Adventures in Not Buying a Motorcycle

My car exploded, so now I'm getting a motorcycle. Oh, okay, it didn't exactly explode, but it might as well have.

Anyway, I wanted to get something cheap. I found what seemed to be a really good deal on a '79 650 Yamaha with only 3400 miles. It was in wonderful shape and idled great, but because it hadn't been driven in 10 years, the carbuerator was gummed up and it died every time you gave it gas. After leaving, I called and offered the guy 500 bucks, but I didn't get the bike because some other guy showed up right after I left and offered him what he was asking ($700).

Oh well. If anyone finds a decent street bike for under a grand, please let me know.

As soon as humanly possible, I want to statistically increase my odds of being killed or injured (read: buy a motorcycle).

Rebirth of an iPod

After my old 10 GB iPod broke and I sent it in, I received a voucher in the mail for a new $299.99 iPod. It is really just a shame that not only do I get a shiny scratchless new iPod, but that Apple also discontinued their 10 GB model. Convieniantly, now the 15 GB model costs the same as the 10 GB model used to cost so I got a replacement iPod and an extra 5 GB for practically free. When I say practically free I mean that the price was actually $2 less than it had cost me before. So I got $2 back, and then paid $40. You see, while purchasing the $40 2-year replacement plan for my original iPod, the retailer forgot to inform me that if I were to actually call the number in the pamphlet that it would automatically void the insurance plan from carrying on to my replacement. They also did not tell me this when I called that number. I did not like the idea of my iPod breaking again, so I bought a new insurance plan. It looks like the Best Buy insurance plan has its own dirty little secret.

One Hour News: 3 in 1

Steve and I ventured out into another One Hour News adventure. Being incapable of actually investigating anything, we just decided to revert to walking into businesses and seeing how many questions we could ask before being asked to leave. (That was pretty much all that had been done in the past, right?) Surprisingly, Super 8 talked to us. McDonald's almost talked to us. And we walked right through the mall! As most people know, malls are notorious for tackling anyone weilding a camera before the "record" light can even come on, but we walked around for quite a while before being tackled...

Toast Personalities

Not everyone realizes it, but every piece of bread is unique. And because they are all unique, each slice has its own personality. And when different personalities meet head to head in a high-power spring-loaded toaster, the individuality of the bread becomes quite clear.

This morning, I found out that I own such a toaster. My toaster is occasionally capable of giving flight to toast. I discovered this when I was making toast this morning and found my toast on the counter a good distance from the toaster when I came back to the kitchen. And it was then that I realized that my toaster was a bread crucible. Not only did it heat the bread to a delicious crunch, it also contained within itself the seeds of a toast revolution. If my toaster could inspire one piece of bread to leap onto the counter, what would two slices of bread head-to-head do?

I decided to run a brief test. The results were astounding.

Here they are.

Round One [MPG video]
The Blocked Shot
The peice on the right attempts to make a jump shot, while the monster slice of white bread on the left swats the attempt, making a mockery of slice-on-the-right's skillz.

Round Two [MPG video]
The Bully
Domination. That's all this was. Clearly the slice on the right is a big bad bully. He just knocks around the piece on the left, leaving him laying in a pile of his own crumbs.

Round Three [MPG video]
The Chest Bump
I'm not sure if these two slices of toast were old friends or perhaps teammates. Wait... it has been confirmed they did play in the minor leagues together at the Wonder Bread factory. Anyway, these two greet each other in a celebratory chest bump. It's good to see such enthusiasm from two slices just about to be buttered and eaten.

By the way, the toast was good, too. But I am full now. No more toast, thanks.

Mathcaddy Radio: Session 6

It was Sunday night. My wife was at my parents' house watching the season finale of Alias. And I was all by myself in our little apartment. Sounds pretty lonely doesn't it? Well, it's not that lonely. But in honor of the simulated loneliness, here's a collection of fairly sad songs (with a few exceptions). Now get listening!

Mathcaddy Radio: Session 6

01: Sufjan Stevens - "For the Widows in Paradise..."

