Wander

Sly Park on New Years 2009

2009-01-03T08:34:00.001-08:00

Sly Park on New Years 2009, originally uploaded by /k.

Since there is so much snow this year (it's been unseasonably cold in NorCal this year), we only had to go up to Pollock Pines for the dogs annual trip. Rachelle and Kelly brought Lucy along this year.

A Month of Travel, All Within The Country

2008-12-20T16:28:00.001-08:00

Sorry it's been so long between posts, but I've really, really liked seeing that moose head picture on the top of my blog.

It's been a long two months of travel (October and November) and for once I haven't even left the safe confines of the US of A. After coming home from my sister's wedding in mid-October, I visited Santa Cruz, Honolulu, Disneyland (SoCal) and Las Vegas:

Honolulu
Honolulu was nice. I was there for a company junket and it was only for four days, but Hawaii is still Hawaii.

Shelley and I hadn't been to Hawaii in about three years and really enjoyed ourselves -- mostly doing nothing.

SoCal
Later that week, we had to go to another junket -- but this time for Shelley's company. I was dreading going to this (as it was at Disneyland) but it turned out pretty damn good. Weather was cool and the park was mostly empty.

Shelley got to meet the Incredibles.

And we snuck out of the company festivities on Sunday to go down to the coast. This is Newport Beach just at sunset.

Vegas
Just a week after getting back from SoCal, I was off to Las Vegas for a week to help run a training conference for my company. It was friggin exhausting, but I did get to go to a subzero bar (Minus 5 Experience).

Yes, this was a complete waste of money. And yes, that is Elvis. But I think that is the point of Vegas.

I've just got back from Chicago and Columbus this week, which rounds out my travel for the year. I'll try and get those pictures up this week.

Moose

2008-10-28T22:13:00.001-07:00

Street Moose, originally uploaded by /k.

Overall my blog is a mixed bag. Sometimes it's personal stuff, occasionally geeky stuff but mostly it's just travelogues.

But on some days, it's just a picture of a guy in a Moose costume giving me the "hang loose" sign while he passes out flyers on the streets of Honolulu.

1000K

2008-10-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

I forgot to post this back in August, but I recently passed the official "you're too old to still be doing this" mark for business travelers:

While this does get me Premier Executive status for life, I am disappointed that they no longer name a plane after you at 5 million miles. It really takes away the motivation.

Amy's Wedding

2008-10-20T23:03:00.001-07:00

Amy's Wedding, originally uploaded by /k.

Two days of flying back to Ohio this weekend resulted in Shelley and I seeing my younger sister married (and my niece Grace).

More photos on my Flickr page.

SF Commute

2008-10-16T18:23:00.001-07:00

SF Bay Ferry, originally uploaded by /k.

I've been commuting into San Francisco quite a bit lately and the 2.5 hour drive into the Bay Area has really started to grind on me. It isn't really the distance, but the lost time and hassle of driving. So I am experimenting with ways to regain that lost time this month. The first one of these was the BayLink Ferry, which goes across the San Francisco Bay from Vallejo to the Embarcadero on the SF waterfront (near Fisherman's Wharf). As the video below shows, it's a pretty nice trip and only takes one hour. Along the way, you get to see Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island and the SF skyline. However, that's only half my journey since Vallejo is one hour from my house. I may try taking the Capital Corridor (Amtrak) later this month.

My Summer Vacation (2008 Edition)

2008-09-25T17:59:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in my last entry, I actually did have a large number of ~~half-assed~~ half-done posts from this summer, that hadn't progressed enough to be posted. Instead of trying to finish them, here they are in their half-baked glory:

I bid farewell to my goat neighbors. This made me sad, as the goats were much more lively than the horses. And they used to continuously screw with their owners whenever they weren't promptly fed (which is often with my slackass neighbors). As a tribute to my goat friends (of which I nicknamed mama, runt and rowdy), I present to you my favorite video of rowdy the goat:

I became a professional photographer:
Hi /k,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released second edition of our Schmap California Guide:

Arco Arena

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!
Sadly, this photo sucks. And it came from my old Treo mobile phone.

We endured high winds and epic wildfires. For a few weeks in June/July, it literally looked/smelled/felt like the entire state of California was on fire. And being near a large body of water, we got to see a lot of the firefighting preparations first hand:

The summer was not completely without travel. I had to make a quick swing through Asia to present at our fiscal year kickoffs, which basically meant that I flew for about 10 hours every other day for one week to present for 1 hour total. However, this did leave some free time which I was able to fill. Below is a picture of the Sapporo Beer Station, which is on the Sapporo Beer Headquarters grounds in Ebisu-ku, Tokyo, Japan.

I am sure there were a few others things along the way, but this should bring you up to date.

Shibuya Dawn

2008-09-21T16:10:00.001-07:00

Shibuya Dawn, originally uploaded by /k.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. It's certainly not because I've been busy -- in fact, just the opposite: I didn't travel much over the summer at all. And because of that, I got lazy and have about 7 half-baked blog posts in my editor. So I am going to try a different tack and just post quick ones for a while.

Here is today's bit of Zen. It's a stop-motion video from my hotel room window of the sun rising over the Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo. I made it with iStopMotion and my MacBook's isight.

Goats

2008-05-12T18:09:00.001-07:00

Goats, originally uploaded by /k.

It's goat season again here in El Dorado county.

Every year, when we move from the wet winter to the dry summer, fields of grass become super-combustible fire hazards. Unfortunately, it is not cost effective to mow and then remove the dead grass, so a cottage industry of shepherds rent out their goats and kids (baby goats) to munch on the drying weeds. It seems like a win/win, especially to my dogs who like to watch them.

I caught this group deforesting the back side of Wild Oaks park, but my next door neighbors (the caretakers of Whitey and Brownie) have also rented some for their pasture. You can't see him, but there is also a sheep dog (goat dog ?) somewhere in the pasture guarding over them.

if case you are thinking about it, it appears http://goatcentral.com/ is the place to call.

Moment of Zen

2008-05-02T16:41:00.001-07:00

Circular Quay, originally uploaded by /k.

After a terribly busy week here in Sydney (it was truly twelve hour days almost all week), I got early on Saturday to take in Circular Quay with a bit of quiet.

This concludes my quick to trip to Australia. I'm just throwing things into my bags to catch my flight back to Los Angeles and finally NorCal.

February + March Update

2008-04-09T15:52:00.001-07:00

Let's see, where did I leave off in February?

Oh yeah. I got back from China and was actually in NorCal for a few weeks. This bliss was interrupted by a weeklong trip to (suburban) Chicago for a work conference. The picture below basically sums that trip up:

Snow in St Charles by /k

Snow and boredom.

I was home barely 48 hours when I headed out for Seoul and more meetings. This was simply boring. Not even photo worthy as I basically walked between my hotel and the office for four days.

Escaping the cold in Seoul, I flew down to Hong Kong for, yes, more meetings. At least the weather was quite better, so I could at least get out and see some nightlife. I hadn't been to Hong Kong for several years, so I just wandered around for the most part.

Hong Kong Admiralty by /k

The one highlight of this whole trip was a touristy trip to the top of Hong Kong island (The Peak) to have dinner. As I didn't have to expense the beer nor the food, it was quite enjoyable.

The Peak by /k

That pretty much ended the international part of my travel. Unfortunately, I had one more set of meetings down in Santa Cruz. Once that was done, I have basically been home. Except last weekend's trip to New Orleans, which would be a entirely different post.

[FV]lickr

2008-04-08T20:49:00.001-07:00

Louie in the Snow, originally uploaded by /k.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I have been toggling between crazy busy on travel and completely lazy at home. However, when I saw that the good people at Flickr had added video for their Pro accounts, I figured it was a good chance to hoist some more dog videos on you.

Above is a video of Louiedog running through the snow near Sierra at Tahoe around Christmas 2007. As he was originally from Nevada City (which is about the same altitude), he seems completely unfazed by the snow.

I'll post something tomorrow to update you on my latest exploits. Probably with video.

