day 3

Subway ticket to Giza: $0.20
Sharing a cab to the Pyramids: $0.50
Bus ticket back to the Metro: $0.10
Subway ticket back to Cairo: $0.20
Share of tip to local who helped us find the bus and treated us to
cane juice: $0.50
Visiting the Pyramids on our own terms: priceless

After 16+ miles of walking yesterday we went for another action packed today, hitting up both the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum.

Rather than book organized transportation for the Pyramids (which would have cost us an astonishing $10! That's insane!), we decided to go there ok our own terms. We rocked the metro from our hotel to Giza, which is 9km from the Pyramids. There, we found a cabbie who was willing to take us there for E£5 (about a dollar). Seemed too easy!

Well, it kind of was. He dropped us off in some random place where some people tried to sell us camel rides, which we of course refused. After all, E£50 (about ten bucks)! That's insane! The fake tourist police guy then pointed us the wrong way to the main entrance. Basically he told us to go take a walk in the desert. After passing by the edge of town (about 200m), things didn't seem quite right and we turned around, following the wall the other way. My guess is that they would strand us and then subsequently "rescue" us for some even higher charge. Not us!

After taking a walk through the town, which was mostly stables, we got to the main entrance. We would be constantly accosted by people offering camel rides, ranging from E£25 to E£50 (five to ten dollars). After a while we got tired of it and started speaking exclusively in Cantonese and pretending not to know any English. The trick worked pretty well! In the end we walked to all the places the camels would have taken us, and it didn't cost us anything, just the E£25 entrance fee. Good times. Only issue was the air quality - pretty bad today. But as I said, it was a great experience.

Getting back to the metro was a bit more of a challenge. No one was willing to take our cheapass offer of E£5, although one did offer E£10. We were about to go for E£10 when we ran into some random dude (Abdul) who told us that we should take the bus instead. He took us to the bus stop and waited for the bus with us, even treating us with some cane juice. E£0.50 later, we are back to the metro station. As George W. Bush would say, mission accomplished.

After the Pyramids, we headed over to the Egyptian Museum, which is conveniently located on the other side of a ten lane road, which we crossed, because that's what we do. We are getting pretty good at dodging cars, although I have to keep reminding myself that just because its comfortable doesn't mean it's safe. (-;

Tomorrow: get bus and train tickets for Mt. Sinai and Luxor and probably return to Islamic Cairo.

hello, cairo

day 2

So Patrick and I did our typical "explore a whole city in a day" trick in Cairo today, exploring almost all of central Cairo on foot. Left to do: Pyramids, Egyptian Museum, and Islamic Cairo (where we're heading right now).

Highlight of the trip so far:
Wandering in some random area in Cairo that looked interesting (read: outdoor market), where we shared some lunch and some tea with some locals. They knew no English, and we knew no Arabic, but I think we were both entertained by each other's company. We did teach each other how to say "motorcycle" in our respective languages, but we didn't take them up on the offer of a tour riding the bike. Then PMA almost killed himself.

day 1

Just got into our hotel here in Cairo. It's a little past midnight local time. It's 5:42pm in New York...

Got in fine. No issues with luggage or getting in. Had a good time haggling with people for a ride to our hotel. Saved E£5 or spent an extra EL15 depending on the point if view. People here so far are friendly, as long as you play along. We are willing to play along. (-; We're also speaking more Chinese for more private conversations. Good times.

We almost got a room on the fourth floor. Instead, we're staying in room 28!

welcome to cairo

Our room at the Windsor Hotel.

welcome to europe

Exchange rate now at about $1.50 for €1. That $12 burger wasn't even
that good.

prospect park

still looking for those pyramids!

these don't look like pyramids!

Cavs against the NY Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

goodbye, new haven

I'm on my way. Heading to NYC on the Metro-North. GO CAVS!!!

packing list

For comparison purposes, the Chile/Argentina trip:

packing

Planning on packing even lighter this time. This trip's packing list (excluding camera and bathroom stuff):

• Three pairs of cotton boxers
  I feel like I can get away with two. Three makes me feel more civilized, and serves as insurance against equipment failure (remember Janet?).
  
• One pair of synthetic boxers
  These kind of suck, but are good for swimming (with shorts), running, and hiking.
  
• Two pairs of synthetic socks
  They dry quickly. Nice.
  
• One pair of jammy pants
  
• One pair of shorts
  In case I decide to run or take a swim
  
• Two pairs of linen pants
  
• Two linen shirts
  
• One synthetic t-shirt
  Might be sleepwear, or day use, or hike use, or bus use, or train use. It's comfy, and cleans up well.
  
• Two cotton undershirts
  One for sleepwear, the other as a potential pillowcase, towel, whatever.
  
• Merrell Jungle Mocs
  
• Nike Sandals
  

The following stuff is for the day in New York City and the night hike up Mount Sinai:

• Wind breaker
• Long sleeve cotton tee
• Fleece vest
• Jeans
• Cheap-ass gloves
• Hat
• Flashlight (one set of batteries)
  

I'm assuming Patrick will be bringing:

• Camera charger
• Sunscreen
• Shaving cream

Common stuff I'll be bringing:

• Power adapters (the round pins)
• iPod charger
  

our hotel in luxor

http://www.luxorhappyland.com/

plans plans plans

I wake up this morning with an unsettled stomach from last night. (Happy Birthday, Patrick!) Yesterday was a great day and we got a lot of stuff done. I still have an 8-10 page paper to write that I haven't yet started, but we made a lot of progress in planning out things that need to be done between now and graduation.

• Watching a New York Knicks game (NYC)
  This will be done Wednesday by leaving immediately after a meeting to catch the 4:24 Metro-North train to New York. Go Cavs!
• Watching a New York Yankees game (NYC)
  Done last year. Might go again in May after classes end.
• Watching a New York Mets game (NYC)
  Tickets booked for April 13th.
• Watching a Red Sox Game (Boston)
  Discussion in progress with my peeps in Boston
• Performance at Sprague Hall (NYC)
  Done. Although I wouldn't mind another one.
• Performance at Woolsey Hall (NYC)
  Missed out on this one. I'm out of town the weekend of the last performance of the year (April 26).
• Yale Repertory Theater (New Haven)
  Need to organize a group, but they're around till May 16th, so this is an after-classes-end activity.
• Shubert Theater (New Haven)
  Might check out Hairspray when it comes to town later this year.
• Yale Symphony Orchestra (New Haven)
  Planning on attending the free concert the weekend of commencement.
• Visiting random Yale buildings (New Haven)
  Will do some random Friday with Klee?
• Group outing to Chinatown (NYC)
  Will be combined with the Mets game, and all other excursions to NYC.

