Mean Mr. Ice Cream Man

We recently had an ice cream man starting coming around the neighborhood. He has the typically van with all the advertising stickers on it. He also has the corny music. But this ice cream also smokes like a chimney and seems to hate kids. Once my two heard him coming and, after getting permission of course, ran to get their money. The guy saw the kids hurry off but didn't bother to wait and drove off. Now maybe his compensation packages is tied to mileage instead of ice cream treats sold, but now the kids aren't really excited when he comes by anymore.

YAAQV

Yet another al Qaeda video...this one is from an American traitor. How this joker can say this crap with a straight face is unknown to me. If these losers had any guts they would stop blowing up women and children and face the U.S. on the field of battle; like real men. Go back to your hole, freak.

Shrek 3

I filled my yearly movie theater quote (which happens to be one) by seeing Shrek 3. It is definitely the worst of the three. It started out strong but the last half is pretty lame. I think the writers have run out of fairy tale creature jokes.

Casino "Cheating"

Some local people where arrested for allegedly "cheating" some casinos. Besides the bribing allegations and other insider dealings, I never really understood how this is considered cheating. Aren't they just using all the available information to improve their play; all the other players have access to this information as well. I remember reading about casinos banning card counters in blackjack. A lot of them weren't using any devices, just counting the cards in their heads. The casinos are free to let whomever they want play, but it goes to show just how much pull they have with politicians that they can make it a "crime" to get good at their games.

Chief No More

My reign as the Dorado Tribe Chief ended this past weekend with our last event at Dos Picos. I had a great time as Chief and had a great group of guys in the tribe that make things easy.

Migrant Mother story

Everyone has seen this famous photograph of a migrant worker mother and her kids. Apparently, the real story is quite different from the picture.

Vietnam Myths

Op-for has a good recap of some common Vietnam myths.
Some highlights (emphasis mine):

Isolated atrocities committed by American Soldiers produced torrents of outrage from anti-war critics and the news media while Communist atrocities were so common that they received hardly any media mention at all. The United States sought to minimize and prevent attacks on civilians while North Vietnam made attacks on civilians a centerpiece of its strategy. Americans who deliberately killed civilians received prison sentences while Communists who did so received commendations. From 1957 to 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 Vietnamese and abducted another 58,499. The death squads focused on leaders at the village level and on anyone who improved the lives of the peasants such as medical personnel, social workers, and school teachers. - Nixon Presidential Papers Common Myths Dispelled: Myth: Common Belief is that most Vietnam veterans were drafted. Fact: 2/3 of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers. 2/3 of the men who served in World War II were drafted. Approximately 70% of those killed in Vietnam were volunteers.

Myth: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.
Fact: The American military was not defeated in Vietnam. The American military did not lose a battle of any consequence. From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. General Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley a major military defeat for the VC and NVA.

Coach

My wife got me a Coach wallet for my birthday a long time ago. Over the years, it has started to wear along the spine. The Coach site describes their lifetime warranty, so I sent it in for repair. A few weeks later, the wallet was returned untouched. The response letter said that it was unrepairable; in exchange, they gave me 40% off any item. The discount isn't bad, especially if I get something pricey, but they should have sent me a new wallet. Maybe I will get one of these, or these.

Trojan Horse

I got this bizarre email at work from our IT department:

Someone received an envelope from:

OCE'
5729 LEBANON RD
STE. 144-275
FRISCO, TX 75034

The envelope contained a plastic horse, about 2" long and 1"
high. Around the waist of the horse was an Avery label with the word
WORK on it. The envelope also contained a piece of white card stock, 5"
x 2" , with the following url:

"some url"

When my guy went to the url, ( using his laptop
computer) his screen tuned blue and he received over 150 pieces of spy
ware. The program then started collecting data.
It looks like the program collected about 40 different excel
files before he disconnected his computer from the internet.

Please let me know if you receive anything like this ASAP,
remember to try to save the envelope and toy (or whatever is in the
package) for finger printing and tell your IT guy to be on the lookout
as well.

I hadn't heard of this before. It must be a very specifically targeted attack since the senders had to know that the target had something of value on his PC. My guess is Chinese government hackers.

MMORPG

Our family has been taken over the MMORPG craze. Our kids have spent hours playing Webkinz. I wonder if there are Kinz Cash farmers?

Innovation Through Dedication

At my office, they have a coffee counter just like every other office in the western world. Among the available items are coffee stirrers. Here is a picture of the box of stir sticks:

Now I admire the Royal Paper Products company for the pride they take in their products, but this might be taking it a bit too far. These stirrers are simple wooden sticks. As far as I can tell, they do not possess any innovation whatsoever. Since they are probably made my machine in huge quantities and not individually handcrafted, they don't really contain any dedication either.

Kurds

Some good news on Iraq.

