Not so much if, more like when...

LD.jpgIt's finally happened. After years of speculation, complex contract extensions, intricate loan agreements, and much wailing and gnashing of teeth, Landon Donovan is finally returning to Germany. Bayer Leverkusen, who owns LD's contract, decided it was time for the Landon to earn his keep and return to the Bundesliga. The Bayer Chairman Reiner Calmund flew out to Boston where the US national team was busy destroying the Honduras 4-0. He had made it clear he had come to the US to tell Landon that Leverkusen wanted him back. Landon has made it clear over the years that he loathed his time in Germnay. In the handful of interviews I've done with him in the last few years he always maintained that the weather was crap, the people were rude and the quality of life was not what he was looking for. San Jose was his salvation and clearly he's thrived here. But recently he began to make noises about a possible return to Germany. He began to feel that he was at a level that would warrant a first team place with Leverkusen - his omission from the first team in his first stint with Leverkusen was a contributing factor in his desire to return to the U.S. Now it has happened. Landon will return to Bayer Leverkusen on January 1st, 2005. He seems to be excited about the prospect - "I look forward to my return and the challenge at Bayer 04 Leverkusen." I'm pleased for him. It will certainly be sad to see him leave the Earthquakes but it's about time he is able to use his talents on a larger stage. This will give him the chance to play Champions League soccer and really make a name for himself outside of the U.S. So good luck Landon, remember us fans back in San Jose when you're scoring goals against Germany's best.

It's ever so fashionable

kcbsplane580.jpgToday started off like any other Monday. I was unusually chipper after an unusually great weekend. As I made my way along 580 at about 7mph, I listened attentively to the KCBS traffic report, as always. I thought I was experiencing major Deja Vu when I heard "Bit of breaking news here, we're getting reports of a small plane down on 580 in Castro Valley..." Not again!This time though, the pilot managed to land the plane safely, no accidents, plane intact and all. Well done. As the details and eyewitness accounts came in, a morbid thought entered my mind, "wouldn't it be funny if that was one of the KCBS traffic planes." I began to chuckle to myself "Oh the irony," I thought. Then as the news anchors came back from a commercial break, they lead with "Well sometimes when you're reporting the news, you sometimes end up IN the news." What's this...could it be? "The plane that landed on 580 is in fact KCBS Sky 3" HA! What are the odds?! Well pretty good actually as it was 8:30am and they were headed back to Hayward for their scheduled landing. But the irony was just delicious. Morbid fascination aside it sounds like the pilot is both hero and villain. He landed the plane in an emergency situation without incident, avoiding traffic while keeping the plane intact. Kudos. HOWEVER...he ran out of fuel. Rule number one of flying, know thine airplane. No matter how impressive his emergency landing was, he shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place. Unfortunately, it's going to leave a nasty blight on his record, and the traffic watch guys are usually budding pilots trying to build hours. But all's well that ends well. Everybody's safe, plane is intact, and most importantly, I got to work before the traffic backed up.

A tale of two kitties

I think that title alone justifies the blog post. Anyway, on Saturday Mike came over and brought Nigel. Now Nigel and our black cat Mandy look quite similar...ok VERY similar. Now they have only met once before, when Nigel was a kitten and it didn't go very well. Mandy took on the role of agressor and repeatedly bopped Nigel on the head.So we were all curious to see what happened when the got together this time. Our other cats didn't even notice something was awry - they figured the black cat sitting atop the cat tree was Mandy....that was until Mandy came waltzing around the corner. There was a unanimous look of "....WTF? from all the cats. Nigel played it cool and stood his ground. Kitty...well Kitty just stared. Mandy proceeded to investigate. She climbed up onto the counter and reached up to the top platform of the cat tree. He peered over the edge and looked at Nigel as if to say "....is there something I can f**king help you with?" But that was about as heated as it got. Sure there was the occassional hissing, and the classic "goodbye" howling that Nigel and Mandy did. It was certainly an entertaining meeting.

Is that a pig flying past my window?