In addition to figuring all this out yesterday, we also managed to plan out a few other trips this weekend. Finally did planning for the Egypt trip (since we'll be there four days from now) and initial planning for three other trips - another drive across the country, attending a wedding, and going to Cleveland right after classes end to catch an Indians game (and visit the fam, or course).

Perhaps I should do some class work now?

the plan

oh. hi.

is it just me, or did some academic have fun with choosing variable names?

what happens when you lay out on the ice without gloves

seems like perfectly good frisbee weather

more credit cards

For some reason I'm looking at credit cards. Perhaps it's because my Citi Rewards card sucks internationally (fees).

Amex still sucks (unless you charge well over $10,000 a year)
Discover still sucks, except for the occasional 5% categories
Citi still rocks, but not as much as before
Chase has the best offer, but still has the international fee rape like Citi. Damn.

What does Chase have? 3% reward on three categories (the three you spend the most on in a given month) and 1% on everything else.

One weird thing - Citi and Chase don't like online purchases or warehouse clubs. Amex doesn't seem to care - but that 0.5% reward kinda sucks.

I'm going to bed.

chillin' in the er waiting area

So I've been here for the last six hours or so, accompanying a buddy
of mine to the hospital. It's more of a precautionary visit, so
hopefully everything is ok. Basically, I'm getting bored. Brought a
binder full of readings and I just finished what I needed to read for
tomorrow (mostly).

So a rough timeline:
6:22 Arrival
7? Triage
7:55 I leave to go get dinner @ Aladdin's
9:45 Gets checked out
12:35 Done!

I hope I don't get sick from all these people coughing around me.

i'm amused

cons of the west coast

Sometimes I stay up late at night doing weird things like TAXES, and I find that sites start going down for routine maintenance at 1am or so. Knowing that I'll be moving to the west coast shortly, I'm going to start running into this problem three hours earlier. Why don't companies just do the maintenance starting at 3am or so? Sure, that doesn't really give you as much time, but I don't want stuff to be shutting down at 10pm!

Now that I think about it, I do recall that happening to me a few times. Annoying. Tonight's culprit? TurboTax. Somehow the site seems to be worse than what they had last year and two years ago. Lame. If Vanguard, Fidelity, and T. Rowe Price can port their data over, I may just leave!

Speaking of leaving, I'm getting more and more tempted to leave my trusty First Internet Bank of Indiana, who I've been with since 1999. I still love how they reimburse ATM fees (now including international fees!), but this whole credit card fiasco has me irked. The thing doesn't show up when I'm online, so I miss the statement. Yeah... I know. They send me e-mails about statements. But seriously, you expect me to go look at the statement when I can just see everything online? Oh yeah... I also can't pay my credit card since it's not showing up on the Web site. Can't transfer funds online if it doesn't have an account to transfer to! Top candidate to take the job: Everbank.

c.r.e.a.m.

it's a beautiful day

classy class in horchow

lost and found

On! Hello!

damn

I just realized that I've spent about two weeks of my life just
brushing my teeth. With any luck, I'll get to brush my teeth for
another six weeks.

cheap power

For some reason I decided to see how much electricity costs in Seattle. Findings? CHEAP!

New Haven is ridiculously expensive at about 20 cents/kWh. Cleveland was much cheaper at 12 cents/kWh. Seattle? Aside from having a tiered billing system, it's something on the order of 8 cents/kWh. In other words, our electricity bill for the apartment would have been $15 instead of $75.

The downside? It makes saving energy a bit hard to justify. Guessing that I'll be using less than 10kWh a day (since that's how much THREE of us use on a heavy use month), I'll be paying 4 cents/kWh. But even so, a CFL bulb will still pay for itself after 50 hours of use. Here in New Haven we break even in about 10 hours, yet people still use incandescents and leave the lights on like idiots. Thanks, jerks.

priceless?

Price tag for the South America trip: $3571.14

Of that, about $1800 in airfare. Ouch.

oddities

So the restore worked. Mostly.

The good:
Bookmarks are there. Home icons are all there. Photos are there. Notes are there. My Safari cookies were restored too.

The missing:

• My WiFi networks are gone. The passcode lock is gone. Mail password is gone. Looks like anything dealing with passwords is gone. Weird since my cookies in Safari were still there.
  
• Surprising, or not surprising, is that my music wasn't synced. Surprising because that's what I thought made it take so long. Not surprising because I don't sync music to my laptop.
  

The weird:

• It carried over the phone usage. I guess this makes sense if it's the same device, and useful if you're watching your minutes. Struck me as odd though.
• It remembered where I was looking on Google Maps.

Does my inconsistent formatting bother you? It would bother me. I'm leaving it.

dependent

So I managed to lose my phone last night. Apparently I wasn't the only one. After losing it, I realized how dependent I am on the thing. I found myself repeatedly saying "damn" all morning whenever I would have used my phone.

Where's my phone? "damn..."
Wanted to send an e-mail. "damn..."
Can't send a text. "damn..."
Maybe I can call up... "damn..."
Check the weather "damn..."

I guess you can say I get some good value out of the thing. So much so that I've already gotten a replacement... less than 12 hours after it was lost.

Easy, or hard?
As with any lost phone, there's the price of the phone (expensive!), plus the extra gift of having to restore everything. Thankfully, all my contacts are synced with Outlook, so that shouldn't be a problem. The more annoying thing would be restoring all my settings, all my bookmarks, all my programmed WiFi networks, etc. For this, I was pleasantly surprised that iTunes gave me the option to restore my phone to where it was the last time I synced it with my PC (a weird "advantage" for not being able to sync the calendar without a cable). Well, it's taking forever, but at least it should (theoretically) bring the world back into order. I'd be pretty happy if the photos that I've had and my background image were restored since as far as I know I don't have that stuff anywhere else. Why is it taking so damn long? I suppose it's got a good 4-6GB of data to slam back onto the device. We'll see...

happy chinese new year!

freud

I just finished reading a few chapters from Freud's book, Group
Psychology. Is it me, or is the man completely full of shit? He cites
a work of popular fiction as evidence of his theory. Perhaps he had
been doing a bit too much cocaine (which Freud evidently thought was a
panacea). Yep. Check wikipedia.

