May 2006 Archives

Mandy's on a mission to do new things - she did a solo skydive back in January - and this time it was a handgun safety training class. We picked her up and drove out to the Firing Line location in Burbank for their Saturday class.

There were 21 attendees, more than was really comfortable. Apparently the instructor in a local acting class advised his students to attend, so they could be more realistic if a shooting role came their way, and over half of the people were actors.

A youngish guy, maybe late twenties, ran the class. We went over the basics of hand guns - revolvers, pistols, calibers, loading, and gun safety. He had us individually dry fire a revolver in the class room, presumably to give us some experience, but I think so he could give us all a quick once over before we went to live fire.

They grouped us into three's so Mandy, Carole, and I got a lane to ourselves. I started, with Carole second, then Mandy. My first set of six was a little off, mostly because I had my stance backwards, with my right foot forward. Mandy did well, and Carole did pretty good in their first stints.

We all got better as we progressed. Carole improved dramatically when she went to double-action - she said cocking the revolver in single-action was bothersome. In the end, we each shot 50 rounds, and learned a lot about gun safety.

From Gladiator:

Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly, we cannot choose how but, what we can decide is how we meet that end, in order that we are remembered, as men.

Vacation schedule at SURF left no one available to pick up a student from Hong Kong. I volunteered, for fun and with a small renumeration. Added Justin for driving support and to meet his community service hours. Left work at 1:15, got gas, went back to work for my printed sign, then to LAX. Scouted a while, gave Justin money for lunch, went in to wait. Brought a book, but found it more fun to watch the ebb and flow of the terminal. Everyone waited along the rails at the end of the exit ramp. Lot's of limo drivers and tour group contacts waiting with signs - like me. Brightly colored costumes of the Cathay Pacific flight attendants; stiff upper lip of the BA flight crew; Germanic efficiency of the Lufthansa crew. 50 minutes after arrival (which was 15 minutes overdue), John arrived. Well spoken, with a fantastic British accent. He loved the weather, which was just about perfect - low 70's, mild ocean breeze, lots of sunshine. Hong Kong had had a week straight of hot, monsoonal rain.

We chatted about things - universities in Hong Kong and So. California, traffic, public transportation, the weirdness of downtown, where all the tall buildings are tightly clustered. I asked about car ownership in Hong Kong, and he said most people got around fine on Hong Kong's extensive public transit system, and that business men (I read as 'executives') owned cars as status symbols. I told him that due to the low-density of SoCal, almost everyone owned cars, but well-to-do people owned fancier cars as status symbols. Just as I was saying this, a gorgeous, all-black Ferrari passed us in the adjacent lane, right on cue.

Met Carolyn at the house - John was happy that it wasn't a high-rise - it was the quintessential SoCal experience, with huge green front lawn and lots of dingle-ball trees. Good fun.

Take that, Justin...

My current high score is 6706. Screen shots after the jump.

A classic.

Nicole treated me very nicely this morning. The needle insertion was first-rate, and my video ended just at the right time. A good session all around. I watched the first half of Prime Suspect 2.

By LAURA JOHANNES, Wall Street Journal

Is melatonin a myth or a miracle? Dietary-supplement companies say a daily dose of the popular natural hormone aids insomnia and combats jet lag. Recent scientific evidence suggests melatonin does help you sleep at unusual hours when traveling or adjusting to an overnight work schedule -- but doesn't necessarily aid normal nighttime slumber. If you do take melatonin, some sleep experts say smaller doses are better.

I've been playing an online Flash game named Pendulumeca, where you control a robot that shoots a line to marked sections of the ceiling and swings and flies to move from the left of the screen to the right. It took a while to get the hang of it, but today I had my high score - 3913 meters. I'm so proud.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

-- Henry Louis Mencken

I was sitting in my office at my computer around 10:45am this morning when I heard a horrendously loud noise. I turned around to look out the window of my office, and saw a big rig on it's right side sliding down the Colorado Blvd. off-ramp from the westbound CA-134 freeway. I was a weird site, to say the least.

