April 2004 Archives

I've got three trips currently planned:

• May 20-22, up PCH to Carmel. Trip Plan
• June 26-July 1, through the Sierras. Trip Plan
• August 26-September 5, to Vancouver Island. 3600+ miles over 11 days. Trip Plan (updated May 3, with added route file for Burnaby-Yakima-Bend instead of Burnaby-Portland-Bend)

I have confirmed hotel reservations for all nights on each trip, but may cancel the June trip, depending on when the FJR1300 is due to arrive. It's currently schedule for 'mid-July', which could mean anything. (Even if I forego the motorcycle trip, I will be out of town on the dates listed in June/July.)

Tuesday was 106°. Today, it's mid-60°s, and overcast. And people say Southern California doesn't have real weather.

SOCREF-L archives -- September 2003, week 1 (#2)

Notes that Tom Stagliano uses in his pre-season dual-system referee training classes.

Solar Star

I just scheduled installation of a solar-powered attic vent for next Monday morning. Based on my quick calculations, it should pay for itself by the end of September. On days like today, with highs of 105° plus, it may even let the air conditioner maintain 76° inside, instead of struggling to make it down to 80°.

I found at the bottom of the video cabinet, and knew it had to be. I made it to shaka-buku, a "swift, spiritual kick to the head that alters your reality forever" before it was time to go.

They cancelled my appointment on April 12th with staffing problems.

Sarah and Jeremy preparing for the prom at Sarah's house.

Here's the process for posting photos:

1. Create a directory for the album in d:\bnc\photos on Elba.
2. Upload the photos from the camera into the newly created directory.
3. Run the utility setnametotime to convert the weird sequential file names to date/time stamp format
4. Open an Explorer window with the photo directory.
5. Start Web Album Generator
   • Drag the files from the Explorer window onto WAG's file pane.
   • Select File->Generate Album:
     • Enter an appropriate string in the Album Title field;
     • Use the defaults for all other fields, clicking Next until the last dialog;
     • In the final dialog select D:\albums\NAME for the Album's directory, where NAME is a dirify'ed shorthand for the album title;
     • Click Finish
   • Select File->Save Album As; select the directory from step 1, and enter the dirify'ed album name as the filename.
   • Exit WAG.
6. Use CoreFTP (or Filezilla) to move the entire album directory (from step 6) onto the server, in the ~/html/albums directory.
7. ssh into the server.
8. cd to ~/html/albums/NAME, where NAME is the dirify'ed name of the album directory on the server.
9. Run ~/bin/fixphoto
10. Create a new MT entry, with Albums as the primary catetory. Enter a pithy title for the post. NOTE: enter the dirify'ed name of the album directory in the Keywords field.

That's it. setnametotime, WAG, and CoreFTP are in this Zip file.

A few random test photos and a short movie, taken with my new Konica Dimage Xg.

Here's the 9mb MOV tour of my office.

My office

My headaches have been getting more severe and more frequent. I had to do something. I called Dr. Liao's office yesterday, hoping for an appointment sometime next week or the week after, but the nice receptionist suggested 8:30 this morning. Who knew?

I described the symptoms - sharp pain in and behind the right eye, diffusing to a dull ache after Imitrex and/or Advil, occurring 5 or 6 days a week. We also went over my blood pressure, which the nurse put down as 130/80. I'd stopped taking Hyzaar a couple of months ago after a particularly bad stretch of headaches, and things got better for a week or so, but the headaches came back. Since then, I've been in the 130-140/85-95 range when they check my BP at apheresis.

She spent quite a lot of time with me, going over my medical history in some depth, asking lifestyle questions, and describing possible courses of treatment. We decided on a couple of initial steps: a) moving to 100mg Imitrex, instead of the 25mg I've been taking for years; b) changing from Hyzaar to Toprol-XL.

According to WebMD, Hyzaar is a combination diuretic and angiotensin II receptor antagonist (and yes I did seem to spend half my day walking to the restroom). Toprol is a beta-blocker, specifically metoprolol tartrate, which helps relax blood vessels, which in turn lowers blood pressure, and helps to reduce the frequency and severity of migraines. Two for the price of one - what's not to like? The possible side-effects don't thrill me, but you have the play the hand you're dealt sometimes.