And yes, as usual I'm writing this on a bus. Coming back from a
weekend skiing with the kids up in Vermont. Decent skiing. Many
examples of the frustrating inemptitude of people and groups. I need a
vacation.

i don't appreciate this one bit

You can guess which bike is mine.

photos

For once I've actually gotten my photos uploaded in a reasonable amount of time. Here they are:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulip88/sets/72157603796617023/detail/

I still need to go through them and adjust exposure, stitch together panoramas, etc., but who knows how long it'll take me to do that. At least you get something in the meantime!

damn you, mastercard

After the trip, here's the breakdown of the best way to get local cash.

The winner:
Visa ATM: Fee of 1%. Average cost relative to the real exchange rate: 1.1%. Cheap!

The rest:
Mastercard: Fee of 3%. Average cost relative to the real exchange rate: 3.4%. GFY, Mastercard. Thankfully, the US dollar dropped 5% from when I made the purchase, so effectively still ended up ahead... but not really.

Random exchange counter in the middle of nowhere in Patagonia with high demand and zero competition: Fee of 5%. Average cost relative to the real exchange rate: 5.2%

thoughts

I was looking through some of my international coins this morning. A few observations:

• Countries with British roots (like the UK, Australia, NZ, HK) have coin systems that are idiotic. There is no rhyme or reason for the sizing for the different denominations. What were you all thinking!?
• Queen Elizabeth has aged quite a bit since her initial youthful profile first appeared on coins in the 1950's. Those new Canadian coins - wow. Not even a crown.
• Costa Rica has by far the stupidest coins in my collection (if you can call it that). They are all the same color. They are all roughly the same size. Similar weight. Thanks, guys.

Just renewed my auto insurance for Progressive. As an ex-employee I probably pay more attention to that packet than most other people. How much did I read? Hardly any of it.

thought

Being a pioneer or market leader does not pardon you from the
consequences of incompetence.

See:
Xerox
Atari
BetaMax
AltaVista

at archie moore's

The *other* Archie Moore's. Different location, slightly different menu.

heading oot

Right now I'm aboard LAN flight 290 from Punta Arenas to Santiago. Left at 7:50 this morning, allowing fantastic views of the Andes throughout the entire flight so far. Through my window, I caught aerial views of a few of the sites that we have visited the past week, including our hikes at Torres del Paine, Laguna Torres, and the Perito Moreno glacier. Those sights seemed massive on the ground, but the aerial view adds a whole new perspective on the scale of what we've seen and where we've been. That said, I also saw what we couldn't see at Fitz Roy. The towers are spectacular from the air. Perhaps I'll have to drop by again at some point. (-; Overall we've had fantastic weather though, so I can't really complain. Having perfect weather for most of the rest of the trip (especially at Torres del Paine) is plenty good.

Speaking of plenty good, I continue to be impressed by transportation here. This flight is on the newest plane that I've been on in years and they even have several good music stations to listen to, not to mention in-flight magazines that are not only clean, but readable. Busses have also been great, though cramped at times. Busses in Patagonia are still newer and offer better services than those in the US. It was also nice to see that even towns in the middle of nowhere there was still more street activity than in most US cities.

So what's lacking? A diversity of food options. (-: More paved roads in remote areas would also be nice. Then again, the fact that there is very regular and very affordable bus services to virtually anywhere definitely makes up for some of this.

That's it for now. Hopefully we'll be landing shortly and I can find myself another book to read. Just finished Chrichton's Airframe. Maybe I'll get the Audacity of Hope from Lifshitz, but somehow I doubt I'd be able to. We shall see...

final south american excursion

Penguins! Crappy shot, but I forgot to take the pic with the phone
till late.

people watching in puerto natales

We are sitting here watching people on the street. Particularly, this fellow selling random stuff across the street. He's selling what appears to be some Christmas welcome mats, some knit hats, random stuffed toys, some blue vests, what appear to be tablecloths, random articles of clothing, and garlic. So far the garlic has been the top seller. He's sold about 5 cloves of garlic so far for probably a few hundred pesos (only coins exchanged so far). Oh wait! Just sold two more! Exciting!

torres del paine

good hike today

Just finished a great hike here in Parque Nacional de los Glaciers. Ugh... guy next to me just took his boots off. Stinks. Anyway, there are a few trails at El Chalten, and we took the one to Laguna Torres. There were some clouds up on the mountain today so we couldn't see the torres (or towers), but it was still a solid view of the glacier. It's actually very similar to the Hooker Trail at Mt. Cook National Park, but with a bigger glacier and less paved roads. I also ate some of the ice floating on the lake. Why? Because I felt like it. Tasty! We'll see how I'm doing in a few hours. It's been three hours and I still feel fine.

up early again

Yesterday - up at 6:15 to catch to 8:30 bus

Today - up at 5:15 to catch a 7:30 bus (that I'm on right now...
trying to stay awake)

Tomorrow - 5:45 bus to Torres del Paine

Day after - TBD

on yet another bus

Yep. That's right. I'm on yet another bus - this time on the way back to El Calafate from Argentina's Glacier National Park. Today's attraction was the Perito Moreno Glacier - one of the few glaciers in the world that is still going strong. Today it came within a few hundred meters if the viewpoint, blocking Lago Argentino. With today's sun, we also saw quite a bit of activity with huge chunks of the glacier crashing into the water below several times. Good stuff!

Tomorrow we'll be taking another bus to Chalten where we'll do some hiking around Mt. Fitz Roy. After that, Torres del Paine!

And for the record, it gets dark around midnight here. I'm guessing it'll get dark around 12:45 in Punta Arenas.

perito moreno glacier, patagonia, argentina

unofficial international experience in buenos aires

another moderately priced dinner in buenos aires

Palazio Espanol on Avenida 9 de Julio by Avenida de Mayo

waiting in the central post office in buenos aires to send postcards

We started off 50th on line. Now we are 38th.

sitting in a mall writing postcards

to buenos aires, continued

I'm on a bus watching a French movie with Spanish subtitles. Awesome.

the busride back to mendoza

heading to buenos aires

Right now I'm on another Isilin bus heading back to Mendoza where we'll be catching another bus to take us to Buenos Aires overnight.