Gotham

2008-02-08T14:55:00.001-08:00

Trying to catch up on my bloging.
This is the Jin Mao Building in Shanghai. And my hotel when I stay there (Grand Hyatt Shanghai). Reportedly the tallest hotel in the world (the lobby is on the 54th floor). My room was on the 67 floor and it made me dizzy going up the elevators (it took THREE to get to my room). There's a bar on the top floor and you actually look down on the Shanghai needle (actually called the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower) from the window. Trippy.

However, the thing that strikes me most about the hotel is the design. Whenever I see it, I expect to see the bat signal silhouette on it's side.

Maglev

2008-01-22T11:36:00.001-08:00

I've spent the last two weeks shuttling around China, reviewing some of my company's offices. I'll write up a longer entry later this week, but I wanted to post some video while I was still thinking about. The clip below shows my trip on Shanghai's Maglev train between the city and Pudong International Airport. The clip is almost the entire ride -- since it last only 7 minutes to cover 30 KM.

Although it doesn't show on the video well, the train leans about 30 degrees.

I'll have some more pictures and video from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou later this week.

Zeke's Relations

2008-01-03T20:33:00.001-08:00

Although this looks like Zeke, this is actually his mother and brother in Monterey last weekend.

Remi (Zeke's mom) is on the right and Riley (Zeke's lookalike brother) is on the left. Ed (Remi and Riley's owner and breeder) says that Riley is well behaved but pretty vocal. Apparently, the shenanigan gene skipped him.

New Dog

2007-12-26T18:58:00.001-08:00

My dad got a new dog.

Cooper is about 10 weeks old.

Busy. Sick. Tired. Busy.

2007-12-13T14:44:00.001-08:00

So many of you have probably been wondering "where is k?" (okay, this may be few, or even one). Though I have link to my current location on the left hand column, I haven't really updated my blog in a month or so. Well, I've been busy. And sick. And sick of being busy:

I went to Vegas in early October for too long (>24 hours) and got sick. I did get to visit the Ghost Bar, but didn't get sick there.
Still sick, I went to Tokyo and got stuck in Narita Airport for 40 hours after they cancelled my flight. Yes, there is a DFA letter in mail to United for that one (United believes that $350 travel voucher squares us, me not so much). On the plus side, I did get well acquainted with their awesome beer machines:
I cooled my heels in Australia for a week. I say cooled my heels because I was in Australia (Brisbane then Sydney) eight days for the total of 2 hours of customer meetings and 6 hours of internal meetings. Basically, one day of work for 6 days of boredom and 36 hours of travel.
I was home for about a week and was still sick.
I finished off the month with a quick trip to Bangkok for 48 hours.

Now, I am on vacation until early January. Maybe I will actually post something interesting between then and now.

FFF: Akasaka

2007-10-26T04:26:00.001-07:00

Japan, japan, japan. I am disappointed. Such a great idea (it's pig! it's a burger! it's got strange toppings!) but with such a unimaginative name.

How awesome would this have been if it was called "McPig" ?

Mumbai Tourist

2007-10-05T00:32:00.000-07:00

I had a free afternoon in India a few weeks ago and since the entire country was watching the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup or celebrating a Hindu festival, I decided to do some sightseeing with my driver Anand. I kept it short and visited:

Gateway of India
Kamala Nehru park
Mahatma Ghandi's residence

Overall it was a good trip. The only real problems came as I was rushing to the airport to leave: my flight was scheduled to leave just after the Indian cricket team arrived home from winning the World Cup. The resulting traffic jam left me barely minutes to make my flight.

Video Delays

2007-10-04T09:55:00.001-07:00

So I had promised video from India last week (and it's actual good) but I am having a hell of a time getting Revver.com to post it correctly. In the meantime, accept this picture of the sun rising over the Pacific here in Santa Cruz, California where I am attending a technical symposium:

Hopefully, I will have the video up sometime tomorrow.

Beijing

2007-09-22T21:33:00.001-07:00

Okay, I've fixed my "firewall issues" (by fleeing the People's Republic) and I got a few minutes to put together some of the almost interesting snippets of video online. I hadn't been here since 2004 and it was amazing to see how much had changed. Behold my short trip to the Financial District of Beijing, China:

I was scheduled to fly home on Friday from China, but a business emergency has made me divert to Mumbai, India. Soooo . . . I'll probably have some video from there later this week.

c3ns0r3d

2007-09-20T18:28:00.001-07:00

So you may have noticed that the usual stream of boring posts, strange pictures and pointless video clips has come to an abrupt halt this week. This is due to my trip to Beijing, China where I have been both surprised, and somewhat honored, to learn that my blog is censored behind the Great Firewall of China. And while I have found a hack to workaround this (I am currently sitting at a Starbucks near Tiennaman Square), it has stymied my attempts to upload videos.

So look for new updates sometime this weekend when I make it Mumbai, India.

Tiger Live

2007-09-09T13:39:00.001-07:00

Here is the video that I threatened you with earlier this week. It chronicles my free day in Singapore two weeks ago.

Some setup, since the video audio is somewhat soft:

I went to Tiger Live thinking it was the home of Tiger Beer, one of my favorite beers in the world. Instead it turned to be a cross between a night club (they have several inside) and Disney world. If Walt Disney had taken a lot of acid in the '60s. At one point in the "experience," they actually showed hops "having sex" as a metaphor for fermentation. Unfortunately (or fortunately), they didn't let me take any video inside but I did get some video at the bar (they gave you a few free beers afterward. I think it was a reward for sitting through the "experience").

To add insult to injury, it also turns out that you can actually tour the brewery.

I also captured some video from near my hotel in Clarke Quay.

Here's the video:

And the Chickens Return

2007-09-08T00:13:00.001-07:00

In the ongoing saga of my neighbor's "farm", it now looks like the chickens are back.

The llamas can't be too far behind. I hope.

Seoul Food

2007-08-31T22:24:00.000-07:00

I still haven't finished editing my cinematic masterpiece on Singapore, but I did cobble together some footage from yesterday night's trip to a traditional Korean restaurant here in Seoul.

This video is embedded with Google Video, which lowers the resolution and quality a fair bit. If you want to see the higher resolution (640x480) and quality (H264 encoding) version, subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or your podcaster. I changed this over to Revver because Google Video was doing strange things with the images. You can subscribe to the iTunes feed, click here. You'll get each video as I upload them and you can sync it to your iPhone :>

I'll post my video from Singapore once I get home and I can make some sense out of it.

FFF: S'pore

2007-08-26T23:51:00.000-07:00

A quick trip to Southern Asia this week. A day or two here in Singapore then on to Seoul for a week of meetings. I've got a full report on my escapades (in video form no less), but I wanted to post a quickie while I was thinking about it.

Behold the awesome McSpicy. Not a ordinary chicken sandwhich, nor wayward Spice girl, this may be the best FFF that I have ever had. Part chili sauce, part pepper and part chickeny goodness, this is a clearly superior local creation. With fries and a drink, it set me back about USD$6. But it was a "whole chicken chop."

I heartily recommend it whenever you are in Singapore. With a diet coke.

48 Hours

2007-08-23T04:11:00.001-07:00

Spent last weekend visiting my old hometown Chicago. It was a super quick trip (in on Friday afternoon and out Sunday noon) to meet up with Ron and Fred, but I managed to hit maximum nightlife even while being pretty sick.

We managed to "visit" Stanleys, RedFish, Portillos, US Beer, Goose Island,Cubby Bear, The Barlycorn and a few others that I don't think I can remember. I think the best part of the whole weekend was finding out how little my old neighborhood had changed over the past few years. Sure there were some new buildings and such, but most of my old haunts survive.

I'm off to Singapore right now. As I type, I am sitting above my gate in Hong Kong International Airport waiting for them to kick me out of the Red Carpet Club. I hope to have some movies to post this weekend, as I have a my Saturday free.

Last Stop

2007-08-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

After another overnight flight, I arrived in Australia for the last stop on the magical tour. Wednesday was a business breakfast and lunch with executives. While the lunch was non-descript business, we had spectacular location in the Circular Quay cruise ship passenger terminal. The weather was absolutely perfect. This is the obligatory shot of the Opera House from the balcony of the terminal.