02: Sufjan Stevens - "Redford"

03: The Tyde - "A Loner"

04: Howie Day Jude - "I Do"

05: Death Cab for Cutie - "Gridlock Caravans"

06: Rooney - "Terrible Person"

07: Evan Gross - "Leaving on a Jet Plane"

08: Grandaddy - "O.K. With My Decay"

[32 MB MP3 :: 35 Minutes]

Things

Adam was kind enough to show me how to make things better. Like putting pictures in my posts! And what better pictures to put in my posts that those pictures that my sisters take of my cat? None, there are no better pictures to put.

Under the pressure of a friend and extreme boredom, I decided to make an animation with Flash. I think that it turned out good, although it be a bit twisted and probably downright evil, but isn't that a requirement of a Flash animation? Anways, you can go ahead and check it out at steve.mathcaddy.com

Also, one day my mother and sisters went for a walk and something followed them home. Check that out here in Photo Mojo.

Hay! I Can't Breathe!

I am the dumbest man alive.

I somehow think that I can "tough out" (read: ignore) a severe allergy to hay combined with asthma. And so here I am, sitting on a medicated breathing machine at 2:40 in the morning because I woke up gasping for breath.

And what am I going to do in less than six hours?

"Tough out" the same circumstances that led to my panicked and strangled asthmatic awakening just a few minutes ago.

I have had asthma all my life, and all my life I have tried to fake that I didn't when in groups of people. I ran a mile in high school P.E. twice without being able to breathe, just because I didn't have my inhaler and didn't want to have to make a big deal about not being able to breathe in front of the other kids in my class. I was seeing stars when I started the next to the last lap, but I would have rather passed out running than stop and go tell the teacher that I forgot my inhaler in my locker.

It's weird. I usually don't care what people think of me. But the one thing I seem to care about is one of the things I can't do anything about. Even odder? I don't care if people know I have asthsma when I'm not struggling with it.

It's just in that moment that I can't breathe, I want to disappear from sight.

And air. I also want air.

Garfield: US Ambassador to Al-Queda?

I couldn't agree more with Steve's comments regarding Garfield. I could have addressed them in the comments, but I want to make my confession public.

I used to love Garfield.

For some weird reason when I was a third grader, I really liked that stupid orange cat. I had Garfield comic books and even a plush Garfield doll! But the entire reason that I liked him was that I drew comics that featured eyes that happened to look just like Garfield's. Now, the content of those comics was entirely a Sci-Fi/Fantasy cross between a galactic version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and my own bizarre imagination. But there was no lasagna. At all.

And this is where Jim Davis's comic suffers immensely. It actually has Lasagna.

But in all seriousness: Why read Garfield when it only takes American reality and adds an anthropomorphic twist badly lacking any sense of irony? The cartoon is all about obesity, gluttony, boredom, Monday-hating, TV-watching, and laziness. Add to all of that a cat and you have a typical American home. Really, it's no surprise the American people eat it up just like everything else. But as Bill Murray once said, "People are morons. People eat blood sausage."

Could it be true? Is Jim Davis un-American? Perhaps the Unamerican Activities Committee should be notified of his suspicious behavior. I mean, Is it absolutely neccessary that he broadcast worldwide our entire culture's convicting identification with sloth incarnate? C'mon, Jim! For dignity's sake, you could at least add an ounce of humorous self-deprecation so we can mock ourselves in a sophisticated way!

Drive with a Garfield stick-on in your window and you're riding with bin Laden!

And seriously, how often can Jon tip his head back and unhinge his jaw, yelling, "GARRRRFIIIIEEEELLLLD!"

Doesn't this guy have TMJ by now?

Holly-rotting-wood

Well Hollywood has sunk to a new low. In all of the hype of mostly good comic book movies, somehow 20th Century Fox decided to make the worst comic strip 'legend' into a hopeful blockbuster hit. Thats right, they decided to make a movie based solely on Garfield. The fat, lazy cat that does nothing but eat and sleep. The funny thing being that that's all that he litteralry does. I have never found the comic strip funny and I pray to God that no one finds an hour or so of the comic on the big screen any funnier.

Adventures in Guitaring

It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a thief appeared on the horizon. But this was no ordinary thief. This was the thief who stole my guitar amp off of the stage at church. Lightning flashed all around the thief.

"Wow! A guitar amp!" Said the thief.

"Holy crap! That dude's gonna steal me!" Said the guitar amp.

And the rest is history.

