UCLA blog ring

I joined the nascent UCLA blog ring. I was at UCLA from 1989 through 1994 (yes, that is five full years and I needed every day of it) graduating with a degree in Computer Science. At UCLA, CS was in the engineering school, which meant plenty of math, chemistry and other fairly difficult subjects. I was always amazed by the difference between the north campus and south campus classes. In the few north campus classes I took (art history, etc.), I got good grades because it was so subjective; you could almost make stuff up and still come out ok. Try that in physics and you will end up at the wrong end of the curve. Don't get me wrong, I liked those classes, I just didn't find them very challenging.
I will have some more UCLA stuff in the future. If you were a former Bruin, especially during my tenure, please write or comment.

Shaken and Stirred

An interesting take on the current Middle East situation (thanks to Smash):
Shaken and Stirred.
I agree with everything except the last part. The author, Josh Manchester, says that Israel has an opportunity for a "decisive defeat" of Hizbollah. Although they may very well be defeated decisively, seeing that they don't stand a chance going toe-to-toe with the IDF. I am afraid any such victory would be only temporary. As long as there are countries and organizations (and people) that feel that terrorism is an option to them, then there will be terrorists. Given time and money and weapons, there will soon be a Hizbollah II, Electric Bugaloo.

Saturday Schedule

• Jog on the beach at Swami's and San Elijo


• Kayaking at Agua Hedionda Lagoon


• Pick up kids from the airport!

Atlanta vacation

The week of July 4th, we were in Atlanta to visit my wife's parents and other family. So much went on it would be hard to recap here but I will list some highlights.

• Georgia Aquarium - Home to 4 whale sharks.

Whale Sharks at Georgia Aquarium

• Callaway Gardens - This resort southwest of Atlanta had all kinds of activities, from biking to hiking and plenty of aquatics. One of my favorites were the tandem bikes made for an adult and child so the kids could ride along with us.

Tandem bike at Callaway Gardens

• Wild Animal Safari - where you can feed the animals yourself. This place is great!

Petting a Gnu

• Kennesaw Mountain battlefield - piqued my interest in the Civil War

Kennesaw Mountain Cannon

• St. James Episcopal in Marietta - where we were married oh so many years ago.
  

St. James, Marietta

• All the wonderful family members that I don't get to see nearly as much as I would like.

Traffic School

As a result of a recent speeding ticket, I had the pleasure of attending traffic school. I opted for the weeknight version that consists of two 4 hour sessions. Better that than kill an entire day. Apparently the online versions aren't much of a time saver. The instructor was a former cop and provided some interesting insights. Not so much how to get out of a ticket but how to avoid them in the first place (mainly by obeying the law). The best part is going around the room to find out everyone's ticket. Half of the class had speeding infractions while other had mainly red light violations. The red light tickets where mainly from the cameras and very expensive, $300 and up! There was one older fellow who got fairly belligerent when discussing (more like yelling) about his ticket. The instructor almost had to throw him out. All in all, it wasn't the best time I had, but it could have been much worse.