And a Happy Christmas to all of you at home!

Xmas time savings

So Gabe, our friend Adam and I were roaming around Fry's last night looking for Mac repair essentials. After many tangents, we pass a STACK of brown generic boxes containing 19" flat panel monitor pilled up like sliced meat; on top of the pile was a brief sign that only read "19 inch LCD $159.00"

As we walked by Adam said, "walking through Fry's this time of year feels like buying electronics out of the back of some dude's van." HOW TRUE! Everything was silly priced to resemble hot merch and the packaging had a certain "fell of the truck" quality.

The best part about our Fry's trip? As I stood scanning the area looking for Gabe, Mr. Paul Harriman(!) came in the front door at 9:30 PM and meandered by, our exchange followed:
"Hi Paul!"
"Hey there, what are you doing?"
"I seemed to have lost my husband"
"You'll never see him again."

I didn't look to see if he was holding the Sunday Ad, but I assume he went to the car later holding some generic cardboard boxes.

Black Screen of Death

Heidi learned today that Macs can also die on you with no warning. Instead of a cheerful and optimistic blue screen of the PC that says, "Hey buddy, REBOOT!" you get a somber black Mac screen that says, "SOL!"

Turn back on? If only! Call a dude to help? None to speak of! If your Mac crashes so hard it won't even turn on, get thee to a reclaimation center. Nice work Mr. Jobs, my Mac should have the Happy Fun Ball warning because it has given me more problems than a PC ever has.

Links Roundup!

My new favorite thing about having a blog is that whenever I find something cool on the web, rather than try to figure out who to email it to, or consigning it to the black hole that is my bookmarks list, I can just post it here.

Yes, I know. I can email that epiphany back in time to 2001 when it was still reasonably fresh.

Links!

Video of excavating an ant colony!

Someone made a family tree of D&D up through AD&D 1st Edition.

Flickr stream of concept art Ralph McQuarrie did for the original Battlestar Galactica. To answer your first question, yes it does look even more like Star Wars than the final product did. On the other hand, I want to see someone do an animated movie in McQuarrie's art style.

Andy Rooney talks smack about Windows! How can someone be so right, and still make me want to disagree with him?

The Logitech Mice that weren't.

XKCD - Alternate Currency.

BCC Radiophonic Workshop - the Fourth Dimension. A blog I had never heard of but am now a huge fan of has posted mp3s of a long out of print Radiophonic workshop album. Awesome. The rest of the blog is well worth poking around as well. (Also, it's worth pointing out that those MP3 are sourced from vinyl. How the heck do they get them to sound that good? I NEVER heard a record player sound that good.)

Tiki artist Shag has been commissioned to do art for the Haunted Mansion's 4oth anniversary. How badly do I want prints of these? Pretty badly.

Greg Costiklyan does a fascinating analysis of Candyland.

"They" would seem to have turned Get Your War On into a web cartoon. Tilt!

I didn't know this movie existed, but now I really want to see it really badly.

Bettie Page Passes Away

Bettie Page passed away today at the age of 85. If you consider yourself a feminist, you are probably in one of two camps regarding her presence and influence on the women's lib movement that came shortly after her rise to popularity. One camp says she exploited herself and women and was bad for their efforts for equality. The other camp says she was a pioneer and actually helped lay a few bricks herself in the path all women walk today towards a life of equal pay, equal respect and equal rights. I happen to be in the latter camp and am sad to hear she has gone.

She was raven-haired when it was in vogue to be blonde, she was vivacious when it was the style for women to be demure and while other ladies wore aprons in their 1950's kitchens, she was bold enough to run around naked. A lot of gals may be put off by the bondage flavor of some of her photos, but when you think about how the 1950's were, I think they are an apt reflection of the time for women. After WWII, A LOT of women were kicked out of the industries that kept America going while they built the hardware that won the war. They had been pilots, machinists, managers and factory gals; then the men came home and the ladies were shown the door, it was a great contraction of women's liberties and lively hood that created the powder keg that blew in the 1960's. Bettie Page was a revolutionary thinker in the fact that she simply didn't subscribe to the notion that women's sexuality should be suppressed.

She also happened to be a stunning specimen of the opposite of what was popular at the time. Leggy blondes in coquettish poses were the posters and photos that had wallpapered locker walls and dreams alike; then Bettie shows up with her raven locks, severe fringe, animal print and teeth baring photos and gave a new perspective to what is beautiful.

I think that Bettie knew what she was doing, while she wasn't out to make a feminist statement, she was quoted on saying the she never thought nudity was dirty or bad. She said if religious people had a problem with her photos because of nudity that they should remember their bible and know "God made Adam and Eve naked as Jaybirds." She never saw herself as a porn star, and I don't consider her photos pornography. Why? I can't explain, I just know it when I see it. She is both cute and fiercely sensual, submissive yet in control -- she is complex. I think this complexity is why Bettie has been so popular for so long; when you consider her photos have been praised, damned, loathed and admired for 50 years, you know her impression is a lasting one.

I don't consider her to be on the same level of Gloria Steinem, but I appreciate the efforts of ALL the women before me who made a choice to speak out, act up and sit in and I consider Bettie to be one of them; because of their forward thinking, when I cook in the kitchen it is my choice and not my place.

You'll be missed Bettie!

I have this reoccurring dream...

The details change every time, but the jist of it is that I'm desperately trying to tell other people something or warn them, and they can't hear me, and by the end of the dream I'm screaming myself hoarse.

Seeing as the greeks had a whole myth about this, I suspect I'm not the only person who has this dream.

Still, it could be worse. I could be awake. And on TV.

45 Years

It's the 45th anniversary of Doctor Who today.

Who'd have thought 45 years after starting, it'd (still) be one of the most popular shows in the UK?

Today's Wiki article of the day

Doctor Who Missing Episodes. Nice!

WE DIDN'T GET THE HOUSE

They got a "significantly" higher offer than ours according to the listing agent, way over the asking price, so of course they will pick the higher offer. I hate that we won't know what that amount was, I wish I could tell the bank "I call" so I could at least see the hand that beat ours.

Moments like this REALLY suck; thank goodness the rest of my life is awesome!

--HH

NEW HOLIDAY

So on December 5th, we have a new holiday DAY OF THE NINJA!

I expect this to be the new party at the FOA! Dust off your ninja masks and slink over to the FOA for some good ninja fun -- no neck snapping allowed.

--HH

PS> Someone made a comment about how it is sometimes a little dificult to tell G-Unit and my posts apart, hence the sig line.