I'd like to relay to you, dear reader, an experience I had that I'm quite sure signals the apocalypse.Recently the power cord on my laptop began to deteriorate. The connection twixt cable and computer became increasingly unreliable. This all culminated in a dazzling display of blue sparks that lead to my deciding that yes, it's time for a new power supply. So Deanne and I saddled up the wagon and made haste towards the mecca of microchips - Fry's. Now as many of your know, Fry's has quite a reputation in these parts. Terrible service, terrible product quality, clueless staff and cavernous stores. It is common knowledge that one will not find anyone to help with one's request. You must only go to Fry's if you know exactly what you need and exactly where to find it. Armed with this knowledge, we arrived at Fry's. This is where the weirdness began. Firstly, we found a parking spot quickly and easily. This has never happened before on a weekend. In fact, Mike and I had to park on the dirt under a pylon once. Chalking that one up to good luck, we ventured inside. Within 1 minute of entering the store, not one but TWO sales staff asked us if we needed any help finding anything or if we had any questions. I immediately slapped them on the forehead and screamed "DEMON'S OUT!" - but they were not possesed...they were actually helpful. I began to shiver. We moved towards the laptop power supplies. The strangeness continued. I was able to quickly and easily find what I was looking for. It was right in front of me, in the right place, hanging on the right display. I picked it up to ensure it was real and not some sort of hologramatic projection. It was real. Ahh, I thought, here's the ruse, I'm sure it's not compatible with my laptop. But the salesmen confirmed quickly and effortlessly that it was in fact compatible. What's this? A knowledgable and helpful salesperson? I felt a tinge of panic. As I wiped the cold sweat from my brow, I had a thought. Ah ha! The price! The device I need will be so ridiculously overpriced it will render all the positives moot. Alas. No. It was reasonably priced. It was becoming clear. End game. This had only happened once before, but never in this order, and never with this consistency. And there was one final test. The checkout. We headed towards the wall of flashing lights...not a soul anywhere. Where were the lines, where were the pushing crowds, where was the opportunity to peruse the useless but somehow engaging little gadgets they have in the checkout line? They were all gone. I was at the checkout clerk before I could say "I need to return this motherboard, it doesn't work." The checkout clerk (a white male....yes...a white male) helped me quickly and easily. He did not need 9 forms of ID, he did not need the supervisor to validate my credit card, he did not need a semen sample and he did not mess up the pricing. We gathered up our newly purchased items and walked deliriously towards the exit. I had a succesful and enjoyable shopping experience at Fry's. The end of the world must be near.

Milestones

So today is the first anniversary of my blog, believe it or not. To be honest, I didn't think I would keep it going for more than a few months, let alone an entire year. It's been fun though. It's also turned into a valuable way from my family overseas to see how I'm doing.For posterity, here's the first ever entry. Some mildly interesting facts about my blog: Total number of entries: 93 Total number of comments: 266 Total number of blocked spam messages: 248 Total number of hits: 13367 Interestingly, my sideblog (Further Random Reading) has become rather popular in the blogosphere, at least compared to my proper blog. People seem to like random bits of information. So here's to another year of mindless drivel. Thanks for visiting.

Arizonin'

mjv.jpgBack from our quick jaunt to Phoenix. It was a much needed, thoroughly enjoyable trip that did a world of good. We opted to drive down there; it's a long way but it was fun. I think I would have been comfortable flying down there but Deanne and I both agreed that the drive would be a perfect opportunity to spend some time with each other, something we haven't been able to do in a long while. One of the things I was able to do on the drive down was fulfil a lifelong ambition - well not lifelong but I've wanted to do it for a long time. Pay a visit to the Mojave Airport. MHV is home to one of America's largest airplane graveyards. Its dry conditions are perfect for preventing corrosion. There was a lot of history there, defunct airlines, defunct planes. Sleeping Giants. A truly amazing place. We rounded the corner on the freeway and knew that Mojave was coming up. I looked to my right and nearly drove off the road. On the horizon were hundreds of planes. It was a very surreal site. We immediately rerouted and made haste towards the airport. There were Virgin planes, KLM, Mandarin Airways, Swiss Air (Asia), Qantas, Ansett, a ton of Indonesian Airlines, and the usual array of USAir, Delta and FedEx. I snapped a ton of photos which you can find here. We had an excellent time in Arizona with Stefan, Amrita and Jasdeep showing us all that Phoenix has to offer. It's a wonderful place and very inviting. I won't rehash what Deanne and Stefan have already covered on their sites, suffice to say that we had an awesome time. It was also an educational trip. I was finally able to put a nearly year long mystery to rest. Jasdeep works for Honeywell, and it just so happens he works on the avionics for my favorite plane, the Boeing 777. Now those of you who religiously follow my blog may remember I had a post on a picture of a 777 with two 7" monitors jerry rigged into the flight deck. Well I asked Jasdeep what they were and he was able to tell me. They are MATS - Maintenance Access Terminals. Kinda like OBDII for your car. They interpret and display data from all of the test equipment in the back of the airplane. At last... So anyway, a great trip, some opportunities presented and some good times had. Thanks to Stefan, Amrita and Jasdeep for showing us a good time. Thanks to Deanne for humoring me :)