And, in fact, here's the history:

I play guitar. Actually, I should modify that sentence, because what I really mean is I "play" guitar. I pretty much suck since I've played it so inconsistently over the past 8 years. Truth be told, there was about two years where I didn't even touch a guitar. I might have taunted a guitar out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't touch it. I swear.

I started playing guitar the summer after my junior year of high school. I think 3/4 of all guys "play" guitar or drums at some point in their life. I happened to do it right about the same time most of my friends did. (Strange coincidence, right?) Well, some of them were actually good. And a few of them kept playing. One of them, Evan Gross, is now a great guitarist and songwriter. (You can hear some of his stuff here.)

I remember my first guitar. In fact, I remember it because I have it sitting here. It was (and is) a cherry red Lotus strat copy. Not a bad guitar, at all, but very cheap. I picked up a little Marshall Mini-Stack with it - just like the one Jack Black walks around with clipped to his belt in School of Rock. That thing was great! But I wanted more. I wanted an amp that would destroy my hearing! Not some little cute thing.

So I went for the Fender Performer 650, which was a very cheap floor model. I spilt my blood to get that amp. No, really, I did. My brother and I got offered a one-day job cutting down Russian Olive trees, which have very stout thorns about two to five inches long. My amp was on layaway, and my brother wanted me to get it just as much as I did, so he could play drums with me. At the end of the day, we had pierced all of our duct-tape armor, had at least three thorns through our feet apiece, and we were covered in blood. But we had just enough to go get the amp. The only downside would be that I would owe Ryan 200 bucks for his share of the work. No problem, I thought.

I loved that amp. I played my guitar day and night for months and months. My brother and I would have "jam sessions" late at night and sometimes we'd invite other friends to come play with us. It was a good time.

I had problems with my Lotus. Not surprising given how cheap it was. It sounded fine, but the darn thing would not stay in tune for five minutes. I kept having Ted Brown's music store adjust it, but even afterward, I couldn't play it for five minutes without going out of tune. After a while, they said that it was the difference in humidity between where it was made (humid Japan) and where it was played (arid Tri-Cities). I was told it could take several years of regular adjustments before it would stay in tune. Ouch!

As you can imagine, it becomes increasingly frustrating to play a guitar that won't stay in tune. So I started looking for a new guitar. I stumbled into a deal and a half! My friend Beau had a friend who was selling his guitar about the time I graduated from high school. It played great - plus it had a locking Floyd Rose tremelo and it stayed in tune practically for EVER by comparison to the Lotus.

Now, this guitar was a real find. It turns out it was a prototype model that Gibson made in the 80s. It's an American Gibson strat. But it's really thin and light. It has three knobs, four switches, and four pickups. The finish was thrashed because the guy I bought it from covered it with stickers which stripped the paint. I sold my Lotus and bought the Gibson. Then I took some graduation money and had it repainted. It looked awesome and played fantastically.

Eventually, things about it started to go wrong. The wiring was very flaky. (And when I fixed that, it buzzed like crazy.) The Floyd Rose tremelo that got me so excited was rusting and some of the tuners wouldn't turn without pliers! And then I locked the case and forgot the combination. Shortly after, my brother demanded that I give him the money for his share that he paid for my amp. I didn't have it, so I told him he could have my amp and give me 100 bucks, thinking I would just go buy a newer bigger one I had my eyes on. Ryan thought that sounded fine, so he took the amp and gave it to a friend of his. When that happened, I didn't play the Gibson for almost two years!

When my father in law loaned me a little old guitar amp, I started playing again (I somehow remember the combination.) I then discovered that my brother's friend had sold my old amp to another friend, who wanted to sell it again. I ended up very excited to be buying back my old amp. I was back in business!

But pretty soon, the crusty tremelo got to me and I became sick of the guitar. I borrowed my old Lotus from Eric and started playing it with my amp (I still have it and it's like six months later!) I had a friend from church who was interested in buying my Gibson. I was so sick of it, I sold it to him for a song. He says he did a bunch of work on it and now he loves it and says it's his favorite guitar. I feel a little sad about selling it because it was so unique, but at least he's very happy with it.

So I was back with my old amp and my old guitar. It was just like I was in high school again. Except I'm not in high school. Having my old amp back was wonderful, but it was a little too loud for our apartment, so I took it to church where some of our musicians could use it instead of dragging theirs to and from church all the time. I had the cool old Kalamazoo Model 2 tube amp that my father in law gave me, so I was happy with that as an amp. And my wife gave me a great little acoustic for Christmas.