Unfortuantely, I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy the weather. I had to immediately jumped on a plane down to Melbourne for another set of meetings. Up early for breakfast presentation to partners, a quick stop into office where I got to have massive flat white at Metro with colleagues. I've never posted this in my months of work down in Melbourne (which is a curious ommission with my peroccupation with java), but Metro makes two sizes of latte: just right and larger-than-your-head. Young Brett got a larger-than-your-head flat white to cope with the nocturnal adventures of his young son:

I got through my lunch presentation and headed directly back to the airport and Sydney. That night I caught up with Niall for Indian food at Karmas then some drinks. He took me to a new bar in the Rocks -- The Argyle. It was a bit too trendy but pretty nice. Lots of open space and different areas.

And they had Asahi on tap. Thumbs up there.

With that my little trip was done. I caught a 747 back to San Francisco the next morning.

Singha Stop

2007-08-07T00:24:00.001-07:00

Another quick stop on my around the world trip brings me here to Bangkok. I haven't been in Thailand for about 4 years (since an ill-fated bank deal) and much has changed. They have a new airport (more in a second), a lot of new buildings but the same old traffic. I have to say that I am pretty disappointed in the airport. While other places in Southern Asia have some of the best airports in the world (Changi in Singapore and KLIA in Malaysia), Thailand appears to have bungled theirs. Exposed concrete beams, crazy long immigration lines and a total lack of amenities make me feel . . . like I am in an American airport. Except for the purple sword wielding ~~ninjas~~ Buddhas.

But enough bitching. I got a pretty nice hotel (Grand Hyatt Erawon) and a day or two of downtime somewhere most people pay good money to vacation in. So what did I do? Drink. Yeah, spent almost my entire Sunday sitting in a beer garden drinking beer and writing (which i am really behind on).

That is not to say that I wasted my entire weekend. I did get a chance to see a few things along the way to the beer gardens. The easiest was right next store to the hotel: The Erawan Shrine. Apparently this was built to appease superstitious locals during the construction of the hotel and has remained for hte past forty years. It's pretty packed twenty hours a day or so. I took this photo around 11 PM on Saturday night.

I'm off to Australia to round out my trip.

Just Stopping By

2007-08-04T06:50:00.001-07:00

Blew through Kuala Lumpur today. Arrived early on Friday morning, express train to the city, straight to some client meetings then out for a drink with some old friends. Up early on Saturday to catch my flight to Bangkok.

This is a rare moment of zen while I wait for the client to show for coffee in the Hilton Lobby. Past my Adidas is Julan Tun.

Dogs on the Roof

2007-08-03T06:15:00.001-07:00

As you might have guessed by my sidebar or the general absence of posts, I am traveling again. With some new pages sewn into my passport and a shiny new Indian visa, I left last Sunday for Mumbai (through Zurich). I'm staying in the Land's End neighborhood of Mumbai (this being the end of the island that sticks out in the sea) which is pretty interesting. A case in point:

While not as scary as Snakes on a Plane, the dogs who live on the roof of my hotel are far more interesting. I have no idea how they get up there, but I do know that they love it. They sit on the edge of the roof and look out at the sea, bark at passing people and generally have a good time. They are just a few of the hoardes of stray dogs that inhabit Mumbai (even more than the number of stray cows). More interestingly, they all seem to be exactly the same mixed breed.

Also interesting in this picture is what you see in the background. The abdonded hotel that you see (SeaRock Hotel) was one of the sites hit during the terrorist bombings in 1993. In a strange coincidence, a Bollywood actor was sentenced to six years in prison for his part in that bombing this week.

Before I left for Kuala Lumpur today, I went out to the old fort next to the hotel.

Skull And Crossbones

2007-07-14T14:40:00.001-07:00

So I know what it means when people ask you to Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. And I know what it means when you wake up with a horse's head in your bed. But what does it mean if you wake up and find a coyote's skull in your dog bed ?

I think Louie's may be pissing someone off.

Goodbye Australia

2007-06-24T18:40:00.001-07:00

Since Friday was my last day in Australia after my eight month stint, I decided to do two uniquely Australian things to round out my stay.

Footy

The inexplicable game that is Australian Rules Football is a ~~insanity~~ passion in Melbourne. Friday night, I snagged a ticket to see the battle for last place between Richmond and Melbourne (most of the teams are suburban Melbourne neighborhoods). Life was good -- we were rooting for Richmond (go tigers) and they thumped Melbourne 124 - 75.

Less good was bitter cold (it dropped to about 40F) and the 8 renditions of the Tigers fight song that we had to endure after the game. Here in the US, we can only hope that it doesn't invade our shores.

Vegemite

A brown, salty paste that is commonly spread on toast. It is vile. Or so I remember from the last time I tried it in 1999.

And I am happy to report that nothing has changed. Vegemite, still nasty.

This completes my prolonged assignment in Australia. I'm home for a stretch, then off to India, Malaysia and . . . Sydney again.

Drama

2007-06-21T18:04:00.001-07:00

I am unsure why this is so funny, but it simply is.

It could be that today is my last day in Australia after eight months of constant travel (found on Kissing Suzy Kolber).

Wombat

2007-06-18T19:48:00.001-07:00

To take advantage of my last weekend in Melbourne, Chris and I went to the southern most point of mainland Australia, Wilson's Promontory. Wilson's Promontory is about 2 hours south of Melbourne. It wasn't a bad drive but the weather along the coast was a bit brisk.

Wilson's Promontory is a national park that kinda sticks out in the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. Having been a national park since sometime before the turn of the 20th century, you get to see a wide range of wildlife. Just inside the gates to the Promontory, we happened onto a glen with a wombat, several kangaroos and an emu.

I wanted to get out of the car to get a better picture of the wombat, but the emu was huge, pretty mobile and didn't seem to be in a good mood.

Further into the park, we found a nature center and the only settlement on the pennisula, Tidal River. Not much to see, except that it was absolutely overrun with King Parrots. They were everywhere, even walking up to people for food.

Since we were all the way down there, we decided to hike to the highest point in the park, Mount Oberon, to get a better view. The climb was about 2 miles and 1200', but the views were fantastic.

This is the summit looking west back towards Tidal River.

This one looks south towards the Bass Strait.

All in all, a pretty good trip.

I'm With The Band

2007-06-09T21:23:00.001-07:00

You meet interesting people flying international flights. This is good because often times you are sitting next to a person for the better part of an entire day. And I've been pretty lucky over the past year. For example, I sat next to a professional cyclist on my flight home from Japan a few weeks ago.

Now usually, I am not a great seatmate. I don't really like sitting next to people and basically just keep to myself. But I got lucky on my trip out and there was no one in the middle seat so I was in a pretty good mood. That is, until I saw my seatmate's reading materials. He had a large, leatherbound with gold gilted pages. I almost panicked thinking he might be ... religious. And talkative. Not wanting to chance it (it is a 14 hour flight), I immediate went into immersion mode by pulling out the laptop and putting on my headphones.

About half way through my fifth or sixth song, I catch a better glimpse of his book. It turns out it isn't a bible, but actually a trade handcover called The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. So probably not a religious guy after all. Just odd. But I can deal with odd. Hell, I know odd pretty well myself.
Realising that danger is over, I come out of immersion mode and took off my headphones. He asks me about my mac, turns out his MacBook Pro was stolen a few weeks ago (note to self: do not leave lappy in your pickup). He's a bit into computers and we talk about some normal Mac stuff, mostly related to music software. During the course of the conversation, he asks why I'm going to Australia. I give him my sad story and return the question. "Concert," he says. Curious, I ask for details. Turns out he's a sound engineer for Brand New, a punk pop band. A punk pop band I actually know. He's surprised, as am I. Turns out, he tours with a lot of bands from Primus to Lisa Loeb to the White Stripes. It's a pretty damn interesting conversation.

As we part after clearing customs and such, he stops and asks if I want to come to the concert on Friday night. And as you well know, I don't have a lot going on in Melbourne, so I accept. He says if he can swing it, he'll send me an SMS. Cool.

