Saturday, May 27, 2006

The Culprit

"Looks like we threw a rod"
"Is that serious?"

So this is the only souvenir I was able to get from the G20's old motor. I wish I coulda seen the engine block (mechanic said this rod holed the block), but he had to return it for the core exchange.

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Thursday, May 25, 2006

Those Crazy Asians

My brother sent this to me. I'm laughin' my ass off.

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Saturday, May 20, 2006

Runway Twenty Eight Left

It’s been almost 8 years since I last went on business travel (and it was all in coach). Back then, I was a young (it’s a sad day indeed when I refer to the late-twenties as “young”) whippersnapper full of big dreams and ideals…an aspiring software developer getting his kicks out of debugging TCP payloads in client/server transactions. Ah, the good ‘ol days. That first computer job found me working in a tiny little software shop, where the owner in a previous life ran the Tomahawk project out of General Dynamics. It made for interesting enlightenments for yours truly, a self-admitted schooly-geek-boy at heart…

On our flights, he would teach me about the intricacies of missile guidance systems, and how it really came down to a simple feedback loop (details of which I won’t bore you with here). He’d also identify those subtle nuances differentiating a good pilot and a not-so-good one (the amount of throttle adjustments while entering the glide path). And he informed me of the simple runway numbering system. Kindergarten stuff for pilots, but interesting for wanna-be flyboys like myself. Runway 28L, for example, translated into a runway that ran 280 degrees – now this is the part that bothers me…in my old age I’ve forgotten whether 0 degrees referred to due north or due east. Let’s say due East – so that puts the runway facing north, 10 degrees westward. Actually, this makes sense, since out of SFO this was the big runway that planes approach from the south (over the bay). Oh, and “Left”, well is pretty obvious, referring to the left runway since there’s two of those big strips of concrete.

And “big” this thing was.

I’m sure a bunch of you have made an international flight before, but for me it’s basically my very first time in a big ‘ol mommahonker 747-400. This thing needs all the runway it can get. Takeoff had a nice initial kick from the 4 big turbojets, but the acceleration definitely wasn’t as strong as the tiny 737 sardine cans I’m used to. Other neat little things this international flight rookie enjoyed:

  • We get slippers, a night patch, ear plugs, toothbrush, blanket and pillow
  • These seats are so cool. It even has AC power.
  • There’s a little camera on the plane that shows the view from the front, so you can see the plane take off. Neat-o
  • I’ve never had plane food this good.
  • You really have to see the safety video…there’s this one scene where little animated characters are jumping out of a plane and there’s hordes of people on the ground running away from the plane. I got a chuckle out of that one

Why does comfort like this have to come at such a high price? Why the class distinction between coach, business class, 1st class? “First class…before, it used to be a better meal, now it means a better life”. I can’t imagine sitting in coach for 10 hours straight, let alone 14. Hm…I wonder if they’ll let me use my miles to upgrade for the Europe tour, and leave those other LIKHA suckers to suffer out back in coach with the commoners. hahahhahahaha

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Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The World Wide Conference

This new job has me on soooo many conference calls with folks from a variety of regions around the world... One of these days, I'm going to host a meeting buck naked.

Just for kicks.

Hahahahahhaha!

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Thursday, May 11, 2006

Sadness Is...

...having to tape up your girly little fingers because they hurt so bad from having to play 4 shows. (I don't know how I'm going to survive the Amsterdam tour)

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Tuesday, May 09, 2006

It's Crazy... It's Crazy...

So work has like completely gone crazy. Maybe it's the 4 week hump that I'm running into, but it's really hitting me now. But friends of mine gave me the following two internet finds today, so I thought I'd share...

Guess the car...it's a freakin' hard ass game, only the completely insane car nut need apply. I'm totally struggling, currently at 24/50!

50 movies for $15. That's right, fifteen dollars. I wouldn't pay no mind to this normally, but there's one set in there that's all Martial Arts movies.

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Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Skype

Any of you have Skype accounts? AIM is blocked here and sometimes I feel like reaching out and touching someone.

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How to Start Off a Wednesday Morning

Here's a hypothetical for you...

You wake up this morning, and upon opening your underwear drawer realize that you have no more clean underwear. Do you:
  1. Take a shower anyways and reuse your boxers.
  2. Turn off the shower and run to Target across the street to buy a new set of boxers
  3. Turn off the shower, throw all your dirty boxers in the washing machine and show up late to work showered and refreshed
  4. Forego the shower altogether, throw on a hat and just go straight to work
Well, at least the good news is that after three weeks I think I'm finally starting to get settled in at Motorola. I'll be off to Singapore and Taiwan next week. Woo hoo! Hmm, I wonder if they'll let me make a detour in Hong Kong - I've always wanted to see that city.


(I chose 3. by the way.)

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Monday, May 01, 2006

Two More.

  • I love watching Formula 1. Even though I'm still lagging on my viewing (two races behind) I'm not going to miss out on watching it live this year. Spain, perhaps? My money's on Honda and Jensen Button to take it all. If only they could get their thumbs out their asses and manage their pitstops better. Now to figure out how to squeeze in viewing time for MotoGP...
  • I hate tiny little flying banana flies. I don't even have bananas in the house. So how da hell does one get in here? I only got four hours of sleep last night, and here I am worried about getting a big ass bug bite on my face.

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It's The Little Things...

...that make life grand.

  • The other day, I received a phone call from Almar...turns out that Avalon Bay, the management company for the old Milpitas apartment complex we stayed at (ye old Bexley place -- aah, memories) was involved in a class action lawsuit, and he received a check for $120...sixty of which is mine. Yay! I see a nice bottle of first-growth Bordeaux in my near future!
  • I now have 2 spiders in my house. One daddy longlegs in the bathroom and one in the washer/dryer closet. I know they're good creatures, but I still hate spiders.
  • You know you're old when you spot a grey nose hair in addition to the three growing on your head.
  • Gas prices are so inflated right now that for only $1/gallon more, I can get 100 octane unleaded racing gas.
  • Coming back from a visit to Walnut Creek last night, I almost became one of those idiots that I make fun of on the San Mateo Bridge... I used all my cash at the Pyramid Brewery and only had two dollar bills in my pocket. Thank goodness I decided to leave my U.S. coin currency in my ashtray while I was in Canada last month -- I found the four quarters I needed.
  • Yesterday was such a gorgeous day.

I never truly understood why people said The Thirties are the best years of your life... Until now.

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