It was a good stay in San Rafael. Got to chill put a bit after the first week in Santiago and Mendoza. We chilled at the pool a bit, explored the property a bit, and hung out with the dog. And did I mention the food was fantastic?

In addition to just chillin, we also went to check out a winery that made champagne, went rafting and also horseback riding.

So here I am on the road back to Mendoza. On the left in the distance are the snow capped peaks of the Andes. To the right is a whole lot of nothing. Much like most of Nevada, actually. There really isn't much here outside of the mountains and the areas that are irrigated. Without irrigation not much grows here.

Word on the street is that the area around Buenos Aires is grassland. I also hear that it will be hot as hell. It's supposed to be 100F there for the next few days - and probably humid. Wish us luck!

the bus to san rafael

heading to san rafael

It's 6:05 in the morning and I am aboard a brand spanking new bus
heading to San Rafael. Bus is run by iselin and it's a double decker
with huge seats and flat screen TVs. And it looks like we're getting
coffee. Yay.

the drive across the andes

It's ten in the morning and I'm on a bus to Mendoza, Argentina. We're still not in the mountains yet, so not much to see. It's been an interesting morning so far. Got up early, went to the bus station, had an interesting time anxiously waiting for the bus that eventually showed up after a good wait. We were asked to arrive at eight for our bus, which was to leave at 8:30. That was around when the bus actually showed up, although I have to say we did leave within fifteen minutes or so, so not too bad. Some better signage would had been nice, but I suppose the busses are nicer than those back home (especially after the driver fixed the a/c), so I can't really complain.

Yesterday we did a nice long walk to a fancy mall. Allegedly the "best mall in South America." It was like a regular mall in the US, complete with a Starbucks, TGIF, etc. Perhaps anticlimactic, but it was a nice day for a walk.

Overall I've found Santiago pretty nice. Great parks, fantastic public transportation, and pretty lively overall - so long as it's not a Sunday or holiday. Everything closes then, which was a bit annoying since we were here around New Year's. Still, I enjoyed it. A bit more food diversity would have been nice, but Santiago isn't the most diverse place in the world, so that's understandable. They do like their food salty though! Even for my tastes.

Well, we're getting into the mountains so I'll stop writing and pay more attention.

patrick likes taking photos of his food

last dinner in santiago )-:

hanging out at the "best mall in south america"

stupenda!

the confetti from lifshitz's hair after new year's

hello from santiago!

Yo. This is the first of an unknown number of updates from the trip. I finally got around to finding out the Wi-Fi password at our hotel, so I'm rocking the phone.

Anyway, it's New Year's Eve. Tonight we'll be heading downtown for the countdown and fireworks. Earlier today we went to a winery (Concha y Toro) for a tour. It was quite the adventure. We got to take the metro to the outskirts of the city, where we were supposed to catch a bus. However, it wasn't as straightforward as that - it wasn't clear where the bus stop was or exactly which one to take. After using my Spanish skills and talking to a few people, we found the right bus to take.

It was an interesting ride. We actually took a minibus, not a big bus. When we were boarding some guy came on board with us to sell ice cream. Later, someone came on and played guitar for the rest of the trip. He was actually pretty good!

The wine tour was also great. Great tour (delivered in Spanish, which I understood 80% of) and also partially in English because the guide knew we didn't really know Spanish. And great wine too!

So we've been here about two days and I feel like I'm settling in - getting bus tickets in Spanish and everything. Tomorrow we'll go on a hike to get a look of the city. We already did this day one, but we didn't have our cameras (because it was really supposed to be a run, that ended up being a three hour walk). We'll take photos. After that, we take a bus and head over to Mendoza, Argentina!

riding the subway in Santiago

hello from hotlanta!

and i'm off

Heading to bed. With any luck, you'll be getting the occasional post and photo from while I'm away in South America. If no updates here, check here.

Quick Itinerary:
Santiago, Chile - for the New Year!
Mendoza, Argentina - any Malbec fans out there?
San Rafael, Argentina - chill at a friend's mom's B&B
Buenos Aires, Argentina - perhaps hop across to Uraguay for S&G's?
El Calafate, Argentina - My second Glacier National Park. Still haven't made it to the one in the US.
Parque Torres del Paine, Chile - badass hikes
Puerto Natales, Chile - because we couldn't find lodging in the park all nights
Punta Arenas, Chile - Penguins?

three weeks of clothes

Looks like I have room for boots!

thanks, jerks

My hard drive on my desktop is running out of space, so I'm cleaning house. I'm a bit surprised at some of the culprits:

• Google Talk
  Apparently the archive of auto updates isn't cleared out. Saved a good 20MB or so.
  
  
• Apple iPod, iTunes
  I saw over 100MB of updaters laying dormant in my Program Files folder. Uninstalled. Result? 1.1GB released. I have no idea where the hell that came from, but that ain't right! UPDATE: Just found another half gig of old iTunes and iPod updaters in Windows\Downloaded Installations. Thanks again, jerks.
  
  
• Java Updates
  About half a gig of old versions chillin' in Program Files. Unfortunately I need to restart for changes to take effect. Saved about a quarter gig. I'll take it.
  

stupid photo of the day

crash!

I continue to bore with talk about my phone... but then again, it is novel to have my iPod crash, right? I've had Safari bail on me a few times so far, but this is the first time the music player threw up chunks. That said, I still haven't had to reboot this thing yet, which is quite an accomplishment considering I would have to reboot my Blackjack every few days.

Last weird use was listen to music while using the timer (I was making dinner) while using the calculator... Then my mom called. Handled gracefully. I still like to think about how my Blackjack was stuck in an endless loop of ringing one time when I got a call while doing e-mail. I had to take the battery out. T'was amusing though.

So I'm back in New Haven. I should be packing... or planning. I'll get to that after food.

merry christmas, from a chinese restaurant

more about my phone usage

So over the past week I've gotten incredibly adept at killing my phone's battery almost at will over the course of a few hours. And no, it hasn't been from me calling tons of people to keep in touch - it's been through liberal web browsing and music listening.

