Not Necessarily Interesting News

My birthday’s over. It was a pretty good one. Started off with arriving home from San Francisco at midnight. I finally got home around 1AM.

We woke up early around 7:30 to get ready for the big day. My wife and son hopped on the bed ad made me open cards. I’d have rather slept in but we have a fairly predictable routine for my birthday and I knew it was coming. We got dressed and headed for Wimberely for their big market days. We love going down to look at funky antiques and finding cool little knick-knacks for the house. We spent about 4 hours there walking from booth to booth. We came away with a couple of neat fruit crate labels and a new-to-her antique pitcher for my wife.

After that, the thing I really look forward to: The Saltlick for lunch. I gorged on much dead animals. Brisket, ribs, sausage, tater salad, bread, beans, etc. All you can eat. I only get down there one or twice a year so I really look forward to it.

After we hit our protein high we drove over to Buda to hit Cabela’s. I was thinking of treating myself to a new shotgun for my birthday. We got to the gun department there and I realized that wasn’t happening. It appears everyone and their brother was there buying guns today. They had a whole extra table set out for doing background checks. I can only assume the rush is due to the election last month. Democrats now control the White House and both branches of Congress. A gun ban of some sort is inevitable. All I ended up with was some new socks.

As we headed back home towards Austin my mother mentioned that she needed a part for her new camera so we stopped by Precision Camera. Bad idea. It happened to be manufacturer demo day. The place was a mad house. Vendors trying to hawk their wares. My wife bought me my birthday present while we were there. A brand new Tamron AF 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO (how’s that for a mouthfull?)lens for my D70. It’s the newest lens from Tamron. An unbelievable 18-270mm zoom with image stabilization. I’ve finally reached the point where my lens is now worth more than my camera’s body. And I like it. The picture to the left is the first pic I took with it and makes a pretty good computer background if you ask me. The lens has macro capabilities and can focus down to 12″ at full zoom.

We stopped at the house and dropped off my mother then went for the last errand of our long day. Also the most important. Since we were first married my wife and I have always, always, gotten our Christmas tree on my birthday. We were tired and really didn’t feel like going out again but I insisted. In the 18 Christmases we’ve spent together we’ve only missed this day once. We were in Orlando at Disney that year so it was excusable. We went to the tree lot and the first tree my wife grabbed was perfect. A nice 7′ Frasier Fir. We loaded it into the Range Rover and took it home. It fits perfectly in the family room.

A little bit of Amy’s ice cream for dessert and the day drew to a close. Not a bad day at all. My wife really likes to spoil me on my birthday. So much so that it makes me feel guilty every year. It’s not like I’ve realy done anything to deserve it. Only get another year older. But I like her spoiling me anyways.

If you’ve ever considered severe dehydration as a valid form of weight loss I highly discourage it.

This past Sunday I woke up with a bit of a headache but nothing major. Pop a couple aspirin to kill it and get on with the day. About 10am I went over to my parent’s house to pick up our kid that spent the night. By the time I got there I had a raging headache. I figured a migrane was coming on so I popped a vicodin to kill it before it dug in too deep.

I took the kid home and by the time I got there my head was exploding. I couldn’t stand lights or sounds so I crawled into bed to hide from the world. An hour later the real fun started. I sat up feeling a bit woozy and realized I’d better get to the bathroom quickly. I spent the next 6 hours on-and-off throwing up and lying on the bathroom floor. Every time I tried to drink something to replace fluids it’d trigger another attack. I was spiraling downhill faster and faster. Around 6pm my wife had had enough. I’d drank and vomited back up over 1/2 gallon of Gatorade. So she took me to the E.R.

Honestly, I don’t remember much of the E.R. Only being very, very cold and being told by the staff that I couldn’t have a blanket to keep warm. Bastards. They put me on an I.V. for over an hour and squeezed fluids into me. They plied me with anti-nausea meds, chemo-therapy patient grade I’m told, so I could try to keep something down. The doc said it wasn’t the flu as it’d be her first case this year and one of the worst she’d ever seen. Some ‘quick onset viral thing’ was what I remember her saying. All I know is I was hallucinating something fierce.

Once we got home after 9pm I made a bunch of quick calls to my manager and folks from work to try to get someone to cover my class Monday. Luckily there was a local instructor that was off this week to fill in for me. All I know is I never want to feel that bad ever again in my life. I’m still downing fluids like it’s going out of style and I know I lost a few pounds due to the illness but I did get back to work today though not at quite 100%.

The picture below says it all. One of the good things about getting a California assignment.

With nothing to do last night I decided to go to a local AAA baseball game. The River Cats are a farm team for the Oakland As. It’s a decent stadium. A bit bigger than Round Rock’s. The view of Sacramento over the right field wall is very nice. The sunset lit up the Tower Bridge quite nicely. I didn’t stay til the end and I’m glad I didn’t. The game went 14 innings. One of the old Express players, Brooks Conrad, plays for them now so it was cool hearing a familiar name over the P.A.

I also had to test posting blog entries from my iPhone.

and how!

…and how!

Yes, I did it. I bought an iPhone 3G. Bit of a hassle with AT&T to get it done but I did. Once I heard from guys at work that they had it connecting to the VPN to check internal mail I was sold. Now, I just need Tom-Tom software for it to be perfect.

I got it jailbroken without much issue which was needed to get around a VPN bug in the phone. I’m not totally in love with it. My old iPod is far better for straight music listening so I’ll probably keep it around for now.

I’ve found a couple of cool apps that’ll make my life on the road so much better.