Well, there it is.

The new design of the Enterprise from the new Trek Movie.

As a more or less recovered Trekkie, I don't really have an opinion about this, but I feel like I *should.*


(Okay, just a little: dig the engines, dig the saucer; but the neck is way to far back.)

Legos!

Holy crap. Look at these insane lego sets on Amazon.

The six year old me would have happily committed murder to get these.

Ninjalistics!

"Combining the ancient arts of ninjutsu with modern ISO-9000 compliance, Ninjalistics Inc. helps enterprise clients solve problems, remove obstacles, and stay competitive."

Thanks, Internet. I needed that.

Also, if you dig a little on the website, it turns out this is written by the same guys that did Paranoia. Tilt!

Web Comic Roundup

You know how it is. You're up late, surfing the inter-tubes, and 57 clicks later you've discovered a new web comic.

Like I did, last week:

This entry of The Warehouse made me an instant fan.

But, it occurs to me that perhaps this means a webcomic round up is in order. So, the wecomic I read on a regular basis (that you should be to0):

Buttersafe
Achewood
Dinosaur Comics
XKCD
Penny Arcade

Feel free to post the ones I forgot in the comments. We'll do a part II once I remember all the ones I should be reading.

Mythbusters vs. Knight Rider

The Mythbusters try to see if you can really drive a TransAm into a big rig on the freeway.

Home Search and Heartbreak

Well, some group of bastard people went and bought the house Gabe and I were putting an offer on today. SON. OF. A. B!TCH.

Am I mad? HELL Yes. At who? Who cares, getting mad won't get me anywhere, which just makes me more mad.

Some say, "it wasn't meant to be." Others say, "there will be a better house down the road." I hope to goddess that is true, otherwise we just dragged our feet too long on submitting an offer and lost the only 2,500 sq. ft. house within spitting distance of the Sacramento co-op with a living room you could park a monster truck in. Did I mention the double-oven in the kitchen and the 4 bedrooms upstairs? I am sick with heartache today because I SAW us living there. I saw our kids in the backyard and I saw 35 people at our house for Thanksgiving. Yeah, I cried a little at lunch, maybe a lot.

Then I remembered, as I sat sobbing in the parking lot, that I also cried with a heavy heart in 2002 when I learned I was a day late getting my airfare to move back to China and couldn't afford to go. I cried all day when I broke up with Mr. Jerk in 2001 for being the Ultimate Jerk, thinking I had lost something worth having. I really cried in 2005 when I lost my job because I couldn't keep my mouth shut about how poorly the department was managed and my superior gave me the boot so she didn't look bad. Looking back I am SOOOOO glad all those painful moments happened, otherwise I wouldn't be living in Sacramento with all my wonderful friends and new family, I wouldn't have the most wonderful loving husband who is perfectly matched with me, and I wouldn't be working with the best coworkers and the best boss a gal like me could ask for.

All of the things I am most happy about in my life were possible because things didn't go my way. Things I thought were the most disappointing moment EVER, turned out to be first steps towards a better outcome.

Maybe that house is haunted, maybe it has structural damage, maybe the neighbors are horrible; or maybe the loan of the people who placed the offer will fall through after they pay to have all the inspections done and we can swoop in. Who knows. Maybe this happened so that anyone out there reading this, who has seen a place for sale by/in midtown, will now let us know that they saw our house for sale :)

PROP 8 = HATE

For the next post I am speaking to those people who voted "yes" to segregation; everyone else, good job...

What the hell California? How can 52% of you be so lame? California is supposed to be the state that shows the rest of the country how it is done. It is also the state that contain SAN FRAN-freaking-CISCO, so I am baffled at how this is so close to passing. Everyone I know, knows a person who is gay or lesbian: friends, family, neighbors, etc. What a way to punch everyone of those people in the face like a playground bully. You don't like people in love being able to marry? That is cold, man. And you are stupid. If it is passed, don't get too comfortable in your closed mind, same-sex marriage WILL be legal someday.

I am hoping that when the absentee ballots are counted, it is shut down by a sliver of the vote. This could happen because the majority of absentee ballots are democrat, and there are supposedly 6-8 million ballots left to count.

When all is said and done, I hope this is tipped in the favor of equality. To deny a gay man bridal registry is cruel and unusual punishment.

Your thought experiment for the day

As of this writing, the most recent numbers I can find have a yes vote on Prop. 8 ahead by about 400k votes, but with votes left to count and the absentee ballots yet to compute. Personally, I find this result disappointing but not surprising- California has a very solid arch-conservative population that only seems to come out to vote when the issue is guys kissing each other.  (If memory serves, the original gay marriage ban here passed by a similar margin.)

However, some food for thought:  what percentage of the people who voted to outlaw gay marriage do you suppose have "enjoyed" lesbian porn at some point in their lives?

ELECTION RESULTS

THANK! THE! MAKER!

That sound you hear is Europe sighing with relief

Ahhh, President Obama.  It's been a while since my guy won.  Feels good.

Wait, Lines?

So I'm thinking to myself, "self, there's probably going to be a pretty decent voter turnout today, so you should get there at a time when there will be less people."

Excellent Idea, self, I think back.  Since the polls open at 7, and I'm still jetlagged from the daylight savings switchover, I figure I can get there 7:45 to 8:00-ish and get it done before work.

So I roll up to the polling place just before 8.  Now, for all intents and purposes I've been going to this same polling place for the last 12 years, and I've never had to wait more than a few minutes to get in.  The only time I couldn't basically just walk in and vote I think I was the second guy in a line of two.

This morning, there was a line of people out the door and down the block.  Never seen that before in my entire life.  AND, everybody in line looked like they were under 30.

Have we finally convinced Americans to vote?  Thank goodness.

Well, it's that time again...

Friggin' daylight savings time.  Not a fan, personally.

I always get jetlagged super-badly the week after the switchover.  The fall switch is always a little better, since at least I'm getting up earlier rather than later, but I'm still going to be a zombie for the next few days.

And really.  It's the 21st century.  We have electric lights.  An information economy.  A global marketplace.  Did I mention ELECTRIC LIGHTS?

How on earth is playing slight of hand with the time a good deal for anybody.

And to head off the usual first thing everybody says to support this particular piece of voodoo temporal mechanics:

Does ANYONE seriously think that anyone who depends on daylight to do their job (farmers are the usual example) woke up this morning and said " thank goodness I've got more daylight.  After all, getting up at a different time each day would have been too difficult."