Yep, it's a new phone. Allegedly it has much better battery life than the Samsung Blackjack that I was hang before, but I guess I'm using it a lot more. For example, I'm using it right now to write this blog entry while sitting in bed listening to it play music. So although I guess it has terrible battery life as a phone, I could look at it as a laptop that's incredibly portable that also has decent battery life. After all, that's how I am using it, right?

And yes, there are definitely some quirks. Like how I can check e-mail in landscape mode, how it doesn't know how to automatically insert the apostrophe in "it's" when appropriate, etc. But then again, I'm using it for obscene things like this (which I never would have done with my Blackjack) so I suppose it's definitely good enough. But then again, I did find a few easily correctable usability flaws regarding consistency... Yeah, I'd rather it be perfect. (-:

And Merry Christmas! Let's go eat some Chinese food!

more good times in cleveland

Heading over to Tommy's for dinner tonight. I'll be having the kick-ass banana milkshake with real banana and either a spinach pie or a meat pie. No, not as tasty as the meat pies down in New Zealand, but good in its own way.

Bonus activity was helping my dad fix the toilet... just like old times. We don't need no stinkin' plumber! Just like we don't need no stinkin' mechanic! Plan for tomorrow morning: change the oxygen sensor and check the rear brakes... and probably rotate some tires. I'll save the oil change for when the engine is a little warmer - so the oil will actually flow out.

fook

Just testing photo-blogging from the phone.

update from cleveland

Back in Cleveland:
Cleveland as I remember it in the winter. A few inches of snow, salt everywhere. Yup. So far this break has been a bit different, but it's also been a good break so far. I've been able to meet up with a bunch of people at work, have found excuses to drive around all my old 'hoods, met up with the Wongs, and even had breakfast at the Inn on Coventry for the first time (and now I feel like I missed out by not going there during the 2+ years I lived a 10 minute walk away).

I'm actually pretty happy to see that I still know my way around all sorts of weird side streets in Cleveland Hts and East Cleveland. Yes, I know my way around East Cleveland - the trick is to avoid Euclid Ave because the lights on that road are totally screwed up. I just hate being in the middle of one of the worst neighborhoods in the U.S. sitting at an intersection for several minutes while the lights are red for both streets. Yes, it's that amazing. I was surprised to find that they barricaded Coit. I used to cut through there to get to E 152nd. No, not smart. It's dark, goes under a bridge, and literally every house on it is boarded up. I suppose that's their way of dealing with crime - putting in a few dead potted plants in the middle of the road.

I also got to drive around my old haunts in Willoughby. Yeah, I've lived there too. Went to my trusty Murray's on Vine and also did the regular weekend drive from place to my parents' place.

In case you didn't notice, I like to reminisce and have attachment to some pretty weird things - like roads... and inanimate objects... like my car or my eraser. Anyway... that's another deeper more boring discussion, perhaps never to be had. OK... I will talk about the roads. I drive a lot. I've driven on a lot of roads. There are also certain roads that are really familar (the road to DC, the road to Pittsburgh, the road to Toronto, the road to New Haven) that I've drove a lot on and I realize that I'll probably never drive on those roads again (unless I move back to the east coast - hah!). For example, my drive back to New Haven in a few days will probably be the last time I'll ever drive that insanely boring stretch of I-80 in Pennsylvania (featuring the spot near the highest point on I-80 east of the Mississippi where I had a bathroom emergency on the side of the road in the snow (-; ). In June I'll probably do the drive from DC to Cleveland for the final time, and perhaps also the final drive from Pittsburgh to Cleveland and Toronto to Cleveland.

That said, I'm got plenty of new roads to explore out in the Northwest - ones with much more rewarding scenery. It's also a great excuse to drive across the country for a third time in my trust 1993 Honda Accord. It's at a youthful 177k miles. I'm changing the oil, checking the left-rear brake clip, and probably changing the oxygen sensor (no more cheap-ass Bosch crap!) on Sunday. Good times. I was going to write about something else...

Site of the Day: Expenseview.com
Let's face it. I can be anal. What's better than a site that makes it easier to be both anal and a cheap bastard? Before Yale SOM, I used to keep detailed track of my expenses - not that I really spent money on anything. Since then, I've found I haven't found the effort to do this. This site makes it a bit easier - mostly through good placement. I can enter stuff from my iPhone (yes... I've got one... just like everyone else and their mom) as well as from my iGoogle page. Yes, I continue to do competitive intelligence for Microsoft!

Challenge of the day:
Can someone figure out the lyrics to Conner's song Window Shopping? You can listen to it here: http://www.sonicboomrecordings.com/cataloginfo.php?catid=49 Great album, btw.

And one final question: What kind of break is this? I have lunch appointments every day, I'm still doing Student Government stuff, I'm knee deep in trip planning, and also doing Technology Club stuff... oh... and a Winter Break Social tonight. I suppose I am getting sleep though - and I am enjoying. A week or two of doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING would be nice though. Maybe later... for now if I get two weeks I'm still traveling. What's for Spring Break?

you know who you are

Who I message, and who messages me back. Data from the billing period covering November, 2007.

turn off the lights

Just swapped in a CFL bulb. 12W instead of 60W. At $1, it will pay for itself in about 4 weeks (3 hours use daily, 25 cents per kWh... electricity is expensive here).

It wouldn't matter so much if people just turned off the lights like they are supposed to.

untitled

I've been thinking about whether or not I should go ahead and buy an iPod Touch or an iPhone. iPhone because I think it has an awesome browser, but at the same time it's heavier than my current phone (Samsung Blackjack) and probably won't be as good for texting since it doesn't have a full QWERTY keypad (complete with tactile feedback). So what about an iPod Touch? Well, it still has the great browser, which would be fantastic for travel, but I also realize that it would be nonsensical to carry that and my phone with me whenever I'm not traveling. No, I don't use my iPod much.

Speaking of, my iPod mini, purchased over 3 years ago in 2004 is still running like a champ. Haven't recharged this thing in over a week. Plus it's been running on empty for the last hour. Yes, I did change the battery, but still great for a technology perspective.