And then it happened. Well, not then, a couple months later. It was late February. There was a massive break in at the church, and one of the things they stole was my good old original Fender Performer 650. I sobbed for days. Okay, I didn't. I shrugged my shoulders and figured it wasn't meant to be. We were too different, he and I. I was a person. He was a guitar amp.

Anyway, a few weeks later, I show up at church, and there's a huge package from my in-laws. They had said they were sending something for Kristi's birthday. But this was a gigantic box! And it had my name on it! It turned out to be an Ampeg Reverberocket Reissue. Almost totally brand new! My father in law got it and decided he wanted something different, so he sent it my way instead of selling it. It's an amazing amp! It's a tube amp with two 12's. The sound is very clean. The drive channel has a It has excellent And it weighs more than my car.

I figured that was it. But last month, when my in-laws rolled into town, they handed me a birthday card with little paper guitar in it. Then they tell me they picked out a Fender American Deluxe that they think I would like. I'm sort of dumbfounded. And then they tell me that it will be here when I get back from California. So, as you might guess, I was a little excited.

And my excitement was justified. This is one great guitar. I have been playing it like crazy and there isn't a thing I don't love about it. It was in tune out of the case and I have only needed to tune it once! It has a modified switching system called "S-1" that gives you double the number of settings available on choosing pickup selection. It plays so quiet! Not a bit of buzz, not an ounce of static, not a touch of noise. The clean is great. It sounds like a dream with reverb. It's not hard to get that great "crunch" from the drive. And it's gorgeous.

Now if only I could play...

New Design, Indeed

After reading Steven Garrity's intelligent review of the new blogger templates, I gave some thought to the current design of the site. I especially appreciated his comment that the design should not compete with content. Looking at my old site design, this was clearly happening.

The most interesting things were happening in the sidebars in comparison with the rather boring text in the center. Also, the text seemed like it was completely surrounded by clutter, with random pictures on the left and tons of text on the right. It was just too darn busy! I also came to dislike an idea I was originally excited about - filling the right column with pictures and albums that could be changed by each regular (or, ahem, irregular) contributors. The fact is, they got changed about three or four times in as many months, and that's a little boring. I did not do away with the "Photo Mojo" section. You'll notice it's there, but much smaller in the upper right hand corner.

I did like including pictures from "the wall" in the old design, but in order to implement a fluid design (which was requested by a couple of mathcaddy regulars) I chose the easy route of ditching the header pic and just keeping the sidebar image. I think it still works.

I still feel like the site needs something else and I'm not totally pleased with the way the comments section looks right now, but I am overall happy with the design. But don't be surprised to see some changes here and there.

New Design

Is there a new design for Mathcaddy coming about soon that was maybe hinted at in the now redone comments section?

Track & Field Districts

This meet started out how all other meets should start out, with the ambition to conquer the world. So being the Risk fanatics that we are, I went about trying to make a portable Risk board that we could play on the 3 hour bus ride to and back from Wenatchee.

My first idea was to secure small bits of metal to the underside of each piece and place magnets on the underside of the board beneath each territory. This didn't work in theory because the magnets would slide all over the place and I didn't have nearly enough magnets for each territory or any metal to place under the pieces. But I wasn't going to give up that easily. After all, I did have all school day to waste thinking about this.

My next great idea was to carve holes all over in the board that would be as wide as an infantry unit, as long as a cavalry unit and have to slits to the sides for the wheels of the artillery units. This turned out to be a horrible idea because it involved completely destroying my risk board.

I thought that I had the solution this time. I decided to use pins to represent armies! In theory, the pins would be easily stuck into, taken out of and moved around the board with great ease. In reality, the pins bent when you tried to stick them in the board and once you got them through the board, they stabbed your leg.

When I had completely mutilated my leg with pin pricks to the point that I couldn't stand anymore, I realized that the original game board would not work as my special travel edition. I remembered that we had a chunk of Styrofoam in our house that wasn't being used for anything and I thought that after I drew the risk board onto it that it would work perfectly. Unfortunately, the board ended up not only being nearly impossible for me to trace to my satisfaction, but I also couldn't find our precious Styrofoam.