I have to go straight to a customer meeting after I land so I quickly forget about the conversation and go about my work week. However, come Friday afternoon I get a SMS: "I'll put u on the guest list for tonight if ur interesting in coming. Doors open at 9pm." I look up the club that they're playing at and it turns out it is only 5 blocks from my hotel. Certainly worth at least a fly-by.

Around 9 pm, I cruise by the venue. And there is literally a line around the block. Crap, best laid plans and all. Of well, I'll grab some food and if the line peters out I'll go in. I go around the corner and settle into Nandos for dinner. Finishing my Double Classic, I get another SMS: "There's a long line. If u make it here before 10 let me know. I'll meet you outside with a pass.." Damn, this is getting better and better. I finish my sandwich and head over. The line is still huge, but emboldened by my inside contact, I just walk up to the head of the line. "I'm on the list," I tell the bouncer. He looks me over (as I am twenty years older than everyone in line) and tells me to go see the ticket people. I scoot inside to jeers in the crowd. I give my name to the ticket lady and she searches the list. "Sorry, I don't see your tickets," she says. I say that the band left me passes. Apparently, I've said the magic words. "Oh, you're with THE BAND." And she pulls out a different list, with only 3 people on it. And my name is at the top with VIP next to it. Almost giddy, I repeat after her, "Yes, I AM WITH THE BAND." She is now quite apologetic and says that I should go right in. Emboldened by my new found status, and sensing that my American accent might let me pull this off, I start towards the entrance then stop and ask "Oh, will I need a bracelet to get back stage? I've never been here before." At this point, she is almost falling over herself. She says that they don't do bracelets, but she can get someone to take me if I want. This is a little higher risk that I had intended, so I decline and walked in.

It turned out that I made the right choice. The bars were on the opposite side of the venue from the stage, but still had a front and center view of the stage. In fact, we could stand right behind and above the sound boards (where I got a chance to talk with my seatmate). The concert itself was really quite good. I never really followed Brand New before, but they put on a long show (2+ hours) that showcased a lot of different material. You can tell they have changed their sound quite a bit of the years. The crowd was really into the show, I think they sung along word for word for the first hour.

I caught up with my seatmate after the show. He thought it had gone pretty well and was ready to go out for drinks with the band. I was still shaking off my jet lag a bit so I declined to come along. They are off to Sydney then Brisbane to complete the tour.

My camera phone took some pretty crappy pictures but some posted some video to YouTube:

Japan (Condensed Version)

2007-05-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

Since I couldn't post effectively from Tokyo last week, I bundled up my thoughts from the four days in this one post:

I awaken after my first night in Tokyo at the obscene hour of 4:30 AM. I had forgotten to close my blinds and by some bizarre custom, the Japanese find it neat to have sunrise before 5 AM. However, as much as the sun in my eyes was annoying, I think it was actually the sounds of dogs barking that woke me up. Although it seemed normal at the time (since I have loud dogs at home), after actually getting up I was somewhat puzzled. Especially since I was 27 stories up in the middle of downtown Tokyo. A quick look out the window solved my mystery:
Yeah, the Japanese have a dog park on the top of a building near mine. Of course.

It was a beautiful day and we wanted to get out of Tokyo, so I got dressed.
This view is west away from Shibuya.

We took the train two hours out to see Mount Fuji (Fujiyoshida, Japan). It was incredible. A tour bus drove us around the lakes (there are five lakes around the mountain) and we got some good pictures.

Stopped by MOS burger. MOS burger is the In-N-Out Burger of Japan. Their teryaki burger is quite good.

After getting back from Mount Fuji, we got a few drinks up in the bar. This is the same view as earlier.

Mistral Blue

2007-05-22T19:15:00.001-07:00

Mistral Blue
Originally uploaded by /k.

Still posting via Flickr due to the before mentioned Blogger weirdness.

Finished up my trip to Japan last night with a group meeting in Rappongi. Our Japanese director is a keen 1950's rock and roll fan, so he took us to his favorite theme bar where they played Elvis covers. I wish I had taken some video for YouTube -- there were some priceless moments. Having said that, they did play "Pipeline" by the Ventures, which makes them alright in my book. After the 1950's rock and roll bar, a few us headed up the street to my old haunt, Mistral Blue. Mistral Blue is a converted train car and possibly the smallest bar in the world (I was standing 3 feet inside the doorway when I took this picture). It is a stop on every true rock stars visit to Tokyo -- pictures and autographs from Iron Maiden to Guns N Roses to Fall Out Boy "adorn" the walls. I hadn't been there in 3 years but it hasn't changed at all -- even the same bartender was there.

I am back in the US tomorrow for a well deserved week of R&R.

Technical Difficulties

2007-05-21T16:09:00.001-07:00

Mount Fuji, originally uploaded by /k.

Sorry for the lack of posts. For some reason, Google thinks I can read Japanese because I am in Tokyo and refuses to display the blogger controls in English. As such, I am posting this from Flickr.

Please enjoy this zen image of Mount Fuji while I sort it out.

Lazy Sunday (St Kilda Edition)

2007-05-13T02:30:00.001-07:00

Anglo-Boer War Memorial
Originally uploaded by /k.

I've been on flights most of the past three weekends and am off to Japan this Friday, so I decided to take it easy and just hang out here in St Kilda for a few days. However, that turned out to more boring that I anticipated -- especially when I burned through my last episodes of Heroes and the Sopranos on Friday night. So I decided that I should at least walk into Melbourne CBD to get some reading materials.

On my walk, I spotted this about three-fourth of the way there. Melbourne has a huge war memorial park and this particular memorial is from the Second Anglo-Boer War (South Africa around 1901). I'm not sure what it is supposed to symbolize but it is quite striking.

Big Screen

2007-05-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

While I have always been in awe of the 108" big screen at the Powerhouse, in the back of my mind I thought there must be a bigger TV out there. And there is. Here in Sydney at the James Squire Brewhouse I found a TV larger than me.

Yes, it is just a projection dealie, but I still sat mesmerized for hours. Even through Aussie Rules Football.

The Matrix

2007-05-06T18:50:00.001-07:00

Phone call, originally uploaded by adactio.

I meant to post this a bit back, but I think I forgot: Most of the original Matrix movie was filmed in downtown Sydney and it turns out that a few of the scenes were actually shot right outside my hotel. Case in point, a guy on the internet has posted recreation photos of a few scenes in the movie. The one on the right is directly outside my hotel's front door. It's weird that I have walked by that (and a few other places) hundreds of times and never noticed it before.

Downtown Sydney was also the set for Mission Impossible 2 and Superman.

Santa Cruz

2007-04-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

I spent the first part of this week down on the coast in Santa Cruz, CA at a company technology conference. Surprisingly, the conference was actually pretty good and it was nice to be back on the coast again (especially in a place without the constant fog like Pacifica). As a bonus, I also saw this bumper sticker.

Departure Lounge

2007-04-20T22:54:00.000-07:00

My woes with United Airlines appear to have followed me overseas. When I checked in for my flight home this morning, the gate agent cheerfully informed me that my flight was delayed.

Delayed by ten hours. TEN HOURS.

And as you can see below, I didn't get re-routed on United 840 through San Francisco . . . as I am taking a picture of it as it taxis out to takeoff.
So I am holed up in a remote area on Kingford Airport, coding and watching DVDs. And waiting for my 14 hour flight back to Los Angeles...

Back From Vacation

2007-04-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

So I haven't blogged much lately. Sure, I've been hitting twitter pretty hard (which has probably cut into my blogging), but there really hasn't been a lot going on in the past few weeks. To recap:

I flew back from Melbourne on a long, long flight. I was happy to be back in NorCal.
I flew to Nashville to meet up with some of my friends and play golf for a vacation. On my flight from Chicago to Nashville, Ashley Judd sat about five seats from me. I was oblivious to who she was until the flight attendant asked for her autograph and she almost bitch-slapped him. Although tired, I made a mental note to "never mess with an grumpy Judd" in the back of my mind.
I was delayed on every single flight I took for two weeks. Sometimes short delays, sometimes long delays, sometimes even cancelled flights. I cursed "flow control" many times.
Nashville seems a bit sleepy and backwards but was actually a lot of fun.
I got some time with my girlfriend and dogs. Shelley is working at home a few days a week now (which confuses the hell out of Louie and Zeke) which makes life a lot easier.
And I am back in Melbourne. It now feels like I am always in Melbourne. And I now believe that Melbourne might be the most boring place in the world. I am beginning to miss Nashville.