The Mechanics of Flight

680crash_4-13.jpg I was driving home yesterday when I caught the tail end of the traffic report. It said something like "...remember to avoid 680 in Concord at all costs, that freeway is shutdown due to the aircraft." Naturally my first reaction was, WTF? Fortunately my curiousity was satisfied quickly when they returned from a commercial. The details were vague but a small plane had "landed or crashed" on 680 in Concord, the freeway was shut down in both directions and traffic was backed up for miles.Well here's what happened. A Piper Arrow took off from Concord Airport and almost immediately lost engine power. The pilot tried to maneuver the plane back to Concord but it became apparent that he wasn't going to have the altitude. So he did the only thing he could and tried to land on the freeway. He was hoping people would see him and get out of the way but evidently people don't check their rear view mirrors as often as they should. The plane landed on the southbound lanes, hit a van injuring the occupants and slammed into the center divider. The pilot and passenger escaped before the plane burst into flames. Exciting stuff. Now here's the kicker. The pilot Curt Hatch flew to California with his son, from Colorado in the 23 year old rented plane to visit friends over the Easter weekend. Hatch said the plane lost partial power Monday, so he left it at Concord and waited for a mechanic, who flew in Tuesday from Colorado. The mechanic "fixed" the airplane by replacing a valve in one of the cylinders. Evidently he didn't do a very good job. It will be interesting to see what the FAA says about this one. So far their report is preliminary and simply says: ACFT ON DEPARTURE FORM RUNWAY 19L, LOST ENGINE POWER, HIT THE TREES, CRASHED ONTO THE I-680 FREEWAY, AND STRUCK TWO CARS SERIOUSLY INJURYING ONE PERSON IN ONE OF THE CARS, NO INJURIES TO THE TWO PERSONS ON BOARD THE ACFT, POST CRASH FIRE DESTROYED THE ACFT, CONCORD, CA I wasn't familiar with the Piper Arrow so I did a little research and the first document I read said the following: "Saddled with a battered image, handicapped by a powerplant with a nasty reputation, the Turbo Arrow should be approached with caution." Ominous. But it gets better. It goes on to say "...the engine was finicky, tricky to operate and prone to self destruction." Self destruction. Is that a "feature?" If I was Mr. Hatch, I would be wanting my money back.

Big Brother

I was playing around with GlobeXplorer's ImageAtlas site and it was neat to finally see my house added to their database. Since their a private organization with private satellites, their images reach the public domain MUCH faster than those taken by government satellites. Although they've been around for several years, they came to public prominence during the invasion of Iraq when they, through their partnership with Space Imaging, released several ultra-high resolution images of Baghdad and the surrounding areas.house.jpg
Their shot of our neighborhood isn't bad, but they'll need to do a couple more shots before they're able to offer the kinda of detail that they have on Deanne's parents' house. Stunning. You can clearly make our their cars. You can even see Deanne's old trampoline! inlaws.jpg
The reason why this piqued my interest is that the next issue of Reason magazine will be mailed out to 40,000 subscribers, with 40,000 custom covers, each bearing a satellite photo of the individual subscriber's neighborhood, with the subscriber's house circled. The point? "Everybody, including our magazine, has been harping on the erosion of privacy and the fears of a database nation. It is a totally legit fear. But they make our lives unbelievably easier as well, in terms of commercial transactions, credit, you name it." Interesting times.

Two reminders

Reminder 1: Daylight Savings time returns on Sunday morning. So before you go to bed on Saturday night, remember to put those clocks forward! Though you lose an hour of sleep, it'll be so nice to have lighter evenings to sit inside and watch TV :-DReminder 2: MLS Opening Day is tomorrow! DC United vs. my beloved San Jose Earthquakes. The game features the debut of 14 year old "phenom" Freddy Adu. RFK stadium is completely sold out for the game. So tune into ABC at 1pm PST!