Dr. Liao started me on a low dose of Toprol-XL - 25mg, the lowest they make. I go back in three weeks to go over everything. I have a month of Toprol samples, and four 100mg Imitrex samples. I can burn my stash of 25mg Imitrex by taking four at a time. There's a strict limit of 200mg of Imitrex per day - after that, Dr. Liao says to hit the OTC pain meds, up to their daily limits.

I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I went a week without a headache.

From today's Frazz:

eructation

Peacock's Marching World - Drum Majors

I ordered a drum major's baton as an early birthday present for my neice Samantha, a pretty cool kid who starts high school next year. The order went in yesterday through the Peacock website, and the owner called me just now to confirm that the order was legit. I asked to have the order delivered directly to Sam, and when the delivery address doesn't match the billing address it raises flags.

Mr. Peacock said it will go out today, and Sam should have it tomorrow.

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

Original story

Thursday, April 22, 2004

It is an uncommon day when the nation's second-largest provider of voting systems concedes that its flagship products in California have significant security flaws and that it supplied hundreds of poorly designed electronic-voting devices that disenfranchised voters in the March presidential primary.

Diebold Election Services Inc. president Bob Urosevichadmitted this and more, and apologized "for any embarrassment."

"We were caught. We apologize for that," Urosevich said of the mass failures of devices needed to call up digital ballots. Poll-workers in Alameda and San Diego counties hadn't been trained on ways around their failure, and San Diego County chose not to supply polls with backup paper ballots, crippling the largest rollout of e-voting in the nation on March 2. Unknown thousands of voters were turned away at the polls.

Thu Apr 22, 2004 01:30 PM ET

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. contractor and her husband have been fired after her photograph of 20 flag-draped coffins of slain U.S. soldiers going home from Iraq was published in violation of military rules.

"I lost my job and they let my husband go as well," Tami Silicio, who loaded U.S. military cargo at Kuwait International Airport for a U.S. company, told Reuters in an e-mail response to questions.

The Pentagon tightly restricts publication of photographs of coffins with the remains of U.S. soldiers and has forbidden journalists from taking pictures at Dover Air Force Base where the caskets of slain soldiers usually first stop on their return to the United States.

The military says the policy is in place to protect the privacy of families of those killed, but critics have said the rules are aimed at sanitizing the war for the public.

I plan to do this, someday soon.

Power To The People: Relative Font Sizes: A List Apart

Warning: this is one of those filler posts that clog up weblogs all over the world.

Now, I make spaghetti a lot - probably too much - but I just felt like spaghetti tonight, and no one else was going to make dinner. Instead of the usual garlic bread I always make, I baked a Pillsbury bread loaf. We even broke out the salad. Jeremy was out at bible study, but Jason and Justin agreed it was one of the better spaghetti dinners we'd had in quite a while.

I'm going to stick to the fresh baked Pillsbury bread for a while. There's nothing quite like a hunk of warm, fresh-baked bread slathered in butter. And how often do you get to use slathered in a post?

A couple of years ago I'd watched a travel show on PBS that recommended travelling in Europe more as a local, and less as a tourist. Here's the link to the host Rick Steve's web site.

From asterisk*

1. Go to your blog's archives.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

From The Cruise, with the fifth sentence emphasized within the entire paragraph for some much needed context:

As usual, Carole was running late - very late. So late, in fact, that I got to drive them to the ship. Carole normally has to drive everywhere - the alternative is having her get car sick, so it's an easy decision. But, she can't get a ticket until at least September. She's already got one on her record, and another that she went to traffic school for, and she can't go back to traffic school until September.

I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." -- Pablo Picasso

Saturday was blustery, with the occasional heavy shower. I did the shopping for tomorrow's family dinner. Sheehan's baseball game in Chino was rained out, but I was already prepared to pick up Carol at LAX.

Carol was coming back from an Undergraduate Research conference in Indianapolis. Two Cal Tech students joined us. Jenn is a chemistry major, with bad knees and a strange fear of fish - even goldfish. She's in a 3-2 program that CIT has with Bryn Mawr, and will wind up this year with degrees from both schools. She's heading to Cornell to continue her studies in psycho-pharmacology. A real lightweight...

