Category: Weblog

Four Things

I have been stirred out of my winter blog hibernation to heed Anil’s call to answer about Four Things. Far from me to refuse an internet rock star like Anil anything, so I present:
Four Things
Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Taco Bell food slinger
2. Technician at an electronic warfare company
3. Consultant on building television facilities
4. Technology Exec at Disney
Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Dune
2. Last Temptation of Christ
3. Apocalypse Now
4. The Fifth Element
Four places I’ve lived:
1. Harbor City, California
2. Troy, New York
3. Venice Beach, California
4. San Francisco, California
Four TV shows I love:
1. The Wire
2. Deadwood
3. Good Eats
4. The Daily Show with John Stewart
Ten highly regarded and recommended TV shows that I’ve never watched a single minute of:
1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Lost
3. Desperate Housewives
4. 24
5. Family Guy
6. The Shield
7. Rescue Me
8. My Name is Earl
9. Gray’s Anatomy
10. The West Wing
Four places I’ve vacationed:
1. Macau
2. Cancun, Mexico
3. Yellowstone Park, Wyoming
4. Duck, North Carolina
Four of my favorite dishes:
1. My mother’s Chicken Crepes
2. My wife’s Turkey Meatloaf
3. Yoshinoya Beef Bowl
4. A souffle for dessert
Four sites I visit daily:
1. Slashdot
2. Yahoo News
3. Gen[M]ay Forums
4. Jason Kottke
Four places I would rather be right now:
1. At home, playing World of Warcraft
2. Disneyland
3. Wapiti Meadows, Idaho
4. In outer space
And now that I have discharged my duty, I hereby tap the following four people to post their lists:
Martin Diggs
Judi (my mother)
Suw Charman
Bill “Squidly” Bessette
Update: Once I posted the list and looked at it, I realized that it should have been four items not ten for the movies… C’est la Vie.

N51°30.282 W000°08.987

Yes, if you enter that location into your favorite mapping site, you will find that I am in London.
Despite my jet lag, I’ve already been out shopping for Michele’s list of items to return with. The exercise will do me some good.
I’ve got a week of business here and just arrived a few hours ago. If you’re in London, drop me a note.

Big 10

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Zoe’s big 10th Birthday.
Hard to believe, but my oldest daughter is 10 years old and rapidly approaching teenagerhood. We had a small family party on her birthday at Farrell’s. A week later, we had her birthday party for school friends at the local lasertag facility. Good times.


I think Michele’s idea on how to make a birthday for Zoe out of cupcakes is fantastic.

Zoe’s big present was a bass guitar. She’d been asking for one for a while and who are we to stand in the way of Rock? She’s definetly got the attitude going.

Sad Pando

I downloaded Pando, the new file sending hotness, to give it a try.
My brother Matt and I tried sending files and got nowhere. I looked at the support forums, tried opening ports, and other things to get it to work. No dice.
I think Matt summed it up best: “this thing sucks… just doesn’t work…. the files are in the queue, but the transfer never starts…. weak….”. I have to agree.
Perhaps the ‘release in beta’ meme should be changed to ‘release in beta if it actually works’.
Update May 22, 2006: Read about Happy Pando

Cashing in quarters

Previously, I wrote about my father giving my daughters almost 70 pounds of quarters.
After a bit of thought on how to cash them in, I realized that I was going the CES Show in Las Vegas and that if there is one place in the world that can handle 70 pounds of quarters, it’s Las Vegas. I called the hotel I was going to stay at and asked if they would cash the quarters. “No problem sir! Bring any kind of money you want and we’ll handle it for you at the Cashier!” Sweet, I was in business.
I made arrangements with Brad to drive to Vegas together and haul the coffee cans of quarters to the desert. To move the quarters around, I brought a set of luggage wheels and tied the cans to it.


After lugging the quarters into the hotel, I made my way to the cashier as Brad took photos. At first, the cashier said she didn’t want to cash the quarters. After I told her about my earlier phone call, she reluctantly agreed and began dumping the quarters into the coin counter. She had to change the plastic bag that holds the counted quarters three times.
Brad tried to take a photo of the actual coin counting but the cashier freaked out. I watched with glee as the count rose and went well over a thousand dollars.

As you remember, my rough estimate was $1,360 in quarters.
After all the quarters were counted, the total was $1,315.70.
Holy crap, that’s a lot of money.

The money will be split for the girls to invest for college. By 2014 when Zoe starts college, her $650 might buy a single textbook.

Seu Jorge & David Bowie

Michele has been watching The Life Aquatic DVD on auto-repeat these days.
She’s been listening to the soundtrack album as well and was raving about the Bowie songs that Seu Jorge had covered. I gave a listen, and she’s right, it’s great.
Seu Jorge is a popular Brazilan musician who played the character Pelé dos Santos in The Life Aquatic. He sings during the film and those songs are on the soundtrack album. For some reason, what he sings are Portuguese versions of David Bowie songs.
As a long time Bowie listener, I can basically sing along in English to his Portuguese versions. I guess his versions became so popular, that he came out with an album soley of his covers of Bowie songs. We got the CD yesterday and it’s wonderful.
Do yourself a favor and give it a listen, it’s good stuff.