I Won 1st Prize!

So we had a contest in our office to write a scary story. My boss wrote a begining and sent it out via email and we were supposed to finish it. I chatted with Gabe about it and got good ideas and tried to write it, but I put this off until 2 hours before it was due -- I guess I like to work under pressure. I didn't expect much responce since all authors feel their work is crap until someone tells them they are wrong. Below is the story, the begining is in bold Georgia font, my completion is in regular Arial.


The Night That Dripped Blood

It was late Sunday night in Oregon, twenty miles from Portland, and the rain had been beating with savage satanic fury upon the tiny isolated century-old log cabin. The storm reminded Garth of Noah’s flood—a tale his father, a died-in-the-wool fundamentalist, liked to tell in order to scare the hell out of his sons right up through their college years--and brought to mind the image of an angry, avenging God. Garth wondered if God were unhappy with him.

Now, wide awake, heart thumping wildly, Garth lay in bed, tossing and turning in the sweaty sheets, listening keenly to the sounds behind the rain. The sounds, he knew, came from somewhere in the thick forest surrounding the old family log cabin; they had been constant for the last three nights.

If he listened hard enough, behind the rain pounding on the cabin’s tin roof Garth could even hear a reverberating empty wooden sound, like two hollow wooden sticks being struck against each other, at regular intervals; it was as if someone were trying to send him a message through the chill wet October darkness. Occasionally, straining to listen, head exploding with migraine pain, he was certain that he could detect voices, sometimes a man’s but most often a woman’s. Once last night, Saturday, he had even heard someone shriek.

Now, Sunday night, the hollow wooden thuds came about every thirty seconds, and as he listened Garth tried to rationally construct a picture of the noise’s source. If the noises had come during the day, he concluded, they might be caused a woodsman, but at night no one would be working in the forest, especially during a furious October rainstorm. Maybe, he thought, it was an animal, but an animal couldn’t maintain the steady, rhythmic beat all night long.

Then, as he heard a beast’s low howl, he sat bolt upright in bed; he remembered a story he had known about since childhood and had heard as recently as last year in one of the bars just down the road. There was a legend that haunted this small logging town, one that made children’s eye grows wide and adults speak in hushed tones. But surely it couldn’t be real!

The sweat glistened on his forehead as his ears strained to hear what lurk in the night; he was greeted by the thin wail of his own infant in the next room. He got up to check on the child, careful not to wake his still sleeping wife. How she could sleep in this kind of weather never ceased to amaze him. As he held and rocked his newborn, his mind went to the story that had scared him since childhood.

It is said that a legacy of men live deep in the woods beyond the mountain pass. Those who have claimed to see these men say that they are of mixed ages and the number over time has increased in number. Garth chalked this up to imagination making the story larger each time it is told, but there was a reason why their numbers grew and why they lurked where no man fear to wander.

It is said that 150 years ago a man in town who had his share of wealth was in fading health and desperate for a cure. The man was almost 90 years old and would need a miracle to extend his already impressive longevity. He sought that miracle from a traveling gypsy woman who came through town at his most desperate hour. “Heal ME!” he pleaded as she turned his hands over in hers, she studied every line in his palms and whispered that she could grant him eternal life. No more aging, no more illness. Without hearing the conditions of this offer, the old man agreed quickly and gave her his promise to do anything she wanted. She reached into an unseen place and retrieved a long needle, she jabbed her finger harshly and let three drops of blood fall on each of the man’s hands. She then took them into hers and let the blood dry. As she sat there with him, she began to chuckle; her grip intensified tighter and tighter as her chuckles grew into maniacal peals of laughter that was heard throughout the town and woke every soul with a chill in their heart.

She became quiet and still and looked deep into his eyes, “Yes old man, you will do what I say.”

He tore his hands free from hers and they were hot and glowing, like they had been forging in blacksmith’s fire.

“What is this?!” he bolted up and thrust his hands at the gypsy, “What have you done to me witch?!” he demanded.

Her lips spread into a feline grin, “what you have asked for, you shall now receive,” she replied. Her eyes began to radiate with the same fire that possessed his hands; the caravan interior grew dark until all he could see were her glowing eyes. “You will bring me your male heirs for all eternity, and their life-force will feed us both.” Her eyes grew dim, the caravan sank into complete darkness and no one heard from him again.

The story goes that this gypsy woman keeps him alive still to fulfill her own evil needs. They say his wish was granted, but that he lives eternal as a slave to her. They say she demands that he lay his hands on a strapping young man once a generation to drain his energy and turn him into her minion, but only after that man has had a male child to continue their lifeline. Living in a logging town, many young men don’t come home because of the dangerous work. Some townsfolk speculate who is related to this cursed man and who could be taken next. However, the majority of the people think it is just a story told to give a good scare.

Garth is part of the majority on most days, but in nights like tonight, he admits to himself that that damn story is getting the best of him. He rocked his baby gently and looked out the window, deep in the woods a branched snapped under the weight of something dark; he half expected to see the ghostly mob emerge from the forest led by an elder with glowing hands. But he knew his grandfather, he lived in the retirement home on the other side of town and he had only known kindness from him; his grandfather actually had severe arthritis and despite his finger’s claw-like appearance – he quietly chuckled – he had certainly never seen those crooked fingers glow!

He turned and laid the infant back to rest in the crib, then he saw movement in the corner of his eye; he snapped his head to see what was in the room with him and all he could see was two flame-glowing eyes. He gasped and blinked hard to make sure it wasn’t his vivid imagination. It couldn’t be! The room went dark as pitch and the gypsy witch appeared eight feet away from him and grinning like a cat.

“I’d like to introduce you to someone Garth,” her voice was a whisper of evil delight. She stepped aside to reveal a gaunt, ashen man in his twenties. What was this? This man didn’t have the red-hot hands that all the stories spoke of, but this man looked very much like Garth.

“What do you want?!” he hissed at her, trying to sound brave and trying to not wake the sleeping child.

“I want you to say hello to your father.” The edges of her smile curled higher and transformed her eyes into bright slits. He looked at the man again, this was not his father. The resemblance was amazing, but his father was alive and well.

“This is not my father,” he told her, “my father lives up the mountain with my mother and has done so for 26 years.”

“You are wrong Garth, he has lived with her for 25 years, and your mother married him one year after your father disappeared when you were an infant.”

His blood chilled in his veins as his heart pounded. He looked again at the soulless form next to her and saw his own eyes, his dimpled chin, his large-knuckled hands – he knew in an instant that she was telling him the truth, this shell of a man was his father.