Some other perspectives:
1) My iPod mini is over three years old
2) My iPod mini has come with me to Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Morocco, Costa Rica, and Canada. We have driven across the country three times (four if you count Cleveland to New Orleans).
3) I have owned this iPod for over 1/8th of my life.
4) I have known this iPod twice as long as I have known anyone here at Yale SOM! (ouch!)

spam continues to impress me

After reading Scott's hilarious blog entry about funny spam subject lines, I decided to check my spam folder to see what wonders lay within. After finding some amusing subject lines of my own (such as "Make your dik the envy of all your dudes in year 2008!"), I came across an interesting piece of spam that I suspect makes use of facebook or some other social networking site.

Why do I say this? The spam included the names of two people that I knew. The spam was sent from an account with the name Hande, which isn't really a common name. The subject line also had the name Manisha, also not the most common name (though admittedly more common than Hande).

So what were they trying to sell me? I have no idea. YOU tell ME.

Try no sometimes both form enough sea ways. Name to far or too good never white of do. Three go again very his as times only.

Few few why came hear way what hard because set. Him most sentence water last then. Thought now so need of because below.

Three and began of sometimes enough why some. Means animals together called off often with animals near told. Do look land father. Them of life them land many himself come.

Try no sometimes both form enough sea ways.
Name to far or too good never white of do.
Three go again very his as times only.

Few few why came hear way what hard because set.
Him most sentence water last then.
Thought now so need of because below.

Three and began of sometimes enough why some.
Means animals together called off often with animals near told.
Do look land father.
Them of life them land many himself come.

vinny vinny!

For those of you who watch the NFL, we are about to watch some drama unfold this year... and my guess is that it will somehow be overlooked by those crazy stats guys who work for the TV networks. So what is this drama?

Vinny Testaverde is likely to achieve the milestone of being sacked for negative 3,000 yards for this illustrious NFL career. Yep... He's just 26 yards shy.

As a comparison, Jon Kitna, another favorite journeyman QB only 1,715 yards lost. Another interesting stat is that while Kitna has fumbled 94 in 118 games (almost a fumble a game), Testaverde only has 71 fumbles... in 230 games (or one in three).

So what about Favre? He'll probably make the mark next year. Right now he's only got 2,884 yards lost on sacks.

idiotic proposals

Route 1 - Similar to this year's. See the same people, see different stuff.

Route 2 - The drive across Canada on the Trans-Canada Highway. Yes, starting in NB.
I like Canada. Lack of A/C makes this appealing, the strength of the Canadian Dollar doesn't.

Route 3 - The entire length of I-80
Pointless. I don't even get to see any new states.

idiot!

Came across this while I was cleaning up my bookmarks (like a dork). So what sort of IDIOT will drive across the country by HIMSELF in five days?

The Return Trip

My love with I-90:
We went ALL THE WAY!
I was within half a mile of I-90 the entire trip across except for seeing my parents in Cleveland

So what next? I need to think of how I'll drive back across when I move to Seattle. I'll probably swing through Texas again (because I have friends there). I'd like to check out Arches National Park, maybe the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Hrm... Might as well hit up Zion again? Perhaps swing north to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone? I'll think about it.

stallone

Some entertainers remain successful over time by reinventing themselves. Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, to name a few. Sylvester Stallone, once known for his gutsy roles such as Rocky Balboa and Rambo, is now facing a turning point in his career. At the ripe age of 61, he can no longer rely on the same formula that has been so successful for him in the past. So what does he do? He reinvents himself.

Rather than play the role of a hero in his prime, Stallone has transformed himself into the aging action star that can play the role of an over-the-hill hero who can still get in a good punch before bursting a vein and collapsing. He pioneered this with his role as Rocky Balboa in Rocky Balboa, and will be looking to continue his success with his new film, Rambo.

So what's next for Stallone after Rambo? Perhaps Death Race 2010 or Cash and Tango which could help Stallone revive the career of fellow actor Kurt Russell.

Some other Stallone movies with sequel potential:

• Cobra
• Judge Dredd
• Over the Top
  
• Cop Land
• Get Carter

green is universal

I'm watching Sunday Night Football right now and they're doing this thing saying "Green is Universal" where they are promoting conservation. They even have the lights off in the studio! They're also saying that they'll start shutting down the studio each night. Shouldn't they be doing that anyway?

Anyway, if you really want to save energy, just the the obvious things like turn off the lights when you aren't using them, buy energy saving bulbs, and don't make gratuitous use of electricity of fuel. That means you, Alissa... and David! I know that you left the lights on in the apartment over the summer. There's no other reason why the electricity would go up when 2 of the 3 people move out.

travel plans

October break (Yes, first years get exams, second years get a week off!) - Mexico
Winter Break - Chile y Argentina

oh, hello

It's been a while. I suppose you can say that I've been busy. You can also say that I've been chilling out a lot. It's really a bit of both.

I've been busy:

• Taking 5 classes right now
• Doing my bit as the leader for the Technology Club
• Doing my bit as the head of the Academic Committee for Student Government
• Did my bit as the coordinator for the SOM blog
• Spending a bit of time talking to people about careers at Microsoft
• Being an SYA (second year advisor) for the Leadership Development Program
• Spending a bit of time helping people with resumes and cover letters
• Actually getting around to working out a few times a week

I've been chillin:

• Actually getting around to working out a few times a week
• Spending lots of quality time with the study group
• Lots of hanging out

So details... classes are going well. It's surprising because the classes that I thought would be the worst are the classes that I feel like I'm getting the most out of while the classes that are supposed to be great I'm finding mediocre. You could interpret this however you want. I'll say that there's something for everyone and maybe in the future I should just pick classes that people don't like. I know I like my stuff much much much more abstract than most people and much much much faster paced than most.

Overall, my month back at business school has been fun. Lots of socializing with both the first year class and the second year class. It's also nice because everything I'm doing now is stuff that I want to do. I'm still busy, but I like how it at least *feels* like I have command of what really needs to be done. And yes, having a job certain helps. I finally accepted my offer to return to Microsoft, so expect to see many more hiking photos in the future!

My plans for today? Maybe go over to the soccer fields to see the Yale SOM soccer tournament, head over to East Rock Park to play some Ultimate frisbee, have some dinner with friends (time, location, and friends TBD), then head over to Playwright's for the post-soccer-tournament get-together. Hopefully I'll see some of the people that I met over the summer from CMU and HBS there. We shall see...

mulla

Or Vayner?

