"Arcs & Sparks", Jeeps, "Lost"

I've had my first bit of on-board excitement since I've been flying to Japan; about 20 min before we landed at Narita, an electrical box (not sure what it controls/does) under a seat in the next row, other side of the center section made a loud "pop", and some sparks came from it. I was the only one who thought to push the call buttton for the flight attendant, it didn't seem to be anything major (ie:safety affecting) and we landed at Narita OK.

We bought Noreen a Jeep yesterday - an Unlimited (long) with a hardtop. We wound up saving about $3500 on it, and we used part of the savings to get the extended warranty (7yr/75K mi). We're picking up the Jeep in Las Vegas, since the taxes will be much cheaper - we'll register the car in California after 6 months, since then it won't be considered "new" by the DMV. This is a finesse that they do all the time here. The Jeep won't be ready for pickup until mid-Jan, which is OK, since Noreen returns to the US on Dec 15-ish and I can ride my motorcycle, Noreen can have the Benz.

We drove to Aomori today; it's only about 75KM each way, but it takes damn near 2 hrs to get there - it's all 2 lane country roads, effectively, and the highest speed limit is 60kph. We putzed around Aomori for a while...and then on our drive back, we got a bit turned around. I'd figured out which way we needed to go from a map at the Aomori museum where we'd parked; but for some reason, we started second-guessing ourselves and thought we were going the wrong way on the main road we were on. So, we turned around, went back the other way; about 15 min of this, we'd realized we were totally screwed up. We stopped at a 7-11 knockoff, bought a map and got on our merry way coming back to Misawa.

Tomorrow we're off to Tokyo!

Tokyo Pics

These pics are from someone that attended Comic Market 68, a huge comic/anime convention in Tokyo in August. They're great pics and capture the chaos of Tokyo.
These 3 are from various districts in Tokyo:
Shinjuku
Ikebukuro
Shibuya

Food in Tokyo

Getting Around in Tokyo.

I'll take tons of pics like these while I'm there (I fly out tomorrow!)

The good-bye Party on Wed

Last Wed (19Oct), we had a party to say goodbye to our old team, "noc-sys" or Tier 2 Systems from Cerfnet/AT&T. The last 2 guys in noc-sys were laid off a couple of wks ago . We had it at Rock Bottom in the Gaslamp (downtown SD) on the roof, which is enclosed, with the exception of the ceiling, which is a retractable tent/awning. This allows us to smoke up there, which is killer. Anyway, we sat up there, drank a gang of beer and ate nachos and had a bangup time. So, here's who is in the pic, starting from front left, going clockwise:
Gary - never in noc-sys, but one of the guys we worked with quite a bit. He started in the NOC and moved into process/tools. Poor guy.
Chris - the noc-sys manager since it's inception 6 yrs ago
Me - in the green shirt
Daryl - moved up from the NOC to noc-sys. One of the last to go
Ron - another noc-sys'er, last to g
Doug - A noc-sys'er that moved to a different group, (forget what it is) and got laid off a yr ago. He was a real pain to the managers (read: he didn't take their shit)
Aaron - (blackhat) noc-sys'er that came to us from the NOC. He was moved into the group that handles monitoring about a year ago, got canned the same time as Ron & Daryl
Steve - A noc-sys'er that started the same time I did and he got moved into provisioning. Poor bastard probably won't get laid off.
Kevin - He moved into tier 3 about a year ago (sort of like I did), but he's really in tier 3.
John - (redbeard) never in noc-sys, but he was always around to help us the first couple of years.

Not at the party -
Tom in Singapore, working on setting up the center for AT&T there
JP - didn't come, still at the T
Sri - didn't come, working in the monitoring team
Marc - didn't come, working for a different co., quit last yr
Ken - didn't come, not sure what he's up to
Kai - Out in NC, laid off a few mo ago

Pic from the party on Wed 

Phonetics is important!

I learned to read (thanks Mom & Dad!) using phonetics. Nearly all written languages (except for Chinese) are written phonetically...we'll ignore Welsh for now, haha. I can't imagine trying to learn to read a foreign language without the skill of phonetics. There's no way you can learn from practice to recognize words in a foreign language. (I can't imagine trying to use "whole language" in English!). For example, if you've never seen PECTOPAH in Russian, and you know Russian verbally, you can sound it out and get "restoran" - restaurant! Since I'm studying Japanese, I'm now reading a kid's book that is written totally in Hiragana; I don't understand some of the words, but I can at least read it out loud.

Hate the UN Yet?

No? Ok, then just hate Kofi Annan. Less than 30 min after Detlev Mehelis, the writer of the report met with Annan about the report on the assasination of Hariri (Lebanon's now-dead PM), and AFTER Annan said that nothing in the report would change, it did. Lots of stuff covering up the Syrian's true involvement in the assasination was covered up by changing the report. The best part about the whole mess is that the original electronic form of the report was sent out Thursday nite and the "revised" sent on Friday, and everyone can tell what got changed. story with a couple of good links on the story.