Matt is an EE major from Wyoming. His great-grandmother in Ohio is currently the second-oldest living American.

I knew Sunday morning was going to be busy, and I had to drag myself out of bed to get started. Aside from getting the food ready, I gave Justin a list of things to get done (he did a great job - except for the cat box), and Jeremy caught up with some laundry.

The menu was carne asada and enchilladas. I was the proud owner of 11½ pounds of ranchera preparada from El Matador in Monrovia, and started grilling around 11:15. I needed 42 enchilladas, which always take some time. The Bowsers and Sarah arrived separately but at the same time, a little before 1:00, followed by Carol, Sheehan, and Jeremy's friend Josh.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal. Jake needed a nap, and Karen annoyed me by doing a load of dishes. I left the rest of the cleanup for Monday night.

My first 5G license plate was on a new Nissan Z, bright blue, on Live Oak Avenue in Arcadia. I was shuttling Jeremy and Sarah over to John and Jim's for a pot-luck.

RideIcon

Titanium riding pants, in regular or warm-weather mesh.

Seriously good stuff.

I just ordered a new digital camera:

I wanted small that would fit in the front pocket of my motorcycle jacket, for those quick, on-the-road shots. 3x (minimum) optical zoom as a requirement. Walter Mossberg gave this model a great review in the WSJ.

My sister left a voice mail from Indianapolis (not one of my favorite places), asking me to figure out the distance from Rosemead Blvd. to the Central Ave. exit in Chino on the Pomona Fwy for Dad. He's been driving out to Sheehan's tournament baseball games, and has gotten lost using surface streets - it took him 3 hours to get home after last night's game. Carol wasn't ecstatic about him taking the freeway, but what can you do?

While I was talking to Dad, he told me about Sheehan's games. Temple City is considered a smaller school in the scheme of things, and their first two games were against much bigger division I-A schools.

On Wednesday, Ray Hensley was the starting pitcher against the host team from Chino High. Ray pitched 6 scoreless innings, Ryan Tucker had a scoreless 7th, and Temple City won 1-0. This afternoon, Tucker pitched a complete game shutout for the 1-0 win over Bishop Amat on Hensley's solo home run.

Friday's game is with Rosemead High, who lost to Bishop Amat 14-1 on Wednesday. If Temple City wins, they'll play in the tournament championship game on Saturday. (I volunteered to pick up Carol and her students at LAX if the to-be-determined game time on Saturday prevents Sheehan from doing it.)

Peter told me to:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

From a book called :

They went armed with an array of relatively simple yet market-conquering inventions.

This is from a section on the industrial revolution, specifically the mechanization of the cotton industry in Britain brought on by John Kay's invention of the flying shuttle. Before 1733, in order to weave cloth of any but very narrow widths, two people had to work the shuttle that carried thread across the loom. John Kay, a craftsman in Lancashire, in that year invented a shuttle that would fly across the loom under the control of a single worker. This wheeled device drivin by string-tripped hammers not only raised the operator's output by 100 percent but soon also increased by similar proportions the pressure for faster thread production.

Via asterisk*.

My re-fi closed today. Yee-haw. 5½% for 30 - I locked at just the right point in the current interest rate cycle.

Also Decried Clinton's Failure To Cover Bare-Bosomed Statues

via Opinions you should have...

John Ashcroft, testifying today before the 9/11 Commission, laid the blame for the World Trade Center disaster squarely on the shoulders of President Clinton and his government, stating that "their bizarre adherence to established constitutional protections endangered us all."

Ashcroft, who listed the top priorities of the Department Justice as "eradicating bare breasts from the paintings, sculptures, public parks, and the workplace" and "making good Christian music replace rock and hip-hop on FM radio,' lectured the 9/11 Commission on "how hobbled we all are when we give people these so-called rights."

"Better to be safe and in jail than on the street and in danger," said Ashcroft, decrying all these "individual rights people are having."

Ashcroft also assailed the Clinton for what he called "meaningless dithering" about assasinating foreign nationals.