Just kidding about the last piece (before the entirety of Melbourne descends on my Aussie rules style and gives me a massive wedgie). To prove it, I will highlight one of the best thing about the Melbourne office: our prodigious wine selection (and extreme willingness to sample it). Back when I joined my firm (pre-Internet boom days), it was an unspoken rule that every office had a quality stock of booze. Even a corporate HQ (where I was stationed), there were Friday keggers. And in the more remote parts of the empire, it was usually much better. Unfortunately, economic reality set in, political correctness crept back and this tradition started to wane. Not here in Melbourne. Melbourne, being the heart of the Australian wine industry (Yarra Valley is close), has always had a quality selection of the vino. So much so that, they have converted an old computer (19" style rack for those in the know) into their wine cellar. We have a fairly constant supply of two to three cases of red with a sprinkling of white for consumption anytime after about 4:00 PM.

It being Friday and well after 4:00 PM, I am having a glass of the 2005 Mitolo Jester Shiraz. Bold, very full bodied with a bit of spice, The Jester is a Aussie Shiraz drinker's red. It has just come into its own (it was to be aged about 2 years) so we have a good supply and I expect to be drinking a fair bit of it over the coming two weeks.

I am off to New Zealand tomorrow to visit a customer in Auckland, so I should have something to post from there.

Mt Buller Beerfest

2007-03-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

After my day of hard riding, I attended the Mt Buller BeerFest which was held practically outside the front door of my hotel in the Village Center. It was a small, intimate affair -- there were only about 100 people on the mountain -- but we still had more than 50 people of all ages.

Mountain Goat Hightail Ale: Malty. Rich smooth finish. Low hoppyness. Nice. 85.
Jamison Mountain Ale: Darker. Even malty-er. nice finish. Higher alcohol -- maybe like a barley wine. Dark wheatbeer. 88.
James Squire Amber: somewhere in between the others. More hops, less malt.
Bearings Draft: Lighter, pilsner type. Geelong based. Nice but a little nondescript. 82 at best.
Holgate White Ale: Belgian. Banana esthers. White. More hoegarden than hoegarden. 86.
Chieftain Amber: Nice. Malty but complex. Interesting finish. Beer drinkers beer.
What's Brewing Amber: Nice but not remembersal (?). I might go visit these guys, since they are just down the road from Melbourne in Geelong.
Holgate Winter Ale: Porter. Unique in Australia. Nice. Not extremely chocolately but very drinkable w/ a smooth after taste.

The picture below shows the Village Center, the beer tents and the "band."
I think I may have some more beers, but truthfully, I don't think I could remember how to work my Treo after the Winter Ale. I topped the night off with some of my new found mountain bike rider friends at the only pub/restaurant open on the mountain.

Bike Buller

2007-03-19T00:50:00.000-07:00

After arriving pretty late on Friday night, I awoke early to catch some breakfast and get up the hill for some biking. Mount Buller repurposes their ski lifts and runs during the summer to be open for mountain bikes. They've paired up with an American manufacturer, Kona, to become one of their approved bike park. While the prices were a bit steep, I decided to hire one of their downhill bikes -- the Kona Stinky. The Stinky is a slightly longer travel, stouter, more downhill oriented bike than my Stumperjumper FSR at home.

Mt Buller has a number of downhill runs, but most of them are pretty advanced. I picked the ABOM run, which was rated intermediate, instead of the International run, which at expert had several jumps and 2 meter drops. This was a wise choice, ABOM was extremely rocky and pretty technical. Unfortunately, half way down I realized that the Aussies reverse their brake levers from Americans (left is back, right is front). Not before going over the handlebars once. But none the worse for wear, I made it down to the village.

After I completed my first run, I decided to hook up with a guide that was leading around another group of riders up from Geelong (near Melbourne). This was cool -- they were worse than I was -- and the guide knew a lot of less downhilly type rides around the mountain and village. This was great since I got to see a lot more of the mountain and get away from the developments. Unfortunately, you still needed to use the chair lift to get back up the mountain (the stinky is a really heavy bike). I believe that I may have used up one of my nine lives here -- I fell off once and felt like I was about to the six other times. This shot is over my shoulder as I went up the lift.

I got in about 7 or 8 runs before calling it a day. All in all, well worth the time and effort.

Morning on Mt Buller

2007-03-18T00:56:00.000-07:00

I woke this morning to a scene from my old house in Pacifica: fog rolling over the mountain and through the valleys. When I woke and opened my shades, we were completely fogged in. Five minutes later, it looked like this. You need to click on the photo to see it full size.

Off To The Snow Fields

2007-03-16T04:53:00.001-07:00

Due to high hotel demand (the Melbourne F1 race and the FINA swimming world championships are in town this weekend), I have decided to flee to the hills for the weekend. The closest "mountains" to Melbourne is Mount Buller, which is located about 4 hours away by car. Although the drive was an adventure (I really don't drive much and I certainly don't drive on the left side of the road much), I made it up here before nightfall. I was pretty proud that I only drove the wrong side of the road twice.
Mount Buller seems nice so far, but it being low season (it's just getting into the fall here in Australia), there's no one here. When I went down to the pub/restaurant there were only ten other people there -- the waiter told me that was everyone staying in the hotel. That's a little creepy -- almost like "The Shining."
I'll post more news tomorrow -- I am off to mountain bike and attend the beer festival (you knew there was a hook here didn't you?) tomorrow.

Celebrity Sighting #3

2007-03-13T00:31:00.000-07:00

I do not know if I am just more observant that I used to be, or I hang out in more glamorous place or I simply travel more often, but I see a lot of celebrities lately. Of course, it could be that celebrities are drawn to me. Then again, I do see most of these people in bars...My latest sighting came last night at the Tank Stream Bar in downtown Sydney. Niall and I had slipped into the trendy bar before most people come and found it empty except for two strange looking blokes hanging out with models. This peaked Niall's interest -- rightly so, it turned out -- and after he came back from the bar, he knew why: it was Simon Pegg and Nick Frost from Shaun of the Dead (Simon above over Niall's shoulder and Nick hiding outside behind the shutter).Apparently, they were in Sydney for the Australian premiere of Hot Fuzz, their new movie, and decided to grab a quick drink before the actual festivities. The bartender said they were actually staying in the hotel.

Third Space Analysis

2007-03-06T22:29:00.000-08:00

Although I don't usually link to other site's articles (how many other websites have actual farm animal and tiny car pictures ?), this one did catch my eye:

How Starbucks And WiFi Are Like Movie Theaters And Air Conditioning

I like that they talk about Panera Bread, where I find myself hanging out often times, and comparing their strategy around "third space." I have to agree though, I think Starbucks is more about customer throughput than keeping people hanging around all day.

P.S. Yes, you will hear me using "third space" a lot from now on.

Farm Animals At Breakfast

2007-03-03T00:10:00.001-08:00

Goat, originally uploaded by /k.

I forgot to post about this when I uploaded them to Flickr, but they probably need a little bit of explanation. On the last Sunday of my most recent trip to Melbourne, I decided to get up early and get breakfast over in Prahahn. Prahahn is a kinda nice neighborhood in southern Melbourne with a lot of cafes (and loud gay bars, but that's a different story entirely). So I wander over to the Prahahn Market, which is a indoor/outdoor market in the center of the neighborhood. I order my big breakfast (a standard staple of the Aussie breakfast menu) and sit down in the courtyard. And then I hear barking. And whinying. Crap, I thought I was back home. But no. They had a farm animals in a small pen in the courtyard for the kids. Which, although entirely too close to my breakfast, was a lot of fun. You can see the other photos over at my flickr page, but goats, rabbits, chickens, herding dogs and ponies were all represented. The best part of the little show was the herding dogs -- he definitely wasn't amused by the rabbits running around causing trouble. Eventually, he rounded them all up into a little wooden triangle area and kept guard of them for the next hour. I need to teach louie to do that.

