More news about my company

I mentioned an article about my boss a few months ago here: Coast of Araska: Top 40 under 40.

Well he is in the news again here.

Always good to be getting press, I didn't realize that he went to McMaster, yeah Mac!

Black Tube Redux

For those faithful viewers who recall the dark days of yore or the joyful days that followed. We are sadly back to where we started, the TV is once more broken.

I imagine the problem, at least superficially, is the same. I imagine once more the fuse has gone. The true problem, as I'm sure you have concluded, is something more insidious and fatal, something deeper within the machine that is surging on some regular basis and blowing the fuse.

Short of a small fuse pile placed in proximity to the TV I will once more investigate an on site repair. I also am somewhat fearful of just keeping the fuses flowing, as I imagine a time in which the fuse does not prevent the surge from traveling beyond the confines of the TV and wounding other peripheral, and healthy equipment.

In the mean time, I know there to be a plethora of TV's in various states of repair to call upon. I just don't look forward to the eventually task of raising the corpse of the TV from the basement, its freaking heavy (which may have inadvertently lead to its premature demise.)

June 30 (Written from the Circumvesuvia on Route to Naples (From Pompii)

From Gatwick to Palermo the flight was short and comfortable.


On landing we were herded onto a bus and taken to the terminal. After 3 minutes in the baggage area we were summarily marched back to the bus, as we had not gone through Italian immigration.

Once loaded, the bus carried us thirty feet or... to the proper entrance. Immigration was manned by to tired looking men, whose lazy eyes skimmed our passports and waved us through

Luggage collected I made my way to the train to downtown.

The last leg of my journey, the train from the airport to downtown, was the hardest. I had no expectation for how long it should take, but it took longer then I expected, and felt longer still.

A short (yet expensive) taxi ride later, and a walk up some stairs and I was at Hotel Sicila (pronounced Si-ch-illa.) I knocked on the great wooden doors (a faux pas I was soon to be informed of) my rapping not only summoned the desk clerk, but also the cutest girl in Italy.

I had arrived.

June 29

The Flight to Gatwick was relatively uneventful, I read, and I slept. Strangely, for me, I slept lightly, waking with each passing in the isles, or dimming of the light. Landing in Gatwick I was greeted by traditional English weather... rain (in hindsight apparently I was graced the storms that mid to late July wrought on England.) The walk from the arrival gate to the terminal convinces me, we have landed in France and I must walk through the Chunnel.

After many hours of loitering, and getting a coffee that cost 1.70 pounds, I made my way to my connecting flight. As we queued at the gate, we were sent directly across the airport, as our gate had become blocked with an Air Portugal Flight. After a cross airport run, I boarded and was on the way.

As the last grasp of gravity was broken by the plane, I felt a great relief. All of my work and stress stayed below on the tarmac. I hope my stress can charter a flight home without me; I don't much care to share another plane with it.

Penned (with pencil) by my hand, July 3rd 2007, at the Ritrovo Ingrid, Stromboli, with Biera in the other)



Ps Erin wants gelato, so I wrote that fast.

ZOMG!!! Jays winning, where's the band wagon?

Sorry, 11 runs in one inning is a notable thing, even for us not sports viewers. So point me at that bandwagon, I'm jumping :)

I don't know why I read this article, and now I'm offended.

Still, the fact is, there is no way for Vick to win here. Even if he wins in court, the damage will be severe. A bar fight, a substance abuse problem, all of that can be dealt with. But in the public's mind, dogfighting is somewhere between wife-beating and the ultimate sin, point-shaving.

I came upon this by accident, read it by freak coincidence, and had to pause before I fully grasped what the author was saying. Perhaps the author Mark Kriegel's idea of the public's mind is actually his readership, and perhaps he assumes that the readers of a sports column indeed think fixing a game is more sinful then spousal abuse. I take objection to that opinion. To add to that that he firmly puts animal abuse as more less sinful then point-shaving, but less the spousal abuse.

Am I missing something here? I love my cats, I really do, but I actually happen to love my wife more. In the more general case, yes I value human life over animal life. I find both forms of abuse reprehensible, but the people abuse more so then animal. In both cases on some grand scale of sins, I put physical hurt of a living creature as far worse than any gambling, or game fixing. Cheating, sure its wrong, but its just not in the same freaking league! Perhaps I am just not a good bell weather for the "public's mind" but something inside me says that Mark Kriegel owes women, and dogs a big apology, and that his wife (if there is a woman who suffers him) should probably give him a swift kick in the nuts (I do recognize the hypocrisy of that statement.)