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0708/the-bizarre-story-of-joe-o-donnell.html

ow

I wonder when school starts...

no love from google

As some would say, Google Docs really sucks the bag. Earlier this year I trusted Google Spreadsheets with my anal record-keeping spreadsheets. You know, the ones about my car's maintenance history and my spending habits and the like that make for really boring blog posts. Today I'm bringing everything back to Excel. Office 2007 is like crack. Once you get hooked, you can't get off. Anyway...

What up with Google Spreadsheets and:

• How it just throws away formatting data?
• How it can't remember the last sheet I was on?
• How it's as slow as cold molasses?
• How it discards my formatting data? (it's so annoying, it gets listed twice)

I guess I'm done. But if the little annoying things are so bad that I won't bother with the rest of its capabilities (whatever those are), that's bad enough. Google Spreadsheets, goodbye.

love from google

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west coast, east coast, midwest? which will it be?

I'm so confuzzled. OK... I'm not confused at all. West Coast is where it's at (sorry, Lifshitz).

It's 7:15PM... I mean 9:15PM and I'm in Albert Lea, Minnesota. I have a lot to share, but not too much time/effort. Here's a list of observations from my trip, in no particular order. Photos to come later.

• Eastern Washington state is beautiful. Nice rolling hills. People say there's nothing out there. There isn't.
• Spokane is like a small Portland.
• There was construction on almost the entire stretch of I-90 in Idaho.
• Montana has a lot of mountains, hence the name Montana.
• There were wildfires all over Montana. I was driving through smoke almost the entire way from Missoula to Rapid City. That's a distance of over 700 miles. Made me feel better about not having time to visit Devil's Tower and Mt. Rushmore. The people visiting wouldn't have seen much of anything with the smoke.
  
• At first I thought the smoke by Billings was from the refinery that was next to the hotel. Then I realized that it was from the fires. Saw some helicopters flying over to the lake to pick up buckets of water to bring to the fire.
• Southwestern Minnesota smells like poop. Then again, I have to drive through Gary, Indiana tomorrow. I'd rather it smell like poop from cows than from smog.
• I thought that after getting to Minnesota I'd be back in civilization. Yes, they dropped to speed limit to 70mph and they started setting up speed traps, but still no traffic. 7pm I had the entire highway to myself - about 10 miles between me and the next car. How did I get 10 miles? I saw cars when I was getting towards the end of a 20 mile straight stretch of road.
• I saw a funny name for a convenience store (or "C-Store" as they like to write out). Kome-n-Go.... or was it Kum-n-Go? Sadly, I didn't get the photo.
• This morning when I was having breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express in Billings, Montana, literally half the guys (4/8) in the lobby had cowboy hats on.
• I am annoyed at the 85 octane gas they sell in South Dakota.
• I am even more confused by the 85.5 octane gas in Montana.
• They used to have no speed limit in Montana, saying that your speed had to be "reasonable and prudent." Since then, it's been changed back to 75mph. In western Montana, driving 75mph is not reasonable and prudent. More like 70mph if your car handles well.
• Eastern Montana is like West Texas. Open road, no people. So much land you don't even bother to notice the occasional refinery.
• I still think the Badlands are over-rated. I remember thinking that the first time when I was coming from the East. Still over-rated coming from the West.
• Conservatives must love I-90. The periodic signs about abortion, drugs, etc. Nice touch.
• I noticed the price for the Tendercrisp combo at Burger King dropped about 50 cents every 300 miles. $6.49-ish in Couer D'Alene, Idaho. $5.99-ish in Billings, Montana. $5.49-ish just west of Rapid City, South Dakota. BK rules I-90 apparently. What do you want me to do? Starve? I'm having Applebee's right now.
• A "prime" exit has 2+ gas stations and 2+ fast food options (national chains for both). So far on this route, prime exits come every 150 miles or so. Planning ahead has paid off.
• I saw this caravan of an RV and a car with Washington plates today heading east. They had a canoe. At first I thought it was cool that they were going on a trip and have come as far as I have. Then I realized that they were in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota with a boat. Why the hell would you leave Washington to go anywhere with a canoe? And of all places, why South Dakota? Or even Minnesota???
• South Dakota has by far the best random man-made attractions. Wall Drug literally had signs for 30 miles. Seemed like one every quarter mile. All different. Then there is the Corn Palace in Mitchell. I didn't go to either one. No time. )-:
• People with Minnesota plates drive slow. It's like they think they're from the Northwest. I have some news for you. Sure, Minnesota was part of the Northwest Territory, but it is certainly not part of the northwest.
• People in Montana were pretty good at using lanes. I like that.
• South Dakota license plates look like Louisiana license plates.
• Idaho plates look like Ohio plates.
• It seemed like every car with Iowa plates was a Buick.
• The last real city I've seen was Spokane, Washington. I guess I-90 only passes through a few "real" cities. Seattle, Spokane, Madison, Chicago, Toledo (it makes the list if Spokane does), Cleveland, Buffalo, and Boston. Note that I've only passed two of them so far.
• Only three cities on I-90 have anything resembling traffic: Seattle, Chicago, Boston.

Today's winner is Swift, coming in with 11. Runner up is FedEx with 7.
Also in the running were: CRST - 6, Wal-Mart - 5, Sysco - 4, Coca-Cola - 3, Hey! - 2, Rude - 2, UPS - 2

so what's the plan?

Sunday:
Leave Seattle at 7:00am.
Get on I-90 at the very end at Safeco Field.
Lunch at BK and gas at Couer D'Alene, ID.
Get gas at Missoula, MT.
Get gas at Laurel, MT or Billings, MT.
Stay at the Holiday Inn Express on the east side of Billings, MT.

Monday:
Shed a tear for not having time to visit Devil's Tower in WY.
Lunch and gas at Sturgis, SD.
Check out the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.
Get gas at Sioux Falls, SD.
Stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Albert Lea, MN.

Tuesday:
Lunch and gas at Janesville, WI.
Stay at my parents' place in Shaker Heights, OH.

