The coldest winter I ever spent
Archive for 2006
My folks are visiting SF at the beginning of June (!!!). Do any of the high quality chain-ish hotels at Fisherman’s Wharf stand out?
Currently looking at Raddison, Sheraton, Hilton… It’s gotta have a bar or be very close to one.
One of my headlights went out last week. I went to Kragen Auto Parts and got new bulbs. I paid a little extra and got Sylvania XtraVision headlamps. I had bought Silverstar headlamps but I found out that they only have an average life of 1 year in a car. $60 a year on automotive lighting… blah.
The XtraVision are marketed as having “up to 20% more illumination” (source). After pulling out my 8 year old bulbs and installing them, I came to realize that “up to 20%” includes “only barely noticeable”. :-(
Oh well. At least I had fun figuring out how to change the headlamps in a 1998 Chrysler Sebring LX Convertible. The first one took half an hour of fiddling. The second took 3 minutes. :-)
I was unfortunately unable to change the direction they point. I found the controls but I think they had aged and wouldn’t move properly.
Does it bug anyone else that Sylvania is using shortened life span as a sort of “planned obsolescence” money maker? They can easily make them last 3,000 hours for almost no extra cost but they choose to make them last 850 hours. Halogens last that long as a matter of course; that’s what the halogen is for. I think they need some healthy competition in the marketplace. Anyone want to start an automotive lighting company?
My company’s product, TVTonic will be featured on Rocketboom tomorow, Monday April 10, 2006.
If you don’t watch Rocketboom, well you should.
A few weeks ago an acquaintance I met… I think her name is Ruth, while walking in Glen Canyon Park told me that I might find people flying RC airplanes at Fort Funston. Not only are there model airplanes but there is steady wind and a cliff, making for a perfect hang gliding spot. The sky was full of hang gliders. And littered around under bushes out of the wind were slope soaring planes. Once the hang gliders landed, two guys put their planes up, a gentle soarer and a tiny little hotliner that was more hot than tiny! It’s very hard to gauge how was it was…. 120MPH? Both planes had their charms, that’s for sure. When Brandon, Larry and myself got to talking about flying, they said how there were better places to fly just to the south. Brandon pointed toward Pacifica and mentioned at least 3 good places to fly: near the public dump, on top of the mountain (but you need to be able to land in about a 10’x10′ area!) and down near the water.
So after taking in the incredibly break taking views at Fort Funston, watching the hang gliding and and RC soaring, and playing a little football catch with the guys, I went down to Pacifica.
I went down near the dump and quickly found them. It’s funny, when you’re looking for soaring planes, you have to scan the horizon and look for flying objects. Once you’ve found one, you have to watch it closely to determine what it is. If it moves relative to the ground, it’s not a kite. Then it might be a plane or might be a bird. It often takes me several seconds to figure out which it is. I love that. I love that we are flying artificial birds. With motorized planes, it’s easy to tell because birds flap their wings while (of course) planes don’t. But with soaring… at a distance, it can be quite hard to tell the difference!
I found about 6 guys flying flying wings on an incredibly beautiful hill. The flowers at my feet, the crevices of the hill, the gentle but constant wind, the sound of the surf a few hundred feet below, the 180 degree panorama of the coast and of the town nestled just inland, the setting sun partially obscured by roughly defined clouds, the glistening of the light off the water… I could go on, really I could.
They were having some playful combat and doing some soaring. Sometimes two planes would collide and as they were falling out of the sky there’d be hooting and laughter. Sometimes the pilots would recover and sometimes they’d have to climb down the hill a ways to fetch their plane, only to briefly examine it and toss it silently into the air again.
A mere smiley face does not suffice!
And I should’a brought a camera.
You’ll notice little icons next to each post showing what category it’s in. That’s due to Multi-Topic Icon.
Oops! I was supposed to get it in DVD! Wrong button!
But at least my anti-religion arsenal arrived safe and sound… Dennet’s “Breaking The Spell” and Henderson’s “The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster”. (I didn’t really realize I bought 2 anti-religion books at the same time until they arrived)
Now I’ve got to sell the VHS version and buy it on DVD. I’ve got to wait another week or two to see Adam say those imortal words…
I’ve got a bit of an ant problem in my bathroom. They are tiny cute lovely little ants. They are so curious, wandering around and talking to their friend ants wiggling their antennae. Watching them walk in and out of the poisoned bait trap I set bothers me.
I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Cheese Weasel Day. Did you get any cheese under your keyboard today?
I was always enamored of those Leptoprin commercials… I’ve talked about them to friends… talking about the announcer’s piercing blue eyes looking right into my chubby heart. Her intensity driving me to say, “I -am- strong enough to buy such a powerful weight loss compound! I am! When is a diet pill worth $153 a bottle? Now! Dammit! Where’s my check book?” But it’s like other people didn’t stay up as late as I did or something. None of my friends believe Leptoprin Lady exists! Here’s a little proof (and a bit of a homage) that the stuff really exists.
The Federal Trade Commission loves Leptoprin so much, they got someone to make a transcript of the whole commercial.
Last night I went out to an Aaron Jae night club experience at Whisper, 535 Florida St. It was more fun than I thought it would be. Danced, drank, met some cool people including some Space Cowboys. I haven’t been to a show in a long time where the DJs were celebrated; I wasn’t expecting much but I was very impressed. They talented and made the dance floor a lot more fun.
Must chill now. Going to bed at 4am will do that.