Woot!

2007-02-24T20:13:00.001-08:00

We're up to TWO smiles per hour !
Along those same revisionist lines, I take back my previous car choice. I want this now:both images captured on St. Kilda Road here in Melbourne.

Dorks Down Under

2007-02-22T23:24:00.000-08:00

I am happy to see that my adopted homeland of Australia is not too proud to succumb to the dorky pleasures of the Segway. Of course, I am afraid this may create a Segway arms race with Canada and Las Vegas.

WiFinder

2007-02-11T23:05:00.000-08:00

Arriving home from Melbourne on Friday, I found that Plazes sent me a cool wifi signal finder, The Kensington Wifi Finder Plus.It detects wifi signals, bluetooth and even has a weird light. It kinda sucks (reviewers hate it), but plazes sent it all the way from Germany for free, so I'll try and use it. It should be useful for my travels.

My Next Car

2007-02-06T02:51:00.000-08:00

Back To Melbourne

2007-01-28T03:52:00.000-08:00

After a fun week of meetings in Sydney, it's time to get back down to Melbourne.

More Robots

2007-01-27T05:14:00.000-08:00

Jim and I have been searching for something to do tonight, it being the day after Australia Day here in Sydney, and thought we had a winner in Devolution. It was described as a performance piece exploring technology and art. Cool, robots. And Jim likes the whole performance art thing. Fine. As long as there are robots.We cruise down to the theater which is a converted factory. The space is pretty cool, and they serve beer, so I am good. However, this quickly goes south when I find out we can't take the beer into the actual seating area.
This gets worse when I figure out that "performance art" is actually code word for "fruity dancing." Lots of fruity dancing. And some nudity. Male nudity. There are some robots: two tyrannosaurus rex thingies, three ETs and several spider looking things. They were good. But I can sum up my review for the "piece" in two words: More. Robots.
The night wasn't a total loss; We stopped at the 3 Wise Monkeys on the way home.

Tokyo in San Francisco

2007-01-20T20:14:00.000-08:00

In recent years, I have noticed that San Francisco is becoming more and more like Tokyo. Of course, this could be happening everywhere, but I guess I notice it the most here. Some of this is good (Toyko is very cool), some of this is bad (I don't think I could live there). In the good column are vending machines. Everything in Japan is available via a vending machine: beer (even mini-kegs), espresso, books and all sorts of food. San Francisco has picked up on this trend mostly on the high end.You can now find vending machines that sell mobile phones, iPods and headphones. The one above sells Motorola Razr phones and accessories. Below is one that sells iPod accessories (and aspirin).I was pretty close to picking up these iPod speakers (so that I could rock on the plane -- yes, I am that guy), but the machine at SFO was broken.

Books For Free

2007-01-18T19:06:00.000-08:00

I am gearing up for another field trip to Sydney, but before I go, I want to see if I could make a dent in my accumulation of flight paperbacks. Due to amount of long trips that I take, the scarcity of decent airport bookstores, the fact that I don't like re-read books and my generally poor taste in literature, I have collected just a ton of books that I won't be reading again. So, if you are somewhere that I am going (i.e. Australia, SoCal, SF or somewhere else on my plazer), going to be in NorCal or willing to somehow get these from where they reside to where you are, they are yours for the asking.My current library includes:

The World is Flat
Under the Banner of Heaven
The Tipping Point
Freakonomics
Sputnik Sweetheart
The Big U
Into The Wild
Virtual Light
Animals In Translation
As the Future Catches You
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

Let me know.

Mac Fanboy For a Day

2007-01-15T00:19:00.000-08:00

So I went into San Francisco to see MacWorld today. As an ~~industry notable~~ ~~nobody~~ minor celebrity, I ~~command~~ ~~am accorded~~ occasionally get hooked up with junkets like this. But before I start my review of the day, I need to state a few things:

I am not an Apple Fan Boi. You will not see any slobbering reviews of the greatness of Steve Jobs, or even his new phone. I do admire their industrial design, some of their hardware engineering and software development. And I do use their products. But I don't use them because I think they are cool or will make me cooler. Most of them simply work more like I expect things should. Some people think that about Linux and some people even think that about Microsoft.
I am even less a fan of conventions. Especially computer conventions. Early in my career, I used to go and work at these and I am simply over them. Idiot salespeople, idiot consumers, clueless demo dollies. I usually only have a few things I want to see (but would rather see them in another venue, like my living room) so I wanted to make my trip short and surgical.

After I got to the city, I parked in the Metreon parking lot and wandered over to Moscone North. Surprisingly, my badge was waiting for me (skipping the $45 exhibit entry fee suckers) and I was down on the floor within five minutes. MacWorld had expanded to both sides of old Moscone (North and South side of the street), but I'm not sure why. There was simply nothing in the North hall. After trudging down to the South hall, I found most of what I was looking for:

iPhone sighting
Garmin Training Center preview release CD
Apple TV

Before I get to that, thought, I must comment on the makeup of the exhibitors. I would conservatively say that 50% of the vendors were just iPod accessories. Like cases. Lots and lots of cases. And laptop bags.This really should have been called iPod World, not MacWorld.

iPhone
This was clearly the bell of the ball. They had three iPhones on display in a ridiculous hermitically sealed cylinder, with people three deep staring at it. As you can see from the photo below, there isn't much to see -- except that it seems a little smaller than I thought it might be.

Behind the iPhone cylinders was a constant demo of the iPhone features, with only slightly more detail than Steve Jobs keynote. Good photos tho.

Overall, I think there needs to be a lot more info on the phones before I am sold. If Apple truly isn't going to allow any new applications or widgets to be installed on the phone, that is a deal breaker for me.

Apple TV

Although the Apple TV was also part of the keynote speech, it clearly was the red-headed stepchild. Shown outside the Apple pavilion on a thin counters, they had a few of them setup. It looks a lot like the FrontRow interface on my MacBook, I couldn't tell what kind of resolution that it was supporting. If it wasn't $300, I would probably order one.

Garmin Training Center

The real reason that I went to the MacWorld was to snag a early copy of Garmin Training Center for the Mac. The software is 9 months late and the only way to get it before February was to come to San Francisco and ask them for it. In fact, the guy actually had to go back into the display to find a copy. But I got it. And it works well. I am happily tracking my runs and rides through my GPS again.

That's all I had from the conference. And actually the coolest thing I saw all day was actually over at the Metreon across the street: that Sony Mylo is pretty cool. Not $350 cool, but pretty cool.

MacWorld

2007-01-11T23:44:00.000-08:00

As those of you watching my plazes and twitter sidebar could tell, I ventured into San Francisco to attend MacWorld 2007 today. I'll post my thoughts tomorrow, but I wanted to post a picture or two tonight.

Into the belly of the beast.

What's a conference without presentations?

Forty Two

2007-01-11T12:51:00.000-08:00

Happy 6th Birthday, Zekerdog.

Immaculate Beer

2007-01-08T16:12:00.000-08:00

In my never ending effort to bring you latest in semi-celebrity sightings (and poor cameraphone photography), I bring you . . . NFL Hall of Famer and Superbowl MVP Franco Harris.He was sitting in front of me at the bar in Gordon Biersch Las Vegas. And yes, someone actually asked him about the "immaculate reception." I guess he was in town shilling for some product at CES.

Upscale Flying

2007-01-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

Damn, I haven't been in the nice terminal in Sacto Intl Airport in a while. They've gone all upscale and even have a wine tasting bar/store (Vino Volo). I had a glass of the 2004 Dillian Ranch Zinfandel from Joel Gott Winery and it was quite nice. I guess they just opened two weeks ago.
I will savor this for a few minutes since after this its all downhill; I am off to Vegas for CES in a few minutes.