“Why have you brought him here? What do you want?” he begged, he was now trembling with fear.

“You know why we are here,” she hissed and pointed a long, boney finger at him.

Her eyes blazed and a third figure stepped out of the shadows with hands that flashed a blinding orange. They illuminated the path towards Garth as the cursed man drew closer to him with arms outstretched. Garth tried to steady himself on his own trembling legs. This could not be happening! This was just a story, JUST A STORY! He stepped back as the man approached and he bumped into the crib, the infant began crying. He dipped into the crib and held his infant tight. The dreaded hands reached for him and missed, hitting the corner of the crib. Garth stood up and whipped around to face them, he had a twinkle in his eye.

“I would like to introduce you to someone!” he shouted at the gypsy witch over the baby’s cries, “I would like you to meet my DAUGHTER!”

He held her up for all to see and the woman shrieked back and the man stopped his approach. The gypsy witch vanished with her slaves in a swirling cloud of putrid smoke. He opened the window to let the rain-fresh breeze sweep the room of any foul air. The room returned to normal and the smoke cleared.

As everything edged back to how he found it, he stood there holding his daughter and wondered for a second if the whole thing wasn’t all a nightmare. He laid her back down after she had quieted and noticed that the edge of the crib had a man’s palm print scorched into its rail. A shiver went down his spine as he stood there.

Thank God for daddy’s little girl.

###

There you go, $40 for 90 minutes of panick :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Your halloween Tale of Terror (recycled from an email thread)

A Liger at a zoo attacked on of it's handlers.

Best line from the news report: "Investigators said they're not sure what provoked the attack."

I'm thinking it was the Liger's grand finale to an afternoon of screaming "WHAT?  AM?  I?"

On the other hand, Ligers *are* bred for their magical prowess, so this attack could have been far worse.

It's Halloween

And I assume we'll all be celebrating in the traditional manner by nailing theses to the door of the local Catholic Church:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-Five_Theses

With a little help from my friends

MTV and Harmonix have licensed an undisclosed number of Beatles songs for a future Rock Band Game:

http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/10/30/1228219.shtml

Stealing a joke from the linked Slashdot page, I hope you get bonus points for playing bass left handed.

Man, I am so, so there.

Electoral College Pool

Slate provides rules for running your Electoral College pool:

http://slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhead/archive/2008/10/28/make-your-own-electoral-college-pool.aspx

I'm not sure why I didn't come up with this years ago.  I always end up watching the election night coverage obsessively, and with this I'll finally have a reason to.  Suggestions in the comments please for theme-appropriate stakes.

Well, damn it.

David Tennant is stepping down as Doctor Who after next year's "not-a-season":

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7698539.stm

Damn, damn, damn.  I was really hoping he was going to give Tom Baker's "longest running" title a run for it's money.  And the thought of a full season script-edited Stephen Moffat with Tennant in the lead?  Bliss.

Still, not to be, I guess.  Well, time to roll out all the Eddie Izzard / Bill Ningy / David Bowie / Ian Richardson / James Nesbitt / Richard Griffiths rumors.

In case anyone missed it

This did the rounds of the interTubes a few years back, but here it is again in case anyone missed it the first time around:

The Gettysburg Address as a PowerPoint Slide Deck.

Ow! My Face!

This may be approaching TMI time, but I had the worst acne outbreak of my adult life over this past weekend.  It's ridiculous- my forehead this morning looks like it was attacked by a family of ill-tempered spiders.

I've never been affected before by the cliched "chocolate = zits" thing, but now that may be one more cool thing that my new, over-30 body won't for for me any more.

I'm 30 and worried what the people at work will think of my acne?  What the hell, people.  Was discovering that acne never actually stops the biggest disappointment of anyone else's adult life?

SKELETONS HARVESTED!

IT HAS BEGUN!

So as some of you may know, I adore ADORE halloween. I have always loved the spookiness and brisk weather of October, plus it is the month that contains my birthday so it has to be good.

Last year we had a halloween party and I may have gone a LITTLE overboard with the decorations, well this year is shaping up to be the same delightful time-drain.

Last night I cut out the shadows of two skeletons for one of the windows in the living room. The plan was to have different shadows in all the windows of the house that face the street. A mummy here, a skeleton there, a witch, a dracula, etc. So I decided to start with the hardest ones first, the skeleton pair. Since we have a bazillion bones in our bodies, I knew that the combination of my OCD and attention to creative detail would have me taking longer with this patern.

It took me 90 minutes to properly cut and hang the two skeletons, there is just one problem -- they look freak'n-fantastic! They look so good that now I want ONLY SKELETONS in ALL the windows. We live in a two-story victorian Fortress of Awesome, so that is a lot of windows, and a lot of skeletons. I need some more double-sided tape and some better scissors, and a whole lot more time.

If you have OCD and plan to display freaky handmade shadows in your windows, I suggest you start with ghosts; big, bulky, simple-lined ghosts.

Today's totally fantastic chart from the InterTubes

http://www.cowclops.net/resolutionchart.png 

Screen Size vs. Viewing Distance, charting at what sizes & distances various levels of resolution become noticeable.  Turns out, I need a blu-ray player.

Also: Dan Aykroyd may have lost his mind

Wait, WHAT?

Now watch that again, and pretend that was Ray from Ghostbusters.

By the way: worst beverage I've ever had.

"If you could touch the alien sands and hear the cry of strange birds, and see them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?"

Youtube: every single Doctor Who Episode. 45 years in eight minutes.

Music begins where words leave off

See, this here is what the internet got built for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omvPDzsHt6A&feature=related

It's an annual tradition

At the start of April, something happens, and takes up all of our time.

"Dang it!" we say. "We don't have time to do our Taxes, we have a wedding to plan, etc.!"

"I know, just file for an extension!"

Six months pass.

"Holy crap, it's October!"

Smash cut to us filing our taxes on the internet with 48 hours to go.

Score.

Dang, that was cold on everybody

In a rare moment of vaguely political content here on the FOA blog, a link to a great analysis of the VP debate:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100602634.html

My favorite line:

"Many of my colleagues judged Palin simply as a performer and inferred that her performance would go over well in homes with aboveground swimming pools."

There's, like, 87 different burns just in that sentence.

Dang it, Fry's Electronics!

We go to frys yesterday, for the express purpose of buying an extension cord and one of those power cable floor protector things. And then it turns out that, as near as I can tell, they're closing out the books section. Books on programming normally cost upwards of 50 bucks, but they had just about everything for 15 and below. What?