• One is ‘Wikime‘. It’s a app that uses your location and finds articles in Wikipedia that are tagged with a location near you. Great for finding those little known things while in a strange city. And only $.99.
• UrbanSpoon - Find nearby restaurants easily
• Now Playing - find movies at nearby theaters with rating, trailers, etc
• Simplify Media - Lets me listen to any song in my entire library at home while on the go. Makes up for the tiny, by my standards, 16GB of storage.

It’s a fun toy. Not perfect. The battery life leaves a bit to be desired but it’s a fun toy.

Ok, so I’m on the road a alot. A whole lot in fact. After I get done teaching at 5:30 I have nothing to do in all these strange cities. What I started to do way back on Day 2 of Baseball season was visit the local MLB park and catch a game. Here we are more than 1/2 way through the season and I’ve managed to catch a game at, I believe, 8 parks. Not a huge number but pretty decent considering I didn’t pay for any of the travel associated.

I’ll try to list the parks in order of visit.

• Safeco Field (Seattle)
• AT&T Park (San Francisco)
• Chase Field (Phoenix)
• Nationals Park (Washington D.C.)
• Camden Yards (Baltimore)
• Coors Filed (Denver)
• Yankee Stadium (New York City)
• Rangers Ballpark (Arlington, TX)
• Fenway Park (Boston) Can’t really count as no game was played that day though I do have a pic of me atop the Green Monster

I’ve missed seeing games in about 5 other towns as no games were played the week I was there. Very sad. I was hoping to hit 1/2 of the fields this season. It’s looking like I won’t make that goal. I should get close though.

Ok, now my favorite fields:

My overall favorite was Chase Filed in Phoenix. I liked the design of the roof and the rotating outfield walls. It also had the best value as far as ticket prices. I paid $6 at the window for a decent seat near right field.

Safeco was also really nice though I couldn’t enjoy it. It was about 35degrees at game time and they decided to leave the roof open. The wind off the water chilled me to the bone.

Yankee Stadium was a lot smaller than I pictured. I dont understand what was so wrong with it that they need to replace it though. I got a great seat off a scalper just before game time. I was right behind home plate, about 15 rows up. For $35. Amazing.

I absolutely hated Rangers Ballpark. Traffic into that place sucks. And public transportation? In D/FW? Hah! It took me an hour and 45 minutes to get to the park. I spent 45 minutes driving the last 1.5 miles. It would have been easier to walk in from there. We missed the first 1 1/2 innings because of it. I’ll never go back there. The upside? The Yankees kicked the Rangers’ asses.

I’d post pics of myself outside each of these parks but I had my backup drive go bad without my knowledge and when I reinstalled my laptop I couldn’t get them back. Let’s say I’m not happy about that little development.

This past weekend we picked up a new ride. Ok, new to us that is.

It’s actually another Land Rover. A 1991 Land Rover - Range Rover - Great Divide Edition #101 of 400. Quite a mouthful. It has a manufacture date of May/1990. That makes it over 18 years old or 2 months younger than we’ve been married.

I got hassled by my sister for buying a ‘gas guzzler’ instead of some hippy-mobile. I told her I was thinking of the environment when I bought it. By buying a used car I saved it from a landfill/being junked. Also, I saved the world by not requiring the use of all new resources to build me a new car.

Likewise, it is far cheaper to keep an older car running if you’re the least bit mechanically inclined. I do all my own maintenance on my Defender. They are both fairly electronics-free. I did the math with the help of an MPG calculator I found online. At $4/gallon I’d need to drive a new Prius about 150,000 miles before I’d break even on the purchase price between the two vehicles. I also assumed paying cash for that new car which wouldn’t happen. So add in finance fees and you push that break even point out closer to 200,000 miles. I drive on average about 6,000 miles/yr (even less now that I’m travelling all the time) which means 200,000 miles is a long, long time. Over 30 years to be exact. That also assumes any repairs are equal. This is totally not the case. I sure as hell know I won’t be messing with the engine, motors, and batteries in a hybrid in my garage at home. So now I’d have to pay dealer prices for any repairs, driving up the costs of a hybrid well above my ‘old’ truck.

Best of all, show me a hybrid that can drive 30 miles from the nearest road, all in leather swathed comfort, and get me the hell away from everyone else.

Ok, I knew I’d be on the road a lot when I took this job. I guess I didn’t think about exactly how much I’d be on the road. Not that it’s bad. I’ve been to many, many places I’d never been before. I thought I was fairly well travelled before this. Not even.

In the last 9 weeks I don’t think I’ve been home more than 48 hours at a stretch. I’ve been to Denver, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Secaucus, Raleigh, San Antonio, and last week Boston for the big Red Hat Summit. I know I’ve forgotten a couple towns in there.

I’ve seen baseball games in Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, D.C, Baltimore, and New York. Getting to see a game at Yankee stadium before they tear it down after this season was a treat. I got to tour Fenway Park last week during an event for the Summit but can’t count it in the list because the Sox weren’t playing.

I’ve reached Platinum status on American Airlines already. Starting to really rack up those miles. I’m doing about 6-8K miles a week right now. My hotel points are also banking fast. For every week or so on the road I earn a free night in a hotel. I’m learning how to realy work the frequent traveller racket to maximize my milage.

I also have hundreds of pictures from all my travels I need to upload but when I’m home I don’t have the time. I find all I want to do is sit on my couch or take out our boat.

Ok, I’ve totally neglected my blog for the past few months. Life has been so busy with Red Hat that I haven’t had time to stop and think. I’m starting to settle into a routine and will start posting about all the places I visit. So far, Seattle has been my favorite.

Right now I’m in Phoenix. Last week it was Mountain View, CA. Before that Seattle. Next week D.C. My head is spinning.

We also hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon over several days last month. Adventure of a lifetime that. Check Shannon’s blog for a trip report.

Shannon said it better than I ever could.