Cory and I quickly decided that I would call 911. The initial operator transferred me to the paramedic dispatcher, who took the information and said units were on their way. Some workers in orange vests were working further down the off-ramp on the landscaping, and came up quickly to check on the driver. They pulled him out, along with a 7-10 year old girl who appeared to be his daughter. (I can only imagine him trying to explain this to her mom.) Neither the driver nor the girl seemed any worse for wear - the miracles of seat belts.

After a while the fire trucks arrived, followed a few minutes later by some CHP units. Things are pretty stable right now. The offramp is an elevated roadway less than two lanes wide, so we're all wondering how they're going to get the truck right side up.

Here's the CHP event log off the web site:

This morning, one of the testing staff asked me for a script to convert files from Windows format to Unix format. I spent a few minutes putting one together, and then found that a similar one was already sitting in the main project bin directory. Here's my script:

My kids and I have enjoyed soccer for many years. Jason started playing in the local youth league back in 1987, and both Jason and Jeremy played on their high school teams. (Justin spent a year on a select team in junior high and it burned him out.)

A few years ago, I finally got fed up with my local cable company, and dumped them. For a couple of years I used a semi-satellite service offered by the local phone company. Instead of a satellite transmitter, they used an antenna on the top of Mt. Wilson, so my dish pointed north almost horizontally, instead of up to the south.

When that service went belly-up, I switched to DirecTV, and never looked back. Over the years we've added receivers, and now have two TiVos and two regulars all over the house. One of the benefits of DirecTV is their sports channels, including what's now known as the Fox Soccer Channel (and used to be named Fox Sports World).

When I first started watching FSC, it was at the end of the season in England. Normally they only show games from the Premier League (EPL), but this weekend was the final of the First Division playoffs.
The winner would be promoted up to the EPL for next season. (At the end of the season, the bottom three teams in the EPL are relegated to the First Division, and three teams from the First Division are promoted to the EPL. The top two teams in the First Division standings go up automatically, and the next four teams have a playoff to determine the last promotion. The First Division is now known as the Championship, but the process is the same.)

Anyway, back to the First Division playoffs. I watched the game, which wound up going to KFTPM to decide the winner, and saw a team called Birmingham City take the win. They had never been in the EPL, and their fans were just ecstatic.

I decided that BCFC would be my soccer team in England. Over the years I got to see ten or more BCFC games each season - the big teams in English soccer had exclusive TV deals that limited FSC's ability to show their games, so smaller teams tended to get more exposure in the US.

A few of the games were fantastic. BCFC's local rivals are Aston Villa, and for their first three years in the EPL Birmingham did not lose to Villa. In the first season, BCFC won both games, which each featured horrendous blunders by the Villa keeper, along with tantrums and red cards from Villa players. In the second season, Clinton Morrison scored deep into second half injury time to salvage a tie at St. Andrews (BCFC's home field). Good times.

This year, things should have been good. The team invested in proven goal scorers, and the defense looked solid. BCFC would not vie for the league title, but looked good for a spot in the middle of the twenty team league standings.

Early season injuries resulted in a awful start to the season. The team clawed back, but whenever momentum looked positive, another top player would get an injury. As the season progressed, we hit a tough section of the schedule, and things were looking bad.

Sunderland established themselves early as one of the teams going down. In late March, they were joined by West Bromwich Albion (also from the Birmingham area) as relegation certainties. The last spot was a toss up between BCFC and Portsmouth, who had rehired coach Harry Redknapp away from their archrival Southampton mid-way through the season.

Last weekend, Portsmouth played Wigan, and BCFC played Newcastle. BCFC had to at least match Portsmouth's point total to stay alive. A late flurry of chances by Mikael Forsell were turned away by Shay Given, Newcastle's keeper, and the game end in a 0-0 draw. A late goal by Portsmouth gave them a 2-1 win over Wigan. With one game to play, Portsmouth had a four point lead, and BCFC was officially relegated.

I'll continue to follow my team as best I can - reading about them on the web, cheering them on from afar. When they come back up to the EPL, I'll be there. While they're down, I'll choose another team to root for (no, not Villa; NEVER!) - probably one of the newly promoted teams. But BCFC will always be MY team in English soccer.