Talk about hitting my thermal exhaust port - books, computers, AND a savings? Normally I wouldn't buy a book called "wicked cool perl scripts," but for 10 bucks? Sure.

Happy Ten-Ten Day!

It's October 10th, or Ten-Ten day, and by ancient family tradition,
that means Chinese food for dinner.

There is a standard, two step response that everyone has on learning this:

1) Yum!
2) Why?

The normal responses:

1) Yum!
2) I have no idea.

There have been many theories put forward to explain Ten-Ten day:
Archie comics, never before heard of "Chinese holidays," my Dad's
crazy roommate in college, etc. In truth, like all good traditions,
the origins are lost in the mists of time.

Dang, what's up autumn?

Had to wear my jacket to work for the first time this morning. Must be October.

Great Moments in TV Watching

Somehow it came to light a few weeks back that Heidi had never seen "Soap," and was, in fact, totally unaware of the program's existence. This was clearly an unacceptable circumstance, so our friend Cristi loaned us her DVDs - which proceeded to sit unwatched until last night.

"If everybody I know thinks this is funny," she says, "I guess I'll try to ignore my judgment of the program based on this cover art."

I'm pretty sure I'd never seen the first episode before, and it was kind of funny watching them try and spin Soap up to speed - and explain to a mid-seventies audience what they're in for.

However. The Great Moment.

The pilot is laboriously introducing the characters, and Jessica finally walks back into the kitchen to talk to her butler.

"Hey, " says Heidi, "That's Benson!"

"Good Morning, Benson!" says Jessica.

I've never seen a draw drop that hard or that fast. Upon learning that this was was the show Benson spun off from, Heidi suddenly became *far* more interested.

Wait... DOMO-KUN?

Wait a minute. Target's Halloween mascot this year is DOMO-KUN? That's... I have no idea what that is.

Walking into the store on Saturday was the most surprised I have ever been.

(Go do a Google image search for Domo Kun. Now do one with a safe search off.)

I spell hell "J-U-R-Y D-U-T-Y"

Wow, how I had avoided doing jury duty up until now I suspect is a real feat. When I lived in Chico I received a summons, but I wrote them a letter how I had a "special needs dog" and could not afford to kennel her for days or weeks. It worked!

I have never heard from the good peeps of the Sacramento Court Circus until last week; well, technically they sent the summons WEEKS ago but it was tossed in with the junk mail by accident and retrieved in the nick of time to avoid "problems." Will they really arrest you for not going to jury duty? Will someone then be summoned to serve on a jury to convict you of not attending jury duty? If so, consider yourself toast -- everyone in that jury will be pissed as hell at you for avoiding the thing that would be currently ruining their day.

ANYway, jury duty is a study in self control. It tests your ability to keep from running out of the courthouse at top speed or saying things that may put you in handcuffs. I know it was my fault for not sending in a letter about my hardship of working for a non-profit organization who cannot pay for ANY jury duty; but you'd think that after I stated that fact to an official (and they agreed I couldn't serve on pretty much ANY jury), that they'd let me go to work after that fact was discovered. Nope. I had to sit in front of judge after judge and let them know of my hardship, be dismissed, and then go check back in with the jury pool. Wait, what? If you all you people agree I cannot serve on a jury while working for my current employer, why must I go to other panels only to be excused? It wastes the court's time, it wastes the council's time and it wastes my time.

It looks like they just waste A LOT of people's time because at 3:45 pm, the last panel I sat in was basically 25 people who were in the same predicament as me. The only ones left that late in the day are all people who had been repeatedly excused from other panels, so almost all of us were excused from this one and the lawyers had to call in another group of people -- whom I could over hear their hushed-tone lamenting about how they too had hardships and would just be excused.

While waiting in line to go home, I chatted with several people who HAD sent in letters only to have them returned with a rejection notice -- then they were dismissed by every judge. There should be a better way of doing this to make sure that people are not stiffed a day's pay to be told by a judge that they should not be stiffed a day's pay.

I think I need to go adopt a "special needs" dog.

Bill Gibson on the current fiscal "Situation"

I think I got that email.

Enounters with the American Situation

I've been remiss in my duties in not linking to the Truck with No Doors. This dude I know, and this other dude I know, and one of their Dads are driving a Volvo from New York to Sacramento.

Hijinks Ensue.

We mixed the books

I wanted to follow up to Gabe's post about the library with what excites me about our new organization. Our books are finally mixed. It may sound silly, but he and I have been together 5 years, lived together for 3.5 of those years, wed for 3.5 months and this is the first time we have a single library. I think this development is one of the things that has made me feel the most married.

When you have an English major w/a minor in creative writing, and a Sci-fi buff with an English minor to his BS in Computer Science under one roof -- you get A LOT OF FREAKIN BOOKS! It doesn't help that there are used book stores a plenty and amazon.com to feed our habit. SO this was a big step in my eyes and I am so glad Gabe did it. It now makes me wonder though how we are going to be able to afford a 6 bedroom house; we currently rent an awesome 4 bedroom Victorian so we each have our own office, a house library and a master bedroom. We are probably going to have 2 kids if all goes well so we'll need a place to stash them too.

I think I will go buy a lottery ticket with my bottled iced tea money.

Its a sci-fi free fourth quarter!

it's been observed that I was probably an obsessive compulsive librarian in a past life. Getting books in order on shelves is one I'd those things that I really get nuts about, so it won't come as a supeise to learn that our whole book situation here at the fortress was driving me crazy.

Finally a few weeks ago as part of our ongoing "let's live like adults" program, I sat down and burned a week getting the library here in order. And I couldn't be happier. We got the rest of our books unpacked, and I finally got every thing into some kind of order. As an example, I'd been wanting to get all my Asimov books together in one place for years, and now I finally have. (Three whole shelves worth.)

Looking at all our books in one place, the one thing that really jumped out at me was - wow, I have a lot of science fiction. I mean, that's not all THAT surprising, but the scale compared to the rest ofthe collection was something of a shock.

I consider myself to be a pretty well-read guy; I got a minor in English. To steal a line from High Fidelity, I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being and understood it. I actually LIKED Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. So, what's up with all these robot books?

Well, I like robots, obviously, but I really hadn't ever clicked that given the choice between a book with and without robots, I'd choose the robot EVERY TIME.

So, I made a decision. Between now and the end of the year, I'm not reading any SF. I'm going to sit down and read some of those not-robot books I've been meaning to read.

