have the chemistry with Bob Roll that Trautwig had, but he's doing a great job. Much better than Kirsten Gum. Although not in a sweater.
9) The commentary of Jonathan Vaughters. He's a thousand times better an interview than Johan Bruyneel, and Bruyneel is better than the rest of the team managers. When he used the f-word on live TV, Robbie Ventura's expression was priceless.
8) After a 200 km breakaway, William Frischkorn of Garmin-Chipotle almost pulled it out at the end, settling for second place on the day.
7) Thor Hushovd winning a stage and the leading sprinter in the standings for the green jersey.
6) Bernard Hinault pushing the protester off the podium. The only thing worse than socialist Frenchies are activist socialist Frenchies.

5) Mark Cavendish's domination in the sprints, with two stage wins so far, and possibly more to come if he can make it over the mountains.
4)The cameras and Tour coverage gets better every year. I remember watching Greg LeMond winning the Tour over Laurent Fignon of France in 1989 by 8 seconds. It was on a one-hour tape delayed special, and that was the only coverage of the race that week.
3) Christian Vandevelde in third place overall in the GC standings. Wow. I would have bet money that he'd be toast by now. Go Christian! Another American Tour de France winner would just kill the Frenchies.
2) American teams Columbia's and Garmin-Chipotle's performances. These are teams to be reckoned with.
1) Kim Kirchen of Team Columbia in both the green and yellow jerseys. So far...

New record time to the airport

2008-07-12T09:53:00.000-05:00

On a recent trip, I was running very late for my 7:30 pm flight, I wasn't able to leave my house until 6:38. Traffic wasn't too bad, I got to the airport in good time and parked in the terminal parking lot. There was an open space right up front, and when I walked up to the elevator the doors opened before I hit the button. I arrived at the check-in desk at 7:05, I had checked in online but I had to check a bag. There was an open check-in kiosk, and I walked right up. I breezed through security and I was sitting on the plane at 7:15.

From door to door, 37 minutes. I love Houston Hobby airport, and I love Southwest Airlines.

Progress on the GTO restoration

2008-07-08T20:44:00.002-05:00

The guy working on my GTO called me this evening, and the good news is that he's got the car off the original frame, and the replacement frame is ready to go. The bad news is that there was more corrosion (ironic, isn't it?) than we thought, and a lot of welding of replacement cross members will be needed. This equals more time and more money. But it's coming along, I plan to go down this week to take a look at it.

Le Tour 2008 (or should I say La Tour 2008)

2008-07-08T19:40:00.003-05:00

Well, we're four days into the 2008 Tour de France, and it's been exciting despite the absence of two of the three podium finishers, Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer, both of the barred Team Astana, and the green jersey winner, Tom Boonen, who was barred because he tested positive for cocaine outside of competition. The winners of thirteen of the yellow jerseys from 2007 were banned. The most interesting chapters of this Tour promised to be Mauricio Soler dominating the mountain stages (oops, he fell and broke his wrist) and Fabian Cancellara (who won seven yellow jerseys in 2007) again dominating the time trial events (oops, he came in fifth in today's individual time trial). No Michael Rasmussen, Alexandre Vinokourov, or Alessandro Pettachi. No Floyd Landis. No David Zabriskie. No Fred Rodriguez or Chris Horner. No Johan Bruyneel. No Al Trautwig, even! (although that might be a good thing, Craig Hummer seems to be growing on me)

I'll still watch every minute they broadcast (three hours a day on most days, today was four because of the ITT). There will always be compelling stories, most every day, with underdogs like Romain Feillu, wearing both the white and yellow jerseys yesterday after a 200 km breakaway (William Frischkorn of the US team Garmin Chipotle almost pulled it out at the end) and Stefan Schumacher, winning today's stage over the best time trialers in the world.

Tomorrow should be another great stage for the sprinters, and I think that's one of the most exciting things to watch in sports, which means that there'll be a breakaway that stays out. Or a big crash in the final turn. Ho hum, come on Pyrenees.

Video of the Day

2008-06-24T17:48:00.002-05:00

I love to read the comments on YouTube.

Analysis of a phishing email

2008-06-23T13:05:00.006-05:00

I received this email at my work email address, it appeared in my Junk E-mail folder in Outlook. This is kind of unusual since I rarely receive spam at work, I think we must have pretty good spam filters.