DogCar

2007-01-04T17:56:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you go riding around town with your brother looking for a coffeehouse and you see this:Dogs atop cars are definitely an under appreciated art form.

Back To Ohio

2007-01-03T13:16:00.000-08:00

As you can see from my new nifty location based services sidebar, I am in Ohio visiting my mom and brother. Columbus is unseasonably warm (actually might be warmer than California today), so it should be a good few days.

Since we've got some time today, Brian and I went back to our old hometown (Bexley) and hung out at Cup 'O Joe, which is just down the street from our old house.

Not So Historic Old Folsom

2007-01-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

Kelly and I live about equal distance, but in opposite directions, of historic downtown Folsom. The historic part of downtown Folsom is seeped in the old west - It was the last stop on the Pony Express and an integral part of the gold rush of 1849 (and of course, the prison). Unfortunately, it looks like we are losing some of the old world charm (see below), due to the assault of commerce.I just saw this sign yesterday. It looks like they are putting up a parking garage and condos across the street from The Black Rooster.
This is probably not good.

Snow Dogs

2006-12-28T18:50:00.001-08:00

Since both Shelley and I were off work today, we decided to take a trip up the hill with the dogs. Unfortunately, the wind and snow was pretty fierce above the snow line (around Pollock Pines) so we stopped short of Lake Tahoe. We made it to Kyburz, where the snow was blowing but Zeke was super happy.

Zeker in the Snow, originally uploaded by /k.

Laptop Woes

2006-12-27T19:42:00.000-08:00

My laptop (Averatec 3270), which has been flaking out on me for while, finally turned the bend this week. After narrowly surviving my last two months of travel, it developed the annoying tick of turning off the screen backlighting just before christmas. This gradually got worse over the past few days so now it only goes for about 15 minutes before the screen turns black. I thought it was just a operating system setting or bug, but it's been happening whether I boot into Windows or Ubuntu so its got to be hardware. I attempted some open-heart surgery on the little bastard yesterday, but nothing seemed loose or burned. And when I put it back together, the same problem kept coming back.

And since I can't really be without a laptop due to my line of work, I ordered a Black MacBook (as you do). I'm just breaking it in, but it seems pretty good so far. I'm not sure I love MacOS X, but the built-in video camera is pretty cool.

Melbourne Downtown

2006-12-18T15:50:00.001-08:00

I took advantage of my last full day in Melbourne (at least for this year) and hiked to the end of St Kilda's Pier. There's a nice little cafe with views of downtown Melbourne through the marina. Check out Flickr's cool geotag view for more photos from this same spot.

Bad Dog

2006-12-15T04:38:00.000-08:00

I saw this t-shirt design over on Threadless and thought of Louiedog. Unfortunately, sold out for men.

Pub Crawl

2006-12-10T20:26:00.000-08:00

While I was waiting to catch up with my friend Niall on Saturday, I had to scout out a pub for our meeting place. Luckily, Sydney actually publishes brochures on their pubs:We eventually ended up at the 3 Wise Monkeys, my favorite Irish ex-pat establishment.

Sydney Weekend

2006-12-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

I made it up to Sydney for the weekend so that I could catch up with Niall and a few friends before my meetings on Monday and Tuesday. I won't bore you with yet another picture of the Sydney Opera House, but I did like the bridge today.If you look closely, you can see climbers up on the top of the span.

Melbourne via Hollywood

2006-12-03T20:15:00.000-08:00

My first leg flying to Melbourne is almost always a short hop from Sacramento to Los Angeles. Since I usually fly on Saturday night, its a pretty quiet flight but usually weird. Sacramento is the closest big airport to Lake Tahoe and Napa so you get some strange people on the flights. So when I rocked up to the gate on Saturday seeing a 6'10" women standing at the counter didn't seem out of the ordinary. I'm sure she was a Sacramento Monarch or LA Spark. What was surreal was the motorcycle jacketed scruffy guy sitting next me. While I was sitting there, some guy comes up to him and says "I really like the show." He thanks him and kinda zones back out again. He sat a row or two in front of me on the flight. I pretty sure it was Patrick Dempsey from Grey's Anatomy. That's about as interesting as my travel gets.

P.S. For those wondering why he was sitting in Economy class -- this was a SkyWest flight on the CanAir small jet. There is no first class.

Xmas Card Photo Day

2006-11-30T23:42:00.000-08:00

Today was Christmas card photo day for the dogs. Unfortunately, neither one of them were particularly in the mood for it (and since it was only 45F, I wasn't either). However, I did manage to grab a good shot of Zeke.

It almost rivals the Louie Sky picture that I posted in August.

Equine Convention

2006-11-27T18:11:00.000-08:00

I arrived home last week for Thanksgiving to find that Brownie and Whitey had company over.Apparently, my homesteading neighbor with the new barn brought along three horse (the wise men) and a few chicken with him. It isn't a llama or anything, but they'll do.

Lazy Sunday, St Kilda, VIC

2006-11-20T15:13:00.000-08:00

So after I spent the week in New Zealand, I had to rush back to Melbourne for a Friday meeting. Which was canceled. Of course. Since I had planned to spend my weekend mountain biking in Wellington, I found myself without plans for the weekend.

So I went touring the local cafes and bars in St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne. Mostly bars. As you do. I settled in at one of the swanker, yet inside/outside compatible taverns called Metropol. I had planned to highlight a beautiful picture that I took with my panorama mode camera (using their cool stitch functionality), unfortunately it was late in the afternoon and my hand was shaking. Instead, I've given you yet another macro closeup of my beer bottle.

By the time you read this, I will be boarding my flight back to the U.S. as this trip has come to a close.

Air NZ

2006-11-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

Air New Zealand is the finest airline in the world. Or at least they have the ~~best~~ ~~tastiest~~ drunkest airport lounges in the world.Yes, that is 24 different kinds of free beer. And those are mostly the Kiwi beers. And another section for wine. And free wireless.

Yes, I stuffed about 10 beers in my luggage.

Hello Wellington

2006-11-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

And 45 minutes later, I am down in the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. And the weather blows. I really like Wellington, even better than Auckland, but it does have a little bit of the "San Francisco in summertime" problem. Even so, I got my cup of coffee from Mojo (possibly the best tasting coffee in the world, they even put the Silver Fern in the foam like Guinness and the clover) and actually got some work done in the office today.

Goodbye Auckland

2006-11-15T02:17:00.000-08:00

Up early this morning to get down to Wellington. Before I left, I caught breakfast near our office at the Viaduct. They had the racing boats out for the tourists.

Stopover In Auckland

2006-11-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Auckland late last night (2 AM) and then literally ran from meeting to meeting all day. Well not all day. Basically, we got to about 3 PM and decided to leave for beers (as you do). Our office is down with the other tech companies at the viaduct, nearby to quite a few pubs. While they've replaced most of the America's Cup syndicate warehouses with fancy apartments, it is mostly as I left it a few years ago. This picture is out my hotel window towards some huge tower in downtown. Off to Wellington this afternoon.

Coffee Melbourne-style

2006-11-11T20:04:00.000-08:00

The Internet connection in my hotel is bad, to the point of being unusable. So, I've been searching this week for suitable coffee establishments where I might be able to catch up on things after work hours. While there are plenty of coffee shops here in Melbourne (they fancy themselves the most european of Australian cities), most of them do not adhere to /k's rules of coffeehouse greatness:

The internet shall be free and it shall be fast.
The chairs will be comfortable and oversized.
The music will be playing, but quietly in case one wants to listen to their iPods. And if you do play music, it must not be elevator music or techno.
They should bring your coffee to you, if the wait will be more than three minutes. And it should be better than I can make at home.
Power plugs. Everywhere.

After much searching, I have found a place that actually fits all of these requirements (except the music): Mag Nation (as in Magazine Nation). Not a coffee shop, per se, but a shop that sells about 600 different magazines (mostly from the UK). The photo above shows the magazine selection on 1/4 of one wall on the second floor. And it happens to have free Internet, comfy couches, power plugs and a decent flat white. Unfortunately, its in Melbourne CBD which is a short tram ride from my hotel. Still, worth it. Now if they would just turn down the crappy techno music . . .