"They couldn't go and blow bin Laden away," said Ashcroft, speaking of the Clinton administration, "because they kept talking about their high and mighty 'rule of law' thingy-do."

"Like it was all that," he added.

calendarlive.com: Original story

Diana Krall has a new CD on the way and a new collaborator: husband Elvis Costello.

By Don Heckman, Special to The Times

April 13 2004

It's only noon, but Diana Krall looks weary.

Curled up on a couch in a room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, she smiles wanly, noting that she is well into the third week of publicity events for her new album and is eager to get back to her music.

"Talking about yourself," she says, with characteristic candor, "can get very boring after a while. You start digressing, forget what you said to who. I'll just be glad when I'm playing again."

Krall always has been a determinedly private person, as protective of her personal life a decade ago, at the start of her career, as she is now. But publicity, by definition, demands revelatory information and her marriage to pop star Elvis Costello in December has generated precisely the questions she most dislikes.

I finalized my deposit on the 2005 FJR 1300 ABS with LA Yamaha, and I'm on the list. Dan (the nice internet sales guy) said I should get delivery in July, which is fantastic - I was thinking more like September or October.

Now, I have to save up to pay for the beast.

View image

I slept in on Saturday, then headed off to Madrid Middle School in El Monte to referee a GU-16 spring league game. My game was not that exciting, but apparently just before I arrived a BU-19 game between Temple City and Alhambra erupted in a bench-clearing brawl, complete with moms pummeling one of the ARs. I'm sorry I missed it. Afterwards, I finished up some tax work for Crystal, Karen, and myself, and I started in on Michael's, which are complicated by his split CA-AZ residency.

Sunday was a beautiful day, weather-wise. We had the normal confusion about the the schedule early on, but once the plan was finalized it all came together nicely. Carole did the usual easter baskets (very nice - I'm sure the kids appreciated her hard work). Next up was easter dinner at the in-laws house in Big Bear, with a brief stop along the way.

Justin, Jeremy, and I drove Carole's rental truck to Rob's house and loaded up an old but serviceable leather coach and an antique vanity. We were going to trade cars there, but Justin wanted to get some driving in with his mom (I'm a little tougher on his technique than she is), so I stayed in the truck with Jeremy and Jason.

The drive up was uneventful - almost no traffic. We nearly started a pool on when dinner would be served, but once it was ready at 3:45 everyone enjoyed it.

William rode with us down the hill, and after some traffic problems at the 210 and 57 I took service streets the rest of the way. Randy and Suzy had left a few minutes earlier than we did, but weren't home when we got there. William snuck in a bathroom window. We met up with Randy on Gaillard, and I told him the situation. I'm not sure the bathroom window was going to work out well for William.

I had an apheresis appointment at 6:30 this morning, but no one was there when I arrived. I left a note, and headed in for an early start at work.

National Corvette Museum - Bricks

I've planned to get Carole a brick at the Corvette Museum since the day she picked up her car. I waffled on it over the last year, for obvious reasons, but decided in the end that it was the right thing for me to do.

I gave her the certificate for a 12"x12" brick last night. She can work with the Museum staff on the final design and placement. It's a birthday present, but she mentioned in passing a few weeks ago that she might be going back to the museum on Labor Day, so I gave it to her now so it could be ready if she winds up going in September.

Original article

By Farah Stockman, Boston Globe Staff, 4/8/2004

WASHINGTON -- As US forces fought on two fronts in Iraq, the Bush administration yesterday found itself in a political skirmish on Capitol Hill over criticism that it lacks a coherent exit strategy and as Democratic lawmakers appeared more emboldened to reference Vietnam.

Senator Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who has long opposed the war, called for a "road map out of Iraq" and alluded to "echoes of Vietnam."

"The harsh reality is this: One year after the fall of Baghdad, the United States should not be casting about for a formula to bring additional US troops to Iraq. We should instead be working toward an exit strategy," Byrd said.

"It is staggeringly clear that the administration did not understand the consequences of invading Iraq a year ago, and it is staggeringly clear that the administration has no effective plan to cope with the aftermath of the war and the functional collapse of Iraq."