Disneyland

For Jaya's birthday, I took her and a friend to Disneyland on Saturday. We had a blast. Got there right after it opened and staying almost to closing. We did every ride the girls wanted except for Peter Pan, which had 60 minute plus lines the entire time.
I also did a few things that I had never done before

• Parked in the Poombah lot. If you get the opportunity to park in this lot, DON'T! It is located across Harbor Blvd. and there is no shuttle service. This wasn't a big deal in the morning when we are hyped up, but at 11:00 at night with two tired girls, the walk is no fun.


• Saw the story at Aladdin's Oasis. It is easy to miss this attraction wedged between Jungle Cruise and the Tiki Room, but I highly recommend it if you have kids. The actors did a great job telling the story of the movie.


• Got dinner and a show at the Golden Horseshoe. I don't think I have ever been inside the Golden Horseshoe, but they have food (a limited menu though) and great entertainment. The band was country/hillbilly with a frontman that looked very much like Neal Young. Very entertaining, but a tad bit loud.


• Rode Roger Rabbit spin ride in Toon Town. This had the longest line of the day and right before we were about to board, the ride broke down. As the current passengers were unloaded, they announced a 20 minute wait and we decided to stick it out. After almost exactly 20 minutes, it was back up and running again.

Toastmasters

I recently joined the Toastmasters club at my company and today gave my first speech, the "Icebreaker" project. This is supposed to be about yourself, and I spoke about my progression from loathing automobile maintenance to enjoying it. I got a bunch of good feedback to pore over and hope to make my next speech soon.

Shaara Trifecta

I recently finished three historic novels from Jeff Shaara.
The Rising Tide - The newly released first segment of a World War II trilogy, I think I was the first to grab this from the SD County library. This was my first Shaara book and I really like it. Due to my past interest in WWII I knew all the people and places that were mentioned. This book follows American troops from the invasion of North Africa through the Sicily campaign. Mr. Shaara does a wonderful job of describing the heat of battle but also the tedium of the planning and waiting. I guess that is war is described and periods of shear boredom punctuated by moments of shear terror (or something like that).

To the Last Man - My favorite Shaara book to date. Follows the same tedium/terror pattern of Rising Tide but the battle scenes are much more intense. I think this has to do with the choice of characters. In Tide, Shaara follows a tank driver and a paratrooper; these disciplines, added with the nature of WWII combat lead to a greater separation between participants. But in WWI, there was still a "wait until you see the whites of their eyes" kind of fighting. Highly recommended, especially if you know nothing about The Great War.

Gone For Soldiers - This was Mr. Shaara's first non-Civil War novel, and his weakest that I have read so far. In this book, he follows the "dream team" that made up the American side of the war, including Winfield Scott, Robert E. Lee, U.S. Grant and others, in the Veracruz to Mexico City campaign. He does not cover any grunts like he does in his later books and gives the book a bit of a blue-blood tone to it. Not a bad book by any means, especially considering the difficulty of the subject.

Next up is Jeff Shaara's two-part America Revolution series.

Mexican Moving Vans

Living close to the border, I often witness the wonders of the Mexican Moving Van. For the uninformed, an MMV is a steel frame built up around a pickup truck. Kind of like a carpenters pickup with the over-the-cab rack just a lot higher and longer. The owners then pack them to the rafters with stuff. It is amazing that these things can even move much less travel the freeways. I saw the mother of all MMV's on the way down from Orange County Sunday night. This one was not hauling a household of goods like they normally do, but rather had a single cargo: mattresses. Lots of mattresses. Think of your normal MMV loaded to the hilt, then throw on a few dozen mattresses. There were some decent winds on the freeway that night and I still can't figure out how that thing didn't tip over. My wife thought they were using ballast in the truck bed. I hope the poor guy didn't get rained on or he would have soaked up a few tons of water.

Dogs Are Like Flies

As a previous post detailed, we are having a problem with our dog pooping on the floor, usually on the carpet where it is the hardest to clean up. A friend gave us a good trick to try. She only feeds are dog once a day, in the morning. Then she walks the dog, it poops, then nothing until the next day. Apparently, dogs are like flies. When something comes in the front end, something has to move out the back to make room. We were leaving Sophie's dish out all night. She would wander in for a midnight snack, then nature took its course. This trick has worked so far and has saved her from a one-way ticket to the Helen Woodward center.

Bad Week

Its been a rough start to the week so far.
* Woke up sick the the flu that everyone seems to have
* Dog crapped on the hallway carpet
* I stepped in said crap
* Work is piling up due to sick days
* Strained a muscle in the back of my rib cage

Pipe Hike

Each weekend, we try to get out on a hike that is not too difficult for the kids and we can take the dog. Out favorite is on the Manchester Trails just a short distance away. We call it Pipe Hike for the gas pipeline running through the park. Most of it is buried, but there is a wash that was exposed the pipe so it acts like a bridge. The kids like to cross the over it.
One our last trip, I took my eTrex and tracked our route. Through the wonders of Google Maps and GPSVisualizer, I made a map of our trip. Our route is 1.7 miles which is just right for the tykes. There is one steep stretch where we climb 160 ft. in little over a tenth of a mile.

Lucene

I have started to integrate Lucene into one of my projects at work. Now I can be a genius like my colleague.