Why so harsh? Well its not like he has actually done these deeds (I hope,) but its the casual degradation and dehumanizing of these crimes that worries me, these shouldn't be bandied about in public discourse as quaint inconveniences. We should firmly plant our feet and say "this is wrong," otherwise we are just implicitly endorsing it, and that should not be acceptable in our society.

Because these things our WRONG!

*edit, puts here can't write a title, what the hell is an artcile?*

Pizza!

This was a great shot from Erin's adventures in Erice. She was actually seated at the table right outside from the kitchen, and had this great view of a the flaming pizza maw.

Avast there be nerds of the port bow (Strange Signs 3)

So this was in Palermo, and I wish the store would have been open as I'm always amused by nerds in there natural habitat, but still an image I couldn't pass up for the geeks back home. It was dark, and we were scared of pick pocketer, and muggers, so I didn't stay long enough to fix the glare.

G

More weird signs...

So this sign indicates where to flee in an emergency, and clearly that direction is up. What is a little strange about this, is that the sign wasn't in the basement, it was near the top of the main turret of Castle Sant'Angelo, and the only thing that sign would lead you to is the room... clearly an effective place to flee a fire from, because fire doesn't burn up...

The actually vacation images are getting sorted and put together right now, just having a few upload issues. IPhoto is not the best software I've seen.

Geoff

The Start of Italy Pictures

Hey all, I got my pictures finally imported into iPhoto last night. Apparently, iPhoto doesn't like video's, so much so, that iPhoto instead of ignoring them, just randomly crashes, sill software. Anyways, I start our picture tour with this silly one.

Erin and I took some images of some of the more amusing signs on our trip, in this case, it is a strict warning about getting fresh with the subway in Napoli is strictly forbidden, or at least strongly warned against.

From Italy 2007

"Real Men Love The Fifth Element"

Okay, nothing much to say here, except I agree with the review, its a great movie. The review is just a fun read, and made me like it more.

Cheers
G

Greatest Living American Ignored (Expcept Probably by Penn Jilllet who no longer has a radio show that jerk)

Aside from internet scuttlebutt that Penn may be returning to the radio waves, this post is dedicated to my mutual outrage with the author of the linked author. Norman Borlaug kicks some serious ass, in a feeding the impoverished third world kind of way. They say he has saved the lives of over a billion people, some of those numbers are very real lives save from starvation, and others are a little more tenuous, but probably accurate, lives saved from warfare. For in the path of his warhorse of high yield grain, he also sows peace and prosperity. Apparently we all really just want something to eat (much as implied by that Mars commercial with the execution of the king and all those peasants. (Sorry installing software and waxing moronic.)

So the point is Norman Borlaug received the Congressional Gold Medal, America's highest civilian award, and no one gave a shit. (If the Gregg Easterbrook is accurate, a dog getting hit by a bike was more important.) Wake the hell up people, even if you fail to recognize the man, recognize his achievements, he just doesn't have time to be his own media spokesperson, he is too busy SAVING BILLIONS OF LIVES!

Thanks you, that is all.

Save the Princess Save the World

So on a spur of the moment decision, I saw this great shirt on Aaron Williams (Nodwick's) site. Its a nerdgasm of Heroes and classic Mario all smashed into one. For those who aren't familiar with Heroes, it's a great new show about the emergence of people with super powers into our current society, think less spandex, and less archetypes then the comics, but really great character development.

Anyways the moniker of the first season was very much "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World." The eclipsed moon on the O is also pretty emblematic of the show. Erin and I became pretty big fans, I even blogged about it here. So when I saw this amalgamation of Mario and Heroes, I nearly peed myself laughing, and new I had to have it.

I wore it yesterday for the first day, and it almost let me down, when the day was saved by a chuckle from the Blockbuster clerk who knew exactly what it said, and we share a nerdy moment.

The 8-4 for those aficionado's of Mario who missed this pinnacle of the shirt (like I did at first,) is of coarse the final stage of Mario 1, where you do in fact save the princess, I am uncertain if that in fact saves the world.

July 5th, in Rome

Hey All, just a quick note here as I've left the official journal back in the apartment. We have arrived in Rome on the 5th, and after some chaos at the train station, and a bunch of cabs who wouldn't give us a lift, we managed to get to our apartment. The place is nice, little dank, but nice. We are looking for clothes detergent as I accidentally packed, and then proceeded to haul, fabric softener...

Anyways my lack of brain's aside, we are going to wander a little bit of Rome today, and maybe see the Castle that was in Angel's and Demon's, a great work of fiction.

We missed out on using the internet in Naples because the alley we had to go down was filled with gun toting murder's mugging the knife wielding maniac's so we avoided the alley and carried on.

If we have a chance I will come by here with my canned journal posts tommorow, and maybe some digital pictures as well.

Ciao

Geoff