First up, then, is something I've wanted to read for years, but never got around to. And, why not just head for the deep end?

Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 1.

We have passed the probation period

Had Gabriel and I married as a job, we'd have just passed our 90 day probation period last week. I guess we are now full-time hires as hubby and the bride. I think our review would have gone well.

Marriage Manager: So you've made it to the 90 day mark and seem really happy, that is great. We are happy with the team-forward attitude you two bring to the reputable institution we call Marriage.

Heidi: I am glad you noticed. I have to say it has been a great 3 months and I am very happy with the status of our positions. The combining of our individual intellectual assets really seems to gain new respect from others.

Gabe: I am so excited about this merger I can hardly speak.

MM: Is there any aspects of the job that you feel needs improvement?

Gabe: I was worried we would never get the house in order, but my complaintless solo efforts in organization have sparked us both to optimize our surroundings.

MM: Yes, we saw the pen drawer in the dining room, very impressive.

Heidi: I am glad Gabe took the lead with that project and let me warm up to the idea of handling other tasks on my own. I was slow to start, but I think we will both make a great finish.

MM: That's good Heidi, we were afraid that future children would have contracted tetinus had the area not been improved. Parenthood called and said they would like to interview the two of you in January to see if you could afford a future membership to their club, it is just one of the perks of being a part of Marriage.


Yikes :)

Self Discovery!

I was having a bit of down time at work (no one in the office this morning to say "hey, what are you doing?") and wondered if there were any songs written with my name in it. I am thinking along the lines of "Oh Sherry" by Journey, "Rosanna" by Toto, "Allison" by Elis Costello, you get the idea. A song by a musician that loves that lady so much he has to croon/rock/whine about it. Well I found the only Heidi song out there without "Heidi heidi heidi hoe" in it, like to hear it here it goes:

"Heidi is a Headcase" by the Ramones.

WHAT!? On one hand, that is very awesome because the Ramones rock! On the other hand, it figures. No sweet ballands for my name, just a dire warning of the antics of an unstable lady. Here are the lyrics:

Headcase baby
She's a cool kind of crazy
Wild and she's willing
(It's an early Dylan)

She drives me crazy, oh yeah

When I look into her big blue eyes
I'm so glad to know she's mine
My little headcase, yeah
Ooh, ooh, yeah, my little headcase, yeah
Ooh, ooh, yeah

Heidi is a headcase, a rebel and a rouser
Blasts away for hours
What's she doin' now on the escalator
Snorting up some speed on the picture of St. Peters

What 'cha doin'?

When I look into her big blue eyes
I'm so glad to know she's mine
My little headcase, yeah
Ooh, ooh, yeah, my little headcase, yeah
Ooh, ooh, yeah

Ooh, baby baby, whatever you do now
Don't ever go away

Ooh, baby baby, whatever you do now
Don't you ever go astray
Don't you ever go away - ooh, ooh, yea

Heidi is a headcase


Well there you have it. I have to say that middle bit on the escalator makes me sound very much like an SNL sloth.

Lovable, but problematic.

A New Addition...a post by Heidi(!)

There is a new addition in the kitchen, a Krups convection toaster oven. Seems our old toaster oven wanted to be put on the back porch until trash day since Tuesday night it hissed at me and shot blue smoke in my face, for the fifth time. "Fine!" I yelled and unplugged it. I had visions of swinging it by the cord and hurling it into the alley with a satisfying SMASH, but that would not have been what they call "classy" and I probably would have needed what they call "bail."

So now we have a very cool and overly appointed robot to make toast, and other stuff. It heats up using six crystal quartz rods -- I am not kidding, it is like the toaster oven of solitude. It has a matte black finish (not the happy shiny chrome of most designs I saw), it means business and looks a tad menacing to be honest; but I guess I shouldn't be surprised since it was made by angry Germans. When your toast is done it shouts "KRUPS! KRUPS! KRUPS!" When and if you burn the toast, the oven shouts "NEIN!" and flings the toast into the trash bin. Just kidding, but the instruction manual DOES explain how to use the broiler setting by displaying the steps of cooking four large bratwurst sausages. You know it is roomy if it can accommodate 4 brats.

I haven't named it yet, will keep you posted.

UPDATE: The toaster oven's name is Odin, the Norse god of fire seemed appropriate :)

Quantum of Trailer

There's a new trailer out for the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. No, I'm not going to link to it; my iPhone doesn't have copy-paste, and you know where YouTube is as well as I do.

It looks like they're picking up the quality torch where Casino Royal left off and are keeping that train rolling.

Still. One of the major aspects highlighted in the new trailer is the "mysterious organization" the bad guys all work for, code named (apparently) Quantum.

Look, all I'm saying is, if Quantum doesn't turn out to actally be SPECTRE, EON is going to have some peeved nerds on their hands.

Must be September.

I had to turn on my heater on the way to work for the first time in
months this morning. So long, summer. See you next year.

Condition Win

I'm stopped at the last light before my freeway onramp this morning, and I look up to my left. Buisness 80 is stopped dead. Ouch, I think, but it's far too late to take the back way to work. So I grit my teeth and pull up the onramp.

To discover that the accident that's brought the freeway to a standstill is about eight feet behind where the ramp enters the freeway, and that I just pulled on to an essentially empty freeway. Made it to work on record time.

Here's hoping the rest of the day goes as smoothly.

There ain't no party like a hat party

Gabriel and Cristi looking pretty happy thanks to cocktails and lots of them :)

Google Chrome

Damn. I'm kinda in love with it.

It's not just fast - it's amazingly fast. Clearly, they've done some really nifty things up and down the whole pipeline to speed things up, and I approve wholeheartedly.

The new JavaScript engine is just fantastic. Gmail just sings in this thing, and google maps is pretty spectacular. As the world gets more AJAX-y by the day, this is a really good direction to be moving, I think. Also, as someone who is essentially a web desinger who wishes he could use more client-side scripting in an efficient manner, this gets me really excited. (I know Mozilla keeps talking about how great Firefox will be eventually, but it's hard to argue with the kind of results that Chrome actually has.)

The integrated search / URL bar actually works. I know every other browser out there also has such a creature, but this thing is so much better it's ridiculous.

Tabs are each their own processes and fully sandboxed. Fantastic. Really - why didn't Firefox do this from day one? (Yes, I know. Because it was 1997 and they thought they were writing Netscape 6 when the code's foundation went down, and no one knew multi-core processors were going to become the norm. Still, though.)