Gawd I hate the UN.

Another one from Adam Smith

They get the good jokes, saving me the effort of finding my own. Today's offering

The UK is slowly becoming a parody

This poor sap was arrested for walking. Not just arrested, but arrested under the TERRORIST ACT! Sheesh. Article

Noreen has her itinerary

Noreen flies out of Gitmo tomorrow morning to Jacksonville. She spends the nite in Jax and then heads to Atlanta where she picks up a Delta flight to Narita (Tokyo). Then, she changes airports to Tokyo-Haneda where she flies to Misawa. It's a pain in the butt, but, really, it's not too bad, all things considered.

Addition to my Amazon wishlist

I just added this book to my Zon wishlist.
From the book description:

Early in 1968 a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine sank in the waters off Hawaii, hundreds of miles closer to American shores than it should have been. Compelling evidence, assembled here for the first time, strongly suggests that the sub, K-129, sank while attempting to fire a nuclear missile, most likely at the naval base at Pearl Harbor.

Oh...right now, I'm reading this. Think FDR was the greatest President ever? Think again. He was flat out EVIL.

Smells like hypocrisy to me

The very same day that the Today show was bleating about GW's "staged" (actually rehearsed, once you know the details) teleconference with GIs in Iraq, the Today show (NBC) gets caught with its pants down. A reporter is in a canoe reporting on how bad the "flooding" in NH is when 2 guys walk infront of her. In the barely ankle-deep water. Story and pictures here

Security Posters

In the classified materials business (gov't contractors, etc), there are lots of posters around telling you not to tell the Soviets about our latest plans. This article skewers them. Lots of funny stuff.

And, yes, I said Soviets. On purpose. Some of the posters are cold-war-era.

Sharon Stone and whisky

This ad is for whisky (scotch) starring Sharon Stone. Now we now why Scotsmen wear kilts. And why this ad would never make it the US.

Sun setting over the beach and surfers 

My mini-adventure yesterday

On my traintrip home, I realized that I could take the train up to Solana Beach, home to my favorite beer/pizza place (they brew their own beer), Pizza Port. So, I decided to take the train from Old Town, since parking is easy there, to Solana Beach, have a few brews and pizza and head back. Well, Amtrak's schedules conflict as to whether or not they stop at Old Town on their northbound run, but the Coaster (the commuter train that runs from SD to Oceanside) makes the stops I want. So, I took the Coaster to Solana, and had a few (ok, 5) pints of beer and my pizza and then my train ride back to OT. I took a few pics on the way, they're good except for the spots on the window. It was a cool way to hit Pizza Port and I wish I'd figured it out earlier, but I got to do it!

Dusk at Old Town 

Sun setting over a house at Del Mar 

Pic of the beach 

$87K/yr and bankrupt??!?

Can you say "no sympathy"? I knew you could. Especially since it's 87K in the Detroit area. If you live beyond your means and don't save. You get it in the end. Story about UAW worker going bankrupt.

The Germans are turning into a bunch of lightweights

Oktoberfest was a disappoinment. They had 6.1 million people attend, but they only consumed 6 million liters of beer. This means that each attendee didn't even drink a whole mass (1L mug) of beer. Sheesh.
Here is your not so-humble reporter drinking a 1L mug of beer at Sapporo Summer/beer festival in 2004. See, I can do my part....I guess I'll have to go to Munich next year and show them how it's done.

The new Iraqi military

How are things going with building the new Iraqi military? Pretty good, actually according to LTG Petraeus, an Army general that has served in Iraq.

Houghton, MI > San Diego?

How in the HELL does Michigan Tech (my alma mater, even though I graduated from National Univ in San Diego) rate a show by the Yellowjackets (my favorite jazz group) and San Diego doesn't? Ah well, Houghton and MTU are a billion times cooler (not just temperature wise!) than San Diego, anyway.

I wonder if Mesaba Airlines still flies out of Hoe-Town....??? Hmmm....

Today Mexico City

Next year London? The NFL played a game in London 19 years ago...maybe they'll play there next year. Does this portend regular season NFL games around the world? Tokyo? Berlin? Beijing? The NFL's appeal (along with the NBA and MLB) is worldwide and there's no reason they shouldn't play games overseas. Especially when they fill a 100,000 seat staidum (Mexico City)

Update
Ed Hochuli (Hawk-yew-lee), the ref for this game (he's the ref with the biggest guns in a striped shirt) just announced a penalty in Spanish. It was obviously practiced, rehearsed Spanish, but he did it nonetheless and it was cool!

Update 2
Paul Tagliabue, the commissioner of the NFL was just interviewed on ESPN during the game and he mentioned games in other places and he used the word "institutionalized" which means in NFL-speak as becoming a regular part of the NFL. He mentioned that the mayor of Dusseldorf was at the Mexico City game, too.