While looking for the Styrofoam I found a nice tack board hat my Mom was using to display some necklaces and bracelets that she made. This would provide the perfect surface for my travel Risk board! Alas, she did not let me use it, of course why would she? That would only make my goal that much closer to turning into an achievement.

I thought that I had failed in my quest, but the next day things changed. I went to school with my 250 yellow-headed pins, multicolored markers, dice and original Risk board without any intention of actually getting a good game of risk going. Soon enough, I met up with someone that wanted to try to play a game of Risk. He had a map of Europe and a bit of western Asia with him from his Geography class and we decided to play on that for a 2 player map. We grabbed a mouse pad from a nearby computer and stuck that under the map so that the pins would have something to stick in. It worked wonderfully! When the class was near ending and the teacher wasn't looking, I convinced her to let me borrow the mouse pad over the weekend so that we play Risk on the bus ride to Districts.

On the way up to Wenatchee I got in two good two player games of Risk, the first one I won easily, and the second was a bloody massacre with neither side gaining or losing much ground. I think that if the second game continued, I might not have been able to prevail.

We arrived in Wenatchee about 2 and a half hours before m race, which really sucked because we had nothing to do besides be nervous about our upcoming races. I was especially nervous because I was ranked dead last in the mile. In fact, I was only allowed into the race because a teammate of mine had decided to drop the mile and run the two-mile as fresh as he could be instead of running them both. After he gave up the mile I was next in line in the district to be let in to the race. I of course was told that I was let into Districts on Tuesday, a whole weekend and a day after I thought that my season ended with JV Championships. During that weekend I hadn't exactly stuck to a 'no carbonated beverage' diet or any healthy diet for that matter.

Even after I heard that I was in Districts, that didn't stop me from gorging myself at Carmichael's Middle School Track Banquet at Granny's Buffet. My little sister is on that track team and so is my good friends little brother, so we actually had an excuse for going. We also convinced two more of our friends to coincidentally show up for dinner. We ate in solitude in our back corner of the restaurant with no one else in our entire row of tables against the wall. My 'food friendly' friend came up with the great idea that we should have a race down the row of tables to the other side of the room. He explained that to move from one table to the next, you had to eat a full plate of food at the table that you were currently at. There were 12 tables in all so it sounded like a great idea! We all got off to a good start wolfing down food at the first three tables with ease. After the 3rd or 4th table we lost a participant and after the 4th or 5th table, it was down to just my fat and gassy friend and me. We kept a steady pace all the way to the 7th table and then decided that the last 5 tables would be all desert. I continued the race with a vanilla ice cream cone with sprinkles and a few cookies, but then my Dad pulled me out of the race because he wanted to go home. I was told that my friend kept on going, but he too had to leave before he could reach his goal. Rumor also has it that he wanted to stop by Wendy's on the way home. He is my hero.

Anyways, at Districts, we were finally getting lined up to run the mile. I was very nervous and also excited because I knew that there was only 1 mile separating me from the end of my season, again. I decided that there wasn't going to be any way that I wouldn't run a sub 5 minute mile. I also promised myself not to finish last.

I took off the first lap trying to stick as close to the back of the pack as I could, and trying to ride their pace to my magical sub 5 mile. I started my second lap at 71 seconds, 4 seconds faster than I should have run my first lap. I kept telling myself every thing that I could think of to push myself and settle into my 'groove' pace, but the more that I told myself 'you can do it!', 'you got this!', 'your going to break 5!', 'don't let this guy pass you!', 'stick with this guy till the end!', the more unsettled I became and I just couldn't find any pace that worked for me. I finished my second lap around 2:32 which was a bit more on pace than before, but slower that I would have liked. Physically, I felt pumped and ready to tear up the track, but mentally I was in shambles. Coming down the final stretch I looked up at the clock and saw 4:45, seeing that I thought that there was still hope for me to break 5. Neh, I didn't. I ran a 5:04.99, which I bragged to my team mates was still sub 5:05. although I didn't reach my goal of breaking 5, I did get second to last! I was happy to see that I was not a complete failure.

After my race we had an awesome 4 player Risk game on the official board and I was the first one to be conquered. *sigh*

Kill iPod

Another week, another so-called "iPod killer".