Also, the google gears "web application link" thing is just super slick.

I tend to swap between browsers a lot for testing purposes in my day job as a developer of web-based data systems, and there are a lot of things about Firefox, Opera, and Safari I really like. Chrome has, essentailly, glued all the features I like together into one browser (quite literally in the case of the mozilla and webkit code bases).

And then, there's the Terms of Service, which are INSANE.

On the other hand, it's also a fully Open Source program, so I fully expect someone to start publishing "Bronze" as a TOS-free alternative.

But, on the gripping hand, what I'm really looking forward to is Firefox 4 ganking the half of the codebase that wasn't theirs to begin with.

Words of Wisdom, stolen from an Email Thread

Chris: Bugs are like children. They know that, for best effect, they
should wait until you're in public to start flipping out.

Jordan: I use a tech. diff as an opportunity talk about our top notch monitoring... "So, y.com is the beta site and this does happen from time to time, but what you don't see is all the stuff going on behind the scenes right now. We use a fantastic system called Nagios and this exception is automatically getting captured and placed into our sustaining engineering queue where someone is going to prioritize it to get fixed... blah blah blah..."

Chris: Smooth! Turn it into a demo of something else entirely. That's like a weapons manufacturer turning a live demo into an impromptu bonesetting tutorial.

This SO happened

Last night was my aunt and uncle's 20th wedding anniversary party, and I found myself thinking, "wait- is this one of those TUXEDO OPPORUNITIES I've been waiting for?"

Yes. Yes it was.

The Drawer of Destiny

It's not much of a secret that Heidi and I have serious pack rat tendencies. Of course, in classic FOA style, we're pack rats about DIFFERENT THINGS. So, the whole Fortress is full of boxes of things that one of us keeps trying to throw out, while the other says, "well, I don't know, we might need those someday..."

"We might need 50 feet worth of late 1980s Parallel Printer cables?"

"...."

Therefore, the system that's developed is one of largely tolerance and selective blindness. This is, of course, highly exacerbated by our inability to actually put anything away ever. It's not so much that we're lazy, you understand - it's that we're both champion grade procrastinators. And again, about largely different things, which tends to end in a net result of us getting nothing done.

(As an aside, this is my official marriage planning advice to all single people is this: marry someone who likes to do chores. But will be classy about it. And while you're at it, someone rich.)

Where I'm going with this is this: When we manage to spend an afternoon taking the drawer in the dining room we've been using as the place to stick all the crap we don't know what to do with for the past year and turn it into this:

Well, it's a relief for me anyway. Our kids might not get tetanus and die after all.

Made available here for Reference

The Five Point Movie Scoring System is an infallible system developed over years of painstaking research. The System boils the total value of a Movie down to a totally accurate score between Zero and Five, the higher the better.

A Single Point is scored for the presence of each of the following:

1) Robots (also valid: Cyborgs or Replicants.)
2) Explosions (Any kind)
3) Ninjas
4) Nudity
5) Space Ships (or any other sufficiently advance mode of travel)

The Value of this system can be observed by the following ratings:

Star Wars: 4 points
Starship Troopers: 4 points
MORTAL COMBAT! 3 points (added by Heidi)
Raiders of the Lost Ark: 1 Point
Blade Runner: 1 Point
Citizen Kane: 0 points


No one has ever found a 5-Point movie. This is believed to be an entirely mythical concept.

And what did you do over the weekend?

Us? Um... we beat the Endless Playlist in Rockband. Yes, the one with 58 songs in a row.

Took us 6 hours.

Notice our highly sophisticated XBox360 cooling mechanism:

It's a fan. Blowing on a bowl of ice cubes. We had to change the ice every couple of songs - usually the XBox crashes on us every hour or two, but not this time.

Clearly "I don't drink coffee anymore" is a total lie.

House Cleaning in Progress, Stand By.

A day or so into the Maui trip, I knocked together the blog here as a way to make sending updates to people a little easier on, well, me. It didn't occur to me that anyone was actually *reading* it.

Since we've been back, whenever we run into someone we haven't seen since we've been back all say the same thing; "we really enjoyed the blog. Are you going to keep posting?"

In that case, we're back by popular demand. Stand by for updates. I'm going to be doing some cleanup of the older entries (first drafts on iPhone = really easy; editing on iPhone? Really hard.), and I'll see if I can get the one picture that never posted right to show up.

Also - hijinks?

Happy birthday, America?

Happy birthday, America!

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig

Put the LAX back in relax

Aloha, Maui

And who doesn't like hanging out in airports?

We had a great time. It was a classic Gabe&Heidi trip, which means we spent most of the time overcoming bizarre obstacles. The microwave never did get fixed, by the way. Poor Heidi spent the first half of the trip sick, although we never had to find an ER, so we've got the trip to Disneyland beat. It took her a few days to get into the swing of things; her not feeling well combined with the heat & humidity led to a fairly grumpy Mrs. Helman. She got better, though - she got used to the weather and started feeling better. A few days after we got here, she was sitting out on our porch, looking out at the water and watching the waves knock down little kids on the beach.

"Well," she sighed, more to herself than anyone else, "I finally saw turquoise water."

Aloha Maui. See you next time.

On the way home

All packed up and ready to go. So long, room.

Last night on Maui

But will it be an APA or MLA citation?

America's best beach 2006

Sent from my iPhone

Saga of the rental car, part 5

Saga of the rental car, part 4

So there we are, driving the Ares Predator around like that's a good idea. A few days into the trip, we decide to drive into Kahilui for (something). Its dusk, and we get on the road heading inland. We're in Napili, technically, so this is a 30-45 minute drive, depending on traffic. As we get towards Lahaina, Heidi turns to me. (It's okay, go check Google Maps. I'll wait here.)

"What if we roll? This car doesn't have a roof."

Do you have some plans I don't know about? How about we just don't roll the car?

"Listen to the engine, though. I'm not sure I want to drive this at night."

The engine did sound like driving at 40 miles an hour in a straight line was asking too much.

Do you want to call the rental place tomorrow and see if we can trade it in?

"...Yes."

So, we turned around, and we did. They were very nice about how scuzzed up the car was, and swapped is straight across for an '07 Corolla. Much better.

Heidi named it "Bessie."

Stormy night on Maui

...and THAT was a long drive back

Heidi: "Jeeze, are we gonna have to speak Hovitos out here?"

You know what Hana has that the Hana highway doesn't?

An EDGE signal.

Sent from my iPhone

None shall pass!