Even before Carole came in to visit, I'd been enjoying the nice spring weather by doing a short walk most evenings. Normally I do a couple of miles, using my new PDA to supply some music.

Last night, I headed out earlier than usual, and felt good enough to put in some extra miles. I just mapped it out on Streets and Trips, and it came to 3.8 miles.
My legs were noticeably tired this morning when I did my hip flexor exercises.

I just mapped out a 5.1 mile walk. I'm leaning towards a shorter walk tonight, though. I'll need to update my tunage for a longer walk anyway.

It's opening day for the Dodgers. Cory and I have had many long discussions about the team, and our consensus is that the new owners have screwed things up totally.

It's just the bottom of the first, but Vin Scully is in fine form. I can't fathom spending a spring without him.

I woke up too early - around 4:15, for some strange reason. I watched the F1 qualifying from Bahrain live, and got caught up on laundry.

Jeremy needed my car for work, and Jason had a hockey game to go to, so I borrowed Carole's rental truck to go out to Claremont for John's 4:00 pm little league baseball game

The last game I went to was hot - really hot after the cool winter. Today was overcast, and about mid-way into the game it started to rain. After a few minutes all the spectators ducked under an oak tree behind home plate, with a lot of the moms (including Karen) making pointed suggestions that the game should be called. The managers of both teams wanted to play, so they played.

Jake was silly as usual. Sam arrived on her bike just before the rain started, and after the game we stowed it in the bed of the truck for the short drive back to her house to keep her reasonably dry.

I had barbequed a tri-tip, with big baked potatoes and corn on the cob for an early dinner to accommodate Jason and Jeremy's schedule, but Karen and Sam persuaded me to go to dinner with them at a Coco's in Upland. I had a so-so Caesar salad and some bad coffee, but the conversation was great.

Obligatory C code: to convert the idea in the original post to a
"tail queue" (wherein you can always add something to the end of
a list), build yourself a little "head" structure:

    struct node {
        struct node *next;
        ...
    };

    struct nodelist {
        struct node *first;
        struct node **last;
    };

    struct nodelist nodelist = { NULL, &nodelist.first };

Now to add a node "n" to the end of the list, when n->next is NULL:

    *nodelist.last = n;
    nodelist.last = &n->next;

If you expand the "node" structure to include:

    struct node {
        struct node *next;
        struct node **prev;
    };

and then do this to add a new node at the tail:

    n->prev = nodelist.last;
    *nodelist.last = n;
    nodelist.last = &n->next;

you gain the ability to remove an arbitrary node from the list,
without having to traverse the list:

    /* q points to some node that we wish to remove from the list */
    if (q->next != NULL)
        q->next->prev = q->prev;
    else
        nodelist.last = q->prev;
    *q->prev = q->next;

Here q->prev points either to the "next" pointer that points to q,
or to nodelist.first, depending on whether q is the head node.  By
setting *(q->prev) to q->next, you make "first" point to q->next
if q is the head, or the previous node's "next" pointer point to
q->next if q is not the head.  Of course, you must also adjust
q->next's "prev" pointer, or if q is at the end of the list --
q->next==NULL -- you must adjust the "last" pointer.

These are the "tail queue" data structures from the BSD "queue"
macros.

Mandy flew to Tucson last Tuesday for a visit. Carole is bringing her back, and plans to stay through Easter.

Maybe this wasn't the best time to stop my blood pressure medication...

PressThink: Why Karen Ryan Deserved What She Got

Download file

democrats.senate.gov/~dpc/releases/2004330506.html

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Floor Statement of Sen. Daschle on the Abuse of Government Power

Mr. President, last week I spoke about the White House's reaction to Richard Clarke's testimony before the 9-11 Commission. I am compelled to rise again today, because the people around the President are systematically abusing the powers and prerogatives of government.

We all need to reflect seriously on what's going on. Not in anger and not in partisanship, but in keeping with our responsibilities as Senators and with an abiding respect for the fundamental values of our democracy.

Richard Clarke did something extraordinary when he testified before the 9-11 Commission last week. He didn't try to escape blame, as so many routinely do. Instead, he accepted his share of responsibility and offered his perceptions about what happened in the months and years leading up to September 11.