This time it's Sony's offering. Hey, what about Microsoft's iPod killer? Or Dell's? Neuros? Rio's? E.Digital's? iRiver's? Or the original iPod killer, Archos Jukebox? Seriously, I'm going to stop because it's just a lot.

iPod Killer! Who would have thought geeks could be so violent outside of Unreal Tourney? Dozens of tech companies are developing a product that by description has the intent of slaying another product! And why is everyone so sure they have THE iPod killer?

Don't all these tech companies know the rules of iPod Killer Highlander? "There can be only one." Can't some of these players settle for being an "iPod taunter" or even an "iPod bully"? When I think about it, I suppose some companies might be willing to be the "iPod's lunch money stealer". Maybe "iPod threatener" doesn't have as sharp a ring to it. They could always try "iPod hurter" or "iPod injurer". There are gobs of alternatives!

Really, does everyone have to kill the iPod? Can't we all just get along? These aren't MP3 players - they're MP3 birds of prey!

Although, come to think of it, the phrase "iPod killer" seems more prevalent than "MP3 player". Perhaps rather than calling MP3 players just that, the product category should be called "iPod and/or iPod killers". (iPods and iPod killers are apparently not mutually exclusive: Eliot Van Buskirk said, "Ironically, the biggest iPod killer of them all could be Apple's next-generation models," referring to the current revision of iPods.) HP seemed to follow this idea, making their iPod killer the actual iPod.

The great irony of this whole thing is that the iPods are all destined to be dead anyway. It's quite sad to me that the common engineering standard of planned obsolescence means that my iPod is almost guaranteed to be dead before any of its foes have a chance to vanquish it.

Maybe that's the real iPod killer, Sony, Microsoft, Dell, iRiver, Archos, and the millions of you out there. If you want to kill the iPod, just wait.

Its battery is slowly going the way of the SuperSize fry.

Patience: The conquering iPod killer.

All these threats to my iPod have me thinking: How much real quality time do I have left with my iPod? I should probably take it out to a psychedelic multi-color flashing room and dance around like a freak more often.

"All iPods die. Not all iPods really live."

Right?

Un-damn

Wowee. It turns out that my 5:01.5 mile time got me a spot in Districts. This gives me another shot to break 5:00. It also means that I have to run again. It hurts.

On a second note, I helped out running Special Olympics today. That was fun.

In other news, I suck at posting.

California Trip Part II: An Airline Ethics Question

I arrived this morning at the Orange County Airport (aka John Wayne Airport aka Santa Ana Airport aka I hate the abbreviation aka, okay?). Walking in the doors went well, but it went downhill from there.

When we took off from Orange County, we did an odd thing. As we got over the ocean to turn, we were headed straight out to sea. Then we turned right (toward Seattle), then left, then again to the right. As we made the third in this bizarre series of turns, you could feel the pilot take manual control of the jet. We banked to the right quickly and a little rough. We were now back on course, headed up the coast toward Seattle, but it felt like something was wrong. This feeling was confirmed as we started climbing to about 18,000 feet and then dropped to about 15,000 feet.

Then the pilot came on the PA and made the most unnerving statement I've ever heard. "Hello folks, this is your captain. The plane is completely flyable."

What?? Who would have even questioned it wasn't flyable?!

He continued: "There is absolutely nothing wrong with the plane that I cannot control." Okay, still a little bit of a weirdly frightening statement. I, of course, knew everything was probably just fine. But he sounded so darn defensive it was pretty surprising.

The pilot then explained that the plane's autopilot turning controller was malfunctioning and that he had requested permission to fly the plane manually to Seattle, but that we would probably make an "emergency landing" at LAX.

We did land at LAX a few minutes later.

I have no doubt there was nothing seriously wrong with the plane. I imagine the pilot was nothing but 100% truthful with us. But it got me thinking. What if there was something wrong? Say we had a good chance of needing to make an incredibly dangerous emergency landing? Would it be better to tell the passengers everything was safe even if it wasn't? Perhaps just so they didn't panic and increase the chance of failure?

Or what if the pilot was certain that we would not survive whatever condition the plane found itself in? What would he say to the passengers? Would it be better to tell the truth and allow people to know their fate despite the fear or would it be better to allow them to die peaceful and ignorant?

I wonder if airline pilots philosophize... or if they workshop airline ethics?