Internet Jackass Day

Waxy has a good running list of the April Fool's day pranks and general tomfoolery. Including Google's Lunar Base, the EFF acquiring the DOJ, TechTV purchased by Playboy, and of course ThinkGeek's annual "new" products like a PC Ez-bake oven, and a Caffeine patch.Then there's Google's gmail - Google's supposed foray into webmail. No one is 100% sure about this one. Is it a joke? If it is, good one. If not...Yahoo and Hotmail are in big trouble. Oh and here's ebay's lame attempt, as featured on their homepage: ebay.gif

Alistair Cooke 1908-2004

cooke.jpgI'm guessing most people who read this won't know who Alistair Cooke is. That said, you may remember him as the host of Masterpiece Theatre or perhaps for his long running radio broadcast "Letter from America." Incredibly he retired only three weeks ago - and only because he was forced too. He was 95 years old. His radio program, a weekly 15 minute reflection on American life. Cooke was warned by the producer that this would last no longer than 26 weeks: in the event, as "Letter from America", it lasted for 58 years, becoming the world's longest-running speech radio programme. Cooke made in total 2869 broadcasts, mostly from his 15th-floor apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park. It became a staple of the BBC's domestic and international radio broadcasts. Where there were the hourly "pips", there was Alistair Cooke as well. Although very, very English in every way, he became an American citizen in 1941 and spent most of his later life living in New York. He was given an honorary Knighthood in 1973 and adressed the 200th sitting of Congress the following year. His stories were always engaging, his urbane style kept listeners transfixed. I tried to listen to "Letter from America" on XM whenever I could. Even the other night, I arrived home with about 10 minutes of his broadcast remaining...I sat in my car outside my house until he finished. He also wrote several fantastic books which I urge you to read. Among them is the legendary "Alistair Cooke's America" The BBC has an excellent selection of some of his best broadcasts. Have a listen... I thought his final broadcast would be a fitting tribute: "I have had much enjoyment in doing these talks and hope that some of it has passed over to the listeners, to all of whom I now say thank you for your loyalty and goodbye."

Bedroom Action

bedroom.gif After three years, three moves and untold abuse, our bedroom set has finally earned it's retirement. When we moved to our first apartment in San Ramon over three and a half years ago we had nothing. No bed, no couch, no TV, nothing. So where does one go when one needs to furnish an apartment? IKEA, of course. As much as I loathe the place, IKEA is great for cheap furniture and we just happened to need an abundance of the stuff. So we got our bedroom set and it lasted from our move to Livermore and our move to Tracy but only just.The dresser finally crapped out earlier this year. That was when we began entertaining the idea of replacing it. Anyway, here we are in March and we FINALLY got around to doing it. No IKEA this time, I put my foot down :-D We went back to a store in Livermore that had previously sold us our couches, kitchen table, and china cabinet. Eventually we settled on a 5 piece, dark wood bed set and entertainment center. It makes our room look tiny! Deanne also picked up a ceiling fan which we battled with during the installation. After the requisite amount of profanity, we successfully installed the damn thing and had the bedroom set up. Since our last bed didn't have a boxspring, we had to order one and as a result, we didn't get to enjoy our new bedroom for another three days. But all's well that ends well. Now all we have to do is move the weight bench and eliptical trainer out of the room because it's starting to get a little tight in there. I put a high(er) res photo of the room here - the edges are blurry due to the wide angle lens I used to take the shot.

Why English is the hardest language to learn

100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in EnglishI found this link over at Andy Baio's site. Having the linguistic fetish that I do, I found it fascinating. There's some great entries in there such as "bidness" (for business, "nucular" (for nuclear), and "Heineken Remover" (Heimlich maneuver). There's also the classics that are mispronounced such as acrossed, drownd, excape, excetera, Febyuary, and heighth. And my old favorite: 'erb for Herb - "Does, "My friend Herb grows 'erbs," sound right to you? This is a US oddity generated by the melting pot (mixed dialects). Initial [h] is always pronounced outside America and should be in all dialects of English." But they missed two of the ones that really irk me - clique and niche. Anybody who knows me will know how much I hate it when they're pronounced "click" and "nich". That drives me absolutely bonkers! Now I know there's exceptions to every rule, ESPECIALLY in English, but it's a quiche (keesh) right? Not a "kich". And it's technique (not teknik) and antique (not antik) right? So why would niche and clique be any different? Now I'm told that "klik" is an "accepted" pronunciation but only because of years of mispronunciation. Same with "nich". Still drives me nuts though. Ok, let me get off my high horse here for a second. Reading through this list, there were some words I didn't know I was mispronouncing. Yes, that's a public admission I've been pronouncing words incorrectly. For example, I didn't know with "diptheria" the "ph" in this word is pronounced [f], not [p]. The same with "sherbert", apparently it's pronounced "sherbet." Who knew? Anyway, an interesting collection of words and phrases. I love words. Yeah, I'm a dork.