-----Original Message----- From: by-joc@sympatico.ca [mailto:by-joc@sympatico.ca] Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 8:56 AM To: winner@freelotto.co.uk Subject: Congratulation You won the sum of $2,000,000.00 you arehereby advice to get back to us, to claim your prize. Contact Mr. Richard Smith Email: (contactrichardsmith01@btinternet.com) Claims Requirements: 1.Full Names:2.Home Address:3.Sex: 4.Phone Number:5 .Nationality

Clues that the email is not legitimate

People who speak the English language rarely use the term "Congratulation" in the singular form, as in the subject field of this email.

The email address winner@freelotto.co.uk is not my email address, there's no reason why my email wouldn't appear on an email to me, unless it's a bulk email, and I don't think a large number of people won $2M.

The sender's email address is (purportedly) by-joc@sympatico.ca, which is a free webmail address from an ISP in Canada. A legitimate email would be from an organization.

You wouldn't expect an email from Canada for a UK lottery, or vice versa.

"You won" is kind of abrupt; most would use "You have won" or "You've won". "Advice" should be "advised", and the language "get back to us" is very informal compared to the rest of the sentence. Overall it looks like it was written by a non-English speaker, which is unusual for a British official but may be normal for a Canadian.

"Arehereby" is a typo, also the language seems overly stern for a congratulatory email. You would expect an email of this type to have been proofread.

If this is an email from a lottery in the UK, you would expect the winning amount in British pounds "£2,000,000.00" or euros "€2,000,000.00", not in dollars "$2,000,000.00".

The email provides a third email address for contact, from a third ISP which turns out to be a free webmail address from an ISP in the UK.

The weirdly punctuated list of personal information to be provided to claim the prize. It doesn't seem normal to request the sex of the winner.

Best. Golf Tournament. Ever.

2008-06-16T17:35:00.002-05:00

Indy 500

2008-06-14T13:25:00.010-05:00

Tony and I went to the Indy 500 again this year, this was our second time. Tony's really into it because his family is from Indiana, but I didn't really know much about Indy racing. I've become a much bigger fan since we started going, it's really a great spectacle, with attendance estimated as high as 500,000, although no one knows exactly how many were there. Here's a picture Tony took from our seats. This is the front stretch going towards the start/finish line, you can see the pit crews watching the racing. And NASCAR fans can just suck it if they think their cars are fast.

Photo (c)2008 Tony "Squirrelly Curly" Lynch

Things I Learned Today

2008-05-30T12:26:00.016-05:00

I knew the first six, but I didn't know San Antonio was seventh. I wouldn't have bet that San Antonio was bigger than Dallas (that kind of devalues that expression, doesn't it?) I think most folks who don't live in Houston are surprised that Houston is fourth. I didn't realize that New York was as big as LA, Chicago and Houston put together.

Rank	City	State	Population
1	New York City	New York	8,250,567
2	Los Angeles	California	3,849,378
3	Chicago	Illinois	2,833,321
4	Houston	Texas	2,144,491
5	Phoenix	Arizona	1,512,986
6	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania	1,448,394
7	San Antonio	Texas	1,296,682
8	San Diego	California	1,256,951
9	Dallas	Texas	1,232,940
10	San Jose	California	929,936

From wikipedia, the table lists the incorporated places in the United States with population estimated by the United States Census Bureau on 2006-07-01.

The Dangers of Blogging

2008-05-29T18:01:00.004-05:00

One of my favorite bloggers got started because she was fired for writing about her boss. And this editor resigned from her job at Gawker because of her compulsive oversharing. And Mark Jen was fired from Google because he blogged about the company.

I haven't blogged negatively about companies I've worked for because there really hasn't been much to write negatively about. I enjoy my job (people ask me if I love my job, I say it's great but if they stopped paying me I'd stop showing up. Does that mean I don't love it?) and I'm not one of those people who needs controversy or attention. I don't write (much) about politics or religion, it's like trying to teach a pig to dance; it will just frustrate you and annoy the pig. You're not going to convert anyone to your points-of-view, and it creates animosity and divisiveness.

I've had folks ask me to take their names or information off the site, some nicely, some not so nicely, and I've always agreed. Not because I believe their threats (I won't remove this post) but because there's no need for me to generate resentment. I wouldn't want to upset my reader.

I had a fight with a (now ex-) girlfriend about her not being on my blog, she thought if she was important to me I should blog about her. I've fought with girlfriends about dumber things, all pointing to seeming insufficiencies in their importance to me. In retrospect it's best that I didn't blog about her, we're still friends.

So I've tried to be nice-guy blogger, and that's probably why I have reader and not readers. But I'm happy with my life and I ~~love~~ ~~like~~ am satisfied with my job and I have no urge to mess it all up.