California Trip Part I: I Am My Own Worst Travel Agent

I was in Southern California last week. I had some interesting experiences. For example, I am my own worst travel agent nightmare. Heading for a week in Pasadena, I booked a flight from Tri-Cities to Santa Ana. I mistakenly thought that the John Wayne Airport (Santa Ana) was the Burbank airport.

Santa Ana is actually south of Anaheim, which is considerably south of Los Angeles, which is south of Pasadena. I was almost as close to San Diego as I was to Pasadena! Now add to that the fact that I booked a car from Advantage Rent-a-Car, which was several miles from the airport, despite Expedia.com saying it was located "at the airport terminal". What they really meant it turns out is that customers have to call for a shuttle that picks customers up at the airport terminal and takes them to the middle of nowhere.

When I called for a shuttle, the oh-so-helpful and friendly representative from DisAdvantage informed me that they had no cars. None. I had a reservation... but they had no cars. They suggested they could take me to my hotel and then bring me my car later, if I was willing to do that. But they weren't willing to drive my car to Pasadena! (Rightfully so, since it is - according to yahoo maps - an hour north!)

They said I was welcome to wait in their office for a car and that they would give me the first one back. Luckily, someone showed up with a car shortly after I arrived at the office. And it was a better car than I had ordered. It was a pretty nice little silver 2003? Chrysler Sebring. So off I went!

Then I realized there was another reason I am my own worst travel agent nightmare. The flight I had booked, in connection with the wait for my car, had me heading for Pasadena at exactly 4:05 on Tuesday afternoon on the most jam-packed highway in the known world. I-5 in Los Angeles. Now, this highway has cars that have been stuck in traffic jams so long that some parts have formed strata similar to the Grand Canyon. There are miles and miles of dead people sitting in cars that haven't moved since 1970. (See picture at left.)

Eventually, I got to Pasadena. And that's all I have to say about that.

Mathcaddy Radio: Session 5: All Time Favorites

Adam says: Mathcaddy Radio presents Adam's 10 favorite songs of all time. Although, this is just off the top of my head... there's probably other stuff I like just as much. Anyway, I invited Steve to participate in this session. And he did. His role was to offer his opinion after I shared with him some of my favorites. Sometimes he was even funny! Often he was just weird. And occasionally he hated my picks.

Steve says: Adam made me do this. He dragged me from my house with my heels clicking and clacking the whole way. I got a hair cut today. Adam gave me ice cream and it was good. I had a hard time saying what I liked and didn't like about songs, so I just said anything else that came to mind. Some songs that I sound particullary hateful towards I actually like. So dont trust anything that I say. But don't come to me for help when the communists come, I will be somewhere.

Mathcaddy Radio: Session 5

01: Palo Alto - "Too Many Questions"

02: Ben Folds - "Not the Same"

03: R.E.M. - "Be Mine"

04: Harvey Danger - "Terminal Annex"

05: Nada Surf - "80 Windows"

06: The Verve - "The Drugs Don't Work"

07: Death Cab for Cutie - "Tiny Vessels"

08: Jawbreaker - "Stuttering"

09: Travis - "Writing to Reach You"

10: Roy Orbison - "You Got It"

[59 MB MP3 :: 64 Minutes]

Death of an iPod

Today I noticed that my iPod wouldn't turn on and that there was a strange rattling sound coming from inside it!. I was very worried that it would be broken forever and that I would never again be able to listen to its sweet sweet sound through my blown out ear buds. I got home and charged it up hoping that it would just be running on an empty battery. Luckily it was. Unluckily, none of my buttons worked. I noticed that the hold button was engaged so I disengaged it. I guess that the hold button broke and was wandering around freely inside. Anyways now I get a new shiny iPod from customer service.

Junior Varsity Championships

I ran the mile. I got a 5:01.5. Damn.

Steve = Writer + Good + Sometimes Evil Sounding

Anyone who hasn't figured out what an amusing writer my cousin Steve is should take a look at his latest addition to his site, steve.mathcaddy.com. He's one clever guy. And he actually isn't even as evil as he sounds in his writing! He's really an absolutely awesome person! But don't take my word for it! Doo-d-doo! Oh. Sorry. I just watched Reading Rainbow. And speaking of books - can I have my book back if you are done with it, Steve?

I want to read more of Steve!