Wednesday:
Visit my brother.
Pick up a replacement rear left brake caliper that I just ordered from the Mayfield Murray's.
Replace the rear left brake caliper.
Change my brake fluid.
Change my oil.
Replace the oxygen sensor.
Stay another night at my parents' place in Shaker Heights, OH.

Thursday:
Leave at about 7:00am.
Get gas in Beachwood, OH on my way out.
Lunch and gas somewhere on the NY Thruway.
Finish the length of I-90 at Logan International Airport sometime around 6pm.
Dinner at someplace of Katie's choice in Boston.
Stay at Katie and Al's place in Boston, MA.

Friday:
Depending on time, maybe drop by my place and unload the car.
LDP Planning Meeting at noon in A-48
LDP Group Meeting at 2:00pm
SYA Dinner at 5:00pm

boo silverstar, update 2

So last night I drove over to the Amtrak station to pick up Greg. Yes, Amtrak. It sucks. Train showed up 2 hours late or something.

But anyway, he pointed out that I was missing a headlight. I went to take a look, and sure enough, I was down one. I've replaced it this morning.

Checking back on my records, the bulb that blew was a Sylvania 9006ST, a standard halogen bulb rated to last 1000 hours. I installed this bulb March 11, 2002, when my car had only 104,078 miles on it. Now, almost 5 and a half years later and 67,379 more miles on the car, I'm replacing the bulb.

So how does this compare to the Silverstar that I've been ragging on? The Silverstar light bulb that my dad installed lasted almost exactly a year. It was rated for 150 hours. My bulb lasted 5 years, 5 months. It was rated at 1000 hours. So 150-180 hours of use a year. Reasonably close.

Here's the empirical data:
Silverstar: ~1 year
Standard Halogen: 4 years, 3 weeks; 5 years, 5 months

Did I mention that the Silverstar costs about four times as much?

Original Post
Update 1

mirapex

Finally got a full look at this seemingly ridiculous ad. It's for a drug to relieve restless leg syndrome. Potential side effects?

Drowsiness or falling asleep during normal activities... like driving
Feeling faint or dizzy when standing up
Gambling or sexual, or other intense urges

Nice.

vern fonk

Thank you, late night TV. My life is now complete.

making lemonade

So as the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Well, today I was busy making lemonade.

A bit of context. Today was the first of two days of presentations about the state of the competition. In attendance were a number of the Group Program Managers as well as our VP. For me, I was responsible for a 30 minute presentation covering my little piece of the Windows Live offering. Good times.

I had my slides ready, I had my demos scripted, so what could go wrong? A lot. A few days before I started getting a sore throat, and I was pretty certain that I was going to lose my voice right around the time of the presentation. This morning I woke up, and crap. My voice was pretty much gone. Great. I figured I'd just deal with it. Practice using a deeper voice and not using the same intonations that I usually use and I should be good, right? Issue number 1 resolved... kinda...

Not quite... a few more technical difficulties. Google Calendar, one of the sites that I was going to demo was behaving pretty strangely in the morning. First off, things were just acting weird. Then after a bit, the whole thing just shut down. Issue number 2. Thankfully, it came back up shortly afterward, but not much that I could have done in that time frame as CYA if it decided to die again.

Third issue? When I got to the building where the presentations were taking place, my laptop was having some issues getting a network connection. I wasn't the only one. Quite a few people were having the same issue. Thankfully, Alpa found a solution so the network was up and running a few minutes before the presentations started. Without a network connection, most of my demos wouldn't have been possible.

Fourth issue. So I knew that the combination of my laptop, external monitor, and powerpoint slide shows spells trouble. The presentation mode likes being on the main screen and there is no way to change it (annoying). So in preparation, I spent a few hours in the morning running an external monitor under some pretty terrible settings just so I can just plug and go at the real presentations. Well... it didn't work out so well. First off, my laptop reverted to the dual display setting which Powerpoint doesn't like. Thankfully, I had the control panel handy to change the settings again. Problem solved, right? Wrong. The software problem had turned into a hardware problem. My luck had it so that my laptop's VGA port flaked out on my at that precise moment. End result? Swapped laptops. Good thing I had a reasonably up to date copy of my presentation out on the Sharepoint server (yes, the occasional Microsoft plug). Phew.

The unfortunate thing about the laptop swap is that I didn't have my two browsers open with the sites that I needed for the demo. Why two browsers? Because IE7 had been flaking out on me all morning... especially with Facebook (I did a side by side comparison. For some reason IE7 just didn't feel like loading Facebook for a while even though it worked fine on FireFox. It continued to load other sites fine). I knew the order of sites that I needed, so that wasn't going to be a big issue. The bigger issue ended up being me not knowing what login and password I use for certain sites. 30 Boxes, for example, I completely botched. I was trying paul.ip@hotmail.com as my e-mail, and a variety of passwords. Somehow I managed to integrate this into my demo. It made a really nice premature segue into how 30 Boxes in integrated into Facebook. Basically after two failed attempts I explained that I forgot the login information because 30 Boxes is so easy it never asks me to log in and that I could bypass my whole login fiasco by just accessing the thing directly from Facebook... which I did... while crossing my fingers hoping Facebook wouldn't ask me for the 30 Boxes login information either. It didn't. Issue number 5 solved.

At the end of the whole thing I just couldn't help but laugh at the situation and how many things went wrong. It's like my visit to Kellogg. Hopefully this has better results.

What do I mean by that? I have my final review next week on Tuesday. We shall see. (-:

By the way, does anyone know where the scenes in the Paul Newman film Hole in the Wall Gang was filmed? Reminds me of Zion National Park and Canyon de Chelly. Shaker Heights, baby!

I-90

Apologies for the low effort post, but I'm busy at work. Seriously. More on that later.

At 7:00am PST, I'll be beginning my drive across the country on I-90, end to end.

And excerpt from WSDOT:

Washington is the western terminus of the nation’s longest Interstate Route. Interstate 90 is 3,020 miles long, stretching from Seattle, Washington to Boston, Massachusetts and crosses 13 states. Much of the route through Washington replaced US 10, which was decertified as a US route in 1969.

Interstate 90 crosses 13 states: Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts.

Interstate 90 features two floating bridges: The “Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge” and the “Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge.”

And of course, gotta check out Wikipedia's article on I-90.