Make sure the concrete goes right up to the roots there

And here it is - Hana

You're letting me down, Maui

I don't think there's a single public bathroom anywhere on this frakkin' island.

On the road to Hana

Science is cool

Heidi's new purse spent the evening at the luau sitting in the sand on the beach. Check out the iron oxide on the magnetic clasp.

Luau!

We went to a luau last night. Called "the Feast at Lele", it had a rep
for being the best luau on Maui. Certainly, it was the best luau I've
ever been to.

There was a four course meal, each course being from one of the
cultures that contributed to Hawaii's. On between each course,
dancers came out and did traditional dances from that island.

Also - unlimited free drinks.

You've never seen Heidi more excited than watching a Samoan fire dance
after several cocktails.

Sent from my iPhone

At least the eyes are open

"Take my picture in the Tiny Door!"

Her response after seeing the picture: "Wait - that door was taller than me? That's dumb."

See if you can spot Heidi

Also worth pointing out that there is exactly one tree in this picture.

The microwave I'd still out of action

The lady who owns the condo has a penchant for hi-tech gear. We hear from the housekeeper that when the dishwasher broke, they had to get someone out from Apple.

It turns out that grammar is not a requirement to be a good chef

This might be the best steak & eggs I've ever had. Also: ten bucks. What? Maui is crazy.

And all the English Majors in the audience just spit out their coffee

Today's words of wisdom from Heidi Ferrier Helman

"Dude, do NOT call out the Pacific Ocean."

And then we hopped the commuter flight to Japan

Liveblogging the Iao needle

Iao needle

Things I think are funny, part 2764

Why isn't there an iPhone optimized version of the apple website?

Sent from my iPhone

Saga of the rental car, part 3

Driving the Ares Predator into Lahaina. Notice the sunshades by Wolverine.

We were on the park on Lahaina yesterday...

And a local offered to sell me some "Maui Zowie" - in sight of a police car. I guess I look as relaxed as I hope.

Just to keep it real

We woke up this morning to discover that our space age microwave doesn't seem to be working. Awesome?

So, this happened

Saga of the Rental Car, part 2

Our car is a White 2002 Mustang. Its clearly been around the block a few times - its pretty thrashed. Both bumpers are beat to hell, the doors have more dings than a high scoring pinball game, and there are at least two holes in the roof. It drives like somewhere, part of the engine is crying. As we drove it around, we tried to find a nickname that summed up both its current apperance as well as our guesses about its life so far.

Heidi's first suggestion was "Mus-stank," but somehow that didn't quite convey the fundamentally sketchy and vaguely law- breaking quality of the thing.

"It looks like of been on a Shadowrun," Heidi says.

So we named it the Ares Predator.

Up up down down left right breakfast

We're staying 200 feet from a restaurant famous for it's macadamia nut pancakes, and Heidi can't eat wheat. Solution: Heidi mailed herself some wheat-free bread mix and we made our own dang pancakes. As a final touch, Heidi hiked over to the Gazeebo restaurant yesterday to get some of their Macadamia nut spread/topping.

"Do you sell that whipped stuff?" she askes. The two ladies at the restaurant look at each other. "...Yes?" they say. "That'll be 78 cents." Heidi hands them a dollar, "Keep the change!"

"Have fun!" they say, grinning. About halfway through the second pancake, a look of shock collides with a look of dismay on Heidi's face. "oh my god," she says, "I don't think they thought I was going to put this on pancakes!"

Try to imagine the look on Heidi's face 5 seconds later

Turtles?

We just spent the last half hour watching sea turtles surf just off
the rocks behind where we're staying. Every now and then a head or
flipper pops up from out of the water, but mostly you just see these
dark shapes right under the surface, riding each wave in.

Screw software development, how do I do this for a living?

Sent from my iPhone

Notice the golden light of heaven shining down

There are two things that Heidi looks for in her quest for the "Ultimate Spot." First, shade. Second, proximity to the final destination. That path to the right there leads directly to our front door. This is what she considers to be photo-worthy. (You should see the pods of our last trip to Disneyland.)

Great moments in breakfast

Takeout from the Gazeebo on the lanai. Condition Win! (Note the size of the to-go coffee.)

The saga of the rental car, part 1

Months back, Heidi says "what kind of car do you want rent on Maui?"
"I'm not sure," I said, "a... Car?"
"I just rented us a Mustang Convertable."
That'll do, I suppose.
Flash ahead to Monday. We've just spent what felt like seventy thousand hours crammed onto our teensy little United Airlines seats. (Side note: don't fly United.)
We arrive at the rental place. It's a little low rent. A single slightly dilapilated building squads on the edge of an under maintained smallish parkinglot crammed with cars of all descriptions, packed so tightly you could barely move beteen them.
After signing the paperwork presented to us by the extremely laid back young man behind the counter, we're taken to our new car.

This is entirely uncalled for, part two

Look at the sink on our condo's kitchen. I mean, LOOK AT IT.

This is entirely uncalled for

The microwave in our condo has a touch screen. WHAT???

I guess I'm drinking coffee again

Not so great moments in Maui

Turns out that sales tax in Hawaii is 4%, so if you double tax and
round up, you're actally undertipping. Bummer.

Sent from my iPhone

Great moments in dinner

Mahimahi & chips.

Sent from my iPhone

Flashback: Great moments from Maui, part four

Date: June 11, 2008 5:12:56 PM HST

Total hours on Maui before someone said, "Holy Moses, how much IS this
trip costing?" : 49.

-G

Flashback: Great moments from Maui, part three

Date: June 11, 2008 10:10:14 AM HST

Heidi just got so mad at our stove not cooling down fast enough that
she put a pot full of ice cubes on top of the burner in question.

-G

Flashback: Great moments from Maui, part two

Date: June 10, 2008 7:39:43 PM HST

Walking back to their room from the beach, Gabe & Heidi spy their back
door over a fence.

G: If we could jump good, we could just get right over this thing and
into our place.

H: But the back door is locked.

G: well... We could just throw our shoes at it til it breaks.

H: Yeah, 'cus F that deposit!  I can't think of any better way to
spend 700 bucks. What's up, Aerosmith?

Flashback: Great moments from Maui, part one

Date: June 10, 2008 12:41:50 PM HST

Last night I passed out so hard, Heidi had to check my breathing.

Not an exageration.

-Gabe

Great moments from Maui, part five

Great moments in Maui, part zero

To reduce further freind-spam, future updates have been moved to the
FOA blog.

Sent from my iPhone