Signage

2006-11-10T20:09:00.000-08:00

I see this sign everyday on my walk to work. And I have no idea what it means.

Melbourne Cup

2006-11-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

Got a chance to go to the Melbourne Cup yesterday. The Cup is the largest horse race in the Southern Hemisphere, roughly comparable to our Kentucky Derby, with fewer rednecks and more champagne drinking. I got a corporate box to the festivities (through a client) so we were out of the unseasonably cold, wet weather. The picture below is the finish of the Cup, where Japanese horse Delta Blues edged fellow Japanese horse Pop Rocks (who I think ran in the US this year).
While I had a great time, we lost all of our bets. 9 straight races, 9 losses. In the main race, the 7th, we picked 2/3 of the trifecta, but the not the winner. However, I did manage to win a bottle of Chardonnay in one of the raffles in the corporate box.

Melbourne

2006-11-06T00:14:00.000-08:00

After twenty-three hours and three flights, I made it safe and sound to Melbourne. A pretty tame flight all in all. In fact, if the entire international terminal in LAX hadn't been made to "freeze" (yes, freeze as in freeze tag), I probably wouldn't have remembered anything about the flight at all. Melbourne is as lovely as always and as a special bonus, it appears that my hotel has been renovated since I was hear last.

My hotel is across the street from the Albert Cricket Grounds, so I celebrated my good travel fortune by catching a quick run.

I'm tired now, so I am going to sleep. Finally.

Off To Melbourne

2006-11-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

As part of my new job (which it a lot like my old job), I will be working in Melbourne, Australia for a few weeks. Along the way, I might make it over to New Zealand for a couple of days also. While I'm not that excited to be away from home, it turns out that I will be arriving in Melbourne just in time for the Melbourne Cup, the Aussie's answer to the Kentucky Derby (except with less white trash). My office has scored us some tickets, so expect some sweet photos around Tuesday morning PST.

Louie On The Mend

2006-10-24T00:03:00.001-07:00

Sick Louie
Originally uploaded by /k.

Louie dog has had a rough few weeks. Two weeks ago, he fell ill late on a Friday night. Although he had been fine all day, around 11 pm, he got up off the couch, tried to walk out the dog door, puked his guts out and then fell into shock. I rushed him to the emergency veterinary clinic, but they couldn't really figure out what was wrong with him. After stabilizing him around 2 AM, we decided to operate and he had a emergency laprodectomy (I didn't spell this right) around 8 AM Saturday. Basically, they opened Louie up to check out his lower vital organs. They didn't find the perforated large intestine like they thought, but his kidneys were enlarged and inflamed. After two days of touch or go, Louie popped right out of his funk (probably due to the anti-biotic he was on) and was more or less fine.

Today, Louie finally got to trade in his cape and have his surgical staples removed. In another week or two, he should be back out chasing his tennis ball. The only lasting effects will be a large ugly scar down his abdomen, which should be covered once his tummy fur grows back.

Still don't have any idea what caused the kidney problems. His tests all came back negative (cancer, poison, infection, etc.), so they think he might have eaten something.

The picture above is Louie dog today after his staple removal.

Simple

2006-10-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

I love when things are made simple. Especially when simple == delicious indian food.

Why can't all things be this way (and no I don't just mean indian food). Captured in San Francisco near O'Farrell last week.

Louie Year 3

2006-09-13T22:44:00.001-07:00

Louie Sky
Originally uploaded by /k.

Happy 3rd (or 4th or 5th) Birthday, Louie dog.

Barnraising

2006-08-21T23:37:00.000-07:00

Barnraising
Originally uploaded by /k.

So just when I thought that my exurbia paradise was rapidly become suburbia hell, my neighbors down in the gulch stepped up their city denial a notch. This the latest example: they've built a full-on barn in their back pasture. Never mind that it is pre-fab and completely steel, it is still a barn.

Keep fighting the man, crazy neighbor.

Drydock

2006-08-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

Submarine
Originally uploaded by /k.

So while Kelly may see some interesting stuff on his drives through Orangevale, he can't hold a candle to my commute into the Bay Area. As evidence, I present this photo of someone taking his personal submarine out for a cruise.

Of course, it helps that I drive through Berkeley on my commute.

You're Doing A Heck Of A Job . . .

2006-07-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

Brownie
Originally uploaded by /k.

So Whitey, the horse in the field on my back fence line, has left along with the Noah's Ark of Llamas next door. However, they have been replaced with Brownie, a new horse. Of course, my dogs Louie has taken an instance dislike to Brownie and has decided the best time to take this up with him is 4:30 AM in the morning. In Brownie's favor, he appears to be giving Louie it all back through fairly loud whinnies.

High bridge

2006-07-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

High bridge
Originally uploaded by /k.

Killing some time yesterday in Auburn, CA, I decided to take Brian to the Foresthill Bridge. As you can tell from the picture, the bridge is the highest in California and was created to bridge the Auburn Confluence Lake. The only problem there being is that the Auburn Confluence was never created, out of fear of seismic problems with the dam and incredible cost overruns. This is a good thing, since the confluence area has some incredible hiking and biking trails. In any event, the bridge sits here, high over the Auburn valley. Some views from the bridge here and here.

Lost Coast

2006-07-01T06:43:00.001-07:00

Lost Coast
Originally uploaded by /k.

In my whirlwind tour of the Humboldt nightlife, I've hit upon the Lost Coast Brewery as my dinner spot. I've had their beer before and their food isn't half bad. However, due to the Humboldt State Uni influence, I appear to be the only man here without a full beard and pipe.

Arcata Bucks

2006-07-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

Arcata Bucks
Originally uploaded by /k.

Arcata has a starbucks that rivals Brian's Cup O Joe. Apparently Humboldt has their priority squarely in line.

North

2006-06-30T22:33:00.000-07:00

Arcata
Originally uploaded by /k.

I took off North this afternoon to race my bike in the Whiskeytown Shasta forest (there's a big Cal State contest there). Since I've never really been north of Chico, it's been a really nice trip. Most of the way (say until you get to Redding or Shasta) is pretty much like the rest of the central valley. However, once you start west to the coast from Redding, you are in old growth forest for about 100 miles. This picture was taken about 15 miles from the Pacific (near the race site) looking south towards Eureka, CA.

While it looks warm and sunny in the picture, I am staying in Eureka tonight and it seems much more like my home in Pacifica. Low 50s and foggy. Quite a change from the 100+ degree temperatures in Sacto.

Take Your Dog To Work Day

2006-06-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

So last Friday was "Take Your Dog To Work Day". Unfortunately, I don't go to work. So I invited Zeke to spend the day in my den with me. Zeke declined, preferring the cool tile in the kitchen.

How (Not) To Open Mike

2006-06-05T14:06:00.001-07:00

Open Mike
Originally uploaded by /k.

Okay, while I know that open mike night at the coffee house is supposed to be an artsy, free wheeling affair, I have to make one suggestions: If you are going to perform, either sing or play an instrument. Don't come and rant about bizarre observations in your life and then call it "spoken word."

Moving Offices

2006-05-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

Sartory Coffee
Originally uploaded by /k.

Over the past year, I have used the local It's A Grind as my office away from home. While it has served with distinction, I had chosen it mostly because there wasn't anything else available. However, in the last three months everything has changed; Three new coffeeshops have opened in the greater EDH/Folsom area. There is now a Starbucks that I can almost see from my house, a Peet's (Bay Area favorite) and an independent coffee shop in EDH. The independent shop, Sartory Coffee, has emerged as the early frontrunner for a share of my mobile office coffee drinking. Sporting slightly higher quality coffee than Starbucks or It's A Grind (but probably not Peet's), Sartory breaks new ground by serving beer and wine. This is obviously a huge plus. They are open outrageous hours (nights until 11:30 PM). Of course, they have free internet (I'm posting from it now). And finally, they show movies on Monday night. Shelley and I caught part of Chocolat last night.